Chapter 475

“He took my money!”

Elias suddenly sprang to his feet with a fistful of my collar and shouted. I was dragged along with him, watching the whole thing unfold in disbelief. A grim-looking guard—or checkpoint officer—approached us, shining a flashlight into our faces.

The moment I saw him, I knew. Ah. This isn’t going to work. I’d already been dragged into the same boat, so from here on out, I might as well play along with Elias.

I shook off the hand gripping my collar and shouted in the voice and mannerisms of a middle or high school student.

“Fuck, when did I ever?!”

It was the first time I’d ever cursed at Elias like that, but he didn’t look surprised in the slightest. With a sharp look in his eyes, he swung a hand toward my head. I saw him give me a quick wink to signal that I was doing well, but seeing that expression on his face, I could understand why the students were so intimidated by him. Thanks to all the beatings I’d taken from Leo over the years, I easily dodged his hand. I bared my teeth and threw a punch at Elias’s chin.

I trusted Elias, but for one terrifying moment, I worried that he might fail to dodge and turn this into an irreparable mess. Fortunately, the guard kicked us in the sides and pulled us apart.

“Hey, hey, hey! Stop, stop!”

“What do you think you’re doing, throwing punches in front of an adult?! Both of you, come with me!”

Was kicking us really necessary? Then again, if he’d tried to stop us, he might’ve gotten hit too, so I supposed he couldn’t help it…

Before I could hit the ground, I caught myself with an elbow. The guard grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back up. Elias was already being held by the hand and following another guard with a thoroughly annoyed expression.

Elias turned to look at me with his lips pushed out. Then, before the guard holding me could see, he flashed me a grin.

“Your father is in the trading business, and yet you steal your friend’s money! And as if that weren’t enough, after stealing it yourself, you lied and said your friend took it?!”

The two guards who had taken us to the checkpoint turned out to be checkpoint officers working the night shift. We had been moved into a solitary room and were now getting a scolding from one of the officers.

At this point, it would’ve been better to just use mind manipulation magic. What on earth were we even doing all this for…?

In the novel, Elias often staged scenes like this because he couldn’t use mind manipulation magic—but even then, he never staged a fight with someone standing right beside him. And now there were even two people here who could use mind manipulation magic.

‘Why is Narke letting this happen?’

No matter how I thought about it, I was pretty sure he was trying to make some memories while he was at it. Beat up a few Papal spies, have some fun on the side—isn’t that exactly what he wanted? And with a friend like Narke, who always took things one step further, it was no wonder Elias was going this far.

At the officer’s words, Elias pulled a sulky face and pointed at me.

“This guy has more money than I do! I’m just saying we should share some of it!”

I scrunched up my nose and furrowed my brow, putting on a stubborn voice.

“Ah, he didn’t take anything from me! He’s lying!”

“Look at you putting up your pride! If he took your money, just admit it!”

The officer scolded us harshly, then handed me the money he had taken from Elias’s pocket.

“Normally, when something like this happens, I wouldn’t return the money. But I’ll give it back this time, for your sake.”

That’s actually Elias’s money. The words nearly slipped out. I accepted the money, pouted, gave a small nod, and slipped it into my pocket. I’ll give it back to him later.

Elias huffed angrily and whipped his head away. The checkpoint officer rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache, then suddenly looked as though he had remembered something.

“Wait. Come to think of it, where did you kids come from?”

Elias answered casually.

“I’m from this country.”

“No, you’re not. Your German sounds like mainland German.”

German was spoken in this region as well. But Swiss German and Standard German were different enough that anyone could tell which country someone’s German came from just by listening. Elias played dumb and asked, “Mainland? Is Bavarian considered mainland German?”

“Ah, so you’re Bavarian. What’s a Bavarian doing all the way out here?”

“My mother’s from Bavaria, that’s all! I live down that way.”

“Down that way?”

Elias pointed behind him with his thumb. The checkpoint officer’s expression darkened instantly.

“You mean Italy?”

