Chapter 546

A flimsy trick.

Maybe it was flimsy, but it wasn’t flimsy to me. It wasn’t some grand masterstroke, but the result of layers upon layers of effort combined together. It might look like nothing to someone who had only seen one part of it, but that hardly made it something to belittle. I owed my friend a great deal for preparing for this interrogation, and I couldn’t agree with anyone dismissing all of that.

I gave him a cold look, then turned my head and pulled his hand away from my eyes instead of answering. The black cloth was wrapped over my eyes again. Abraham snapped his fingers, pulled over a chair, and sat down beside the tub.

“Thanks for putting on such a fine show.”

I wanted to ask how long he had been here, but there was no need. He had probably been outside the interrogation room from the very beginning. I could feel a faint trace of mana in the air, the kind that might be used for a soundproofing spell.

He spoke.

“It was almost as unexpected as finding out that the divine power mage who’d been trying so hard to bring Pleroma to heel was our proud national hero. Who would have expected that the person who saved the Empire again this evening would actually be the one Pleroma had named their Christ—and that he’d be drinking blood in a Prussian interrogation room just to prove his innocence…?”

Even without seeing him, I knew he was watching my expression. His methods were always this petty and underhanded. It was almost impressive, as though he spent all day studying new ways to get under people’s skin.

I only answered his first remark.

“Must’ve been a disgusting show. How’s your head holding up?”

“It was a little unpleasant when you kept throwing up.”

Abraham answered shamelessly.

He said three more things that were enough to irritate me, but I don’t want to think about them. One thing was certain: if I could see his eyes, I’d probably want to have a serious fight with him, so I was grateful for the state I was in.

He had been sitting beside me doing nothing for so long that I was starting to drift half-asleep.

Then Abraham touched the spot where my core was before moving his hand around it. As though he couldn’t stand the silence, he deliberately disturbed my sleep. He slowly pressed against my skin, then stopped his hand beneath my collarbone.

“Primitive.”

“I wonder if you really had to find out. If you hadn’t, you could’ve gone on thinking I was lying here because I trusted you.”

“After hearing you put it that way, how could I not like you?”

He pressed hard against the scarred area before pulling his hand away. Then he seemed intrigued by the fact that I remained as unresponsive as before.

Whenever someone is taken into custody, the suspect’s artifacts are always removed. And when even a single artifact was precious, what else could I have done? I had to cut into the flesh beneath my collarbone and on my forearm and implant the sapphires I was using as artifacts. Just as Leo had done.

The spot beneath my left collarbone was roughly where an implantable defibrillator would be placed. It was relatively stable, and close enough to the heart to produce a strong effect. I concluded that the most reasonable approach was to spread out the locations of the two artifacts to reduce the risk of discovery, while implanting one near the heart to ensure my safety during interrogation. Just as I had calculated, the healing mana surrounding my core had grown stronger than usual. The increased density of mana around my core made it somewhat difficult to breathe, but this decision was the second biggest reason I had managed to get through this ordeal without any major problems.

A cool, bare hand touched the top of my head.

“Well, choose. Will you accept my help again, or are you going to refuse?”

He slowly brushed the wet hair stuck to my forehead aside, then abruptly grabbed it and pulled hard. I had known for a long time what an inconsiderate bastard he was, so I wasn’t surprised. What I couldn’t stop myself from doing was cursing him with my eyes.

He lifted my blindfold again and simply tossed it aside. Taking the opportunity, I gave him a mild glare. He smiled at me and said, “As you know, I’m very angry.”

“I’m sure you are.”

He got utterly crushed, after all. What a bunch of idiots.

I twisted my lips into a mocking smile, and Abraham raised an eyebrow.

“Our Sir… gave me no warning whatsoever, so I was quite surprised at first. After all, he dared to reveal his ambition to reestablish the Empire’s hegemony. How could I not be?”

Sir Ernst. His lips moved without a sound. He pulled my head back sharply and patted me on the shoulder.

“And then I was pleased. It was quite moving to watch your abilities soar higher and higher without any sign of an end.”

“…….”

“But I think we need to confirm our understanding once more. If our intentions are different, wouldn’t it be rather unfortunate for me to trust you and wait without using my abilities, only to find out that I was mistaken?”

He rolled up one sleeve and secured it in place. Then he pulled a dagger with a silver blade from his pocket and, without hesitation, made a shallow cut about a third of the way down his forearm.

Fresh blood flowed down his pale arm.

