Chapter 456

Six hours ago, Giesing.

Startled by the thunderous roar, Ulrike jerked his head up. A streak of blue shot into the black sky. The glass-like wall of mana stretching all the way to the sky cracked, then shattered into pieces before he could even blink.

[A 1st Grade contamination has occurred at Stadelheim Prison in Giesing. Repeating, a 1st Grade contamination…]

An alarm rang throughout central Munich, and lights began flickering on in the buildings in the distance. Ulrike hurriedly turned his head toward where Stadelheim Prison should be.

“Julia. That—!”

“Let’s go. We have to get there now.”

Julia, who had been waiting with him, waved him over and ran toward the prison.

‘Could this be… the work of the culprit Lukas was talking about?’

Had they noticed us lying in wait here and caused all this? But if the culprit had appeared somewhere around here, Leo and his subordinates would have contacted us.

— [101st, do not separate from the divine power mage currently beside you. Once the initial containment is complete, move into the prison. Hohenzollern–Askanien will handle the inside, while Zähringen–Kleist handles the victims who escaped outside.]

Leo’s instructions came through. In the distance, flashes of divine power erupted. Everything was a blur of noise and movement, and Ulrike’s heart pounded in his chest. He ran with his eyes fixed ahead and whispered, “Thank goodness His Excellency Ernst is here.”

“Hmm. Yeah.”

Ulrike understood why Julia wasn’t reacting more dramatically. No matter how strong a divine power mage he might be, a large-scale rampage incident of this magnitude had to be a first. It didn’t look like one person could possibly purify this vast area and all the vitriol pouring through it.

Police gradually began arriving from all around them. Julia condensed his bright yellow mana into a sphere and sent them all flying somewhere. Then he said, “Since we have to stop the people escaping outside, Luise, I’ll detect the Rampagers from a distance and hold them down for a while. We can release them one at a time and subdue them.”

“Okay.”

It had already begun. Julia changed his wand into a staff, struck the ground with it, then swung it upward as though pulling on a line connected to something in the distance. A sphere came flying toward them. A gust of wind suddenly brushed the back of Ulrike’s neck. He changed his wand into a sword and spun around. Several strands of vitriol were flying toward him from a Rampager charging at them from a distance.

By the time Julia turned around, Ulrike’s sword had already knocked away every strand of vitriol. Agility was one thing he was confident in. Lowering his body, Ulrike charged straight at the vitriol flying toward him again. Another mass of pitch-black mud came rushing in from behind him. Ulrike spun around, knocked the attack away, and planted his feet on the ground. A human-shaped mass of mud stood right in front of him.

Crack—

His sword sank into the vitriol. A green light bursts through the mud, drawing a line through it.

— Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you.

The person collapses. Ulrike sends his sword flying toward another person.

‘So this can happen, too.’

Ulrike drew his sword back toward himself and wiped the sweat running down his chin. More explosions continued to erupt inside the prison walls. Once one or two people properly went on a rampage, it was only natural for the rampage to spread like wildfire in a confined place like this. Hundreds of screams and whistles, constant orders coming through his ears, the sky flashing bright as if struck by lightning before darkening again. Strange talk about the Messenger of the Covenant and Heike’s soul… Everything tangled together in his head.

And this had to happen on the very day they came looking for the person who had taken Heike’s soul.

Everything had become unclear. More than anything, the fact that the dozens, even hundreds, of people running out while screaming were all going berserk made every hair on his body stand on end.

Ulrike drew his sword and leaped forward, speaking quietly to Julia.

“Is this how the end is finally coming?”

— [That’s a pretty grim assessment.]

“There hasn’t been a day in April that wasn’t grim.”

“…….”

Once the words were out, the silence felt unbearably heavy. Ulrike furrowed his brow, ducked beneath a Rampager’s fist, and swung his sword again as he spoke.

“…What I mean is, even if it’s not about Heike, we’ve been living in a state of near-war ever since the day we were selected for the 101st Unit….”

— [I know. Our team was formed because of the problems of our time, wasn’t it?]

“…….”

His friend knew exactly what he meant, yet still went along with him. Ulrike knew that, too.

He never expected to hear something like we were born in the wrong era from Julia Zähringen. He had no basis for thinking that, but somehow, Julia had always seemed like the kind of person who wouldn’t say something like that.

Were they really born in the wrong era?

