Episode 192 – Internship (3)

Internship (3)

In the middle of a mountain densely populated with trees.

I sat on a rock and connected a USB to Bellmore’s laptop. I checked the information that Renkal—real name ‘Melsus’—had smuggled from the cartel.

[■■■■ ■■ ■ ■■ ■■■■]

It was full of encryption.

“Hey partner, you think this guy didn’t encrypt it? This isn’t a college board. It’s different from that crib smelling of baby formula.”

As if he had been waiting, Bell Moore sneered. I examined Melsus’s USB. Its shape was ordinary, but it had a panel that could receive magic.

“It’s a magic encryption.”

Magic encryption can be easily understood as something similar to Morse code. Long magic is recognized as a line (─), short magic as a dot (·), and these two types are combined to form an encryption.

Therefore, digital hacking is impossible. It’s an encryption that only exists in the owner’s mind.

“Ha~ really now. I knew this would happen. We’ll never be able to open it. Thanks, really.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I placed my finger on the USB.

This USB contains his memory. Specifically, the memory of the magic used to decrypt it.

My 「Notepad」 can call up that memory. Like psychometry, which reads memory from objects.

It does consume quite a bit of magic though.

“Phew. The young one really wants to make a fuss about being smart……”

I let his words go in one ear and out the other as I closed my eyes. I called up the memories buried in the USB with my 「Notepad」.

……– · – ·

Slowly, the signal of magic tingles on my finger.

It’s the pattern of magic that Melsus blew into the USB, forming a tactile sensation.

– – · – – · · – · – · – – · –

I blew magic into it in the exact same order.

Click-

The USB opened.

“That’s why I said you can’t… huh? What? It opened?”

Bell Moore, who had been cursing me until now, had his eyes wide open. I quickly scanned the file list.

“How did you open it? Is it your 「Spectrum」?”

[Marcus Cartel, New Drug Synthesis in Preparation]

[Production process undecided. Seems to be planning a large-scale deal with Trick City]

[Conversation Record １]

[Conversation Record ２]

[Conversation Record ３]

[Encryption stolen from the cartel]

[Location of drug raw material factory……]

There were over hundreds of files.

It was the information he had collected over the past month. Bell Moore put his hand on my shoulder.

“Look. There’s a lot of information. Even with this, you say he’s a double spy?”

“Yes. I’m even more convinced.”

“You just want to justify beheading him, don’t you?”

“There’s no concrete information. Specifically, there’s no information that would benefit Libra. From the cartel’s point of view, these are all pieces of information they could easily give away.”

“It’s frustrating… okay. Let’s say, as you said, he’s a double spy. Even so, he’s still worth using.”

Bell Moore crossed his arms.

“What would I have done? I would have kept him as a double agent and fed him false information. That would have caused confusion in the cartel. What about you?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

I shook my head.

“Right. You just cut off his head. So what’s the reason for that?”

“Because he already betrayed Libra.”

At that moment, Bell Moore froze. His smirking lips froze in place.

I closed the laptop. I threw the USB to Bell Moore.

“We can’t give a traitor a chance.”

Bell Moore caught the USB in surprise.

I looked at him quietly.

“Once.”

I held up a finger.

“If you betray Libra even once, you’re not worth living.”

This applies to me as well.

I must not be found out.

With a single betrayal, everything must end.

“…Stop looking at me with those eyes.”

Bell Moore raised both hands and backed away.

“You really are like a psychopath.”

I’m not sure who should be saying that. The guy who was juggling human skulls.

“Anyway, we’ll recover the body. We need to do an autopsy.”

He picked up Renkal’s head in one hand. He threw it around like a basketball and slung the torso over his shoulder.

Playing with a human head must be a habit.

“Instead, you write and submit the report.”

* * *

…All of Libra’s Chasers work in independent buildings.

Even in Edsilla, especially in the secretive underground. That place, which was rebuilt into a state-of-the-art facility at the bottom of the ground, is the [Information Bureau] that operates only for Libra.

“He was a dangerous guy.”

In the autopsy room of the [Intelligence Agency]. Bell Moore, who had returned, gave a hollow laugh while looking at the beheaded Renkal.

“It’s funny that you say that. That Lunatic Bell Moore says the intern is dangerous?”

A colleague cut open the body with a scalpel. Bell Moore’s complexion turned cold.

“No. Seriously. That guy’s a psycho.”

“Just because he cut his throat?”

“There was no hesitation.”

“You always say there should be no hesitation when killing a person. Seeing you being chewed up by an intern, you live long enough and you’ll see it.”

Bell Moore glared at his colleague. He ignored him and focused on the autopsy.

“That’s not all, asshole. That guy… seemed really angry.”

“…Angry?”

Bell Moore had observed every part of Shion, even the minute movements of the wrinkles on his face and his irises. After all, his very purpose was to scrutinize the intern.

