Baccano! - Volume 17 - Chapter 4

FINAL CHAPTER

DON’T LAUGH

Somewhere in Lotto Valentino

Once, here in Lotto Valentino, the girl named Niki had lost part of her life against her will.

In the same town, she’d fallen in love with a man. It didn’t matter whether her affections were accepted or not.

She was capable of loving someone—just acknowledging that one simple fact would change something about her, she felt.

Had she managed to change, ultimately?

Had she grown stronger?

Have I found the right place to die?

In the depths of a dark, dark passage, with nowhere left to go, aware of the countless murderous intents bearing down on her—the girl behind the mask wondered about these things.

The answer to her question didn’t present itself.

Even so, she was satisfied.

Whatever she was, it didn’t matter now.

She was just happy she’d been able to form a connection with someone.

She continued to think.

I wonder if Monica felt this way, too… I wonder if she felt connected to Huey.

Elmer had told her how her friend, her benefactor, had died.

I wonder if that’s why she was able to die smiling.

I wonder if I’ll be able to die smiling now.

Noon on a certain day A Mask Maker safe house

Let’s return to a few days earlier.

It had been nearly five days since the House of Dormentaire’s private ship sank below the waves. The chaos in Lotto Valentino was worse than it had ever been, and rioting threatened to break out at any moment.

The explosion of a ship carrying Lucrezia de Dormentaire had shaken the town to its core. After all, an influential member of one of Spain’s greatest noble families had been sunk when she’d all but reached the port.

Victor had insisted that she had to still be alive, taken a boat out, and desperately searched for her—but he had found no survivors.

What would the consequences be?

The previous year, the envoy who had come to investigate had been attacked, including their ship, but the ugliness of that situation was nothing compared to this. This time, an aristocrat with authority in the House of Dormentaire had been attacked and killed directly.

It wasn’t actually clear whether this was an accident or an attack by persons unknown, but the suggestion that it had been accidental would satisfy no one after the recent events in town. For an outsider from the House of Dormentaire, this was doubly true.

If word of this reached Spain, the town might be attacked and brought down in earnest.

Would they use the War of the Spanish Succession as an excuse, fabricate a story about enemy influence, and raze Lotto Valentino to the ground? After all, this was an important town for alchemists, to be sure, but it was only a provincial port in political terms.

Everyone, from aristocrats to commoners, was scared out of their wits, imagining an armed fleet of Dormentaire ships sailing over the horizon at any moment to bombard the town.

Meanwhile, the Dormentaire troops stationed in town began to wonder who would take the blame for this incident, worried it might be them.

The citizens, the Dormentaire men, and the aristocrats were all bested by an indescribable anxiety, and they grew neurotically suspicious of one another.

Ultimately, many people were wondering the same things:

Who was the culprit?

Who was the bomber—the Mask Maker?

Who could they sacrifice in order to save themselves?

The hooligans who had become Mask Makers a year ago, who had planned to take advantage of these incidents to attack the Dormentaires, were all in hiding now.

Amid the turmoil, a certain thought was taking root in the minds of Lotto Valentino’s people, although it wasn’t clear who’d had it first.

It doesn’t matter if they’re not the real culprit.

And when they arrived at this forbidden idea, they began searching not for a criminal, but for a sacrifice.

The House of Dormentaire, the aristocrats, and the common people had all been glaring at one another, but finally, their hostility turned in the same direction—toward the people they’d been suspicious of all along, the people who were engaged in a certain trade.

The alchemists.

They were the foundation of Lotto Valentino’s history and the representatives of the town itself.

The alchemists themselves didn’t think they were omnipotent, but most of the locals mistakenly believed their techniques were all-powerful.

Or perhaps it would be better to say they wanted it to be so, in order to make the alchemists into the culprits. “They have to be all-powerful; that’s why they were able to blow up a ship that was so far away.”

And there was one more thing—1705.

The townspeople who had been using slaves and selling the drug had once tried to pin their crimes on the alchemists of the Third Library, but they had been neatly beaten at their own game, while the production and distribution systems for the drug had been destroyed. They had not forgotten that time, and their lingering resentment spurred them into action.

Indirectly, the townspeople informed the Dormentaires: “The Mask Makers are definitely the alchemists.”

The House of Dormentaire was deceived: “No one but an alchemist could have been responsible for an explosion like that.”

The aristocrats not only tacitly agreed, but they actively encouraged that line of thought: “If we sacrifice the alchemists, we may be saved.”

Esperanza, who had a connection to the Third Library, and some of the other nobles who’d supported the alchemists tried to stop this course of events.

However, when the head of the House of Avaro, one of the town’s influential nobles, summarily cut his ties with the Meyer family’s workshop, the attack on the alchemists accelerated.

Perhaps sensing the insanity in the air, Huey Laforet, who’d been hiding in the cellar under a certain abandoned building, smiled thinly.

“How familiar…”

Despite his smile, there was a hint of darkness in his voice. But that darkness was easily canceled out by the glittering light in the rest of the room.

The space was brimming over with gold. A massive amount of gold coins and jewels covered the shelves and the table. Elsewhere, there were sculptures, mantle clocks, and a variety of luxury items, all of which were clearly valuable. The scintillating light was reminiscent of the inside of a notorious pirate’s chest, as if the room itself were the treasure.

…With the caveat that most of the gold coins were false ones.

Surrounded by counterfeit light, Huey went on.

“It reminds me so much of back then.”

“It really does bring back memories, doesn’t it?”

Although he’d seemed to be murmuring to himself, he got a sudden response.

“It reminds me of the time the two of us and Moni-Moni were plotting in here.”

However, Huey didn’t seem particularly surprised. As he answered, he smiled a little. “Hello, Elmer. It’s been a long time.”

“It sure has… What a strange smile.”

“Is it?”

“It’s fake but also real. At first, I thought it was completely false, but faking a smile when nobody’s around is kind of odd.”

It was the first time they’d seen each other in a year. Not only that, but one of them was the prime suspect in the bombings.

And yet Elmer spoke to his friend as if they’d only been apart for three days.

Huey answered Elmer impassively as well, without seeming to find anything odd about his behavior.

“If you say it’s fake, then I suppose it is.” Even as he affirmed Elmer’s remark, Huey slowly gave his own opinion. “However, you could also consider this my neutral expression.”

“I see! That makes sense!” Nodding easily, Elmer changed the subject, not wanting to pursue the issue any further. “By the way, where have you been all this time?”

“Here and there. Over the past year, I’ve been to all sorts of places.”

“Were any of them entertaining? Would they make somebody smile?”

“I couldn’t say. We have different perspectives, you and I.” Huey fell to thinking, and Elmer asked him another question.

“Why were you going so many places to begin with?”

“I wanted to see the possibilities of the world outside Lotto Valentino. All I learned is that a single year is far too short a time to understand them all.”

“I see. I wonder if two years would’ve been enough.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“Did you bring back anything for me?”

“Plenty, if you’ll settle for travel stories. I’ll tell them to you someday.”

“Start with the funny ones.”

It was a casual chat between friends. Considering their respective positions, it was an unusual conversation, but the pair themselves didn’t seem to find anything odd about it.

Then, just as casually as before, Elmer asked about a certain rather important issue.

“Oh, I almost forgot. They suspect you of those bombings, by the way. Is it you?”

The question was extremely candid.

However, Huey wasn’t the least bit flustered, and he responded with a question of his own.

“What do you think? Do you suspect me?”

“Oh, you know I’m asking because I don’t know. And I don’t really care which it is. If you say you’re the culprit, I’ll think about how I can get you, the Dormentaires, and everyone else in town to smile. We could make the town famous for fires and bombings and use them to attract sightseers, say…”

This wasn’t an ill-considered joke or anything of the sort; Elmer was genuinely contemplating it.

“Oh, wait a second. Even if you are the culprit, Huey, you might not be doing it because you want to smile. If someone is threatening you, we’ll have to get that figured out… Well, back to the main topic: Are you the culprit?”

Looking at his friend, Huey gave a flat little chuckle. “You really don’t change, do you?”

When Elmer saw his reaction, he got a little more excited. “Oh, I saw a hint of a real smile, although I don’t know why it was there.”

“Well, right now, it doesn’t matter whether I’m the culprit or not.”

“Really? Ah, never mind that, then.” Elmer easily dropped the matter, and Huey asked him a question.

“The townspeople are trying to get rid of the alchemists now, aren’t they?”

“Oh, it’s been madness. Everyone from the Third Library’s already left town, through the underground waterways or the catacombs at the church. All those trips through the dark and back again were exhausting, but it really felt worthwhile. After all, when we got to safety, everyone smiled with so much joy and relief.”

At that point, Elmer’s smile faded a little, and he sounded disappointed as he murmured, “Only there was a girl who cried and said she hadn’t wanted to leave town, and others who were angrily asking, ‘Why us?’ Still, even those people will get to survive and come back here someday. Maybe they’ll smile and enjoy themselves then… So I’d like to think that what I did wasn’t a waste.”

As Elmer nodded to himself, Huey asked another question.

“You’re not going to leave?”

It was a perfectly natural thing to ask, and Elmer answered it nonchalantly.

“Well, it’s not like I’ve gotten everybody else out yet. Besides, you’re not running, either, Huey.”

“Even if this town is annihilated, you might just stay behind to see the last person smile.”

“Are you planning to end up being that ‘last person’?”

“…Perhaps I would have, in the past. This time, I don’t know…,” Huey murmured, more to himself than to Elmer, as he took one of the false coins off a shelf with his fingertips.

“This time?”

“Oh yes, that’s right. I forgot to correct you.” His smile turned false again as he spoke calmly. “A minute ago, I was reminiscing, but not about you and Monica.”

“?”

“My mother was killed in a witch trial. She accused the other villagers before she died, and shortly after, they were burned at the stake. It’s the story Jean-Pierre Accardo turned into a play.”

Like Elmer, Huey spoke easily about a part of his history he’d once tried to avoid.

Elmer noticed the change in his friend, but he said nothing and only listened.

“When I said it reminded me of ‘back then’…I was speaking of the village. The emotion in the air is the same.”

“Are you planning to burn the whole town at the stake?” The question struck straight to the heart of the issue in a way, and Huey’s smile turned a little genuine again.

“Of course not. I wasn’t the one who burned the villagers back then, either. They might as well have jumped into the flames themselves.” As Huey coolly analyzed his past, he rolled the false gold coin around on his palm, studying it. “I don’t bear a grudge against the world any longer,” he murmured, as if reminding himself of the fact.

“You don’t? That’s great. If that’s how you feel, I bet it’ll be easier to smile for lots of reasons.”

“However, I don’t have so much love for it that I would smile so easily.”

“Aww! Come on, at least try. Don’t give up.” Elmer looked extremely disappointed.

As he nodded in agreement, Huey continued. “When I first met you six years ago, I hated the world with a passion. Then Monica changed me, and I loved the world because she was in it. Now, neither is true.” He flipped the coin into the air, caught it on his palm, and tossed it away into a corner, without checking to see whether it had landed heads or tails. “I no longer have any hatred for this world, nor any attachment to it. All of it, myself included, is only here to help me achieve my goal. Like a guinea pig for an experiment.”

