Horizon:Volume 9B Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Debaters Down Below

Are you alright?

Are you alright?

Are you really alright?

Point Allocation (To Your Allies, For Some Reason)

●

“The Hashiba forces have entered Shibata’s formation at Shizugatake?”

Masazumi checked the sign frame displaying Ookubo’s report relayed by Crossunite.

At the same time, a sign frame appeared with a note direct from Ookubo.

Nagaya-Stable: “Presently, Maeda Toshiie, who we thought would be here, is intercepting the Hashiba forces using his ghost warriors. That should make things a little easier for us, but they must have their reasons.”

“True,” said Masazumi while she had Tsukinowa organize all the sign frames.

…So they’re just as busy as us.

Musashi was preparing for their entry into Honnouji.

They were currently at the Asama Shrine. They were preparing their divine protections and spells there, but some of the spell field entry gear was also the shrine’s job. A lot of it wasn’t normally allowed off the premises and they normally relied on Asama or other students with shrine maiden qualifications, but they had been given limited authorization to operate it themselves.

The idiot’s group had arrived a bit late, but since Ookubo had already completed most of the procedure, they actually had time to spare.

Thus, this had become their departure and preparation spot, as well as the site of a strategy meeting.

…Granted, that’s mostly because we can’t use the outside port because we could be attacked from there.

They could receive antiair fire from Honnouji this time. To avoid that, they had decided it was safer to use the holes created by removing most of the base hulls than it was to use a port up on the deck.

With so many wide blocks and other structures purged and carried away, the evacuation transport ships were in fact descending into the newly formed pits and relying on the docking equipment set up on the interior of each level.

The Asama Shrine was no exception and had its own docking equipment for receiving supplies, but at the moment it had large docking hooks attached for when it too would be purged.

Thus, they were in the semi-underground Asama Shrine, but at the moment, its atrium structure continued through to the passageway next to it. They would be departing on the transport ship docked there once the time was right.

And based on the report from Crossunite…

“It sounds like a kaiju battle has started over there.”

“I thought the same thing, but P.A. Oda seems surprisingly unimaginative to me,” said Crossunite.

“I know what you mean,” said Balfette as she made some final adjustments to Raging Beast on a sign frame. She looked up at the pillar of light visible in the sky out ahead of the Musashi. “How much of that is wasted energy, do you think?”

“It looks like a gravitational control ‘passage’ to me, but I will admit it probably isn’t all necessary. At that scale, most anything is going to have a lot of waste,” said Naomasa with a shrug.

She would be remaining on the Musashi.

They had been so busy there was no way Jizuri Suzaku would be repaired in time, so she would be on the bridge making predictions and scans of everything from Mukai’s monitors to the internal structures.

Everyone else would understand their duties by now, but…

“Oh. This probably doesn’t matter to any of you, but I have a bit of news.” Asama raised her right hand and opened a sign frame for them to see. “This was announced shortly after what happened at Kyou, but the position of the Far East’s Shinto Representative has been given to the Grand Shrine of Ise instead of the Emperor in the Imperial Palace.”

“Isn’t Ise the Imperial Palace’s main shrine? So what’s the difference?”

“Well, the Imperial Palace had never given Ise any commands outside of the customary ones, so there is effectively no difference. So unless Ise receives any instructions from the Imperial Palace’s surviving automata, everything should continue business as usual.”

So no real difference. From a political perspective…

“It was right to leave the decision with the Imperial Palace’s survivors. If they had chosen a new leader, such as naming a new Emperor, the other nations would have protested the choice. But with the Imperial Palace’s survivors, they can say nothing has changed, leaving no room for complaint. And Ise is still focused on the heavenly gods while IZUMO is focused on the earthly gods, right?”

“Right,” confirmed Asama. “And by handing over the authority, Ise is implicitly saying they will not be taking responsibility for Kyou, but the other nations cannot so easily demand the Imperial Palace’s survivors take responsibility because of all the secrets and rights involved. I think the European nations will be forced to respect Ise’s position. Meanwhile, IZUMO has been running a sale for corporate customers, insisting that prices for Shinto spells and infrastructure are going to skyrocket soon with the Ise part of the network gone.”

“Those monsters,” everyone muttered and Masazumi had to agree.

…But the new state of the Far East as a whole is already coming into view.

Had Ise expected and prepared for this? Masazumi appreciate that they would not let anyone else touch the rights to Shinto and the Imperial Court.

“I’m curious what’s going to happen at Shizugatake, but we need to focus on our own battle.”

Masazumi turned toward Futayo next to her. She nodded to the girl who was loosely holding Tonbo Spare.

