Chapter 3: Terrorist Express from the Royal Capital

Chapter 3: Terrorist Express from the Royal Capital

Terrorist Express from the Royal Capital

The platform of Central Station in the royal capital was bustling with people.

Since the train connected many important towns and cities, it was the best way of getting around in this world. In addition to the transportation of cargo, it was used by all kinds of people. This platform was probably the only place where one could regularly see so many of the Commons, Noblesse, and Faust all mingling in a crowd.

In the midst of this hustle and bustle, a single child tripped on the ground.

It was a very young girl who’d been looking around uncertainly as she walked, perhaps separated from her parents. With the shock of the fall adding to her already anxious state, her eyes began to fill with tears.

Ah, she’s going to cry.

As everyone around her thought the same thing, one lone girl knelt down and looked the child in the eyes.

“Oh dear, are you okay?”

It was a young woman around fifteen or sixteen years old with black hair.

Her timing was perfect, mere moments before the child would have started bawling. Instead, since a nice lady was talking to her, the little girl managed, just barely, to hold back her tears.

“Who are you…?”

“Hmm? Oh, I’m Akari. I’m a supernormal, ordinary person. Nothing weird here!”

Despite her claims of being “supernormal,” the girl was actually pretty enough that it was almost unusual.

Her silky hair reached down to her shoulder blades, and her dark eyes sparkled with light as she looked at the little girl. Though her face made her appear young, her body had the decidedly soft curves of a young woman. Her contrasting beauty was enough to catch plenty of attention in the crowd, but her well-made clothes helped her blend in.

Dressed lightly in loose-fitting garments to avoid drawing attention, the girl called Akari beamed at the fallen child.

“You tripped, huh? I get that. Hurts, right? That happens to me, too. But you didn’t cry, so you must be a very strong girl!”

Akari patted the child’s head as she checked her injuries. Having drawn her attention away from the pain with her sympathetic words, she pointed at the little girl’s scraped knee.

Raising the index finger of her hand as it peeked out of her wide, loose sleeve, Akari drew a circle in the air.

“Pain, pain, go away. Come again another day!”

Guiding Force: Connect—NT?i?KC, Pure Concept [Time]—Invoke [Regression]

Akari’s raised fingertip glowed ever so slightly.

The words of her little charm had activated a conjuring. The Guiding Light from her fingertip surrounded the child’s wound, erasing the scrape on her knee as if it had never been there.

“Wha—?”

The little girl’s eyes widened, almost forgetting that she was on the verge of tears as her wound disappeared like a magic trick. She looked back and forth between the spot where the pain had been and the lady who had made it go away.

The young lady with the white headband puffed up her chest, looking extremely pleased with herself.

“Heh-heh. Bet that doesn’t hurt anymore, r—?”

“Hiya!”

“OW?!”

Her triumphant face was abruptly met with a chop to the head.

Looking around in a panic for the enemy responsible, Akari discovered a pretty young woman in the garb of a priestess.

“M-Menou?! What was that for?!”

“‘What was that for?’ My foot.”

Menou’s lovely features were pulled into a tight scowl, light-chestnut ponytail whipping back and forth as she shook her head. The slit in her long skirt revealed more than a glimpse of her right thigh.

“I told you not to do anything that makes you stand out, yet as soon as I take my eyes off you, here you are…”

“I’m not standing out! Not until you chopped me on the head, anyway! That was a cruel and unusual punishment, if you ask me!”

“Wow, you have no self-awareness… I’ll have to educate you from the ground up, starting by teaching you some common sense.”

“Awww, what?”

The child watched their exchange in blank confusion.

The nice lady healed her wound with a mysterious power, but then she got hit on the head. The situation was a bit too much for a five-year-old to follow.

“I’m sorry. This lady here is a bit of a weirdo. Now, you must be confused about how your scrape disappeared, hmm? Heh, well, conjuring is amazing. Here, let me show you a little something.”

Noticing the child’s confusion, Menou put on an act like a typical traveling priestess, holding out a single coin.

Once Akari and the little girl were both focused on it with curiosity, she drew power from her soul.

Guiding Force: Connect—Five-In Coin, Crest—Invoke [Guiding Bubble]

The coin glowed faintly with Guiding Light from Menou’s power, then produced glistening bubbles.

“Ooh!”

“Whoa! Cool!”

Looking up at the floating bubbles of light, the little girl exclaimed in wonder. Akari added in an impressed exclamation, too.