Oh, no way…

I became certain of what Elias’s plan was and was secretly impressed. I almost wanted to give him a round of applause. Elias shrugged and rolled his eyes.

“Well… maybe not.”

“Answer me properly!”

When the officer shouted, Elias shouted right back.

“Yes, we came over from Italy. So what?!”

“What do you mean, ‘so what’?! What do your parents do? Did they come with you?”

“No. They just live in Italy. Only me and this guy came.”

“You two were fighting even though you’re friends? More importantly, are you out of your minds? Give me your passports. I’ll have to revoke the permits you were given.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?! Hand them over!”

“Why should I?!”

“Where do your parents live? Looking at the way you’re dressed, they seem to be from a fairly well-off family. Give me your address. Otherwise, I’ll track you down through your family name and find out for myself, so you’d better tell me now.”

“You’re going to send them a letter? Even if you do, it’ll take at least a week. Can I stay in Switzerland until then?”

“Then I’ll send warp mail.”

“Warp mail? To another country? That’s technology reserved for special places.”

“Don’t talk back to me!”

The officer barked at Elias, then sat down with a look of rapidly mounting exhaustion. Perhaps he had noticed something strange about the way we looked, because he narrowed his eyes and asked, “Come to think of it, why are you two so tall? You’re practically tall enough to touch the ceiling. And your appearances are a little… too polished, too…”

Elias seemed to be seriously startled by that remark. He hunched over, then quickly changed the subject and deflected the question back at him.

“You’re tall too, though.”

“How tall are you?”

“Who knows? I’m still growing. I haven’t measured myself recently.”

“Hmm… You look well over 180 cm. Are you New Humans or something?”

I furrowed my brow and raised an eyebrow. Meanwhile, perhaps Elias had decided that he absolutely had to make it out of here alive, because he did something he would never normally do—he put on a strangely expectant expression and smugly asked, “Do I look like one?”

“I guess not. Well, that makes sense. What kind of New Human goes around fighting like a madman in the street?”

“Why not? They’re just human too.”

“New Humans are far more intelligent than unruly brats like you.”

I immediately looked at Elias, uneasy. Bringing up a subject like this in front of Elias was dangerous. Sure enough, Elias’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. His face twisted just like it had when someone praised the Emperor.

“No, they’re not. That’s just what the adults among the New Humans claim. Why do you believe that sort of thing? Every last one of them is completely stupid. Anyone becomes blind to reality once they get their hands on power. That’s why they get stupid.”

I bit my lip and grabbed his thigh. Whenever something deeply connected to the circumstances that had made Elias live the way he did now came up, he would sometimes lose his temper and let everything spill out. I had read it so many times in the novel that I couldn’t possibly fail to recognize the signs.

I understood how he felt, but it would be better if he didn’t draw too much attention to himself here. Only then did Elias clamp his mouth shut and pull the corners of his lips sharply downward.

The officer, however, seemed offended by Elias’s rebellious remarks and began lecturing him with a stern expression.

“Good grief. I’ve never seen such a cheeky brat talk about the noble lords like that. Why do you think they’re nobles? They became nobles because their distant ancestors did good things for their regions and their countries, generation after generation. You can have your complaints, but they’re not people you can just talk about like that.”

I seriously considered either covering the officer’s mouth or dragging Elias out of there, but it was already too late. Just before the officer finished speaking, Elias shouted back, his face flushed and the veins standing out on his forehead.

“Aren’t you a commoner too, mister?! So why do you believe all that? How can someone like you call people who went so far as to rewrite their own genes just so they could have everything for themselves intelligent? They went against nature because they wanted to become gods, and you’re praising them instead of criticizing them? You can tell something’s wrong just by looking at them! How can you not realize it even after all this? Do you really have to be told before you can see it? Are you an idiot too, mister? No, you’re not. Those people are going to rewrite the Bible next, too. This is all—”

“Now, hold on. The more I hear you talk, the more downright antisocial—”

“It’s all because of magic! If it weren’t for things like magic, the world wouldn’t have ended up like this! It wasn’t because our ancestors did such great things. It was magic that fanned the flames of human greed and turned the world into what it is today. Even if there’s no way to undo the humans already born through genetic engineering, shouldn’t we at least stop even more twisted ideas from spreading like a plague?!”