One thing was certain: this person, not me, was the real Pleroma. Instead of experimenting on me with blood, they ought to be arresting this person, who genuinely used blood as his main source of sustenance to wield his abilities. The Prussian government was practically standing face-to-face with a bloodsucker and accusing the wrong person of being one.

Now that a society where people who could use their abilities through blood had risen to prominence had been created, there was no helping the fact that I couldn’t escape the subject, no matter how I felt about it. Even so, people who actively and relentlessly tried to force blood down someone’s throat like this were rare. It was easy to mistake such behavior for madness. In fact, it wasn’t merely easy to mistake it for madness. He really was insane.

When I simply continued watching him, Abraham whispered soothingly, “There’s no one here.”

“Move it.”

I looked up at him with a crooked expression. He answered while putting on a semblance of gentleness.

“I don’t want to.”

“You’ve already pissed me off enough. Do you really want to make things even more exhausting for me? If you’re really that dissatisfied with me, then let’s settle it with words…”

I knew.

He wasn’t doing this because he disliked me. Quite the opposite—because he liked me, he was testing my limits. It was true that I could make my way through this on my own without any help from him. But that would make things unnecessarily complicated, because he could get what he ultimately wanted from me while still getting in my way.

I slowly sank into the water with my arm draped over the frame. Even as sleep began to take hold of me, my thoughts continued in fragments.

He had a goal…

What goal? What limit?

Until now, I had thought he was feeding me blood to find out whether I had the ability to amplify my mana by drinking it. That assumption was probably correct to some extent, but by today it had become clear that there was another reason as well.

I had already spent a long time drinking blood and soaking in it, so there were only two plausible reasons he would make me do the same thing again.

First, as I had just said, he was simply playing around however he pleased. With the kind of personality he had, it was entirely possible—and by now, it would almost be more shocking if he didn’t do something like this.

People do things they normally wouldn’t when they’re close to death.

That’s something I would say if Abraham left without bringing up blood and simply had a normal conversation with me.

Second…

I closed my eyes, slowly drifting toward sleep.

Abraham, who had patiently waited for me to continue, grabbed my chin and pulled my head out of the bloody water, jolting me awake.

“First, if this interrogation had been as damaging to you as that flippant description suggests, you wouldn’t have come to Prussia in the first place. That’s because you’re not the sort of person who’s ever willing to take a loss without getting something in return.”

“Hmm…”

“Next… Today’s interrogation was part of Adrian Askanien’s instructions, though it wasn’t something I personally intended.”

My eyes opened at that. Now that was interesting. Even if today’s interrogation itself hadn’t been ordered by Adrian Askanien, what he meant was that Adrian’s orders had made the preparations for today necessary.

Seeing my expression change, Abraham rested his chin on his hand and smiled as he spoke calmly.

“It wasn’t I who made you drink blood. It was your own older brother. Is it wrong for me to politely wait until that fellow’s turn is over, then ask for your good faith when it’s my turn?”

“Did he—”

“Have you ever stopped to wonder why everyone around you is like this?”

He cut me off. I shook my head to tell him to forget it and asked again.

“Did he return?”

Instead of answering, Abraham brought his bloodied hand to my mouth. I swallowed the blood that entered. The aggressive mana digging between my taste buds snapped me back to my senses. Light the same color as his irises spread before my eyes.

He answered as though he were doing me a favor.

“I received it by letter. They happened to temporarily lift the restrictions on cross-border warp mailboxes.”

I followed the rule¹ before asking my next question. Then I opened my mouth.

“Then…”

“Who knows. I suppose it depends on His Majesty’s whim.”

Abraham cut me off before I had even finished speaking—no, before I had even begun. There wasn’t much of a teasing smile on his face. He was being sincere.

As I tried to think of my next question, I realized once again that the game board he had created offered me a certain amount of utility as well, which was why I was adapting to his methods and playing along. In other words, if I didn’t constantly keep a grip on my own consciousness…

Even then, from the moment I had tasted his blood, my thoughts had begun drifting back to Abraham’s Extra Chapter. A thought briefly crossed my mind: perhaps I could accept a small loss if it meant securing a complete victory.

In any case, blood was still continuously entering my mouth, so it wasn’t difficult.

After experiencing the twisted kindness of having the blood pack poured into a cup for me, the blood from an actual wound seemed painfully slow. I moved my mouth, then stopped at a slightly distorted spot and tore away a piece of the torn flesh.

“…Huh.”

A delayed gasp of surprise came from him, as though he had only just realized the state he was in. Coming from Abraham, it was a meaningful reaction.