“Shion Ascal doesn’t know this guy Renkal.”

Shion doesn’t know Renkal. He’s never seen him anywhere, never encountered him. It means it was their first encounter with one another in their lifetime.

“But still… just because he was exposed as a spy. So, just on the suspicion that Renkal would be harmful to Libra.”

When Shion Ascal killed him.

The moment he cut through a human neck as if it were a log.

Bell Moore looked into Shion’s eyes.

“That lunatic was truly enraged.”

A deep rage.

A burning hatred that couldn’t be condensed.

A murderous intent that said, ‘This guy shouldn’t be alive.’

“He treated him like the guy who killed his father. If Renkal’s fault is that he caused even a speck of harm to Libra… Haa.”

Bell Moore let out a hollow laugh without realizing it.

“Well, then he gets a perfect score. After all, it’s only such people who become Chasers, right?”

As he said, interns usually don’t get assigned as Chasers. Naturally, because they have to handle the dirtiest jobs in Libra.

Shion Ascal was already a person who had received permission from the top, in other words, ‘directly.’

“Or you could keep him as your subordinate. He seems like a machine that would rack up achievements.”

“…That might be possible.”

Bell Moore looked at the floor of the morgue.

“But… I want to kill that bastard.”

Simply because he could imagine it.

The future where Shion Ascal, with his eyes as cold as the steel floor of this place, devoid of emotion for anything other than Libra, looks at him with those dead fish eyes and beheads him just like this headless corpse…

“Anyway, you’ll know when you see his eyes. He’s a psychopath dedicated to Libra.”

“Hey, Bell.”

The hand of his colleague, who was performing the autopsy, stopped.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“…Look. It’s a Heart-Eater.”

He pulled out a grotesque creature from Renkal’s heart.

It was a bug.

A Heart-Eater.

It’s the ‘smallest monster’ that the cartel guys mainly use. A slave formula that leads to immediate death if you go against the will of the cartel.

“…he was right. A double spy.”

Bell Moore immediately left the autopsy room.

But right in front of him was a new intern.

No, it was ‘Riley,’ an intern inspector like Bell Moore.

“I heard the news.”

Riley asked with a blank expression. Bell Moore scratched the back of his neck.

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

Riley, who was his colleague when he joined the company. A crazy woman he once admired quite a bit.

Her eyes looking at him were still cold.

“Well…”

She also had a scary look in her eyes, but after facing Shion Ascal, she seemed rather cute. It was adorable.

Bell Moore said with a laughing tone.

“I guarantee it. He’s a monster, even more so than you.”

* * *

Sagurak-

Within the one-on-one interview room in Libra Station.

The HR team leader, Jean, flipped through the pages of the report I had written. I watched the side of her face. How did she manage to roll her hair into such a perfect apple shape?

Thud.

She put down the report.

“Apart from this report. During the autopsy, a ‘Heart-Eater’ was found in the corpse. As intern Shion thought, Renkal was a double spy. He must have been done in by the cartel.”

She had started mixing informal and formal speech.

“I understand the self-judgment, and Chasers are originally such roles, but.”

Bang-!

She stamped a document.

“Chaser duties are suspended for now. Intern Shion will be assigned to security.”

My eyebrows furrowed slightly. She tilted her head.

“Are you dissatisfied?”

“Yes. I’m disappointed.”

“Trust me. This will be better.”

Jean handed me a document. I just stared at it.

Flap- Flap-

“What are you doing? Not taking it.”

She shook it like a cat toy. I took it and read it.

[Security for the social event ‘Blue DeLuneman’]

“…….”

“You should be happier, right? Going there itself is a privilege for an intern.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“……Intern Shion. It seems you need to build up some common sense. It’s a social event where only the upper crust gathers. Direct descendants of Libra also attend.”

Direct descendants.

At that word, I quickly tucked the document into my pocket. Jean crossed her legs and spoke.

“Intern Shion. You once told Mr. Belingham, didn’t you? That you wanted to serve Miss Zia.”

“…….”

Jean suddenly asked about Zia.

I silently looked at her.

“Do you still feel the same? Or, have your ambitions grown?”

“It’s the same.”

“Why?”

Her eyes sharpened.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Do I need a reason?”

“You do.”

“…….”

“You do.”

She repeated. This must also be part of the screening process.

Zia is, at this point, someone everyone in Libra avoids, not even a rotten rope, but not a rope at all.

“As you know, I’m from the Libra Orphanage.”

I spoke in a voice as faint as a sigh.

“I heard the news of its closure earlier this year. However, Libra said that if we win a battle against the mercenaries, they would keep the Orphanage.”

Of course, the reason for wanting to serve Zia could be made up, but this is genuinely curious about this.