He had used the scientific terminology of this world and era, so he hadn’t literally said genetic engineering, but the meaning was clearly the same. Just as furious as Elias was, the officer protested with a grave expression.

“Kid! Calm down. How can you even think like this? Isn’t it thanks to that magic that we live this prosperous life? Do you have any idea how much mana the nobles pay in taxes? If you live without even knowing how grateful you ought to be, God will surely punish you! Honestly, delinquent youths like you never know when to stop.”

“Ugh… Aaaaaaargh!”

Elias let out a roar like a lion, his face turning bright red, and clutched his head with both hands.

Elias had actually thought fairly positively of Switzerland in the novel, and that was because Switzerland was a republic. But apparently, nobles still existed there, and they seemed to hold a considerable amount of political influence. As if reminding the two of us once again that this was a world where the horrifying entity known as the Third French Empire still stood, propped up by both a cult and magic, Switzerland too—despite having the form of a republic—was nowhere near as enlightened as Switzerland at the end of the 19th century in my world.

I was seeing that fact for the first time today, too, and the shock swept through my mind.

Clearly, no matter the era, those in power need the people to remain unthinking if they want to maintain their hold on power. Elias was frustrated because he was witnessing that very lack of thought firsthand—people who should have been fiercely criticizing the privileged class, people like Elias himself, were instead praising them.

I understood how Elias felt, but his unusually progressive outlook was also possible because of the environment he grew up in and the educational opportunities he had. Among many commoners, however, especially those who lacked the time and financial means to think deeply about such matters, conservative views were surprisingly widespread. Even when life was difficult, plenty of people saw the military strength of their homeland and the outward strength of those in power as a source of personal pride, rather than questioning the structural roots of poverty. And even aside from that, many people simply went through life without paying much attention to the rights and wrongs of the society they lived in.

Was this really something limited to this world and this era?

Elias placed a great deal of hope in the people of a world without magic, but I couldn’t agree with him. Even Elias himself knew there was nothing he could realistically expect from them, yet he still said it. If he hadn’t come to think differently from the way he did in the novel, I think I had at least a vague idea of what would be going through his mind right now.

But Elias understood that conformity born from a lack of thought was also, to some extent, the result of efforts made by those in power. In the end, perhaps thinking about what the adults of his own class had done to the consciousness of commoners left him utterly devastated. He sat back down with a pained expression.

Elias sometimes thought that if the class he belonged to and the way its power operated had not put his life in danger, he wouldn’t have been so frustrated by a situation like this. At the same time, he wondered whether he even had the right to criticize commoners for praising the system when he wasn’t a commoner himself, simply because he believed the adults of his own class were doing the wrong thing.

Some enlightened commoners were uncomfortable with Elias trying to interfere in matters that concerned commoners when he wasn’t one himself. Elias accepted that criticism, which was why he rarely put his own name forward in most of his anti-Imperial activities and charitable work.

It was an opinion I could never voice to Elias, but from where I stood, humans had managed to do much the same thing even in a world without magic. Even if the old class system disappeared, classes still existed, and the systems and structures that had become more subtle and harder to see hid the fact that, despite preaching freedom, nothing was truly free.

Humans had learned how to manipulate human genes without relying on magic. If proper restraints and ethical standards failed to function, and market logic and uncritical thinking came to govern human behavior, just as the disillusionment I had felt right up until my final moments had taught me, then sooner or later, the same thing would manifest in this world.

The 19th century of this world was not the past to me. It was the worst possible future.

No matter what person from the 21st century you brought here, they would never believe for a moment that this was truly the past. Even if fragments of nostalgia for the past sometimes clung to their consciousness, the little traces of old-fashionedness could never conceal the true nature of the age.