I felt the mana almost carbonated as it clawed at my throat, and I watched for any kind of window to appear. Why wasn’t anything appearing, no matter how much I drank? I was reaching my limit, but that damned Extra Chapter still wouldn’t complete.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do to obtain his Extra Chapter. Was it not opening because the mana wasn’t being absorbed? Even as I wondered about that, my stomach prickled. This mana refused to die. It was alive, and it was trying to kill me from the inside.

Along with those complaints, a faint thrill I imagined Abraham must have felt every time surged through me, and I muttered, “You really are human.”

“Then what else should I be?”

I ignored his question, lifted the corners of my mouth, and looked up at Abraham.

“You even know how to say it hurts.”

“You, on the other hand, are becoming less and less human. Every time your turn comes around, you drink blood more and more without hesitation, don’t you?”

He laughed. He must have wanted to see me shocked, but I laughed too.

Got him.

This was what I wanted to ask.

Feeling an intense disgust that had gone beyond the threshold somehow giving me less of a reaction than a lesser degree of disgust, I asked, “Do you really do all this for fun?”

“What do you think?”

I looked at him and furrowed my brows as though I felt sorry for him.

“This isn’t the time to answer a question with another question. You should be thinking of an excuse. Right now, as you just admitted yourself, you’re acting as though your goal is to make someone less than human…”

I slowly drew out the words before finishing simply.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

I was curious why, Pleroma aside, even he didn’t want to let me remain human. But I swallowed the thought.

What if he was trying to make me Christ through this process too?

There was no one more devoted to praising blood than him. While I continued to feel a considerable disgust toward blood, just like everyone else, he called those who could use their abilities through blood ‘true mages’ and said that we should join forces.

That was how he had always been. There was no way I could forget it.

In other words, he was training me to become accustomed to drinking blood.

It was a thought I had been carrying beneath my conscious mind for some time, but the moment it took concrete shape, I felt like throwing up from the aggressive mana churning my stomach.

He simply looked down at me in silence before smiling and saying, “Your skin is slowly healing now, too. More?”

“…….”

“Or do you have some goal?”

He hit the nail on the head. I do have another goal: I’m trying to get his Extra Chapter unlocked.

The moment I finished speaking, my stomach turned again, but my pointless competitive streak kept me from throwing up. Feeling a chill run through me, I shrugged at him. He parted his lips slightly, remained silent for a moment, and then began to laugh.

“Hahaha!”

He burst into hearty laughter and took my hand. As he felt along my veins, he muttered out of nowhere, “That’s why I like you…”

He spread his hand open as he pleased and whispered, “If you feel sick, give me your blood. No matter how disgusting it is, I can drink more than what I’ve given you so far. Who knows? If it’s the blood of someone as powerful as you, it might even kill me outright, unlike how you’re suffering from a stomachache after drinking mine.”

“You’re hilarious.”

What would someone who considered blood-related abilities a sign of strength possibly find disgusting? Feeling a cold sweat break out, I sneered and said coldly, “Unlike Your Highness, I’m not Pleroma, so I don’t go around spouting nonsense about telling people to drink blood.”

“Can’t be helped.”

He released my hand with an absentminded expression. That had basically been his attitude all along. At least today, he had never once seemed desperate in front of me. He leaned toward me and spoke gently.

“Now then, Prussia will no longer be rude to an innocent citizen and a powerful ally. Even if you hadn’t drunk my blood, your ‘normality’ would have been enough for us to release you anyway.”

I shrugged. There was no point in hearing something I already knew. All I wanted was for him to leave as soon as possible.

For once, he wore a composed expression and did exactly what I wanted.

“I would like you to understand that today’s interrogation was conducted solely for the sake of the Empire’s security and the safety of its subjects, and that the same experiment has been carried out on other suspected members of Pleroma as well. Should you suffer any health problems as a result of what happened today, the Imperial Family will guarantee your treatment. And should your innocence be proven, we will ensure that you are not interrogated again over the same matter in the future. I offer you my deepest thanks for cooperating for the sake of the Empire’s security.”

Abraham, who had been speaking with deliberate formality, raised his eyes. His bright eyes gleamed. He released the restraints around my hands and returned to his usual way of speaking.

“Let’s see you remain normal to the very end.”

I didn’t return just like that. After he left, I emptied my stomach completely and collapsed from exhaustion. I was then left to wait until the Hohenzollerns’ Old Human servants had cleaned me up and made me presentable again, after which I was moved to Charlottenburg Palace. The Hohenzollerns had given me a room out of courtesy to a member of another ruling house, but in practical terms, it was no different from being kept under house arrest.