Come to think of it, their people had gone through two major wars, and there had been the battle in Alsace-Lorraine not long ago, too. When he learned about them in history class, he had never thought much of it. He had always thought of them as someone else’s problems.

But maybe they really were our problems, too….

— [Or maybe they’re problems for humanity as a whole. What do you think?]

“I don’t know.”

Deep thoughts might suit friends like Lukas or Elias, who were unexpectedly not very talkative, but they didn’t suit Ulrike himself. At least, that’s what he thought. Until now, he’d only ever worried about things like waiting for the newest board game to come out, figuring out how many days before an exam he needed to start studying to stay in first place, or wondering whether he should let his friends try the wine he’d had at home during the holidays.

Logical thinking wasn’t really his strong suit, but he knew what he was feeling.

They were simply being used up. Whether it was a problem with the times or a problem with humanity, Ulrike couldn’t help but think that, in all of this, people had been reduced to little more than expendable resources. At least, that was how it seemed the adults among the privileged thought of them.

Death was this close, yet once everything was over, it became nothing more than a number.

185,000 casualties in the Franco-Prussian War.

Statistics didn’t seem to reflect that the worlds of 185,000 people had ended that day. Their school had taught them to take comfort in the fact that only 45,000 Prussians had died, while as many as 140,000 Austrians had perished. So busy were they with stripping away that single layer of ideology that, until today, even when they felt sorry for the 180,000 lives listed in those statistics, they’d never stopped to think about what those numbers actually meant.

But now Ulrike understood.

He beheaded a Rampager and whispered, “It feels like these people, and me, are becoming just another one of the soldiers who died in the wars back then.”

Soon, it’ll happen to us, too. Would we really be any different from the teenagers and young adults who were born in those old times?

— [Of all things?]

Julia replied with a laugh.

Ulrike hadn’t felt like laughing until then, but hearing his friend laugh made him let out a small laugh of his own. At that moment, a Rampager grabbed his arm. Ulrike surrounded his body with mana, making green mana flare around him, then raised his arm, spun around, and kicked the Rampager away.

The occasional purification from the divine power mage made the fight a little easier. Ulrike glanced at his watch.

‘About fifteen minutes.’

Just then, Julia’s voice came through, accompanied by the sound of an impact.

— [I want to ask what you’re planning to do once we catch the culprit this time.]

Ulrike wondered whether they could really find the culprit now that the Stadelheim Prison had practically exploded, but he decided not to say it.

They said the culprit was one of Heike’s relatives. He was carrying Heike’s soul inside his body, and had hidden his true nature as well, so the only way to get Heike’s soul back was through a contract with that relative. Since they didn’t believe the relative would fully uphold his end of the bargain, they had agreed to use the contract to buy themselves some time and safely look for a solution on their own. During the discussion, his friends had seemed a little cautious, perhaps expecting Ulrike to object. But Ulrike thought differently. In fact, he agreed with them.

“I’ll do as we discussed. That’s what I think, too.”

— [No.]

No? Ulrike raised an eyebrow.

— [Before that. Once we find the culprit, our plan is over. There’ll be a difference between finding him and getting Heike’s soul back. What are you going to do then?]

“Oh.”

So that was what he meant.

Ulrike soon realized what his friend was getting at. He was helping him to change the subject of his thoughts. As Ulrike carried a fallen Rampager over to the police and doctors, he answered, “I haven’t thought about that. We’ll probably be assigned another guard duty somewhere.”

— [That sounds like you. But, Luise. How about you don’t think that far ahead?]

“…….”

— [Even if you die tomorrow, you can still spend today doing what you want to do. Of course, you should still do everything you can to make sure you don’t die tomorrow. But isn’t that what living is?]

Ulrike tilted his head and smiled at that. Honestly, the words didn’t really sink in. I want to be with my friends and seniors tomorrow, and the day after that, too. Is that being greedy? But if he had to answer—

“You know.”

— […….]

The sharp crack of something cutting through the air and the roar of explosions came one after another. Ulrike spoke in a clear voice.

“The magnolias haven’t fallen yet, have they?”

— [The magnolias in Berlin are already falling, but I think the rest are just starting to bloom.]

“Oh, right. I’d completely lost track of time.”

Ulrike ran his hand along his sword. A pale green glow shimmered along the thick blade.

“Let’s go find the magnolia that’s in full bloom right now.”

And then we’ll ask Narke and Leo to preserve it for us. When he said that, laughter came from the other side of the artifact. Julia slowly stopped laughing and answered in a calm voice.