“Futayo, give us an overview of what we’ll be doing.”

●

Futayo started by opening a map of Honnouji. The 1st Special Duty Unit had created it and it showed them that Honnouji had a surprisingly simple structure.

“As you can see, Honnouji is a circle with a multilayer dome.”

Yes, that much was obvious at a glance. And they would be…

“Simply put, we go in, find a way to get past the wall, do something with Nobunaga inside, and then leave. Simple as can be.”

“Give us a more complicated explanation!”

Now that’s a hard request.

…But I’ll give it my best shot.

“Complicatedly put, we shoot our way in from the front, break in through the gate, meet Nobunaga inside, discuss some important things with them, and then leave in much the same way. …That about sums it up.”

“Why is Nida-yan such a natural at being useless?”

“3rd Special Duty Officer, that is not a very nice thing to say,” interjected Gin before pausing and gasping. She realized everyone was grinning at her.

“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” said Naruze. “You have no problem criticizing her yourself but you come to her defense when someone else does it.”

“Th-that is not at all what happened!”

“Don’t worry, Gin. Your issues aren’t half as annoying as some people I could mention.”

“A-again, that is not what happened!”

“Ha ha ha. Gin, you can’t hide the things that really matter to you.”

“Master Muneshige! Master Muneshige! I swear that is not what happened!”

“Then what was it?” asked Futayo.

“Do not intrude on a couple’s conversation, Honda Futayo!”

She scolded me.

…But if I can anger someone as imperturbable as Gin-dono, my interpersonal skills must be improving!”

I should have more confidence. That said…

“Masazumi, if a simple and a complicated explanation both do not work, we might have trouble completing this mission.”

Futayo turned toward her fellow Mikawa resident who had a hand to her forehead.

●

“Um,” Asama heard Masazumi say. Neshinbara’s hand immediately went up, so Horizon…

“Tenzou-samaaa!”

“J-judge!”

Mitotsudaira breathed a sigh of relief and Mary said “my” with a hand to her cheek, but Neshinbara pointed at himself with both hands.

“That one was mine! I had my hand up first!”

“You’re just bad at making your case, Neshinbara-kun.”

Ohiroshiki had a point. But Tenzou responded to his nonstandard selection by crossing his arms and looking to Futayo’s sign frame. It showed the multilayer circular structure.

“The Vice Chancellor covered this point quite well herself, but Honnouji has a very simple structure.”

The simple map showed the main temple was a circle of just over a kilometer in diameter. It had stairways and connecting passageways on the edges and it was surrounded by eight clawlike structures that outputted lines of power up into the sky.

…Those claws must continue down to the ley line passing below the ground.

Narumi must have had a similar thought because she looked up into the sky.

“It sure is flashy. I wonder if the historical Nobunaga liked flashy things too.”

“Judge, I have heard that he did,” said Tenzou. “And do you know the most frightening thing about that ether disturbance?”

“Yes, that it’s so calm.”

“Really?” the others asked, so Asama had to nod.

“It’s definitely flashy. The Musashi’s ether sensors and the shrine’s sensors are both picking up that ether pillar just fine. That means its powerful enough to break through the Musashi’s divine protections.”

But despite being so flashy…

…The ley line is showing surprisingly little disturbance.

On a request from IZUMO, her father had been working with the Musashi to run scans. But despite the massive amount of ether being expelled skyward, the average earthquake would cause more of a ley line disturbance.

She had to preface it with “most likely”, but…

“I think some kind of underground facility has run calculations and set up a proper conduit for the ether expulsion. That means they prepared a mold for that pillar first and then sent the extracted ether into it.”

So…

“There should be a pulse-like tremor and a glowing phenomenon on the surface there, but it should be stable for now. I don’t know what Lord Motonobu was trying to do back at Mikawa, but it was because he didn’t create this kind of mold that they couldn’t contain the ether when it reached saturation and collapsed.”

“Will the same thing happen when this pillar collapses, Asama-sama?”

“No,” replied Mary, looking up into the sky. “It is rising faster than it can fall. I can see the occasional surface spirit panicking after getting caught in the current.”

Asama couldn’t see it in that much detail, but maybe that was the identity of the small flares she could occasionally see.

After a nod from Mary, Asama resumed her explanation.

“The Asama Shrine’s scans show the current in the center is traveling in reverse – from the sky on down. I don’t know if that reverse current is a circulation meant to provide a core to support the pillar or if it’s naturally occurring, but it shouldn’t have to be there and I think we should keep it in mind.”

Once she was done, she turned toward Tenzou. He pointed at the map Futayo had opened.