The servants had already dried my hair, but I filled the bathtub with hot water again, lay down in it, and fell asleep. Though I say I slept, I entered the Extra Chapter and met Leonard. By the time I spent some time there and returned outside, less than an hour had passed because of the abnormally high Time Difference level. In the end, I rested there for several days. Teaching, teaching again, and gathering information about Pleroma there.

I learned a few things about Leo when he was younger. Like he is even now, the kindergartener didn’t like playing with food, but he didn’t mind having cake frosting smeared on his nose.

When I opened my eyes after being surrounded by that peaceful everyday life, I found myself lying in the hot bathtub, staring up at the golden ceiling. The interrogation had already become something that happened days ago to me, yet here, less than half a day had passed. The faint smell of someone else’s blood and the scent of lotion I never used proved it.

So I sank back into the water and fell asleep again.

Leo, Elias, and Julia couldn’t come visit me here. We had promised not to.

[Prussia does not accept Pleroma’s claims as fact.]

Three or four days of rest was enough. Now it was time to see how things were developing. Around three in the morning, I unfolded the newspaper the Imperial Family had provided. I had ordered it from the servant standing guard outside my door about three hours earlier, and they had kindly brought it to me.

The Imperial Dailies’s front page repeatedly carried the Imperial Family’s major announcement.

[This is a deliberate act of disruption by Pleroma, an intentional campaign of division meant to plunge the continent into chaos. We will not tolerate their claims, and we will place the safety of our subjects and our nation above all else. We earnestly ask you, our subjects, to understand this. Pleroma’s claims are deeply shocking, but they are merely one strategy among many intended to mislead you. We sincerely ask that our subjects patiently await our government’s operation against Pleroma. Only then will we be able to achieve victory as one.]

The Imperial Chancellor was saying exactly the sort of thing Adrian Askanien would say. In fact, it was probably written based on Adrian Askanien’s advice. The response from Prussia that Leo and I had predicted first was not this, but a blunt declaration that Lukas Askanien would be severely punished. Yet now, that was no longer the main point…

[Regarding Lukas Askanien, our government currently has him under detention and investigation, and so far, no evidence of wrongdoing has been found…]

That was no longer the main point. Surprisingly, thanks to Adrian Askanien’s plan aligning with mine, things were going smoothly enough.

That was enough confirmation for now. I closed the newspaper and got to my feet. Letters and parcels were piled up on the table. Curious about what sort of trivial things could possibly be contained in the ones that had made it through censorship, I opened one at random.

[Lord Askanien, I know what you have done for the Empire. When you were serving with the Imperial Mage Association, you saved my family from a Rampager. Do you remember?

…

I don’t believe the reports that you were colluding with Pleroma.]

It must have been difficult to pick out even a letter like this from among the countless ones filled with insults. The fact that such a letter existed at all was remarkable. I carefully folded it back up, put it into the envelope, and set it aside on one end of the table.

There were also letters declaring neutrality while asking me to critically consider whether I had done anything wrong that might have caused this situation. But things did not work that way. It was easy to firmly believe you understood a situation while being nowhere near the right answer, and one of the unwritten rules of living in the age of the internet was not to bother checking the words of people like that.

So I kept only the letters that didn’t make me snort with disbelief and sent the rest back to the basket. Other people’s petty speculation and rudeness were like ants gnawing away at flesh. If you failed to pay attention just because the words seemed insignificant, all that remained was a slow, gradual end.

So I decided to stop opening letters and open the parcels first. Candy with a sharp, nose-tingling smell, chocolate bars, and a book. They had all been sent by different people. I had no idea what the candy and chocolate were made of, but I didn’t particularly want to know. There was nothing here I needed to know, either.

I put the gifts aside and opened another newspaper to see what was happening.

The Berliner Tageblatt. Since it wasn’t a pro-Imperial newspaper, I couldn’t remember it ever publishing particularly favorable articles about me. Yet, for some reason, it had run an article saying that it would be premature to regard Lukas Askanien as Pleroma and that caution was necessary.

If anything, they could have criticized the Imperial Family by questioning Askanien’s qualifications. The Vossische Zeitung was the same. It was a newspaper that had always made subtly negative remarks about me, but not this time.