— [That sounds nice.]

“Then we’ll go see the magnolias with everyone at dawn. And let’s go hide Easter eggs, too. We’re good at warping, so let’s hide them all over the country.”

— [That’s quite a scale.]

“And after we hide the eggs, how about we all go to my house? I want to help Lukas and Leo get closer.”

— [Hmm, Luise. It’d be nice to have an excuse to visit your estate, but I think those two are already close enough. You don’t need to help them.]

“I don’t think so.”

— [Didn’t they both tell you themselves that they’re already close? I really don’t think you need to worry about it…]

“…Really? Lukas and Leo have both been saying that, too…”

Hm?

As he spoke, Ulrike began to wonder. The corners of his mouth lifted as he narrowed his eyes. No, really? With Julia saying the same thing, Ulrike was starting to question his own perception. They didn’t look particularly close from the outside, but maybe they were so close that it somehow made them look otherwise? Was Leo just a little cold toward people he was close to?!

‘Nah…’

Ulrike felt like he’d have to see the two of them being close with his own eyes before he could believe it. How could they possibly be close when all they did was say boring things like, “You go report it,” to each other?

But as he thought of his friends, the despair he had felt earlier gradually faded away. For some reason, he found himself smiling.

“Thanks.”

Ulrike smiled as he wiped the vitriol off the barrier covering his face.

“Thinking about the things I want to do makes me feel a little… better.”

In truth, it wasn’t just a little. As he followed his friend’s advice and thought about those things, an inexplicable sense of anticipation slowly welled up inside him. Having vague hopes for the future had always been something Ulrike considered one of his strengths, and only now did he realize that he had spent all this time despairing because he had lost that part of himself. He was inwardly happier than he could put into words to feel like he had found the part of himself he had forgotten this month.

Julia was too busy fighting to answer. That was fine. Ulrike drew his sword again.

Rumble—

— [Hm?]

Julia’s voice came through. Then Ulrike could hardly believe his eyes. In the distance, a building was collapsing through the open gate in the barrier.

KRAAASH—!!

“…!”

Ulrike raised an arm to shield himself from the direction of the noise. White dust flew right up to his face. The collapsed building was one of the cell blocks where the prisoners lived, and surely, in there…

The moment he realized what had happened, his mouth fell open.

— […No.]

‘Not again…!’

BOOM!

Ulrike pushed off the ground. The muscles in his thighs pulled taut. A pair of arms seized both of his arms, but Ulrike yanked himself free. The mage he shook off was sent flying into the distance.

— [Elias! Leonard!]

Julia shouted in a voice louder than Ulrike had ever heard from him.

— [Lukas…!]

It had only been a short while since they had lost Heike. He told himself they hadn’t truly lost him, but Heike still hadn’t returned. And now, the same thing was about to happen again.

No. This was different.

Heike’s soul was safe somewhere in this world, but that wouldn’t be the case this time. This time, it would be real death.

Maybe they had grown too attached to each other. But whatever the case, they were fated to spend more than a hundred years together. Once they wiped Pleroma out, they would be able to stay together. They had countless chances ahead of them to grow closer, to learn more about each other. They couldn’t die in an accident like this before they even got the chance.

The building collapsed completely, leaving nothing standing. Ulrike made it inside the barrier and reached the enormous pile of rubble, but there was no one there. Strangely enough, there were no Rampagers either.

“…….”

Everyone had been beneath the building. No—were they even inside the building? There was an unnerving lack of any sign of life. Then what on earth…?

“Ugh….”

Ulrike’s head snapped up at the sound. Leo and a Bavarian mage lay bleeding in the distance, apparently struck by the rubble. Julia was beside them. Thankfully, Leo was here. Ulrike didn’t know whether he was alive or not, but he was here. Then what about the other two? Sir Nikolaus? The other divine power mages?

Rescue workers rushed toward them. Ulrike reached out toward the rubble.

“Careful! You need to get out!”

Ulrike shook off the mage trying to stop him. One person, then two, three, four—more and more people crowded around him. He held his ground and searched through the rubble with his hands. Then, at some point, they were all gone.

Ulrike felt a hand settle on his shoulder.

“Luise.”

There was no emotion in Julia’s voice. Ulrike knew he had deliberately shut everything out. It was almost astonishing that he could do that. Ulrike frantically poured mana into the rubble. There was no mana colliding with his. It wasn’t his imagination. There really was nothing. No one was in there. Then…

“The Crown Prince is still breathing!”