“Wow! How’d you do that?! Are they bubbles?! They don’t seem to pop!”

“Heh-heh! Impressive, no? …Well, it’s really just that there’s a crest on all coins and paper money, which can be used as a medium to cast a trifling spell. I can even control the movements of the bubbles a little.”

Menou explained the trick to Akari, who was as excited as the little girl.

In this world, it was the church’s job to issue currency. Including crests on the coins and paper notes also served as a measure to prevent counterfeit money.

“Paper money and coins all bear designs featuring famous saints. The conjuring each one can invoke is related to stories of that saint.”

“Whoa! Really?! What kind of stories?”

“Well, the five- in coin is associated with the legend of Saint Marta and the moon. The bubbles are meant to represent the moon.”

Menou prodded a nearby bubble as she explained to the excited Akari.

She willed the bubbles to move into lines, circles, and a smiley face. As Akari and the little girl chattered about the bubbles, the passing crowd looked at them with warm fondness. All of them had memories of priestesses telling stories of saints while entertaining them with conjuring, as Menou was doing now.

Hopefully, that distracted her from her wound disappearing , Menou thought as she tucked away the coin.

Just in time, the little girl’s mother came over, honing in on the commotion. Like Menou and Akari, it seemed they were taking the train to Garm as well. They were in different cars, so they parted ways—the mother looking apologetic and the child happily waving.

Menou waved back at them until they were out of sight, then whirled on Akari.

“Now. I warned you, didn’t I, Akari? Don’t do anything that might draw attention. You’re being pursued, remember?”

“B-but all I did was heal a teeny little— meep ?!”

“No buts.”

Menou pinched Akari’s cheek and glared into her eyes.

“We were able to gloss over it this time because it was a child. But you should know, there’s no conjuring in this world that can heal people’s wounds.”

“Huh?” Akari blinked, looking surprised. “But magic exists in this world, right?”

“Of a sort, though we call it conjuring here. But it’s not the sort of thing ordinary people can use easily, and there’s no conjuring in existence that can instantly heal an injury.”

Conjuring couldn’t be used by just anyone, although it wasn’t exclusively reserved for the church. The scene with the light bubbles stood out a little, but even if it caught some people’s attention, it was necessary camouflage to hide the fact that Akari had erased an injury.

“So be more careful.” Menou bopped Akari lightly on the head with her fist.

“Ouchie.”

“Conjuring isn’t all-powerful, you know. That’s why people are after you, Akari. Refrain from using your powers.”

“Awww. Okaaay. Whatever you say, Menou!”

“Very good.”

Akari’s response was lighthearted, but Menou nodded in satisfaction at her earnest response.

“All right, let’s get on the train. We’ll be traveling at night for part of it, but I wasn’t able to get a sleeping car, so we’ll have to make do with normal seats. Be prepared for that.”

“Uh-huh. No problem!”

Akari grinned and puffed up her chest.

They boarded the train, and before long, it departed the station without a problem. But a few hours later, as if by design, the train that carried Menou, Akari, and Momo was caught up in a terrorist attack.

The wheels of the trains that connected cities and towns across the continent were propelled by a Guiding engine.

The energy stored within the engine was expended to turn the wheels, spraying sparks of Guiding Light into the air as the train left the station. The first-class carriages near the front of the car, where the ride was the smoothest, were reserved for nobility and separated into luxurious individual rooms.

The girl in this particular first-class carriage was unmistakably a noble.

She had a shock of strawberry-blonde hair that shone in the sunlight, and eyes as blue as a clear summer sky. Her lightweight dress exposed a great deal of skin on her back and sides, flaunting her gorgeous figure.

In the seat next to her was a sword engraved with an elaborate crest.

She had no guards or attendants. Even alone, her high class was obvious. The young lady was incredibly elegant, though it was more of an overpowering superiority than a modest refinement. The confident look in her steely eyes reflected both her beauty and the strength of her will.

As she gazed out the window, she heard herself speak.

“Father has been such a fool.”

The young woman’s father was the king of this nation.

Just yesterday, the king had crossed the line by summoning Otherworlders. And now he was being branded a heretic for that transgression.

The girl guessed her father’s motives and deemed him a fool without hesitation.

The king reigns but does not govern.

That was the position of the Noblesse.

Invariably, the Faust were always above the Noblesse. While the Second Estate was in charge of unifying the Commons and presiding over the nation, the First Estate—the Faust—held the keys to all the world’s most important secrets.