“Now, there’s a lightshow in Honnouji’s sky, but the place is surrounded by forest. I don’t know if it’s for delivering supplies or for construction, but it has a large front gate and it has transport ship landing zones built here and there. So breaking through the center like we did at Nördlingen and Kyou is probably the safest option. And with that in mind…”

Tenzou gave Futayo a quick nod before opening a map of the building in the center of Honnouji. But this map was a lot more detailed than Futayo’s and it had notes.

“We measured the widths of the passageways and the locations of stairways, but the internal structure is simpler than I would have thought.”

The triple layer structure used circular walls as barriers with a main hall in the center, but…

“The very center is likely a stage. It even has the keystone audience seating.”

●

“A stage?” said Margot, tilting her head.

“Will they be doing something like at Nördlingen?” asked Naruze, tilting her head too.

“Heh heh. Music is the first thing that comes to mind when you want a spell to influence a wide area.”

Kimi’s comment made someone raise his head in realization. It was Neshinbara and he looked up into the sky.

“That’s it!”

“Nope, wrong. Too bad.”

“I-I didn’t even say anything yet, Naruze-kun! If you reject my ideas before hearing them, what happens in the off chance I’m right!?”

“The off chance?” asked Asama, puzzled, but Naruze more or less agreed. She exchanged a glance with the others and then they nodded to her in a “go for it” kind of way.

“Very well. Then we would really like to hear this idea of yours.”

“D-do you have to put me on the spot like this!?”

Four Eyes: “Why are you so bad at handling pressure?”

“I can’t speak my mind when no one takes my side, that’s all.”

“If you could speak your mind with no one taking your side, wouldn’t that prove that you were entirely isolated?” asked Tenzou.

“Heh heh. Indeed it would! Anyone that clueless would have to be stupid! A stupidiot even! Hey, you there! You’re quite the stupidiot, aren’t you!?”

“Sis! Sis! It’s so cool how you can insult Tenzou while looking at me for some reason!”

“Why would you think she was talking about me!?”

After watching the idiot siblings cheer and high five, Naruze turned toward Neshinbara again.

“Got anything to say for yourself?”

“F-fine, I’ll tell you! I think it’s that thing! You know, where they make it look like they’re doing an entertainment spell, but then the stage splits in two, a giant aerial warship emerges from below, and we end up in this really cool battle!”

Tachibana Wife: “I feel like he got less descriptive as he went on.”

Tachibana Husband: “No, Gin-san. How can you describe a cool battle other than as a cool battle?”

That was definitely a cool way of defending him, thought Naruze before Naomasa’s hand went up.

“You think there’s a warship hidden below there?” she asked with a tilt of the head.

“Yes! I do! I really do!”

“Then,” said Naomasa, pulling a tape measure from her hip pocket and placing it against the stage drawn on Tenzou’s map.

Smoking Girl: “How wide is one of the Musashi’s ships again?”

Musashi: “Not giving you the size lengthwise, widthwise, or heightwise would be prudent if we are interested in preserving Neshinbara-sama’s pride. And my ships have a slender girly build when compared to the other nations’ ships. Over.”

“Y-you might as well come out and say I’m wrong at this point!”

“There just isn’t enough space. This stage has to be around 200m wide. And if the stage did open to the sides, where would the opened stage be stored? Looking at this, the two halves would collide with the audience seating on either side. And it if opened upwards, the foundation just isn’t sturdy enough to support it.”

“I didn’t mean to prove me wrong in every conceivable way!”

“Neshinbara-kun, I know it’s unlikely to happen, but please calm down,” said Asama.

Next was Adele who nodded and spoke to everyone.

“Um, I know you’re all on edge with the Honnouji Incident coming up, but I think we’re teasing the Secretary a little too much. Even if he brought this one on himself.”

“Balfette-kun! What kind of defense is that!?”

But even if there wasn’t a warship, something did catch Naruze’s interest.

“What really is going on below Honnouji?”

Tenzou’s people had investigated and discovered a large underground space there.

“My people said it is likely a space for gathering the ley line reactors and for temporarily pooling the ether. The scanning spells could only detect a mass of ether there, so the conclusion is based on that.”

…Ley line reactors would be filled with “pure” ether.

Everything in reality was created from ether: their bodies, the air around them, fuel, light, and even darkness. Even physical phenomena and effects weren’t the result of preexisting laws. It was said the world was initially empty and the ether filling the world happened to find those laws to be “easier”. Thus, it wasn’t difficult to break or rewrite the laws, but the laws would generally return to what was “easiest” afterwards.

However, those laws did not exist for the ether within the ley lines, so they carried great possibility. It underwent great change when given a mold.

“Which caused a lot of trouble in Mikawa.”