“We’ll move him immediately.”

Maybe the others were still alive somewhere else. The hand gripping his shoulder tightened.

“Luise.”

“I can’t sense any mana. They’ve all been moved somewhere else.”

“…That can’t be. There’s nothing underneath here.”

“Right. There shouldn’t be. But they were here.”

Ulrike’s eyes widened. He sprang to his feet and turned around.

“They definitely went there. But they’re not here!”

“…….”

Ulrike stared straight at Julia’s face and slowly opened his mouth. The blank expression on his face was no longer really blank. At least, that was how it looked to Ulrike.

Ulrike shook his head and stepped back. Only then did the twenty or so mages begin sweeping their wands around the rubble before reporting to the others. There were no bodies here. They couldn’t find any traces of a warp, either. They would clear the rubble first, just in case. One after another, those reports came in.

A moment later, they all chanted the same spell and pointed their wands at a chunk of stone.

‘…No. They definitely warped somewhere.’

They knew that much, too. The problem was that they couldn’t detect the mana left behind by the warp. They needed to trace the warp route, but if none of them could find it, they would have to look for another way.

What would my friends do in a situation like this? Once he thought about it that way, what he needed to do became clear. He had to find out who had caused a rampage incident of this scale.

Ulrike turned to a senior imperial mage nearby.

“I heard there were negotiations with Pleroma. Is the prisoner exchange route still connected?”

“What? Where did you hear that…? I can’t tell you.”

“It might be connected to what happened here. I won’t tell anyone, so please, just tell me!”

The mage looked troubled as he contacted someone. Soon, his expression relaxed slightly. Perhaps he had been given permission. After listening for a little longer, he turned straight to Ulrike.

“Yes. Apparently it is.”

It’s a dead end from the start. This whole mess had been caused by a rampage drug, and yet it seemed Pleroma wasn’t behind it.

Fine. Let’s set Pleroma aside. This wasn’t their doing. According to Lukas’s testimony, the culprit was playing both sides between the two cults and was looking to gain another faction on top of that.

‘Was this the work of the holy relic thief?’

But if someone had gone to the trouble of carrying out a crime on this scale, it would be difficult for them to secure the support of even one side. If they had done this in support of the French cult, their position would only worsen as long as they remained within Pleroma’s investigative net, and there seemed to be no reason to take such a risk.

If they had done it in support of Pleroma, that didn’t make sense either. No matter how I looked at it, Pleroma had no reason to cause such a major incident over anything other than Mikhail Ismailov right now. And since the prisoner exchange route was still open, it couldn’t have been Pleroma either. They still intended to maintain contact.

He knew the evidence was weak. He knew he was relying on his instincts. But that was enough.

“It was the French cult.”

Julia stared at Ulrike without a word. Ulrike placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder and spoke in a rapid-fire rush.

“They figured out what was going on, at least roughly! They were afraid we’d discover the identity of the one stealing the holy relics, so they made everyone here go rampage to stop us. I don’t know whether the fact that the building collapsed from the vitriol and everyone ended up somewhere else was intentional or not, but…!”

“…….”

“They couldn’t have gone out of the country. If they did, they must have passed through some other world along the way. We need to find that intermediate space.”

Julia said nothing. He seemed to be thinking something over. Or perhaps he couldn’t think of anything at all. Apparently, the former was the case. Julia spoke quietly.

“You’re a natural at the scene.”

Perhaps he was. He had always thought so, after all.

But if Ulrike had still been in the state he’d been in earlier, being a natural at the scene or not, he would have just stood there in a daze beneath the alarm blaring in his ears. For someone standing on the edge of despair, letting go of hope didn’t take much at all. Ulrike realized that even the smallest words of encouragement from a friend had given him the motivation to keep moving. So he deliberately put strength into his weakening legs. He looked his friend straight in the eye.

“We can’t leave things like this.”

“…….”

“I’m not losing them twice. Never again.”

After a long moment, the corners of Julia’s lips lifted. Ulrike grabbed his shoulder and said once more, “We all have to make it out alive and go find some magnolias. Right?”

“You really are easy to motivate.”

“Right? That’s my strong point. Remember it well.”

Was it because the situation was so absurd that he could only laugh, or because he believed they would somehow find a way? Ulrike smiled and stared at Julia. Julia looked up at the sky, then said with the same calm expression he always wore, “I know. I’ve known you since we were kids. How could I not?”