Even with the titles of nobility or royalty, the Noblesse did not even have their own armed forces. Matters of law universal across continents, such as trials and the minting of currency, fell under the Faust’s domain. And the Noblesse were further restricted by the many techniques and technologies deemed taboo, and so it was virtually impossible to make any shrewd moves as a politician.

And yet, the Noblesse were considered the ruling class. It was laughable.

Thus, it was small wonder that the Noblesse occasionally delved into the forbidden and attempted to gain enough power to rebel against the Faust.

Ashuna would not censure that yearning to become stronger; however, she did not approve of the means her father had chosen.

“Otherworlders? Ha. They’ve already failed in the past.”

Long ago, there was a civilization in this world that prospered with the help of Otherworlders’ knowledge and their Pure Concepts, but they still fell to ruin.

And this time, it seemed the summoned Otherworlders had not even left corpses behind.

This was likely the work of the so-called Executioners often whispered about in rumors. As was the disappearance of that small squad of elite knights who vanished without even the slightest of successes.

However, the sin of summoning had been exposed, even though it yielded nothing of value, and so an official Holy Inquisition had begun.

Ashuna was the daughter of the king, but she had been deemed unconnected to this incident and released. As staying in the royal capital brought her nothing but unrest, the free-spirited young woman was traveling alone to the ancient capital Garm, where she planned to cross the border and leave the nation.

It was true that she was not involved in the summoning, and the church was not so cruel as to implicate someone for the mere crime of being related to the suspect.

The incident would soon reach its resolution, yet Ashuna still harbored a single doubt.

Her royal family did not have the knowledge or technology to attempt a summoning. And yet, her father succeeded so definitively that he was now on trial for heresy.

“Now then, what sort of plot was my father caught up in, and who was behind it?”

As she murmured aloud to herself, there was a flurry of footsteps outside her door.

The sound was far too boisterous to be permitted in the noble carriage. A moment later, the door to her private room burst open unceremoniously, and several armed men clustered inside.

“Beg pardon. You are Her Highness Ashuna, correct?”

The ill-mannered men surrounding her were carrying guns charged with Guiding Force. As they pointed them at the princess, Ashuna looked down the barrels with a bored expression.

“Indeed. I am Ashuna Grisarika, the youngest daughter of the king of this nation’s Noblesse.”

Despite having weapons trained on her, the young woman showed no trace of fear, and she introduced herself in spite of the sudden development. Her unshaken, even haughty attitude confused the men who were pointing their guns at her.

As their aim wavered, the young woman rested her chin on one hand and grinned ferociously.

She would never debase herself. Even though she was fully aware the Noblesse were hardly any different than a pet dog on a leash, her pride never wavered.

“Now then, who are you scoundrels with the nerve to point weapons at me?”

Ashuna Grisarika addressed the ruffians with all the dignity of a monarch.

The train had been hijacked by terrorists shortly after boarding.

“Listen up! Don’t even think about resistin’, all right? With this many hostages, we don’t give a damn if we lose one or two of ya!!”

Menou kept her eyes on the two men who were shouting threats as they roughly corralled the passengers to the back. They seemed accustomed to violence, so perhaps they were failed adventurers returning from the Wild Frontier. It was all well and good to try to strike it rich in no-man’s-land, which divided the areas inhabited by humanity, but many people fled and turned to a life of crime, unable to withstand the harsh elements.

“M-Menou…”

“It’ll be fine.”

Akari looked anxious, so Menou reassured her briefly.

The terrorists seemed to be planning to hijack the entire train. Currently, they were trying to gather all the passengers in Menou and Akari’s carriage into one place.

If they were armed and not working for the Noblesse, then they must be terrorists from the Commons, under the guise of a “citizen’s group.” Menou wasn’t sure of their motivations, but at least they didn’t seem to be after Akari.

In that case, Menou’s greatest concern became their weapons.

“These guys are scary. They’ve even got guns and stuff. Wait, I didn’t know there were guns in this world.”

“There aren’t. Well, technically there are, clearly, but they’re forbidden. No one is supposed to have them.”

“Huh? But those guys do.”

“They do indeed.”

As Akari blatantly whispered in her ear in spite of the situation, Menou responded without taking her eyes off the terrorists.

Guns were a designated taboo and thus considered heresy. Production, distribution, and possession of guns were all forbidden.

However, it was difficult to stamp them out entirely.