And this time there were at least eight of those reactors. Also, they were already operating, which was why the scanning spells hadn’t been able to detect the state of the reactors full of pure mold-less ether.

Furthermore…

“If Asama is right, could they be stabilizing the direction of the output to send something into the sky? But why would they want to do that?”

●

“Oh,” said Adele without thinking.

She had just about reacted to Naruze’s question, but she had only remembered the events at Mikawa and couldn’t think of anything beyond that to say.

…I feel like I’m so close to imagining what comes next, but I also feel like I’m skipping past something.

So far, this was a lot like Mikawa, but the rest would be different.

“Did Mikawa go boom because of things related to this stuff?”

“Adele, you don’t have to dumb down your vocabulary for Bara-yan’s sake.”

“Be nice, Naito-kun! Balfette-kun is being serious! Even if that was hard to understand!”

That pissed Adele off, but did that mean she needed more discipline? Meanwhile, the 4th Special Duty Officer drew a four-tiered pyramid on her Magie Figur.

“This conflict is between this part and this part of the bottom tier,” she explained to the others.

I wish I could argue with that, but having Kimi-san at the top and the Vicereine directly below her is pretty convincing.

But Asama shook her head at Adele’s idea.

“I think the Mikawa explosion was intentional. Honnouji appears to have adopted a similar technique, but for a different purpose. So I think this will end differently.”

In other words…

“I don’t think it will explode in the end.”

●

“Then why did my awful father turn himself into the Mikawa Bomber?”

Everyone could only mimic Horizon’s puzzled head tilt.

Asama was no more able to answer that unsolvable riddle than any of them, but there was one thing she could say.

“If the Honnouji Incident’s current state includes a technique taken from Mikawa, then we might be able to work backwards and figure out what they were doing at Mikawa.”

“Asama-sama! Is that true!? We might finally have an answer to the question our Secretary, Neshinbara-sama, and our gutless doujin author couldn’t solve while working together!?”

“Now hold on, Ariadust-kun! That was a new one!”

Isn’t that nice? Asama mentally commented while opening a sign frame.

It displayed Mikawa. Specifically, the center of the city that had sunk into the bay and was now known as Old Nagoya. Masazumi went “oh”, so she was probably reminded of her time there.

New Nagoya Castle had ley line reactors installed at its four corners with a control reactor in the center.

The eight reactors now running at Honnouji told them something.

“The amount of ether accumulated at New Nagoya Castle doesn’t really add up, does it?”

“How so?” asked Narumi.

Asama nodded and looked up into the sky where the pillar of light was still growing stronger.

“With eight ley line reactors running wild and absorbing ether from the ley lines, a pillar of that size makes sense. Mikawa only had four reactors, but New Nagoya Castle was a much larger facility than Honnouji. So they would have been extracting half the amount of ether producing that pillar.”

“And that exploded, right?” asked Urquiaga, but Asama could only half agree.

“The explosion occurred at the base of the pillar, but it rewrote the ether of the space over a wide area around it. I don’t think that would require ‘annihilating’ all of that accumulated ether. And after the extracted ether flowed out, it calmed back down and attempted to return to the ley lines. But in its superheated state, it couldn’t return and the ether’s compression rate wasn’t enough to contain the heat, causing it all to scatter.”

“If the reactor can’t contain it, it explodes,” summed up Naomasa.

“Yes, well, ley line reactors function by causing that on a small scale and harnessing the energy of the ether transformation. And as a consequence, they can process materials on a larger scale than alchemy.”

But…

“We are scanning what’s happening at Honnouji, but their extracted ether is being expelled skyward and they are controlling that flow to ensure the pressure doesn’t reach explosive levels. Or to put it another way, they are successfully controlling the wild ether with their control reactor.”

“Then what did they do at Mikawa?” asked Futayo.

Asama nodded.

Futayo’s father died guarding New Nagoya Castle.

Asama noticed Gin and Muneshige looking her way too.

Those two had encountered Futayo’s father, who had never once been defeated. Asama knew that thinking on this any further would be wrong as a shrine maiden who handles matters of the afterlife.

But if they could find some small hint to what they had been doing at Mikawa…

“Mikawa had half as many reactors as Honnouji, but they did not expel their ether skyward. The control reactor expelled the ether upwards, but it ultimately fell back down. Which brings something odd into view.”

“What’s odd about that?” asked Mitotsudaira.

“Well.” A lot about this was still unknown. “Like I said at the start, the amount of stored ether doesn’t add up.”

●

Oh, thought Naito in realization.

She had been focused on the part of the process between the reactors running wild and the explosion, but…

“The reactors were being used like normal before they ran wild, weren’t they?”