“Your goal? Is that the one about keeping your promise to Monica?”

Huey didn’t respond to that question at all.

However, the silence itself was enough of an answer for Elmer, and he didn’t pursue the matter any further.

For a little while, silence fell over the glittering room of false riches.

When several minutes had passed, Huey closed his eyes and slowly began to speak. “Elmer, I have two favors to ask you.”

The smile he wore was the same peculiar, fake one.

However, when Elmer heard his voice, he was convinced.

Oh. I thought he seemed completely different somehow, but…I have a feeling there’s just a little of the old Huey left.

No matter who Elmer was with, he wanted them to smile with the same intensity.

In that moment, though, when he knew for sure that Huey wasn’t a completely different person, it made him a little happy.

After all, if Huey were someone else entirely, the kind of smile he used to make before would be gone forever. Even Elmer would have felt a little sad at that.

With that thought in mind, Elmer needed to know one thing.

“If I agree to your conditions…”

Huey already knew exactly what Elmer wanted, so he answered before he’d finished.

“I may not be able to smile right away. However, once I achieve my goal…I’ll keep my promise from a year ago.”

The promise from a year ago.

“Would saving Monica make you happy?”

“…Of course it would.”

“If you get to see Monica again, will you smile?”

Back then, Huey had made Elmer a firm promise.

“I’ll show you the greatest smile you’ve ever seen.”

Remembering that conversation, Elmer was sure—he knew what it was that Huey wanted.

Elmer didn’t know the details, but—Huey was definitely planning to see Monica once again.

He didn’t know the specific method; whether he was going to study spiritualism, or wait until the dead could be brought back through science, or resurrect her with black magic.

Whatever it was, he was absolutely planning to make Monica’s final words a reality. Let’s meet again, Huey. To Monica, it might have been a farewell from the edge of death, or maybe it was a meaningless statement from her fading mind—but to Huey Laforet, it had truly been a promise.

Sensing determination that lay behind Huey’s words, Elmer grinned.

“If you tell me that, you know I can’t turn you down, right?”

The same day The Third Library

Libraries were supposed to be quiet spaces, but at the moment, several men were shouting angrily.

“Did you find them?!”

“Dammit… They’re not here! What’s going on?!”

“There were guards stationed on every route out of the village!”

“Where did the alchemists disappear to?!”

They seemed to be Dormentaire soldiers; the one with a relatively recent wound on his face was the man Nile had kicked to the ground about half a month ago.

“Damn it… Those foreign alchemists have slipped away, too!”

“Think of it this way—if they fled, we can say they were responsible.”

“You imbecile! If they think we let them all get away, we’re done for!”

“One of the aristocrats could be hiding them. They say the Third Library has ties to the family of Lord Boroñal.”

The House of Dormentaire had been indiscriminately trying to apprehend alchemists as suspects. However, over the past few days, while they were preparing, the alchemists had vanished into thin air.

They probably didn’t know that this town had originally been built for alchemists.

Wary of persecution and plunder, they’d established scores of escape routes, not over days or even years, but over essentially its entire history.

“They have to be hiding somewhere… Oh, just burn it all! Smoke them out!” the soldier with the scarred face screamed in exasperation.

It was a radical remark, and most of the soldiers looked at each other with frowns—but their failure thus far had increased the pressure on them. No one voiced a clear objection.

…Except for one: the leader of the Dormentaire envoy, who had come to the Third Library as well.

“Don’t.”

“Huh?! …C-Carla, ma’am.”

“There’s no sense in setting it on fire. Don’t do anything rash,” Carla said evenly, and for a moment, the soldier with the scarred face almost flinched, but—

“If only we could all be so soft, my lady captain.”

For ages, he’d resented being required to answer to a woman, and the extreme stress and frustration brought that grievance to the surface.

“…What?”

“You’re very kind. I suppose a woman really does have a softer touch.”

“……”

Carla’s silence only emboldened the scarred soldier.

She would probably lose her position over this disaster—meaning he didn’t have to watch his words around this woman any longer.

On that thought, he decided to seize his chance and really let her have it.

“Don’t we serve the Dormentaires?! You should be willing to burn a city if it means hunting those damned alchemists! …Oh, I’m so very sorry, my lady, did you find yourself a beau among the alchemists? He’szbwau…?”

That was as much as he managed to say before Carla had shoved her hand into the man’s mouth, grabbed his lower jaw and cheek, and dashed him to the ground.

The corners of the man’s lips split, and blood flooded his mouth.

The pain instantly cooled his head down, and he understood that he’d said something he should not have said.

“Eep… Eeagh… I, I’m very so…gblagh?!”

As he shrieked and tried to apologize, Carla’s armored heel jammed itself into the fallen man’s mouth, breaking several teeth.

“You seem to misunderstand my motivations, so allow me to make myself clear.”

Carla’s voice was still calm, but she was leaning more weight onto her heel.

“…—…! Buh…… Abuh! …!”

“I have no doubts that this town will belong to the House of Dormentaire in the end, because that is what Lady Lucrezia wanted. The spoils of Lotto Valentino will belong to her one day. Whether she’s among the living then or not is beside the point.”

Keeping her emotions tightly under control, Carla continued burying her boot deeper and deeper into the man’s face.

“No one has the right to burn books and documents that will belong to Lady Lucrezia. Not you, and not I.”

The man’s scar had disappeared into this new wound. After making sure he’d passed out completely, Carla slowly withdrew her foot—and issued an order to the men who stood frozen behind her.

“Take him to the fortress’s infirmary.”

Then, after she’d watched the soldiers begin carrying their scarred comrade to the maritime fortress—she looked up at the library building, thinking of Maiza.

“If you’re able to flee the town, by all means, do it,” she said quietly.

“However… Don’t even think about trying to put out to sea on the Advena Avis.”

Several days later Under the Third Library

In this era, the concept of public graveyards wasn’t yet common.

The dead were buried in churchyards, but of course, space was limited. When it became an issue, many churches would dig up corpses that had skeletonized and reinter their bones in the cellar of the church building.

Some cities used preexisting underground waterways, and Lotto Valentino was one of them.

While they weren’t as vast as the mining galleries under Paris, or the underground river channels that would be built in London several decades later, this town had several underground tunnels for clean and waste water.

The town only had one church for all its dead, and it lay on the outskirts, so there was naturally no way the churchyard could accommodate all of them.

The waterways under the streets had been expanded into an ossuary, creating another face below.

However, the number of people who knew the layout of the underground structures was very limited, perhaps due to a secret pact of some sort. No one but the alchemists and those affiliated with the church knew the full shape of these subterranean areas.

In one of the underground tunnels, more than twenty men were assembled.

Most of them belonged to the many local alchemy workshops, but quite a few, like Denkurou’s group, had come from farther afield.

(“Who’d ever have thought this would happen…?”)

The alchemists were whispering to each other.

(“I agreed to go to the New World, but we’ll never even leave port like this.”)

(“Shouldn’t we just flee the town as well?”)

These were just a few of the things they were saying, but—

“You may. Prioritizing your own safety is certainly not the wrong choice,” Dalton interjected, fiddling with his prosthetic right hand and making it click. When they heard his voice, all eyes turned to him.

While Dalton wasn’t scheduled to be a passenger on the Advena Avis, he was the one who had drawn the ship to this town.

The alchemists spoke to him uneasily.

“You call it a choice, Dalton, but do we have any other options?” one of the alchemists asked. “The House of Dormentaire placed the Advena Avis under guard the moment she arrived in port. Even the crew were employed for the trip here only.”

“Y-yes, he’s right. No sailors would defy the Dormentaires and let us hire them now.”

“Are you telling us to cross the Atlantic by ourselves…?”

“I don’t know how to sail a ship.”

As a stir ran through the alchemists, Dalton responded without emotion. “I’m sure you are uneasy, but when Columbus crossed the Atlantic, he did so with three ships and around a hundred men—in other words, roughly thirty men to sail each ship.”

Then Dalton’s eyes went to Denkurou’s group, in a corner of the room.

“Majida Battuta has also sent three members of her drifting workshop as sailors.”

The alchemists reacted strongly to the name.

“Battuta’s drifting workshop?! You have connections to her as well?! Th-then you mean to say that the Asian and African fellows are members of the drifting workshop?!”

“I didn’t think it actually existed…”

“I’d heard rumors that she worked with traders of her acquaintance to prevent the drug and the false gold from spreading overseas from here. Was that true?”

Majida Battuta was treated as a figure of legend among her fellow alchemists. Her workshop was a fleet of her own private ships, and people said she conducted original research while drifting across the world’s oceans.

Thanks to her name, she was rumored to be from somewhere in the Arab world, but almost no one had ever seen her, so there were doubts as to whether she really existed at all.

As Denkurou and the others listened to the commotion, they murmured to each other, one eyebrow quirked quizzically.

“Hmm… They seem to consider our master a mythical being, like a mage or dragon.”

“She certainly is a hero worthy of our selfless devotion, but…”

“Let me just say this: Our master is not so impressive that she warrants such statements, though I do feel indebted to her.”

Denkurou and Zank had been picked up by her fleet directly, while Nile had been entrusted to her by an alchemist and adventurer who was an old friend of hers.

Their current orders from Majida were to help the alchemists who were leaving Lotto Valentino for America.

The three of them would teach the basics of sailing and navigating to the other alchemists as they voyaged. While it was a fairly risky endeavor, they were scheduled to receive provisions, fresh water, and other support from companions from the fleet in their scheduled ports of call. In addition, if they were alerted to danger, escort ships would accompany them for certain legs of their journey.

As a result, their ship would actually be sailing alone only from Lotto Valentino to its first port of call, and from its final port of call to America.

Unfortunately, leaving Lotto Valentino was shaping up to be the hardest part of the journey.

Standing among the alchemists from all over, Maiza asked Dalton a direct question.

“Can we afford to risk it? Won’t they bombard the Advena Avis itself and sink it?”

“Officially, the Advena Avis is the Mars Clan’s private ship. Even the Dormentaire lot can’t seize or sink it arbitrarily. Things might be different in peacetime, but thanks to the War of the Spanish Succession, it would cause nothing but unnecessary trouble.”

The Mars Clan was a family of influential Western European nobles that rivaled the House of Dormentaire.

“What’s the connection?”

“Oh, they’re just old friends of mine. You could say their very business is financing. That ship is their offer of support to alchemists who are expected to change the future in a very particular way.”

The mention of support from a power to rival the Dormentaires was a source of relief for the alchemists, but Dalton warned them firmly not to relax too much.

“That said, I doubt the Dormentaires have any intention of allowing you to leave port. They may fabricate a story about criminals fleeing on a ship they stole from the Mars Clan. If they do, I wouldn’t count on protection from the clan. The only help they provided was sending that ship here; they don’t want to borrow trouble, either.”

Maiza was tense. “I see…”

Dalton broke into a dauntless smile. “If this trial proves to be too much for you, you are not worthy of conducting that experiment on the ship.”

Even as a commotion ran through them, the alchemists continued listening to Dalton’s explanation. Meanwhile, Czeslaw Meyer was anxious for completely different reasons. He clutched the coattail of the man who stood beside him.

“Um, Fermet? How long do we have to stay here?”

