Chapter 12
THE DAY AFTER Johan’s timely rescue, Mira and the gang got to work just after sunrise. Scorpion and Snake left to investigate the black mist ore weapons Johan had seen. As for Mira, she escorted Johan, his family, and Millene through the wasteland as promised. Though she had a large group with her, as long as Mira dipped into her vast pool of mana, she could deploy optical camouflage at a larger radius than total concealment. This allowed Wasranvel’s synergy with other summons to really shine.
Johan’s family and Millene rode on the back of Guardian Ash, a gray bear, while Mira and Wasranvel rode Pegasus next to it. A bear and a winged horse ran through the wasteland at forty kilometers per hour, and not a soul saw them thanks to Wasranvel.
Along the way, Anne gushed over the bear and Pegasus. She even started complaining about how she wanted to ride the beautiful horse. Johan and Angelique seemed apologetic, but Mira gladly allowed it. She didn’t mind one bit; this was Anne’s first outing in years, after all.
A few hours later, the group arrived at the meeting place Uzume had arranged. They dismounted and relaxed, as if merely out on a picnic.
***
Mira and Johan’s group had waited for less than an hour when it finally descended from the skies. Johan and Angelique looked up, stunned.
“Ooh, that’s awesome… I’ve never seen anything like it,” Johan said in amazement.
“The outside world has changed so much! It’s like a god coming down from the heavens…” Angelique added.
A wooden ship, about thirty meters in length, had sailed down from above. How could they not be surprised?
“These last few days feel like a long dream…” Millene grinned uneasily at the flying ship, finally giving in to the mental fatigue of recent events.
Meanwhile, Anne was clearly still excited. “It’s so big!”
“Oho! Could this be one of those airships?” Mira knew of their existence only from the rumors Cyril had shared with her. Seeing one in person was something else; her heart danced for joy at the appearance of this fantasy flying contraption. She looked up at the sky with eyes sparkling.
“That is correct! This is the Isuzu Alliance’s pride and joy, our own spirit airship!” Kagura’s voice issued from Tweetsuke, who was still perched on Mira’s head. Though Mira didn’t ask, Kagura continued, “Bet you’re wondering why it’s a ‘spirit’ airship, riiight?” Kagura claimed that normal airships created through technomancy operated using mobility stones and specially refined fuel. However, the Isuzu Alliance’s own individually developed airship flew through the air on the power of spirits alone.
Kagura suddenly switched places with Tweetsuke. She added as she appeared, gazing up at the landing spirit airship, “This ship was made a reality only through the deepest cooperation between humans and spirits. One might call it a symbol of the Isuzu Alliance’s ideal future.” Though she was clearly proud, there was a hint of melancholy in her eyes. She seemed to be looking past the ship, perhaps remembering someone.
***
“Mira, thank you for everything,” Johan said.
“Let the other girls know we appreciate them too,” Angelique thanked her and the couple stepped onto the airship. Along the way, Anne turned and waved.
“Bye-bye!” Mira smiled and watched as the four departed.
Kagura turned to Mira. “We’ll keep Johan and the others safe at the base. Good luck finding their HQ, Gramps.”
“Indeed. Are your preparations going smoothly?”
“We’ve always been ready and waiting for the final battle. I’ve already sent a few teams out. Making weapons to fight black mist ore is still a problem, but once Johan arrives, I’m sure we’ll have that one solved in no time. All that’s left is to give this battle all we’ve got.”
“I see. Sounds like you’re doing just fine. Well, I’ll see you on the day of battle.”
“Yeah. On the day of battle…”
The two held out their fists and declared at the same time, “For victory!” Those were once parting words used among the Nine Wise Men on the day before a major battle. It was essentially a unique way of praying for victory, but as Soul Howl was the one who’d come up with it, Mira could never shake off the feeling that it was a little too hammy.
This was their first time performing the gesture between only two people. In this rather relaxed mood, with none of the other Wise Men present, Mira and Kagura started to laugh.
Each left for their own destinations. Before long, light glowed once again behind Mira and Tweetsuke returned to its perch atop her head.
***
“Scorpion, Snake. The rest is up to you,” Mira murmured to herself as she and Pegasus soared through the skies above Irene. She turned Pegasus back toward Sentopoli.
The job of the two Hidden was to dig up the final evidence needed to link Chimera and Melville. It was out of Mira’s hands now. With the hand-off of Johan’s family complete, Scorpion and Snake would want her to focus on finding Chimera’s headquarters. She knew from experience that their skills were trustworthy. As such, she could leave this place to them without worry.