Even das rote had published an article arguing that caution was necessary rather than trying to determine whether I was Pleroma or not. The Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, which shared at least some of das rote’s characteristics, was the same. It was a daily newspaper that couldn’t possibly have ignored a topic like this. Had there been pressure from the Imperial Family? There was little reason to believe so. The Imperial Family wasn’t at the stage where they needed to apply pressure. As if to prove it, several other newspapers published the same kind of popular condemnation I had heard on the streets.

Which left me wondering. What were these newspapers thinking, that they weren’t behaving as they normally did?

This shouldn’t be happening. They shouldn’t be this kind…

I searched my memory and pulled out a newspaper from another media outlet. A Prussian newspaper company in which House Zähringen held a stake had also published an article taking the same position.

I’ll have to thank them once I get out of here.

But even though the Imperial Family’s position had become clear, it was still surprising that newspapers with no connection to either my friends or the Imperial Family were publishing articles that weren’t hostile toward me.

Feeling that something was off, I sifted through the letters and found several from familiar names. The first was from my professor.

Just as I was about to open it—

Knock, knock―

Someone knocked on the door.

“Lord Askanien, I’m coming in.”

They didn’t even tell me who it was before announcing that they were coming in. I let out a hollow laugh and got to my feet. Two or three guard mages were visible through the open door, but a familiar face stepped in past them.

“Senior.”

Mecklenburg looked at me, then avoided my eyes and merely gave a small nod. He closed the door and simply stood there without meeting my gaze.

I really didn’t want to see him right now. I had no idea what the people around me would say or think about me after hearing the news, and I didn’t want to guess. For now, I didn’t want to go through that calculation with every single person.

We sat in silence over the intrusion of this unwelcome guest before I asked, “Why are you here?”

Mecklenburg set down the paper bag he had brought without answering me. Instead, he asked, “Why are you awake instead of sleeping?”

“I’ve already slept a lot.”

Mecklenburg looked puzzled at that. He checked the time, then stared at me with a face like he’d just bitten into something rotten.

He probably thought I was making a joke.

He carefully pushed aside the pile of letters on the table, washed his hands, then cut up the tropical fruit he had brought and held it out to me. I sat across from him and watched before muttering, “This feels more like a hospital visit…”

He was looking at me with his eyes only half open. His expression clearly said, Why make such a fuss? Just eat whatever you’re given. I shrugged and speared a piece of the fruit with my fork. It wasn’t particularly sweet.

I stayed on edge because of the uncomfortable presence of the senior and emptied the tray by myself. When I finally put down my fork, Mecklenburg, apparently unable to stand seeing anything left untidied, as befitted someone with a fixation on cleanliness, got to his feet, picked up the tray, and headed toward the door.

I watched him and pointed at his left arm.

“Did you hurt your arm?”

“…….”

“I’m asking because you haven’t been using your left arm as much as you should since you came in.”

We were both combat mages. Surely he didn’t think I wouldn’t notice something like that. I asked with a light laugh, but he didn’t answer.

With his attitude following Pleroma’s announcement impossible to read, I was finding it harder to keep up my usual demeanor and pretend everything was normal. I was starting to get frustrated, so I asked him again.

“Fine. I asked why you came.”

Only after the fatigue became apparent in my voice did Mecklenburg avert his gaze and finally manage to speak.

“…To keep you company.”

“You’re still saying the same thing…”

“All right. I came to monitor you.”

“…….”

“They told me to watch you the way you watched Ismailov. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you and report what you do.”

Mecklenburg rattled it off like a machine gun before looking at me. The tension in his eyes was obvious.

I thought for a moment, then nodded. I sat down and tapped the seat across from me, telling him to stop standing there, but he remained standing like a stone statue.

After watching him silently for a moment, I opened one of the books I’d received and focused on it.

Then I heard him speak.

“You’re seeing the benefits of having built up connections, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

I frowned as I asked. Mecklenburg hesitated, but then looked me straight in the eye and spoke.

“Isn’t this the time when you should be feeling good about having those connections?”

Ah.

I understood what he meant. He was saying that because he knew my circumstances, he could look out for my interests when reporting to the Imperial Family, so shouldn’t that put me at ease? In other words, he was asking why I wasn’t responding the way I normally would.

I thought about it for a moment, then answered with a smile.

“How do I know what you’ll say about me, Senior?”

Mecklenburg’s eyes narrowed.

I looked at him and slowly wiped the smile from my own face as well.

Translator Note

1. This ‘rule’ refers to the deal established in Chapter 376, where Lukas must drink Abraham’s blood as the price for what he wants from him. ↩︎