“Don’t worry, Czes. We’ll be able to go outside soon.”

“I-if you say so…”

After a little while, Maiza left the group of alchemists, who were still asking Dalton questions, and came over to the pair.

“Are you all right, Czes?” he asked.

“…I’m scared, Maiza. What’s going to happen to us?”

“There’s nothing to worry about.” Maiza gently patted Czes’s head.

Gretto and Sylvie had been standing a short distance away, but when they saw him, they walked over.

“Czes, don’t be afraid. I’m frightened, too, but we’re all here.”

“Oh, umm…Sylvie.”

“They’ve brought some fruit over there; come and have some with me?” Sylvie smiled at him kindly.

Czes glanced at Fermet.

“Take care not to eat too much, Czes,” Fermet said.

“I will!” Nodding happily, Czes went off with Sylvie.

After making sure they were too far away to hear, Gretto hung his head sadly. “I can’t believe even the Meyer boy would have to flee…”

The man behind Fermet heard Gretto’s remark and snapped back, “It’s all because I made that drug. Damn him, that festering sausage!”

Begg Garrott, a Meyer family alchemist, had once created the original form of the drug.

The “festering sausage” was probably Maiza’s father, the head of the House of Avaro and the one who had had Begg make the drug, thus creating one of the causes behind this chaos. Now, he had taken advantage of this incident to silence him and the rest of the Meyer family.

“Begg! Maiza and Gretto are right here!”

“…That’s true. I apologize for insulting your family, I’m the one to blame… I’m…s-s-sorry,” Begg apologized, his tongue stalling partway through.

Maiza shook his head calmly. “It’s fine. In fact, please let me apologize in my father’s place.”

Gretto looked away. “He’s right, you know,” he muttered. “‘Festering sausage’ is still too good for that bastard.”

“…Gretto?”

Noticing the darkness in his brother’s eyes, Maiza leaned in to take a closer look at his face, worried.

Maiza had been against Gretto and Sylvie eloping on the Advena Avis. However, he felt guilty about leaving them at home; he hadn’t known anything about what his father had done to them. It kept him from being too insistent.

When they were arguing earlier, Dalton had come along and lent a hand to Maiza. You only need to train your younger brother and Sylvie as alchemists on the ship. I’ll put them down on the register as your assistants.

And now they were underground, watching for an opportunity to sail.

Maiza had considered having them leave the ship at their first port of call, but the hatred in his brother’s voice had been very close to murderous. He was getting worried.

However, it was Fermet who rebuked Gretto.

“You shouldn’t speak ill of your father in front of strangers.”

“Fermet…”

“I understand why you would resent him. If someone had torn me from the one I loved, I’m sure I would wish death on that person as well. Family are the first others you ever meet, but those bonds persist until the very end. Harboring a constant hatred for your family will only break you.”

Fermet lectured him gently, as if Gretto were his own brother.

“However, I’m not attempting to stop you and Sylvie. Some hatreds will only subside with distance.”

“……”

“Someday, when you’ve built a happy home with Sylvie…you should send him a letter. He might still change.”

“…Thank you very much. I feel…a little better.”

Maiza was relieved to see that the dark flames in Gretto’s eyes had faded slightly. He was sincerely grateful. “Thank you, Fermet. As a member of the House of Avaro, I was expecting you to resent me.”

Watching the head of the Meyer family eating fruit in the back of the room, Fermet smiled. “No. I simply don’t want to bring Czes into contact with the hatred and sorrow of being human just yet.” With that, he slowly started for the door that led aboveground. “Now then, I’m off to make final preparations of my own. I intend to be as cautious as possible, but if an opportunity to board the ship arises before I return…please take care of Czes.”

“You’re sending the workshop staff out of town?”

“Yes, my relative’s child has been left in the care of someone trustworthy, but the apprentices will be recognized as alchemists, and I have to get them safely away. Ordinarily, I would have preferred to send Czes to a nearby town with them…,” he said regretfully.

Begg grinned at him. “You’re the only one Czes has gotten attached to, Fermet. If you’re going to America…of course…he’ll…fol…low…you…there. You’re almost like a real father and son, or brothers.”

As his studio colleague teased him, Fermet replied with a warm smile.

“I am happy you think so, but my feelings about that are rather complicated.

“I could hardly be a father or brother to Czes. I’m not a saint.”

Maiza and the others believed he was being humble.

…But they didn’t know.

There hadn’t been one single lie in what Fermet said.

He was far from a saint.

Two hours later An office in the Avaro residence

Evening had come, and the pall of night had fallen over the Avaro mansion and the rest of the town.

“Dammit… What’s going on here?!”

After a servant had delivered a certain report and left the room, the head of the House of Avaro slammed a fist into his desk.

“That boy of mine—he’s lost his mind. And the Meyers, too! How could they forget their debt to me and betray me like this?!”

Ordinarily, he would have only grumbled to himself, but he was so furious he had begun shouting aloud. He didn’t care how much the servants overheard, and he imprudently vented his rage at the empty room at the top of his lungs.

However—unbeknownst to him, someone else had been listening.

An individual who’d entered the room responded to the would-be soliloquy.

“What a cruel thing to say. It was you who first betrayed us, Lord Avaro.”

“?!”

When he hastily turned toward the voice—he saw a masked man, standing by the window. The man wasn’t wearing a cloak or a hood, however, and he didn’t seem to care that much about hiding his identity.

As proof, he promptly removed the mask, exposing his face to the House of Avaro head.

“Heh-heh. Did you think I was a Mask Maker? Convenient, isn’t it? This mask could be found anywhere, and yet simply by putting it on, I can convince others that I am a member.”

The man’s lips were smiling, but his eyes were hidden by his thick bangs; it was impossible to read what was in his heart. In a way, the man had removed the mask only to reveal another mask.

The House of Avaro head hissed venomously back at him:

“Lebreau Fermet Viralesque… You wretch… What is the meaning of this?!”

Meanwhile Somewhere in Lotto Valentino

Hearing the tick of a clock, Szilard slowly raised his head.

“…Right on time,” he said with some disgust.

A figure had appeared just as the clock struck, wearing a hooded cloak and a distinctive mask.

“I’ve wondered for some time now: Is there any meaning in wearing that in my presence?” Szilard got to his feet and went on, keeping his guard up. “Well then, I suppose we should go…” Szilard was about to say his name, but he paused for an uncertain moment, then finally asked directly:

“Would it be more convenient if I called you Mask Maker at this point?”

The Boroñal residence

“You’re going?” Esperanza asked.

The young man smiled. “Suppose so.”

“I’ve heard about this from Dalton… I am extraordinarily skeptical about what you people intend to do on that ship, and due to my position, I can’t help you leave port.”

“Don’t you worry. Even if it puts you under the Dormentaires’ thumb, protecting the town until the very end is your job, Speran. Just do what you think is most likely to make you smile. If you smile, I bet all your maids will, too.”

“Oh, that’s right. Speaking of maids, give this to Miss Sylvie, would you?” With that, Esperanza held out a purse with several gold coins in it. “It’s her wages.”

“…Speran, how much did you know about Sylvie?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The lord’s clown-like face was studiously expressionless, and Elmer seemed amused by this.

“Well, I’m off. I hope we get to meet at least once more while we’re still alive.”

“You’re awfully blasé about all of this. Quite unlike a man who’s going all the way to America.”

“Well, I hate long good-byes. It’s hard to smile when everyone acts so gloomy.” The response was very like Elmer.

After a moment’s pause, the lord spoke. “Would you do me one favor?”

“What?”

“I know the dead don’t interest you. However…even if it’s only you and Huey Laforet…”

“I know.”

Elmer gave a small nod, then finished the lord’s sentence.

“I’ll never forget Monica as long as I live…and neither will Huey.”

“All right… Thank you. I owe you a sizable debt now.”

“You don’t have to pay it back to me. Just do what you can as a lord to help the townspeople smile.”

Starting toward the front gate, the young smile junkie waved lightly at his friend and told him good-bye.

“The mess in town should end after the baccano today.”

With ominous words and a breezy smile, Elmer took his leave.

The Avaro residence

“‘What is the meaning of this,’ you ask? I’m afraid I don’t understand. To what exactly do you refer?” Fermet responded calmly, his attitude courteous.

Lord Avaro ground his teeth together audibly, but he did not call for anyone.

He assumed that if the man had gone to the trouble of coming here, he must have had some reason for it. Until he knew what that was, it was probably better not to meddle with him.

Still, his mind was on the single-shot pistol in his drawer. If Fermet made any suspicious moves, he’d be able to grab it and fire. Although he knew he had the advantage, he was still more angry than composed.

“You scoundrel… Where have you taken Gretto?”

“I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t done anything to him. You tore the lovers asunder, and he simply ran off on his own. Right now, the lovebirds may be drinking poison, fancying themselves Romeo and Juliet. Romantic, don’t you think?”

“Wha…?”

“You really are the scum of the earth, aren’t you? Not only did you sabotage your son’s romance, but you sold his beloved off to that lecherous lord. It’s hard to believe you are even human.”

The alchemist wore a fearless smile, and the lord of the Avaro house was livid.

“Don’t mock me! You were the one who informed me of Gretto and Sylvie’s relationship!”

“Indeed. What of it?”

“Wha—?”

“Oh dear. You are his father, after all; I thought you would see that your son was serious and support him. I never dreamed you’d do something so awful. Apparently, I am a poor judge of character. What a shame.” Fermet spoke brazenly, shaking his head.

“What does scum like you…know of aristocrats…?”

“My, my. You seem to believe you are worthy to speak on behalf of the nobility, even though the resources you hold are worth less than a single one of the Dormentaires’ summer villas. I envy your optimistic view of the world.”

“You…!”

Fermet was the very picture of hypocritical courtesy.

The family head had noticed—this man was acting like a completely different person than he did on his regular visits to the mansion with Begg and the others. He also realized this was most likely Fermet’s true nature.

“Why, you…”

“And your cruelty toward your son may cost you the rank you already hold.”

“…? What do you mean?!”

“After you persisted in rejecting everything your son was…he capitalized on the recent events.” His smile warping with utter joy, he shared the facts. “The terrorist bombings targeted only Dormentaire facilities. However, after a certain point, the arson attempts spread to the mansions of aristocrats as well. Had you noticed? The noble mansions that caught fire…were all within a certain distance of this one.”

“You can’t…mean…,” the man stammered.

With no hesitation, Fermet said the brutal truth.

“Your son Gretto was attempting to pull the aristocrats into the war between the Dormentaires and the Mask Makers. His world as a noble had left him trapped, so he planned to destroy it.

“To that end…he pretended to be a Mask Maker and committed arson.”

Several days previously Gretto’s room

A wind blew into the room, and Gretto flinched, shivering.

“…Wh-who’s there?!”

When he turned around, he saw a hazy shape in the light from the window, the only light in the room.

Gretto’s lips were quivering with panic. The phantom wore a hooded cloak and a white mask, glinting in the moonlight.

“Please don’t worry. I am Sylvie’s ally.”

“Huh…?”

The feminine voice had startled him, too, but when the masked phantom said Sylvie’s name, Gretto swallowed his scream.