The moment she was back in Sentopoli, Mira would join the others there in their search for any entrances to Chimera’s headquarters.
***
Two days later, they hit the jackpot—thanks to Zef, of all people. He had contacted a government employee working at one of the national government facilities. The employee had complained to him about the daily stress of his job, so Zef had taken him out for drinks, gotten the poor guy drunk, and then pried out some secrets about the facility he worked at.
Among those secrets was the source of the man’s fatigue: a particular secretary to a certain bureaucrat. Said bureaucrat would show up at the facility as unexpectedly as the Spanish Inquisition, so one could never rest easy.
All of Sentopoli’s publicly known bureaucrats were merely props. They didn’t know about their own connection to Chimera Clausen; they simply believed they were doing what was best for their country. It would be wrong to do them any harm, and of course, they should know nothing about the entrances that Mira and the others were searching for.
But Zef found this fishy. The secretary would randomly appear in the building. How did he get there? A secret entrance, perhaps?
When that question came to mind, Zef suddenly had a flash of inspiration. If there was a secret entrance in that building, then who could freely go in and out without raising suspicion? On top of that, who could enter places that most people could not, at any time of day, without being questioned? The people who knew of the entrances couldn’t be the bureaucrats themselves, but they would be close. For example…a bureaucrat’s secretary.
Zef had probed for this irritating secretary’s name. His name was Thomas, and he worked under the Minister of Finance, Oswald. It was highly likely that Thomas knew where the entrance leading to Chimera Clausen’s headquarters was. Thus, Mira and Zef had decided to tail Thomas in his comings and goings the next day.
Even without the perfect cover of total concealment, optical camouflage was an incredible ability. Mira and Zef managed to find their target within the building in no time: a man with the look of an especially serious office worker. Mira discerned at a glance that the man was carrying multiple pieces of yin spirit gear. Based on this, it was clear that he was involved with Chimera.
That night, as Mira and Zef watched, the man stepped into a forbidden area and used an unknown contraption to open a cleverly hidden door. He stepped inside.
And with that, they’d succeeded in finding the location of one of the entrances.
“More hidden doors, hm?” Mira muttered to herself as she smirked at their success.
***
The next day, Mira and the others held a meeting regarding their strategy going forward. Uzume switched places with Tweetsuke again to attend. There were two major topics of discussion: who would charge in and who would serve as detached forces.
The former would be a small, focused group of elites consisting of Mira, Uzume, and Cyril. This was partially due to mobility concerns; the large, rocky mountain that housed Chimera Clausen’s headquarters was thirty kilometers east of Sentopoli. They would need to cross this distance in a short time. Mira had Pegasus, and Uzume had shikigami that could be used for high-speed travel. As for Cyril, he had trained himself to specialize in speed, so he could run thirty kilometers in just thirty minutes.
But of course, the most important factor was strength. Cyril had once said that Mira was stronger than him, and Mira claimed that Uzume was her equal. Emella and the others were far too behind Cyril in strength to keep up with these two. They would only drag Mira and Uzume down.
With that decided, Aaron and the rest of Écarlate Carillon would lead mobile detached forces. Nobody protested, though Flicker was clearly a bit bummed that she wouldn’t get to go with Mira. Their job would be to assist the Isuzu Alliance’s First Company in taking down the control center. First Company would be led by Bellerophon Battalion leader Mizar and staff officer Alioth, along with Multicolor Platoon leader Diamond.
According to Jamal, the control center in the village had a defense force stationed there due to how vital it was to Chimera Clausen’s operation. Moreover, Zell Schedal had spent the past several months developing something underground there. As their main developer and the man who’d produced so many spirit weapons, there was a high possibility that he had something big in the works.
Aaron’s mobile detached force was positioned to be a reserve in case of emergency.
Uzume declared that she would devote half of the Isuzu Alliance’s combat capabilities to this mission. The other half of them—Second Company—would charge in from the entrance after Mira’s group infiltrated, in order to ensure that all foes in the vicinity were dealt with.
With the broad strokes complete, the meeting moved into more specific details of each team’s mission. Mira, Uzume, and Cyril’s mission was the most vague. Their plan was simply “respond to the situation as it develops”—but considering how capable they were, perhaps that was the best strategy for them.
Instead of worrying about these three, the group spent the bulk of this time working out the specifics of the detached force’s mission. After all, they planned to attack a vital outpost of a massive organization; it was necessary to get everything nailed down. The Skyfolk man was an unpredictable variable, and they didn’t know the route to the tuner due to Jamal’s lack of familiarity with the inside of the base. They would have to carefully work through every detail to ensure the force was ready for anything.