“On the day of the battle, Miss Zia came. I don’t know why she came then.”

The HR team leader took continuous notes in her notebook as she listened to my words.

“We orphans lost in the battle, and so, the Orphanage should have been closed.”

Sagak- Sagak-

The sound of her fountain pen was a bit irritating.

“But on the day itself, different news came. The Orphanage was not to be closed, but ‘relocated.’ Thanks to that, the children didn’t have to part, and I could leave the Orphanage with a lighter heart.”

“Is that an ‘assumption’ that it was thanks to Miss Zia?”

Jean asked. I gave a small smile and nodded.

“A very likely assumption. Just like today, when we caught Renkal.”

“Right.”

With that response, thud-, Jean closed her notebook.

“Miss Zia asked for it. Not to close the Orphanage, but to move it to her land.”

Jean propped her chin on her hands, like a stand.

“But, will you be okay? Serving Miss Zia is a career-ending move in Libra.”

I quietly closed my eyes.

It doesn’t mean much. Just that I felt like laughing.

With a stiff face, I conveyed my intention.

“If I had wanted wealth and honor, I would have given up long ago. I wouldn’t have been able to endure my illness.”

No one knows the true value of Zia.

Therefore, I am rather certain.

That Zia herself is hiding her worth.

“I don’t want such things.”

This much is sincere.

I don’t desire wealth, honor, fame, glory, and the like.

“What I want is beyond that.”

“……”

Jean silently looked at me.

For quite a while, it was like that.

“Hmm.”

Soon, she leaned back in her chair. She opened her notebook again and wrote a sentence that I couldn’t see.

“That’s enough. You can go, Intern Shion.”

* * *

……Shion Ascal. Right after that peculiar and special intern left.

“Did you get the video?”

HR Team Leader Jean made a call to someone.

─……Uh-huh.

A drawn-out tone. A voice that seemed full of sleep, as if just awakened.

It was Zia Libra.

─ Was it because of the Orphanage……? That’s interesting……

“Sometimes, the good deeds you do come back to you like a butterfly effect.”

Jean gave a small laugh.

She serves Zia.

But no one outside knows that fact. Even Zia’s people don’t know who serves Zia.

Because that in itself is a service to Zia.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s for the same reason as me.”

Serving the youngest direct descendant of Libra is something only possible if you have no ambition at all, or on the contrary, if you have a very large ambition.

Jean is the latter.

She has ambition.

Despite all the hardships, she will survive and seize ‘the entire future’ as her reward.

“This intern doesn’t seem to have the same reason as me. But, that makes him all the more trustworthy.”

─……No.

“Pardon?”

Jean tilted her head.

“Rather… that’s why it’s more untrustworthy… Kindness, you see… has no price tag…”

Yawn──

Zia yawned. The sound of her rubbing her eyes was heard.

“Having no price tag doesn’t mean… it has no value… having no price means… It can’t be bought…”

Zia continued her soft-spoken words.

“Not being able to buy it… ultimately means it’s a person who can’t be possessed…”

“I think the opposite. Because kindness has no price tag, he can forever be a person for Miss Zia.”

──……

Zia was silent for a moment.

Soon, she whispered in a small voice.

──…I’ll hang up. My brother has come… Goodnight…

Her brother is probably Jade. The second son who strangely takes care of Zia among the direct descendants.

“Yes. I’ll contact you if I have something to deliver later.”

Jean ended the call. Then she burned her smartphone with magic.

Whoosh!

One smartphone per call.

Although the price of devices is rising day by day, considering Zia’s value, it would be a bargain.

* * *

2.

Jared Arkne was flipping through his smartphone.

[Depression Treatment]

: Are you suffering from depression? Not just depression. We can make you feel any emotion you want. The price? It’s free!

[Virtual Enchantment Game Release]

: You can do anything you want. You can be anyone you want. The membership of the virtual enchantment game ‘Fellow’ will be on sale soon! The price? It’s free!

All sorts of advertisements filled the smartphone.

He started to question these things, and before he knew it, a week had passed.

However, there was still no contact from Detective Victor, and Jared was just wasting time alone.

“…Something.”

He sank into the sofa. He stared blankly at his hand and muttered.

“I feel like I’ve forgotten.”

Suddenly, he began to question himself.

Why am I the only one in this apartment?

Have I always been alone?

Or, was there something more important?

…Something more important.

Did I have a family?

At that moment, a voice echoed in Jared’s ear.

─You don’t know. That this world is fake.

Is this world really fake?

Or, is it just my simple depression?

“…Either way.”

Whether one is real and the other is fake, I can’t just sit still like this.

I have to go out.

I have to unravel the truth myself.

“Was my sword… under the sofa?”

Jared muttered as he reached under the sofa. He grabbed onto something hard.

It was the dusty family sword of the Arkne family.