“Let’s not waste time. For the past several days, you’ve been setting nearby mansions on fire, haven’t you?”

“!! What…are you…?”

“I don’t know whether you bribed one of the servants guarding you, or if you snuck out of the mansion on your own, but you went into the streets at night and set fire to neighboring mansions. Because all the incidents have occurred within a certain radius of this estate, some are beginning to suspect the people who live here.”

“……”

As though he believed he might be able to keep his secret if he said nothing, Gretto opened and shut his mouth a few times, silently. However, his trembling and the color of his complexion acknowledged that what the masked girl had said was true.

To set his mind at ease, she said, “Sylvie doesn’t know, and I don’t plan to tell her. Don’t worry.”

“Huh…?”

“I told you, remember? I’m Sylvie’s ally. I want the two of you to be happy, so I can’t let you be caught by the House of Dormentaire.”

“Th-then what should I…?”

Gretto swallowed hard. He was dripping with cold sweat.

“I’ll take care of Sylvie. However, you need to make contact with Maiza, so I’ll help you reach the Third Library. We’ll also need to do away with the suspicion that you might be the culprit.”

She took an odd sphere made of pottery from her cloak, then spoke with no emotion in her voice at all.

“How far are you prepared to go…to make Sylvie your bride?”

The present The Avaro residence

“Preposterous! You’re telling me that Gretto set fire to this mansion himself?!”

“You were lucky it didn’t burn to the ground, weren’t you? Either he didn’t care whether the fire spread and killed you, or he didn’t think that far. I wonder which it was.” Fermet snickered as the head of the House of Avaro slammed a fist into his desk.

“Why arson?! If he was able to slip outside, he could just have gone to have a tryst with his maid! If he was going to set fires, why didn’t he do it to the Boroñal mansion?!”

“He probably didn’t have the courage—or the sheer stupidity—to sneak into the lord’s mansion when he had no inside information. Besides, if he’d set fire to it, he could have killed Sylvie.”

“But what did he have to gain by setting fire to other mansions?! Just dragging us into the fight between the Dormentaires and the town wouldn’t destroy society itself!”

“Of course that’s true—to a rational mind. What he did was utterly meaningless. However, it was you who robbed him of reason, Lord Avaro,” Fermet replied, still utterly polite.

Clenching his fists so hard they began to bleed, Avaro recalled his sons’ faces. “Damn it all!” he spat. “Why…? Both Maiza and Gretto… Why are they such a disappointment?!”

At that—Fermet’s courteous attitude changed to open contempt.

“Disappointment?! They disappoint you, do they?!”

Avaro’s eyes widened at the abrupt shift, and he grew warier.

Fermet laughed with genuine amusement before he began his refutation.

“Oh, that’s amusing in several ways, Lord Avaro. Maiza is far more capable than you are. If I had to say, it is you who have continuously disappointed him, don’t you think?”

“How dare—”

“And with regard to Gretto…I must laugh for the opposite reason.” A spiteful edge crept into Fermet’s smile, an expression he ordinarily never showed anyone, as he cheerfully continued reviling the man. “Do you mean to say you expected anything at all from that half-wit? You sincerely believed he was capable of more? If so, you don’t have the least suggestion of a hint of good judgment; you’re even more of an imbecile than him. Confessing your disappointment in him is confessing your own blind foolishness, you know. Your own son called you a festering sausage, and I have to say I agree!”

Only a moment ago, Fermet had said he himself had no eye for people, but now the contempt in those words was palpable.

No longer able to tolerate Fermet’s scorn, the head of the House of Avaro took the pistol from the drawer, pointed it at the intruder, and screamed. “Don’t laugh… Don’t laugh!”

Fermet slowly raised both hands, although his expression stayed composed. “I do beg your pardon. However, if I die, some things may come to light that you would rather have kept hidden. After all, in addition to manufacturing drugs, you seem to have made a habit out of doing nauseating things.”

As he watched the other man, Fermet slowly moved toward the window.

“You won’t get away with this!”

Lord Avaro pulled the trigger, but all he heard was a click, and no bullet emerged.

“I took the liberty of removing the powder and shot before you reached the room. If you meant to use that to defend yourself, you should have kept it on your person.”

“Ghk…!”

The man tried to call for a servant, but Fermet stopped him with a warning.

“Oh, are you sure you don’t mind people learning that your son is an arsonist?”

“…! Th-that was your plot!”

“I didn’t suggest that he set any fires, you know. And you cut ties with the Meyer family yourself, so I have only to insist that the Avaros fabricated everything. If you’d like, I can even claim that this mask was discovered in your drawer,” Fermet said cheerfully.

Meanwhile, the other man’s mind raced, desperately trying to catch up with the current of events.

However, as if he was specifically trying to keep that from happening, Fermet kept speaking.

“Even my presence here can be easily explained; all I have to say is that I came to denounce you for trying to blame your crimes on the Meyer family. After this, even if you revile me, even if you outline the truth in a letter, even if others believe it superficially for the sake of peace, I doubt anyone will genuinely trust you.”

“Then… Then why did you come here? Do you intend to blackmail me? Is it money? Or are you telling me to help you leave town?! What do I have to do to get you to protect my position?!”

Even now, he’s not worrying about his sons, hmm? Fermet thought. He really is a fascinating little toad, isn’t he?

As he sneered internally, Fermet gave him an honest answer. “Ah, just a detour.”

“A…detour…?”

“I actually came aboveground on other business. I simply thought it might be fun to learn how a nobleman would react upon discovering that his own son was an arsonist. That’s all.”

“…Huh? Er, ah?”

The House of Avaro head sounded senile; he didn’t understand what the other man was saying.

After stealing a glance at his face, Fermet continued more to himself than to the nobleman.

“It was entertaining to be sure, but dealing with a filthy adult such as yourself was hardly exciting. It’s as I thought—the adorable ones are the most satisfying to admire and to torture, especially the sweet little boys and girls who adore me. Don’t you agree?”

“……?”

“By all means, continue to live the best life you can as the dregs of the aristocracy. Embrace your status as a festering sausage. After all, I’m sure it’s too late for you to become anything more.”

Fermet bowed deferentially, and in that moment—

—a roar echoed from the direction of the town.

“?!”

When Lord Avaro looked that way, explosions were rumbling through the streets, one after another, and flames were rising from every quarter.

“Wha…? What is…? Is this your doing as well?! Ferm…”

When he turned around, no one was there.

For a little while, the man was silent; then he slumped weakly into a chair. The vitality was draining out of him, as if he’d aged ten years in just a few minutes.

His mansion hadn’t exploded, and it wasn’t on fire again—but he knew this was checkmate for him. He might not be ruined after this. If he kept quiet, he could hold on to his noble rank.

However, he would never be anything more than what Fermet had said.

The moment he realized that—he no longer cared whether he lived or died, and he gave up thinking.

“Dammit… Damn them…”

Full of hatred against the world, he put the muzzle of the empty pistol to his temple, cocked the hammer, then pulled the trigger, over and over.

Click, click. Feeling the futility in the echoing sound, the head of the House of Avaro groaned as if he was cursing the entire world.

That said, the voice wrung from the childish emotions of this middle-aged man was too thin to be heard over the commotion in town.

Lebreau Fermet Viralesque.

While he was revealing his true nature to Lord Avaro, the disaster churning in Lotto Valentino reached its peak.

Flames and explosions rose all across the town, as if someone had planned it, inflicting such terror on the Dormentaire men, the aristocrats on the hill, and the ordinary townspeople that they believed the end was nigh.

It was as if they meant to wipe the town off the map.

The maritime fortress

Carla was in the middle of patrolling the town when the explosions erupted.

After ordering the men who were with her to give aid and put out the nearest fires, she returned to the Dormentaire envoy’s headquarters on the maritime fortress.

“What is going on here?!”

She questioned the troops who’d been outside, but none of them seemed to understand the situation, either. However, as reports continued to come in from all over, the extent of the damage grew clearer and clearer.

Apparently, these bombings were occurring at locations that had already been bombed or set on fire over the past two weeks. The partially burned houses and mounds of rubble were exploding again.

Investigations were still ongoing, and the locations had been largely abandoned, which meant those initial explosions had produced almost no victims. As a matter of fact, the only injuries had come from the violence of the fleeing crowds.

Relieved that no deaths had been reported, at least for now, Carla kept on gathering information and dispatching her troops to appropriate places until she heard some noteworthy news.

“It’s him… The Mask Maker has been sighted! He’s running through the streets!”

When that report came in, Carla thought for a few seconds.

So the Mask Maker has shown himself again? If he has, he must have had a reason for doing so.

The most likely reason is…to draw our eyes. A diversion of some sort.

In that case, what was their attention being diverted from?

Soon after the question rose in her mind, she received the answer from another subordinate.

“Ma’am! A ship… The Advena Avis is underway!”

The Advena Avis

Nile spoke up. “Let me just ask this: What happened?”

“I do not know,” Denkurou answered, “but now is most definitely our chance.”

Explosions had erupted all over town, and the Dormentaire men guarding the Advena Avis had thinned. Dalton had been watching the situation and determined that this was probably their first and final opportunity, and so Denkurou, Zank, and Nile had boarded to seize the ship.

They knocked out the handful of remaining guards, ran up the fewest sails possible, and weighed anchor. The sails and steering apparatus of the Advena Avis were startlingly simple for a ship of that era, so even with a crew of three, they managed to sail the vessel easily.

Moving away from the maritime fortress, they made for a certain spot in the port.

The land routes were all blocked by flames—but that one area, the mouth of an underground waterway, would take them where they needed to go.

It was perfect. While explosions had strewn rubble around the area, there had been no explosions or fires in the part of the waterway that connected to the port.

However, if they took their time, the flames might spread there as well.

“…I do not like this,” Nile muttered.

Zank agreed. “Me neither. This fire has nothing to do with us, and yet it’s perfectly timed and placed.”

Someone was guiding them.

Denkurou was almost certain this was true, but he chose not to go against that current.

“However, there is no way to go but forward.

“If we fail to show ourselves here, the House of Dormentaire may very well use the conflagration as an excuse to raze the town.”

The port

“What…on earth…?”

After emerging from the underground waterway, Maiza was looking at the smoke rising from the fires all over town. He was stunned.

“I don’t know, but now’s our chance!”

The alchemists had spotted the Advena Avis, which was attempting to come alongside a nearby stretch of port.

Carrying Czes on his back, Begg called to Maiza, who had stopped just outside the hidden door that led to the underground waterway. “Maiza, let’s go! This journey is meaningless without you!”

Even amid the commotion, Czes was fast asleep, breathing peacefully, and he showed no sign of waking.

“I—I know… What’s the matter with Czes?”

“I put him to sleep with a drug of mine. Don’t worry, it wasn’t the usual one; this one has no side effects apart from the drowsiness.”

“He’d really better be all right.”

Despite his misgivings, Maiza sent Begg on his way. He started to follow him, until he saw that smoke was also rising from the ranks of mansions on the hill.

Should I truly be doing this? All this happening, while I attempt to escape the town…

He owed nothing to Lotto Valentino, but his inborn nature was trying to take the option of fleeing away from him.

Dalton had emerged from underground while Maiza was thinking, and he called to him from behind.