And, of course, Elias wasn’t the only one disappointed. From my perspective, it was just as discouraging. Contrary to what I had expected when I first picked up the fantasy novel starring Elias as its protagonist, humanity was still racing toward the worst possible outcome even in a world where magic existed.

When it came to distributing mana, a scarce resource, those in power were trying to monopolize it in ways that weren’t all that different from what I knew. In ways befitting an era that had become fertile ground for fascism, and in ways that suited a notion of justice built on meritocracy and market logic.

While the three of us remained silent for our own different reasons, the officer seemed to think the kid in front of him had been moved by his words, so he tried to reason with us one more time.

“Aren’t you even Italian? How can someone from a country that became prosperous thanks to divine power think like that? You should always be grateful. If you don’t want to go to prison, watch what you say, get your head straight, and apologize to your friend. And hand over your passport.”

“…….”

Elias stuck out his lips and let out several heavy sighs before muttering, “Mister.”

“Yeah, you disrespectful little brat.”

“You can’t get angry from this point on. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Actually, I can’t go home. I didn’t bring my passport. I ran away from home.”

The officer’s mouth fell open. I wasn’t the only one caught off guard by the revelation that we had entered the country without our passports. Still, if we wanted to be deported back to Italy, this was probably the right move. The problem was that we had just lost the one thing that made it believable that we actually lived in Italy.

Until this very moment, the officer had been firmly convinced that we were Italian citizens of German descent living in a German-speaking village in Italy. He probably wouldn’t suddenly start verifying the facts now, but I couldn’t help feeling my heart pound. It felt like we were acting out a scene from a script that was being printed on the spot.

The officer quickly turned to me, his face still looking like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“What about this one?”

“…….”

I said nothing, staring blankly into the air with a sullen expression. The officer slammed his hand down on the table.

“You little ingrates. Did you sneak across the border? How did you get in, huh? You’d better answer that one!”

“You said you wouldn’t get angry!”

“Do I look like I can help it?!”

“Well, um… Today’s the last day to apply for the Swiss Guard, right? We just climbed over the wall through the trees when we saw people in uniform passing by. There are so many leaves on the trees these days that they couldn’t see us. They really weren’t paying attention, either. I know they were busy, but it’s not my fault. It’s the fault of the people who failed to keep watch.”

Wow. He was seriously infuriating. I almost had to admire him. The Swiss Guard was the Swiss military force serving in the Papal States. I had no idea whether people actually crossed the border while applying to enlist, but Elias was making the most of the information Narke had given him.

The officer grabbed his head with both hands and groaned.

“Good grief, my head. These little brats…”

“Why?! I’m not going back home. I left without my passport because I never intended to go back. Please let me live in Switzerland. I have money, too. Pleeease. I’ll rent a room from you!”

“What?! Stop talking nonsense!”

The officer seriously considered what to do with these underage illegal immigrants. Then, showing the generosity of an adult, he spoke in a concerned voice.

“You two have to go back to Italy. Think how sad your families will be when they find out. Hmm?”

“They won’t be sad at all. They’ll probably be happy.”

“Adults don’t feel the way you think they do. You’re lucky you didn’t make it any farther and happened to run into me while you were fooling around near the border. You’re still young kids, so wherever we take you, you’ll probably just get a warning and be released. I’m letting you off easy, too. Get your head straight and go home.”

“I told you, they’ll be happy.”

“I told you, they won’t!”

“What do you know?! My family doesn’t want me there!”

“You little—!”

He shouted with a deliberately angry expression before continuing.

“I’m only saying this because I have a kid about your age. If my kid pulled something like this, I’d beat him black and blue. Sneaking out of the house and into another country! This is ridiculous. Go back before things get any worse.”

“Then I’m not going back. What kind of sane person would want to get beaten?”

“From where I’m standing, you’re the one who’s lost your mind. What I’m saying is, get back home as soon as you can, before you get in trouble. If you go back before dawn, you probably won’t get punished too badly.”