“Haha…”

“So, as for what we can do….”

Julia turned his head toward the rubble and said, “There’s nothing left to do but face it head-on.”

“Huff…”

“…….”

Ulrike leaned his forehead against his staff, breathing heavily. Then he once again slammed the staff down against the ground where the rubble had been cleared away. It had been four hours now.

They had obtained permission from the Kingdom of Bavaria to bring in other mages, and they took turns working in shifts with them. But for the most part, those mages believed there was nothing more to be found here. They had already investigated everything there was to investigate. They were willing to provide physical assistance, but not much in the way of moral support. They might even have been right.

Julia reinforced his barrier against the aggressive mana Ulrike was giving off, then slowly swept his wand through the air. No matter how many times they checked, there was nothing unusual here. There was no sign of another space. Both Ulrike and Julia could only come to the same conclusion.

Ulrike wiped the sweat running down his cheek and looked into the distance. His vision was starting to swim. Then, in the moment he slowly opened and closed his eyes—

“…….”

The air in front of the prison’s south gate and the restaurants nearby seemed to ripple faintly in the distance. Ulrike narrowed his eyes slightly and murmured, “Wind…”

“No.”

Julia stared fixedly at that spot and answered without hesitation. The moment his friend spoke, Ulrike took off running before the other mages even had time to stop him. Julia quickly poured mana into his legs and chased after him.

Ulrike ran all the way behind the restaurants. The ripple had only lasted for a moment, and now there was no sign of it anywhere. Julia caught up with him and grabbed his arm.

“Luise. I wasn’t finished talking, so wait. I know what you want, but…”

“No. If it’s dangerous, that’s actually something to be grateful for. It means we’ve finally found the key.”

Ulrike spun around and quickly spoke to Julia, who had chased after him.

“I think the prisoners went on a rampage before the guards did. And it happened simultaneously in different parts of the building. If those French bastards came here to make several people rampage, they must have secretly set up a passage connecting the different areas.”

“…….”

Bang—

Bang! Bang—

“What we saw earlier might have been that passage. The others went in through there. That’s why the mana shifted and created that gust of wind!”

Ulrike kept striking the ground with his staff, moving one step at a time in every direction—north, south, east, and west. Julia, who had been watching the sky with his eyes closed, followed suit, trying to create the same kind of crack in the mana.

The other mages followed after them, but the two sent them away. The Bavarian mages watched them from a distance, shaking their heads in disbelief. The investigation was already being conducted by taking turns between the laboratory and the scene with the help of magical science, so it was understandable that the two mages trying to do something themselves in the middle of all that looked strange.

But they had to do it.

Ulrike kept trying to create a crack. Watching him, Julia slowly caught his breath before taking Ulrike outside the south gate.

“From here, outward.”

Ulrike understood what Julia meant.

As expected, it helped to have a friend who knew how to think things through. Right. If there really was a passage, they would have set it up starting from outside the prison. The two of them continued trying to create cracks in the mana of the air and the ground.

“I’ve been thinking.”

Julia spoke up, wiping the sweat from his face before continuing.

“If we figure out the route, that alone gives us something we can use against them.”

“…….”

Ulrike’s eyes widened before he pursed his lips. He was right. Julia gave a faint smile and continued.

“Just knowing the route they used to get in is a threat to them. Whether it’s the relic thief or the French.”

“…I like that.”

Just finding the “route” itself could give them leverage in the negotiations. That was what Julia meant. If Elias, Lukas, and Sir Nikolaus were still alive, it would help them.

After that, neither of them said another word. Until they actually found the entrance, they couldn’t assume anything.

How much time had passed?

BOOM—!!

When Ulrike struck the ground in front of a large oak tree, mana instantly spread all the way to the top of the tree, followed by a tremendous roar.

‘There’s something above the tree…’

For a moment, everything went black. Then, before he even had time to panic, his vision returned. Ulrike, who had collapsed where he stood, suddenly shot to his feet.

“…Wait. What was that just—?”

For some reason, the other mages came running toward them in alarm. Then they passed straight through Ulrike and Julia, as if they couldn’t see them.

“…….”

Ulrike abruptly looked up. His eyes met Julia’s. He instinctively realized that this was some kind of half-formed passage, a half-complete spatial spell. But even so, this was definitely—

“…We did it.”

Ulrike forced the corners of his mouth upward despite his pale face.