“There’s no need to hesitate.”

“! Maestro Dalton…”

“You told me you were prepared to discard the town…and its people, didn’t you? You are the one to whom I’ve entrusted my knowledge. If you do not board the Advena Avis with the other alchemists, it will all be for nothing.”

“…Yes. But…” Maiza clenched his fists.

Sighing lightly, Dalton went on. “Well, you were planning to leave the town in your brother’s hands, and now he’s fleeing with you. I suppose you can’t convince yourself so easily.” Then he gave Maiza a little push. “We will do everything we can.”

“Huh…?”

“You’re well aware that you have no need to worry about our lives. If you are indeed becoming immortal in order to save something, then once you’re safely immortal, put the fact that you don’t die to good use and save someone else. Right now, you won’t save anyone by staying here. You’ll only leave the passengers of the Advena Avis at sea.”

Maiza thought hard for a few seconds longer. Then, his fists still clenched, he nodded firmly.

“I never had any love for this town, but…please do take care of it.”

“The preamble was uncalled-for. Are you trying to dampen my enthusiasm?”

Unusually for him, Dalton smiled, then handed Maiza the passenger list and a sealed letter.

“Once you’ve made it out of port and the chaos has abated, open that.

“Mind you, I don’t know whether the contents of that envelope will prove to be good luck or ill.”

“My. It appears I’m the last one.”

As Dalton turned to head back underground, Fermet opened the hidden door and stepped out.

“…Did you finish your business?”

“Yes. Without mishap. I have many regrets, but I’m not such a fool that I’d busy myself with them and leave Czes all alone.”

“That was clever work.”

“What do you mean?”

Fermet feigned ignorance, and Dalton went on.

“Considering your position before now, there was no reason for you to sail on the Advena Avis. However, under the present circumstances, escaping the town provided a perfect reason for you to board. No one will suspect a thing.”

“…If you are displeased with me, you can still strike my name from the passenger list.”

“No, no. No matter what you plan to do, I have no right to meddle. Unless you happen to be immortal already.”

Dalton glared at him, but Fermet evaded the look. “I am a perfectly ordinary human being… For now.”

“You don’t strike me as a man who would go to such lengths for immortality.”

“Ha-ha. Actually, immortality itself holds little interest for me. I want to make someone else immortal.”

His smile was gentle, but Dalton realized that beneath it was nothing but sheer malice.

“…Take care not to lose your footing. You won’t be the only aberration on that ship.”

However, he didn’t try to stop the man from boarding.

Noticing this, Fermet chuckled and bowed to him reverently.

“I knew it. You are both a leader and an observer.

“You are worthy of respect, Maestro Dalton.”

When Maiza ran into the port, the Advena Avis had already been brought alongside, and the alchemists had begun jumping over onto the deck.

Fire might bar the way, but if musketeers or cannons arrived, they could fire through the flames and sink the ship easily. In fact, even flaming arrows would be lethal.

As Maiza looked back anxiously, he saw a familiar face approaching. “Fermet! You’re all right?!”

“Yes, somehow. I managed to get the others in the house safely away as well.”

“Oh, thank God…! Hurry and board! Czes and Begg are already on the ship!”

“All right,” said Fermet as he slipped past him.

After making sure he was the last one, Maiza moved to board the ship.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, amid the churning smoke on top of a building, he saw movement.

“—!”

Every cell in his body was on the alert as the figure on the roof leaped out of the smoke and down, straight toward him.

Spotting the silver sword in his assailant’s hand, Maiza jumped back just in time.

The building hadn’t been tall, but leaping from any roof was no small feat. Even then, as this person closed the distance to Maiza, they did not move like someone who was injured.

Instinctively drawing the knife he wore at his waist, Maiza used it to stop his opponent’s blade.

A metallic clash rang out, and the alchemists on the ship all turned back to look at the port’s flagstones, just as two new shadows jumped down and made their way toward the ship.

The figures were lightly equipped men armed with stilettos, and the alchemists immediately identified them as Dormentaire bodyguards.

As many of them instantly guessed from that fact, the one who had first slashed at Maiza was the captain of the envoy, Carla Alvarez Santoña.

“…You have some skill with a blade.”

“Carla…”

Once each knew who the other was, Maiza and Carla put some distance between themselves.

“I told you before: I won’t let that ship sail.”

“I don’t suppose you’d look the other way for us.”

“Was that supposed to be a joke?!” Carla launched herself at Maiza again.

Maiza’s knife parried her sharp thrust skillfully, and the blades screeched roughly against each other.

Meanwhile, the two bodyguards leaped, attempting to board the ship, but two passengers jumped off the boat and kicked them back down into the water.

“My apologies. Only those whose names are on the passenger list are allowed to board.”

“Let me just say this: I could fight them both on my own.”

Denkurou and Nile landed on the dock. When he saw them, Maiza put some distance between himself and Carla again.

“You two…,” he murmured.

“For the moment, we may safely leave the wheel to Zank. However, if you are not on board, Maiza, this voyage will have no purpose.”

“Let me just say this: I can fight them both on my own. You should return along with him, Denkurou.”

Nile glared at the guards, holding an enormous knife that looked like a billhook slung over his shoulder. Unlike the day they’d first met, Nile was armed.

Caution colored the guards’ expressionless faces. Instead of rushing in to attack, they kept the distance between them as wide as they could afford.

After making sure the precarious balance would not break, Maiza spoke to Carla again. “There’s no need to shed blood here, yours or ours. Would you please withdraw, Carla?”

“No need…? And what of your decoy running through town? If they die, do you mean to tell me their blood was a necessary sacrifice?”

The “Mask Maker” who was currently fleeing the soldiers through the streets was most likely a decoy, intended to help the alchemists get away. And the diversion was working; the Dormentaire troops that Carla’s orders hadn’t reached, and the townspeople who were trying to capture the criminal independently, had scattered across the center of town in pursuit.

However, this information was new to Maiza. He frowned.

“…? What are you talking about?”

“……”

Don’t play the fool, Carla almost said, but then she took a long look at Maiza’s face. She could see no trace of dishonesty there. And she knew very well that Maiza wasn’t the sort of person who’d use another’s life as a decoy.

Did one of the other alchemists arrange this without his knowledge?

Or what if… What if it’s entirely unrelated, and I fail to capture the culprit who sank Lady Lucrezia’s ship because I’m distracted here?

Even so…I can’t afford to back down!

“…It’s a pity, Maiza. I would have liked to talk with you more under different circumstances.”

“So would I.”

Carla had come to Lotto Valentino to bring the town under her masters’ control.

Maiza had sensed the limits in the town and was leaving it.

Their positions were different, but they’d connected multiple times and had come to trust each other.

For that very reason, they had always understood that things might end up this way someday.

Their relationship wasn’t so shallow that they could attack without hesitation, or so deep that they could cut each other down with no regrets.

As they confronted each other from just beyond the range of their weapons, their positions were a perfect allegory for the delicate distance between them.

Meanwhile, as Denkurou faced off against the bodyguards, he looked conflicted.

Should they go on the attack, Nile will almost certainly cut our opponents down. And then we will truly be wanted men. However, defeating these bodyguards will take our full strength.

Everything was different from that incident on their first day here, both the circumstances and the tension in the air.

That was when Denkurou abruptly remembered what Zank had said when Victor stopped them.

(“It appears that we are fated to have someone stop our fights here. How perfect it would be if this happened a third time.”)

Fate, hmm?

If I place my hopes in fate, I can no longer call myself an alchemist.

Giving a small, wry smile, he took a few deep breaths.

All right. I shall put up a fight.

He’d incapacitate the two bodyguards before Nile could cut them.

If worse came to worst, he’d end up fighting Nile as well, but he would cross that bridge when he reached it. Even if he and Nile felled each other here, as long as Zank was there, the ship would sail.

Steeling himself for his own death in an instant, Denkurou focused until he could hear each heartbeat in his muscles, preparing to act faster than anyone else.

However, a moment sooner than that—fate once again arrived.

To Denkurou, it only looked like a third coincidence.

To a certain other individual, it wasn’t fate or anything of the sort. It was merely part of the plan.

Breaking the tension among the six combatants—several pottery spheres flew in between Maiza, his allies, and the bodyguards and smashed against the ground.

Although there was no telling how the trick was done, the liquid filling them scattered and simultaneously burst into an inferno.

The spheres soared in, one after another, temporarily creating a wall of fire.

“What’s this…?!”

Carla’s route to the Advena Avis had been cut off. As she retreated from the flames, she looked in the direction the spheres had come from—and her eyes widened in astonishment.

Ten or so figures stood on the roof from which she and the others had jumped. Every one of them wore a hooded cloak and a distinctive mask.

“…! The Mask Makers?!” Carla shouted, just as a distant explosion reached her ears. “?!”

When she looked toward the noise, beyond a street choked with rubble, she saw that the Dormentaires’ maritime fortress was on fire.

With Szilard’s ship, only a vessel on the edge had exploded. This time, a chain of explosions was radiating out from the center, sending the fortress blazing up like an enormous firework.

“Why, you… You bastards!”

These Mask Makers had to be the ones who’d sunk Lucrezia’s ship as well.

Full of fury, Carla glared at them—but the Mask Makers ignored her. Looking at Maiza, Denkurou, and Nile, who were standing there stunned, they slowly pointed toward the ship.

The gesture probably meant Hurry and board.

Maiza and Denkurou looked at each other, then promptly turned on their heels and leaped onto the deck.

“Wait! I have a score to settle with these…”

While Nile was still speaking, Denkurou grabbed him by his collar and practically dragged him onto the deck.

“Denkurou! You filthy…!”

“Zank! Let us depart!”

Ignoring Nile’s furious insults, Denkurou removed the plank they’d used to bridge the deck and the land and ordered Zank to set sail.

“Denkurou!”

“Calm yourself, Nile!” Denkurou shouted back sternly. “Look there!”

The others on board the ship looked in the direction he’d indicated.

A warship had been cut loose from the burning maritime fortress and was headed their way.

“We have no weaponry! If they fire on us, we’re sunk!”

Lotto Valentino On a rooftop

Hearing yet another explosion from the direction of the port, Niki raised her head uneasily.

Don’t tell me the Advena Avis was attacked…

From the rooftops where she had been running, Niki looked over anxiously. When she saw that it was the Dormentaires’ floating fortress that was on fire, and not the Advena Avis, she gave a little sigh of relief.

However, nobody noticed the change in her expression.

This was partly because she was running over the roofs—and partly because she was currently dressed as a Mask Maker.

About an hour earlier, Fermet had come to her to tell her good-bye.

She’d been prepared for that. In order to get Czes safely away, Fermet had resolved to board a ship. She herself wasn’t an alchemist, and unlike Gretto and Sylvie, she had no good reason to go with them.

However, Fermet had bid her good-bye in an unusual way.

“This is where we must part ways, Niki… If you’d like, you may board the Advena Avis in my place. I’m sure Maiza and the others won’t object very strongly.”

When she asked him what this was about, he quietly shook his head.

“I’m going to cause a distraction so that the Advena Avis will be able to leave port safely.”

When Niki saw the mask and cloak he was holding, she understood. By becoming a Mask Maker and letting himself be spotted, he was planning to attract soldiers and citizens from all over the town to himself.