“You’ve run away from home before too, haven’t you? I can hear it in the way you talk.”

Perhaps deciding to ignore the nonsense, the officer roughly grabbed Elias by the wrist and hauled him to his feet.

“If you keep refusing to listen to me, I’ll have no choice but to send you both to a Swiss jail according to the law. I’ll send you back to Italy, so this is your last chance. Come along. You too, over there!”

The officer shouted as he smacked me on the shoulder. He had asked for our names as soon as he dragged us in, but hadn’t used them since. Not that it mattered, since we’d obviously given him aliases anyway.

Elias shook off the hand holding him and put on an exaggerated act of pain, going, “Ow,” before hesitantly saying, “Actually…”

“Yes? Actually?”

“There’s one more person. Please let him come with us.”

“What? Is he Italian too?”

“He’s French. But he lives in Italy too. We’re sworn brothers from the same city.”

“…….”

Just like that, Narke became French. I looked at the elderly officer’s white hair and inwardly started worrying about his health. The officer grabbed the back of his neck, looked up at the sky, and then shouted, “Find out where he is. Right now!”

After wandering around for quite a while, we finally entered a pub about fifteen minutes away on foot. The officer, who had a firm grip on the backs of our necks with both hands, nodded toward Elias. Pouting, Elias pointed at a young man with his finger.

The officer’s face lit up with a there you are expression—though he still looked pale from dealing with Elias—and he let go of my shirt collar and grabbed the young man by the shoulder. The young man, who had been spooning up stew, turned around with clear, innocent eyes.

“Yes?”

“You need to go home, student.”

The officer said it with the satisfied voice of a man who had aged ten years. Narke looked back and forth between me, Elias, and the officer with visibly shaken eyes.

And so, the three of us were taken into custody by the checkpoint officer, crossed the Italian border, and reached the train station. He took the money from our pockets and even bought our tickets. Then he waited with us on the platform, and when the train arrived and the doors opened, he pushed us inside.

“Don’t expect to ever come back to Switzerland! If I catch you at the border again, you’re going straight to jail!”

“…….”

I offered the officer an expression of silent gratitude and boarded the train.

Elias and Narke kept up their miserable expressions until the train departed. Only after the train began moving and the officer disappeared from the platform did they finally let out a long sigh of relief. Narke carefully pulled out his mana restraint and cast a very faint soundproofing spell.

“…All right. Let’s get off at the next station and warp straight to Venice~ I know the proper coordinates.”

Yeah, that sounded good. But there was something I wanted to know. Exhausted, I gave a faint smile and whispered, “Guys. Are you messing with me?”

“Messing with you? This is my way of sneaking across a border, Luka. Remember it well~!”

Elias put a hand on my shoulder, ruffled my hair, and grinned mischievously. I already knew this was Elias’s way of doing things. I just hadn’t expected him to drag me into the act without warning.

“Why didn’t you just use magic?”

“Hey, hey. If you rely too much on magic, you’ll get yourself into serious trouble someday. You need to know how to do things this way, too!”

“Yeah~ It’s fun watching how Elias does things, too. Besides…”

Narke, sitting in the seat in front of us, smiled as he spoke. I folded my arms and slumped back into my seat, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“If you just barge in and reach for your wand right away, you can always run into trouble. We also had to make sure there weren’t any mages around because of Atropos… Even when you erase someone’s memories, it’s better to erase only part of it. If you replace their entire memory, there’s a good chance they’ll get caught if someone investigates them. You know that.”

“I know, but my head’s still ringing thanks to Eli…”

“Haha. Wasn’t it fun? Still, just in case, I did make that mister a little less inclined to tell others about what happened tonight. If you want to make small changes like that, it’s much better to set up a detailed scenario from the beginning. You remember, right? Our University of Vienna theology students act~”

That was what we had done in Austria-Hungary. It had been less than a week ago, so there was no way I could have forgotten. We hadn’t actually altered anyone’s memory back then—we had only been acting so we can use Insight—but it was true that the situations were similar.