The First Company of Isuzu elites and the detached force led by Emella were to seize the control room and neutralize HQ’s defenses. If they failed, Chimera’s defenses around their headquarters would be too strong, and it would take too long to conquer the facility. Mira and the others would be rampaging throughout the base. Considering how careful Chimera’s elites were, they would probably try to flee the instant they felt like they were at a disadvantage. Worse, they might even have some self-destruct option. For the sake of cornering Chimera swiftly, seizing the control center was a vital part of the plan.
***
Just as the hours-long meeting finally began to wrap up…
“All right! It sounds like the plan is set. How about I give you those weapons you’ll need?” Uzume stood up triumphantly, retrieved a large case from her Item Box, and plunked it down onto the table.
“Could it be…?!” Emella piped up first. Days ago, Uzume had offered to have special weapons made for them to help fight off the black mist ore. As a lover of swords, Emella couldn’t wait to see the weapons.
“The weapons we made for everyone are ready, so I brought them with me. They may be made to fight Chimera, but honestly, I think they’re just as good as any other weapons!” Apparently quite proud of her connections, Uzume confidently opened the case. Inside was a weapon for every person there, each one as white as snow.
“Whoa! Awesome…” Emella leaned over the table. Her heart was immediately stolen by their beauty.
Zef reached out before the enraptured Emella and gazed at the white dagger in the box. It was worthy of being called an angelic weapon. He muttered, “They sure do look special.”
Everyone took their weapon in hand. Emella returned to her senses and was the last to retrieve hers.
“They made all of these awesome weapons in just a few days… You must have so many skilled blacksmiths!” Emella narrowed her eyes and grinned maniacally at her blade.
The weapons Uzume brought were all beautifully made. They were truly the masterpieces of first-rate artisans. Their construction, honed perfectly for their purpose, made them look almost like art pieces when combined with their pure whiteness. As Emella had said, one would need a large team of first-rate blacksmiths working around the clock to make so many of these in so little time. But Uzume’s proud grin grew broader. She declared, “Only two people were involved in the making of these weapons!”
“Now, that’s incredible,” Asval mused, impressed.
“Just two people?! How?! Who?!” The sword had set Emella’s soul aflame. She’d believed it impossible to make such pieces without an army of first-rate smiths, and yet two people alone had done it. That must have meant that they were truly the cream of the crop. “What are their names?! What do they specialize in?! Mithril? Or adamantine?!”
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you! Just let me go!” Uzume, who had foolishly triggered Emella’s berserk mode, shrunk away. This woman was more terrifying than any monster or fiend.
Once Flicker had calmed Emella down, Uzume spoke two names—though she remained wary of her attacker. One of these names was already known to everyone present. “Albatinus was the one who made Mira and Flicker’s staves. I’m sure you remember that name.”
Albatinus, an alchemist who’d become a living legend. It seemed he was well-versed in creating staves and magical tools, on top of his ability to synthesize materials.
Emella jumped out of her seat. “What about the blade?!” She could tell Uzume was about to say something incredible.
Uzume’s cheek twitched slightly, but she still managed to puff out her chest and say the smith’s name: “The dwarven blacksmith, Dvalin!”
Emella squealed and fell to the ground, boneless. She had fainted.
Uzume was…shocked, to say the least. Mira likewise stared, astounded, as Flicker tried to wake Emella up. The swordswoman wore a blissful smile, as if she’d received the highest blessing in all the world. She was as peaceful as the bodhisattva.
Mira silently put her palms together in prayer.
As one might understand from Emella’s reaction, the dwarven blacksmith Dvalin was one of the best blacksmiths in the world. As someone who’d sat at the pinnacle of his profession for many long years, he was a true living legend.
Cyril and Asval were surprised as well, if not to the same degree as Emella. However, their surprise was not because the man known as Dvalin had forged the sword; they were more surprised at Isuzu’s ability to take two living legends under their umbrella.
Uzume decided to ignore Emella’s collapse and told the group to pass instructions on to her later. She proceeded to give everyone a rundown on these anti-black-mist-ore weapons—now dubbed the Alabaster Oni-Slayer series.
“I couldn’t get sheaths made in time, but everyone here can use Item Boxes, right? So it’s fine. Okay, instruction time! This is all secondhand from Albatinus and Dvalin, but basically…”
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