Niki tried to stop him, telling him it was dangerous, but Fermet shook his head and told her that someone had to.

“I’ll do it.” The words left her mouth before she knew what was happening.

Fermet looked startled, and she smiled as brightly as she could.

“It’s all right. You know my past, don’t you? I know the alleys like the back of my hand. I’ll be a far better decoy than you.”

Fermet told her it was too dangerous and tried to stop her. He argued for several minutes, but she stubbornly refused to listen until she finally snatched the mask from him.

“I hate this place. If I can cause a bit of chaos as my revenge, I want to do it. That’s all. Besides, I dressed like a Mask Maker when I went to see that rich boy, Gretto, and it was rather fun. I prefer to work from the shadows.”

That’s a lie.

Even as she smiled, she knew she wasn’t telling the truth.

I don’t give a damn about the townspeople one way or another. I can work in public or in private. I just don’t want Fermet to put himself in danger. I only want to be useful to him.

I think he’s…he’s the place to die that I’ve been searching for.

However, she wasn’t able to say any of that aloud. She only dug in her heels and insisted she take his place.

As if Fermet had read her mind—he pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Thank you…Niki,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “Just promise me you won’t die for a man like me. I can’t be your place to die. You must find it at the end of a life you’ve lived to the fullest.”

…!

He knows.

My feelings reached him.

The next thing she knew, she was about to start crying herself. To hide her tears, she put on the mask.

“It’s fine. After all…I am a Mask Maker.”

And now she was running through the streets.

Back then, her heart and Fermet’s had been connected.

Pulse pounding, feelings blazing, she ran and ran and ran.

When Monica had saved her, how had she felt?

How had Elmer felt?

She hadn’t thought that choosing to help someone would make her feel so very alive. For what was practically the first time in her life, she was savoring the joy of living.

She didn’t know, of course.

After she’d told Fermet good-bye and dashed off as the Mask Maker—

Fermet had murmured “Thank you” with a faint smile.

And then, immediately afterward, he had whispered to himself with a twisted kind of trust.

“I knew you’d do that for me.”

The port

“You scoundrels… You really were in league with those alchemists!” Carla shouted at the Mask Makers on the roof, but there was no response.

Damn it, aren’t the musketeers here yet?

If she had a gun, she’d have no trouble shooting them down from the roof.

However, many of their weapons storehouses had been bombed over the past two weeks, so their number of guns had dwindled considerably. Meanwhile, the soldiers with muskets were scattered all over town. The guns were currently concentrated on the maritime fortress, but with that explosion, there was no telling what the situation was like there.

Carla was trying to think of a way to get back up on the roof, but—incredibly, one of the Mask Makers jumped lightly down.

Carla and the bodyguards were surprised, but they held their blades at the ready.

What is he trying to do? If he’s planning to attack us, he could have just kept throwing those spheres at us from the roof.

Wary of her opponent, Carla issued a formal order. “This is a warning: Remove your mask and drop your weapons.” She’d made a surprise attack on Maiza, but this time, she wanted to find out what this person was after first.

However, that was when she finally noticed something else.

Due to the sea wind and the fire, she hadn’t picked up on it at all, but the moment the Mask Maker had dropped down in front of her, something had changed in her surroundings.

The Mask Maker took a step closer, putting a hand to their mask. That was when the change became especially noticeable, and she realized what her senses were trying to warn her of.

In the next instant, both she and the bodyguards had dropped their weapons and fallen to their knees.

Just as they’d done a year ago, when the Mask Makers had hit them with a paralysis potion.

Thirty minutes later At sea

“This is bad. They’ll catch up to us.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?!”

On board the Advena Avis, the alchemists were nearly panicking.

For a vessel of its size, this ship moved unreasonably fast. However, only three of the people on it had decent sailing skills, and the pursuing warship was closing the distance. Before long, it would be within firing range.

“Dammit! We can replenish our supplies at our first port of call. If we throw some of the heaviest items overboard…”

Speaking on impulse, one of the alchemists moved to open the door to the storeroom, but—the door opened from the inside, and the gleaming silver muzzle of a gun peeked out.

“All right, that’s far enough! Stop right there!”

The man’s shout carried across the deck, and all the alchemists turned to look.

Victor Talbot was standing there in sooty clothes, holding the same sort of weapon the lord and the other aristocrats had: a three-shot flintlock pistol.

“Victor?!” Denkurou cried from where he’d been trimming a sail. “How on earth did you get aboard this ship?!”

“I knew you were up to something. I’ve been hiding in a barrel in the ship’s storeroom for days.” Proudly revealing his rather pathetic trick, Victor pointed his gun at Maiza. “Maiza Avaro, stop this ship immediately. If you cooperate, I can wave from the deck before they sink you.”

“Victor…wasn’t it?”

Maybe they had run into each other at the Third Library; each seemed to know the other by sight.

“Enough of these meaningless games, all right? I don’t care whether you’re chasing knowledge to America or summoning demons, but you’re not stupid enough to bring women and little children down with the ship, are you?”

As Victor went on with his warning, he glanced at Czes, who was sleeping peacefully on Begg’s back, and Sylvie, who was squeezing Gretto’s hand with fright.

“To think you’d actually slip through Carla’s net and put out to sea. What kind of magic trick did it take?”

Since he’d been in the storeroom, he apparently hadn’t seen the exchange at the port or the state of the town itself.

The question was only natural, at least to Victor, and Maiza answered it despite the gun pointed his way. “We don’t really know, either.”

“What? What kind of idiotic…?”

“More importantly, would you lower your gun? Any stray bullets may strike a woman or a small child.”

“Ha! Well said. I like you.”

After he was sure that the warship was still coming up behind them, he slowly lowered the gun. However, he hadn’t lowered his guard. He looked around at the alchemists with wary eyes.

“I’ll tell you now, taking me hostage won’t do you any good.”

“Then perhaps you’ll find a use as food for the fish.”

At some point, Nile had stepped away from the helm and confronted Victor, billhook in hand.

“Nile! The ship is losing speed!” Denkurou shouted.

Nile scoffed. “It matters not. They will catch up to us regardless. I will simply have to leap onto the other ship and dispose of our pursuers.”

“You are truly bellicose, aren’t you? I’m glad I ended that fight when I first met you. If I hadn’t, our troops would’ve been massacred,” Victor muttered, sounding rather appalled, but he still didn’t let his guard down.

What he did respond to was—

—the stunned voice of an alchemist who’d been watching the oncoming warship through a telescope.

“Hey… Somebody on that deck is waving at us.”

“What?”

Victor frowned. Then he realized the other ship hadn’t fired a single warning shot.

The town was out of sight already. If they attacked without sinking the ship, it wasn’t likely to cause friction between the Mars Clan and House Dormentaire.

He put his gun back into the holster on his hip, forgetting that everyone around him was an enemy, and grabbed the telescope from the alchemist.

“Lemme see that.”

When he peered through the spyglass, he saw several familiar faces.

The one that caught his attention belonged to the individual on the right of the waving man, a figure with distinctive white whiskers.

“I-if it ain’t old Szilard!!”

Meanwhile, Maiza had been observing the ship through a different telescope and was just as surprised.

“No… It can’t be.”

“Wh-what’s wrong, Maiza?” Gretto asked.

“The ship… Please, stop the ship!”

“Huh?!”

Maiza didn’t even hear as he stared through the telescope at two people he knew.

On the deck, waving his hands, was Elmer C. Albatross.

Standing on his left was Huey Laforet.

Thirty minutes earlier The port

Carla’s weapon slipped from her fingers as she fell to her knees, just the way she had a year ago.

But this time, she wasn’t losing consciousness. She was kneeling.

The change she and the bodyguards had sensed in the air had been—

—the faint, drifting scent of peaches.

The Mask Maker who’d leaped down from the roof removed the mask.

Carla hadn’t seen the face behind for a long time—the face of her mistress.

At the same time, one after another, the Mask Makers on the roof stripped off their masks. Carla recognized several of them as Lucrezia’s bodyguards.

“I knew it… I knew you were alive!”

As Carla raised her head, her eyes filling with tears, her mistress—Lucrezia de Dormentaire—gave a mocking giggle.

“My, my! Your face is even more adorable than I expected it would be. The two behind you still refuse to react to anything, I see.”

She looked around restlessly, then tilted her head slightly, perplexed.

“I wanted to see Victor’s expression, too. Where could he have gone?”

Thirty minutes later On the Advena Avis

Out on the ocean, the warship had caught up, and the Advena Avis had temporarily dropped anchor.

On its deck, a shocking revelation was being shared.

“Lucrezia…staged the whole thing?”

In that moment, Victor’s face was so comical it defied description. Later on, Elmer would say, “It’s a real shame they didn’t have digital cameras back then. It was the most hilarious face I’ve ever seen! If I’d gotten a photo of it, I would’ve been able to make a whole lot of people laugh.”

As it was, Victor seemed to be a completely different person, and most of the alchemists were desperately choking back laughter as they watched him.

However, Maiza didn’t even look at Victor as he pressed Elmer for answers.

“Is that true?! Lucrezia de Dormentaire is alive?”

“She certainly is. She said she’d changed her clothes and her makeup, and nobody had noticed her in town for the past several days. She assumed Carla would still recognize her, so she didn’t go near her. And she was grumbling that Victor wasn’t around.”

“In town…? What did she do at night? Don’t tell me she was on the maritime fortress?!”

“Not quite. Speran’s house,” Elmer answered easily.

Maiza was appalled.

“Speran just can’t turn down a request from a woman.” Elmer cackled as he explained in his own way, which rather missed the point.

Maiza had been asking for a detailed explanation all along, but Victor had found his ill-tempered manner again and shoved him aside, hauling Elmer up by his collar.

“Start at the beginning, Elmer! You didn’t tell me a bloody thing about this!”

Maiza was surprised to hear that.

Victor shouldn’t have any connection with Elmer; how had he known his name?

“…Are you two acquainted?”

“Acquainted? Hell…” Victor hesitated, then said, “Ahh, damn it all, it doesn’t matter now.” Irritably, he explained his connection to Elmer:

“This smile-obsessed lunatic was one of the Dormentaire spies.”

Elmer C. Albatross was addicted to smiles.

No matter what sort of person he was dealing with, he was on the side of anyone who wasn’t smiling.

One year ago, after Monica had died and Huey had disappeared—he’d realized that a woman he’d met in town several times hadn’t been smiling at all lately.

He’d tried everything he could to make her smile, but she’d only said, Away with you. You alchemists are enemies to us…and the House of Dormentaire. She hadn’t seemed willing to open her heart to anyone.

Even so, Elmer had kept on stubbornly urging her to smile, and the woman, Carla, had finally told him this:

If you want me to smile so badly, then bring me information about the local alchemists.

The next day, Elmer had brought Carla a whole stack of the Third Library’s technical books. Don’t tell anybody, he’d said.

Frightened by his lack of hesitation, Carla had said, …From now on, do as the circumstances require. She’d faked a smile and tried to send him on his way.

But her false smile was not enough for Elmer. I’m not settling for a fake smile, so I’ll bring you whatever else you need! he’d said, refusing to leave her alone—until he had settled in reporting town gossip and other news to the Dormentaires as one of their spies.