Elias, who had been leaning against the train window, straightened his head and asked, “You can make someone less inclined to talk about it? You can do that, too?”

“You just need to implant the awareness that it wasn’t anything particularly interesting to talk about~”

“Oh, that’s nice~ And scary.”

Elias pursed his lips as if he were about to whistle, then let out a breath and said with a confident look on his face.

“I’m telling you, we could’ve just stuck to my script. Humans aren’t that good at tracking people down.”

It wasn’t as though we lived in an age with the internet, so even if someone tried to look for us, it wouldn’t be all that easy. Besides, we weren’t going to do anything conspicuous enough for the Papal See to start digging through the minds of every border checkpoint officer. In the end, we were basically just looking for another layer of security because we were unnecessarily afraid of getting caught.

After going through one insane thing after another, I was about to get some sleep and rest for a while when Narke whispered with a smile as he looked out the window.

“I want to do this again next time.”

“…….”

I could only hope there wouldn’t be a next time. I really didn’t want to throw punches again.

We arrived in Venice just before dawn, more precisely in one of the narrow alleys near St. Mark’s Basilica. As soon as we arrived, Elias glanced at the friend standing before him with a stunned look on his face. He stared at the Old Human who was obviously Narke, then leaned over and whispered to me in confusion.

“Luka…! Is it really okay for him to use divine power like this?”

“We’re not going to meet any clergy from the Papal See. He’ll have to be very careful once we do, though.”

“So it’s okay for now?”

“Yeah…”

I let out another incredulous laugh as I looked at the person standing before us. Narke had once again transformed into an Old Human I had never seen before and gave his hat a little tip.

“You should change your face too, Lukas. We made it all the way into Italy, so it’s better if we attract as little suspicion as possible~”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

I snapped my fingers, intending to reuse the face I had used in Austria-Hungary. Elias looked at Narke, who was now wearing the appearance of an Old Human he had never seen before, and greeted him.

“Who the hell are you, seriously…? Wow.”

“I know, right? I don’t know either. It’s a face I don’t recognize~”

“Is this even a real person?”

“Who knows? It’s an image I made up based on whatever came to mind. It doesn’t really matter whose face I use, as long as people remember that we’re a trio of Old Humans.”

“That’s kind of amazing.”

Narke merely smiled quietly at that before giving us a few instructions.

“It’s still early morning, so there probably won’t be many people out. We’ll be traveling as a trio in our original appearances once we’re in Rome, so it’s better to make sure people here in Venice remember us as a group of Old Humans.”

“Okay.”

“If anyone asks, just say I’m your older sister. Got it? And absolutely no words that only New Humans use.”

“Okay. Then I’ll be the oldest one.”

Elias cut in with something ridiculous, so I shook my head and whispered, “He said older sister.”

“Same difference!”

“Older sister is someone older. How is that the same thing?”

“Old Human words are so complicated. Anyway, I’m the oldest.”

“…You have the latest birthday out of the three of us. What are you even talking about…?”

“Still! I weigh the most.”

What am I supposed to do with the fact that he weighs the most…?

I couldn’t follow his logic, so I had no choice but to give up trying. All I could think was that the moment anyone started paying attention to us, I’d have to shut Elias up. Narke quietly spoke as he walked out of the alley and into the square.

“From now on, gather whatever information you can about Saint Mark. Call me when you find something useful. We’ll warp back to a safe place and come up with a hypothesis…”

Venice was the place in Italy with the most clues related to Saint Mark. Now, we would feed every clue we could find about ‘Saint Mark’ into Elias’s head, come up with the most likely hypothesis, and enter the Papal See. Narke turned toward us and said, “Then we’re going straight to the Papal See in Rome.”

From the Papal See onward, it would be the real thing. We would have only one chance to test our hypothesis. From this point on, Elias’s role was crucial. Narke and I looked at Elias, and he nodded with a calm look in his eyes.