Even if people weren’t producing them by hand, the Mechanical Society, which ran rampant in the eastern Wild Frontier, continued pumping them out, so any person strong enough to make it back alive from that area could obtain them. Most of them were Guiding guns, not the type that used gunpowder, but both varieties were equally deadly.

The problem was that the men in front of them now didn’t look strong enough to acquire the weapons on their own.

“You can get those in the Wild Frontier, but…”

“The Wild…huh? What’s that?”

“We’re in a bit of a high-pressure situation right now, so I’ll have to teach you the basics later.”

The Wild Frontier was an area where the environment was so harsh that it had been deemed uninhabitable and abandoned by civilization at large. It was far too dangerous for anyone to make their way into the area without considerable power and ability.

So who had sold Guiding guns to these men? Menou’s thoughts raced while she whispered with Akari. One of the men stepped in front of them.

“You guys are next. Just keep your mouths shut and make your way to the back—dammit. A priestess?”

As the man started to give orders, he noticed Menou’s clothing and scowled.

“Good day, Mr. Terrorist. I am but a humble clergywoman and ally to the Commons. Is there a problem?”

“Bah. Aren’t you a cheeky one, little miss priestess?”

Her clothes were a dead giveaway.

It was common knowledge that the priestesses of the Faust were conjurers. Even without knowing that Menou was secretly an Executioner, no one would doubt the power of a priestess. Obviously, having a conjurer among their hostages would be a problem.

The man furrowed his brow in frustration at Menou’s standoffish challenge, but he simply flashed his gun at her.

“I’d go quietly if I were you, priestess. If you’re part of the Faust, you must know what this is.”

As designated taboos, Guiding guns weren’t common knowledge to everyone, but any priestess would be familiar with their power.

Nastiest of all, the man threatened Menou by pointing the barrel at the other hostages.

“…Yes, of course. I won’t put up a fight.”

Now that she had a sense of his character, Menou made a show of reluctant obedience.

“Glad to hear it. You priestesses can be tricky. I’m gonna have to keep you in my sight. Let’s start with placing your scripture on the floor and sliding it over to me. And, hmm…”

The man trailed off, his eyes wandering to Menou’s thigh where it peeked out of the slit of her skirt.

“…Heh. Guess I better have you get undressed, too. Ya might be hidin’ a weapon under there.”

“………”

It’s a good thing Momo is in a different car.

Rather than expressing disgust, Menou’s first reaction was relief.

If Momo had been present, she would have gone after the man’s life with zero regard for the safety of the hostages. And she’d use her particularly nasty methods, too.

Since Menou could envision that outcome with absolute certainty, she couldn’t help thinking it was a small mercy that Momo wasn’t present. When her assistant went on a rampage, it was extremely difficult to stop her.

“What’s wrong, girlie? You tryna refuse? A noble ally of the Commons is gonna turn her back on these hostages, huh?”

“Oh, enough already. Fine…!”

There really was a dagger strapped to the back of her thigh, so the man wasn’t off base in telling her to strip. Still, Menou had no desire to take off her clothes in front of others.

She reached down, intending to make a show of undressing so she could draw the man’s attention and then knock him out while he was distracted. But Akari stepped in front of her.

“W-wait a second!”

“Hunh? What’s this now?”

“D-don’t be mean to Menou!”

Akari was trying to bravely protect Menou, but she was obviously scared. There were tears in the girl’s eyes, and her hands were shaking.

Even so, she reached up to undo the ribbon at her breast, then opened the top button on her blouse.

“If someone has to strip, then… I-I’ll do it instead!”

“Um, what?”

“Huh?”

It was a bold but irrational declaration.

In fact, both Menou and the terrorist tilted their heads in confusion at her bizarre interference.

The man’s official reasoning was to disarm Menou, even if it was only an excuse. It made no sense for Akari to get undressed in her stead.

And yet, Akari turned to Menou with her teary eyes full of determination.

“I-it’s okay, Menou! I won’t let anything bad happen to you!”

“Sorry, Akari. You’re not making any sense, so could you be quiet for a minute, please?”

“Yeah, listen to your friend. That isn—hrmm.”

The confused man started to agree with Menou, but then his eyes fell on Akari’s chest.

Just by undoing a single button, she’d revealed a considerable amount of skin. The size of her chest was obvious even under her clothes, but her impressive cleavage was emphasized further by the way she was unconsciously pressing her shoulders inward with fear.

The man’s mouth twisted into a foul sneer.