And so it had gone, up till the present.

“You know, when she talked with you, Maiza, Carla always smiled a little afterward. I think she was trying to hide it.”

“She was?! …No, we can talk about that later. Elmer, are you mad? Why would you help Moni…?”

Why would you help Monica’s enemies, the House of Dormentaire?

Maiza stopped himself before he could finish the sentence.

He’d seen Huey, standing just behind Elmer. He’d also remembered that, questions of sanity aside, Elmer had always been this way.

In that case, then, the next matter of concern was Huey Laforet’s presence.

“…Huey. Why are you here? Were you really involved in the bombings?”

It was a straightforward question, and everyone else was nervous to hear the answer.

Huey gave a faint smile. “About half of them, I think.”

“Half?”

“Yes. The arson attempts on the mansions were not my doing, nor were several of the other attacks. They were most likely the work of another, making it look like it was my doing.”

Gretto had been standing near the edge of the deck, and his face went pale as he heard Huey’s answer.

However, the only ones who noticed were Sylvie and Fermet. For Sylvie’s part, she assumed he was remembering being attacked. Fermet, who knew the truth, only smiled to himself.

“Now hold on. Someone explain all this to me… Who are you?” Victor asked.

Huey bowed deferentially. “Ah yes, I should have introduced myself. I am Huey Laforet. I’m affiliated with Lotto Valentino’s Third Library. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Victor Talbot.”

“You know me?”

“Yes, Lady Lucrezia and Szilard have often told me about you.”

“How the hell…?!”

Befuddled, Victor looked over at Szilard, who’d seated himself on a crate on the deck.

Victor’s eyes were clearly demanding an explanation, and Szilard clicked his tongue quietly in irritation, then obliged. “For God’s sake, Victor, your intuition is terribly poor. Huey has been our collaborator since before you and I reached Lotto Valentino.”

“He what?!”

“He’s a tenacious one. He suddenly snuck into Lady Lucrezia’s bedchamber and offered her an exchange: the manufacturing method for the false gold for a relationship with the Dormentaire workshop.”

“……”

Victor didn’t seem capable of putting his astonishment into words anymore. His mouth flapped soundlessly, a whole cocktail of emotions on his face.

“It certainly was a rather intriguing method. He also had a way with gunpowder, while it’s a weakness of ours. I was told she allowed him to deal with us as an equal collaborator.”

“Nobody told me about this! This is the first I’ve heard of it!”

“Why would it be necessary to tell a stripling like you? You can’t keep a secret to save your life,” Szilard snapped.

Delivering the finishing blow, Huey smiled and murmured an apology.

“I’m sorry, Victor. Lucrezia also said that she wanted to surprise you, so I shouldn’t mention it until you noticed it yourself.”

“Shut the hell up, you bastard!”

As Victor flew into a rage, Denkurou and Zank restrained him, then knocked him out and tossed him into the storeroom.

Putting everything together, including Huey’s account, Maiza had a picture of what had happened.

Huey Laforet had—unbelievably, in Maiza’s view—spent the whole year ingratiating himself with the House of Dormentaire, Monica’s enemies, and had gained generous funding and influence.

After that, although Maiza didn’t know what the circumstances had been, Lucrezia de Dormentaire had needed to publicly fake her own death. She’d chosen to do it in Lotto Valentino, a place which was a singularity both for the House of Dormentaire and for all the countries of Europe.

Szilard and Huey had planted gunpowder all over, carefully ensuring that no lives would be lost, and perpetrated the bombings to feign the return of the Mask Makers.

Then, when Lucrezia de Dormentaire visited the city for pleasure, her ship was destroyed and sunk with a clockwork explosive device. The widespread assumption that the Mask Makers had killed her had been part of the plan. Lucrezia and the others on the ship had evacuated at the previous port of call; the vessel had been piloted by a skeleton crew, who had transferred to the Advena Avis out on the ocean, waited for the right wind, then set up the clockwork bomb and sent the unmanned ship sailing toward the port.

After that, they only had to wait for the explosion, then enter port as sailors on the Advena Avis, feigning ignorance. All according to plan.

This meant the financial concern that had sent the Advena Avis here had also been in on the plan, although he didn’t know whether the transaction was monetary or political.

They’d all been in on it together.

Ultimately, the serial bombings today were meant to conclude the scenario: Even as the Mask Makers struck the town of Lotto Valentino with one last, fierce onslaught, the House of Dormentaire succeeded in obliterating them. Exhausted from the fight and having avenged Lucrezia, the House of Dormentaire took the opportunity to superficially withdraw. From this point on, they would grasp the sum of the alchemists’ knowledge in more subtle ways.

The fire on the maritime fortress had been Szilard’s doing. After becoming a “victim” by bombing his own room, he had traveled all over it at will, supposedly investigating entry routes, and used that opportunity to plant bombs.

Had Dalton and the others known about this as well? Were they in on it, too? For a moment, that question crossed Maiza’s mind—but he decided not to think about it. Doubting them would only make him angry and waste his energy.

If I want to change the world, must I overcome these absurd twists of fate as well?

Perhaps the absurd power of immortality is an effective way to fight against such an equally absurd power.

Even as he thought that, Maiza remembered the hometown he’d already put behind him. Lucrezia de Dormentaire had destroyed the place where he’d been born, and he couldn’t easily forgive her for what she’d done.

However, Gretto and Sylvie had been saved, and his astonishment at what Huey had done had quelled about half of that anger.

Huey… What on earth happened to him?

Maiza really couldn’t believe it.

Hadn’t the Dormentaires taken his beloved Monica’s life? Why was he cooperating with them?

He considered the possibility that Huey had only pretended to cooperate and was planning to bring down the House of Dormentaire from the inside.

But when Maiza looked at him, it really did seem as though the word revenge couldn’t have been farther from his mind.

I simply realized that avenging Monica wouldn’t bring her back.

That was what Huey himself had said, but was it possible to be so rational about something like this? How much conflict and despair had he endured over the course of this past year?

…And where could he have found his hope?

Maiza tried to deduce the contents of Huey’s empty year—then gave up, realizing it was useless.

Even if he managed to gain eternity, that didn’t give him the ability to know a whole year from someone else’s life.

Immortality isn’t all-powerful, he warned himself as he let his thoughts run to the continent far across the sea—and to the distant edge of time.

“Well, well. If you have something as preposterous as a secret elixir of immortality, I wish you’d hurry up and show it to me,” Szilard said to Maiza as he leaned on the ship’s gunwale, brooding about something.

One of the alchemists raised an objection to Szilard’s condescending tone. “Now, wait just a moment. You and Victor should get off at our next port of call. Huey and Elmer, too! The only ones allowed to participate in the experiment are the ones whose names are on the passenger list. That was the arrangement! We need to know exactly who becomes immortal!”

The surrounding alchemists spoke up in agreement.

However, Huey and the other latecomers hardly reacted. If Victor had been there, he would probably have responded in kind and started a fight, but he was still unconscious in the storeroom.

“Maiza, didn’t Dalton give you something?”

“Hmm?”

At Huey’s question, Maiza remembered he’d been given an envelope just before boarding the ship, with instructions to open it once they were safely out of port.

He promptly retrieved it from his luggage, and when he opened it—he found a list of additional passengers, with the names Huey Laforet, Elmer C. Albatross, Szilard Quates, and even Victor Talbot on it.

After the alchemists saw that, they couldn’t toss them off the ship. With the same doubt Maiza had felt earlier, they whispered among themselves and wondered how much Dalton had known.

Even now, I’m still at the mercy of the wills of others? Maiza sighed, ashamed of his own weakness. I believed if I had enough time, even I might be able to change, but…

Huey became like another person in a single year, while Elmer may never change at all. There are all different kinds.

Does that mean that change depends not on time but entirely on your own determination?

Pulling himself together again, Maiza let his thoughts drift to the day of the ritual of their voyage.

No one knew what would happen following that ritual.

And the ship quietly rode the waves…carrying a malicious, pitch-black heart on board.

Fermet—whose mind was whirling with innocent malevolence—was at the stern of the ship, gazing at a pocket watch.

Czes had woken up and was having fun exploring the ship with Begg.

The boy kept a smile on his face, desperately trying to hide his fears about the voyage and the new land. Fermet wanted to watch him more like this—but now, with his watch in one hand, he was filling his mind with countless fantasies.

Ahh, it’s almost time. Almost time.

I wonder how she’s reacting. I wonder what she’s feeling.

I wish I could see it for myself…and that I can’t is my greatest regret, Niki.

Lotto Valentino The port

“Oh, I really wish you wouldn’t be so angry, Carla dear,” Lucrezia sulked.

“Don’t toy with me, please!” Carla barked back angrily.

After she’d learned the truth of the situation, Carla’s tears of joy had transformed into furious anger.

“What on earth were you thinking?! How much trouble do you think that plan of yours has caused this town?! Many people have been hurt! The damage from the explosions today alone… Oh, for the love of—!”

“Well, in his letters to me, dear Victor wrote almost daily that the people in this town were bastards, darling. I thought it might serve them right if we singed them a little.”

“Enough! There are more wounded among the Dormentaire troops! More importantly, what were you going to do if you’d hurt children? Or visitors who’d come to see the libraries?! Do you have any idea how terrified the alchemists who’ve left town must feel?!”

Carla’s anger was perfectly natural, but Lucrezia’s face was shining as she turned toward her guard.

“Oh, that was all part of our plan. Lotto Valentino is a town for the alchemists, as you may recall. So I thought it might be best for everyone if we dispersed the people after we had control of their knowledge, before other nobles or countries could step in. Really, this incident was a very minor one for my family, you know. Why all this anger?”

Her mistress cocked her head, looking puzzled as Carla shouted at her furiously.

“You cannot plunder a town and call it minor! Yes, Lady Lucrezia, I will do everything in my power to bring you what you desire, even if I must be reviled as a villain. However, there is no need for you to do evil personally and deceive me, as you did this time! Do you have any idea how much I worried…?”

Just as her true feelings nearly slipped out—

—dull, percussive noises echoed from all over town.

“…What?! More bombs?”

“That’s odd, isn’t it? It should be over by now.”

“There, you see?! Not everything goes the way you want it to, Lady Lucrezia!”

Carla went on lecturing her mistress, while the eminent noblewoman who had been officially killed sniffled.

They didn’t know.

In the shadow of those last explosions—a tragedy had been born.

Ten minutes earlier The subbasement of an abandoned building, somewhere in Lotto Valentino

“…This place is full of memories,” Niki murmured.

She had stepped into a room brimming over with glittering false gold, like the inside of a pirate’s treasure chest.

She had been here just once before, back in 1705. After Elmer and his friends had saved her and burned the ship where the drug was being manufactured—just once, she’d been brought to this room. It was where she’d learned the secret of the Mask Maker, Monica Campanella.

It had been Huey’s safe house originally, but after Elmer and Monica had also begun using it, the place had become a hideout for the Mask Makers. At its largest, the Mask Maker organization had had several hundred members, but as far as she knew, only the four of them had known about this place.

She took a look at her pocket watch and closed her eyes, slowly remembering what Fermet had told her.

Niki, I’ll tell you the spot you should flee to when your work is done.

That was what Fermet had told her when she’d insisted she would be the decoy.

This is…something Elmer told me about, when I told him I planned to act as a decoy. He told me it’s a safe place to hide in an absolute emergency.

Then he’d told her about the safe house, which she happened to already know.

Niki had thought Elmer had always been planning to board the Advena Avis, like Fermet’s group, and so she’d believed those words without question. If she hadn’t been in love with Fermet, if she’d listened to those words with a level head, she might have noticed the inconsistency.

No matter what Fermet had said to Elmer, Elmer would have volunteered to be the decoy himself. Why hadn’t he stopped Fermet from taking that job?

Anyone who knew Elmer well would have wondered, but Niki never thought of it.

And that was what brought tragedy down on her.

Although, even if she had divined Fermet’s malicious intent, her love for him still would have invited tragedy.

“…?”

She heard a sound overhead, and then the footsteps and voices of several men. Someone had come down into the first basement, above her.

Just to be safe, Niki extinguished several lights, then listened to the voices from upstairs in the dark.

“Did he really come in here?”

When Niki heard that menacing voice, her heart almost stopped.

She’d heard it frequently five years ago—it belonged to the large bald man who’d called himself her foster parent.

She’d bashed him with a chair and knocked him away when they burned the drug workshop on the ship, and she hadn’t seen him since. She’d heard that he’d been arrested by the lord, but apparently he’d been released.

“I saw him run into this abandoned building. Just as our informant said he would.”

“Who’d have thought the Mask Makers had a hideout here…?”

“If we catch him, the Dormentaires might pay us a bounty.”

She recognized all the voices.

They belonged to her former “employers,” who had forced her and the other children to slave away making drugs.

Why? Why are they here?!

Her heart shrieked in a viselike grip of terror.

The past she’d nearly forgotten flooded back with a chorus of screams in her mind. As if they were trying to make her panic, the men overhead were noisily searching for something with heavy footfalls as they talked about the Mask Makers.

“I can’t believe our luck. I thought it was hogwash; it’s a good thing we kept an eye out.”

“If it’s their hideout, won’t their whole trove of counterfeit gold be there, too?”

“Most likely… I bet there’s a mountain of it. Maybe they bought some real gold to store here with all the money they earned with the false gold.”

“Damn, what a complicated plan. Well, let’s keep looking.”

“The Mask Maker looked like a kid to me. Or maybe a woman.”

“Huh. If it’s a woman, we can have some fun with her before we slaughter her.”

What on earth is going on?

They were watching this place?

Who told them about it?

Huey? Or Elmer?

Who? Another name came to mind in response to that question—but her heart refused to acknowledge it, and she focused all her attention on finding a way out of her current situation.

Something… Something I can use…

Since she only had the light of one candle left, she very nearly had to search by feel.

If they had that many people looking, it wouldn’t take them long to find the hidden door that led to this subbasement.

I have to hurry…

An object seemed to leap out at her: a wooden box placed prominently in the midst of the false gold, with several black spheres inside it.

Strangely—the black spheres had clocks bound to them, with shafts that extended from the gears of the clocks into the interiors of the spheres.

The moment she saw them, it hit her. These might be the clockwork bombs the people at the studio had been gossiping about. Were these the ones the bomber had been using, that exploded when a set time came?

And then she realized—all the clocks attached to the black spheres were moving.

Niki felt cold sweat break out all over her body.

After all this time looking for her place to die, she had found a mass of death right in front of her. All her hair stood on end.

These are going to…explode? When? How much time is left?!

So Huey really was behind these incidents?

Why now? Why would he blow this place up?!

Who set these? Who told those men about this place?

Who? Who? Who? Who? Who?

Huey? Elmer? Or…Fermet…?

The questions rose and vanished in her mind, but she had no conclusive evidence for any of the answers.

Elmer told Fermet about this place…

Was he trying to kill Fermet? Why?

No. That’s not possible. Elmer would never, ever do that.

Fermet isn’t the kind of person anyone would have a grudge against, either.

Then who? Who? Who? Who?

No, that can’t be—it wasn’t anybody! If I’ve got time to doubt…I need to think of a way to escape, or else…

If she stayed in the basement, she’d die in the explosion.

If the men upstairs came down here before the explosion, she’d die then, too.

If she went up to the first basement in an attempt to escape, they’d catch her and kill her.

The more calmly Niki thought about it, the more aware of her own death she became.

If she had any chance at all, it lay in the possibility the men might fail to find the hidden door, give up, and leave before the explosion. That, or the possibility that she could break through the group of men upstairs on her own and make a getaway.

However, even Niki knew those were empty dreams.

Despair painted her heart a deep, dark black.

Oh, I see.

She realized.

It’s here, then.

The place she’d thought she was looking for. But it had never been something she could find herself. It was always meant to find her.

This…is my place to die.

The moment Niki had that thought, she realized all her impatience and fear had disappeared.

Slowly, she picked up the box that held the clockwork bombs, then gently set it down at the top of the stairs that led to the upper basement. The men would probably find it the moment they discovered the secret door to this basement.

She’d done it to scare them; she hadn’t had the slightest thought of distancing herself from the bombs.

If she was going to be blown up anyway, she wanted to be sure she took that scum with her. That was her only reason.

I used to think they didn’t matter to me at all, but…

…maybe I really did resent them, all this time.

Or maybe…I just want company on this journey.

Mildly surprised by her own pettiness, she quietly walked to the back of a dead-end passage in the second basement.

Maybe they’d planned to make a room, then decided against it. She sat down at the back of that dark, rough-hewn passage beyond the light of the candle, quietly closed her eyes, and thought to herself.

Had she managed to change, ultimately?

Had she grown stronger?

Have I found the right place to die?

In the depths of a dark, dark passage, with nowhere left to go, aware of the countless murderous intents bearing down on her—the girl wondered about these things, quietly, as death came closer.

The answer to her question didn’t present itself.

Even so, she was satisfied.

Whatever she was, it didn’t matter now.

This is my place to die.

But, at the end…I found a way to live for someone else’s sake…for Fermet, didn’t I?

If this is the result, then it means this is the place I chose to die.

She was just happy she’d been able to form a connection with someone.

None of it matters now. I don’t care who told them about this place. I don’t care who set the bombs.

Whether it was Fermet, or Elmer, or Huey.

Even if all three of them hated me all this time, I don’t mind.

It’s strange. I’m getting less and less scared of dying.

She continued to think.

I wonder if Monica felt this way, too… I wonder if she felt connected to Huey.

Elmer had told her how her friend, her benefactor, had died.

I wonder if that’s why she was able to die smiling.

I wonder if I’ll be able to die smiling now.

The girl was wearing a mask.

Ultimately, she had left no major impact on the world, but she took pride in being able to become a Mask Maker, even temporarily.

As death steadily closed in on her, she at least wanted to die in a way she could be proud of.

She once believed it was the Mask Makers that had been her place to die—and remembering that made her realize something.

Oh. How silly… This is just how it was to begin with.

Six years ago, as one of the Mask Makers, she’d been fated to be killed by another Mask Maker. As she remembered her past self—Niki began to feel more at peace.

Maybe the oppressive sense of death she felt in that dark space had reminded her of the past.

I see.

I’ve only gone back to the past. That’s why it’s not scary.

I’m alone again…no different than I was before.

Six years ago, she’d accepted death constantly this way.

Oh… I haven’t changed at all, not one little bit.

I really couldn’t be like Monica.

I can’t smile the way she did.

I’m glad I have this mask.

I’m really glad.

Niki’s calm heart trembled a little—and she pressed the mask against her face, tightly.

After all, I don’t want anyone to see I died crying.

I do want to smile.

I’ve found my place to die. I want to die smiling, and yet…

I’m sorry, Elmer.

That was when she realized something with a jolt.

I should be thinking about Fermet, not Elmer.

I need to apologize to Fermet.

I’m such a fool.

This is why…I’m… I…

Before long, she heard the sound of the hidden door opening.

Then angry yells from the men.

A soft click.

And then—

The Advena Avis

“It’s probably exploding right about now, don’t you think?” Elmer said, glancing at his pocket watch.

“…Yes, probably,” Huey responded indifferently.

“What a waste. That hideout still had plenty of valuables in it.”

“That’s all right. I decided to erase all traces of the Mask Makers from the town.”

“But that doesn’t mean you had to blow it up.”

“It’s best if it’s completely gone. You were the one who wanted to keep Niki away from there when she came back to town. You didn’t want people to think she was a Mask Maker, remember?”

“Well, yes, but still.”

Elmer and Huey were conversing quietly enough that no one else could hear them.

However, the person watching them from a distance guessed the content of their conversation with almost perfect accuracy.

Lebreau Fermet Viralesque.

Ever since Elmer had brought Sylvie to the Meyer residence, something had been nettling him. The feeling was vague and unobtrusive, but he’d sensed a peculiar danger in this Elmer C. Albatross fellow.

Come to think of it, his presence was why Huey’s actions a year ago had deviated from what he’d anticipated.

Supremely wary of him, Fermet had been trailing Elmer—and seen him go into a certain abandoned building. Fermet had followed him inside and overheard their conversation in the hideout downstairs—including their plans to blow the place up on the day they left town on the ship.

It was a simple matter to lure Niki there, and just as simple to have the townspeople watch the hideout and block her escape.

Ahh. Niki, Niki.

Calling the girl’s name over and over in his heart, Fermet smiled quietly.

You really were wonderful.

When he’d realized Niki was attracted to him, Fermet had been genuinely happy. She was a lovely person, both inside and out. As a lover, few girls would be as suitable as she was.

As a matter of fact, Fermet had already grown fond of Niki. After surviving years of despair, she had found a hope that would allow her to live.

How tremendously touching.

Fermet decided to love her from the bottom of his heart.

He wanted to see everything about her. Everything, from the first blush of love to the moment it all turned to despair.

Oh, I wonder what you’re doing now. Did you die in the explosion? Did the men kill you? Did you survive through a stroke of fortune? Do you loathe me utterly now?

Or do you hate Elmer or Huey instead?

Out here, I can’t even tell whether you’re dead or alive.

He imagined dozens, no, hundreds, of fates for Niki.

He created fantasy after fantasy, everything from a future in which miracle upon miracle had occurred and she lived happily as the wife of the lord, to one where the explosion hadn’t killed her completely and her body was slowly consumed by maggots until her last breath.

The possibilities were endless.

Calming his excited heart, Fermet slowly considered what would happen after he’d been reborn as an immortal at the end of this journey.

Oh, there’s no meaning in becoming immortal all on my own.

My dear ones must become eternal with me.

That way…I’ll be able to break them and cherish them again and again.

The future held infinite possibility.

Imagining a vast map of that future, Fermet smiled quietly. His smile was pure and untainted as he gazed out over the ocean, all alone.

Praying that this ship’s destination would hold hopes without end.

And so the ship sailed westward—in order to summon a demon, to obtain the liquor of immortality.

Slowly, the Advena Avis forged through the waves.

Toward the place where the spectacular, centuries-long ruckus would begin.

Unaware that it was carrying a man more evil than any demon.