“That’s right,” said Asama.

Someone reacted to this: Gin. She suddenly straightened her back and cleared her throat.

“The Tres España fleet Master Muneshige and I were a part of back then worked out the time until Mikawa’s reactors reached a critical point based on the superheated state of the emerging ley lines and the spatial variation rate. The prediction proved to be nearly accurate, so we concluded the process had been intentional. And once everything was gone, we were left with the question of why they had caused that disaster. But…”

But…

“That may not be the correct question.”

“I agree,” said Naruze next to Naito. “They had been using their reactors before the disaster, but because Mikawa was destroyed, everyone assumed whatever they had been working on was destroyed too. But it wasn’t, was it?”

“Right. Honnouji’s light pillar is better controlled than Mikawa’s one because they have a system that controls the reactors by allowing their output to escape into the sky. That allowed the process to run surprisingly smoothly from the very start. I think Mikawa’s was planned as well, but that still leaves one question.”

Asama-chi turned toward Naito.

…Don’t pass this one on to me!

Asama was giving off the scent of an ether explanation obsessive. But Naito did know the answer here, so maybe she wasn’t one to talk.

“Even taking into account that Mikawa had half as many reactors, the process was much slower and it looked a lot less controlled,” said Naito.

“Which is strange, isn’t it?”

She knew what Asama-chi meant by that.

“Why was Mikawa’s process so much rougher when they had been using their reactors for so long? If they had prepared for it, they could have triggered the explosion right away.”

Naito looked up at the light pillar. The one at Mikawa had been yellow, but this one was a bluish-white. The extracted ether was given directionality and then ejected straight up.

“It seemed to happen so ‘suddenly’ at Mikawa, didn’t it?”

Why was that? Asama explained.

“I think Mikawa probably was prepared to trigger that explosion, but just beforehand, they performed some kind of work within New Nagoya Castle, which used up all their ether stores.”

“But Mikawa was still destroyed, right? Wouldn’t whatever they were working on have been destroyed along with it?” asked Adele, tilting her head. “So it is a mystery what Lord Motonobu was trying to accomplish at Mikawa and we can discuss it, but I don’t see how it really matters much in the end.”

She punctuated that thought with a shrug.

But while some nodded in agreement, others said nothing and even stopped moving.

The latter group included Mary and the Tachibana couple. Sensing the change in Mary’s mood, Tenzou turned toward her.

“Mary-dono, do you have an opinion?”

“Judge. One thing is bothering me. And it’s something that we have already seen – or rather, experienced.”

“Judge,” replied Gin. After checking the time on a sign frame, she nodded to everyone else and spoke. “Ley line transportation. At Novgorod, the Shibata forces received support that way and we fought Oichi who used a Testamenta Arma linked to K.P.A. Italia. So while it is little more than wild speculation, it does seem possible.”

What seemed possible?

“Could Lord Motonobu have used the ley line reactors’ increased output to transport something within New Nagoya Castle over the ley lines and then destroyed Mikawa to hide the evidence?”

●

Gin went ahead and said it.

…Crazy theories like this are not my forte.

But she had been there. Her husband Muneshige was the last surviving person to have spoken with Lord Motonobu.

“When the ley line reactors and control reactor were activated, Lord Motonobu opened New Nagoya Castle’s gate to reveal himself. He could have made his transmission from inside the castle or on the roof, but he felt a need to leave the castle. Tactically, that could have been to gather attention to his actions, but it could also have been to hide what was happening inside the castle.”

Gin felt like she was overthinking this, but Lord Motonobu had been the type to do that.

But he had also said something curious.

Muneshige sucked in a breath and repeated it here.

“Teaching materials.”

Yes, Lord Motonobu had said that.

“Lord Motonobu said he had sent many teaching materials into the world for ten years.”

The Musashi princess immediately opened her mouth.

“Class is about to begiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!”

Why did that nearly make the Chancellor fall to his knees?

●

Masazumi covered her face with a hand and sighed.

…Why does everything have to be so much trouble?

No, that was only if the Tachibana Wife’s fantastical theory was correct.

But it sounded extremely plausible.

“So assuming Lord Motonobu did transport something over the ley lines, what could it have been?”

“Should we assume it has already arrived somewhere?” asked Mitotsudaira.

Masazumi didn’t know, but Asama tilted her head and responded.

“Usually, ether reactors extract ‘pure’ ether, which is why that ether makes excellent fuel and can be used as an all-purpose material. Of course, it consumes some of itself as sort of fuel consumption when it is materialized, so you don’t receive the exact same volume the reactor extracts.”

“In that case, we would have no way of even guessing,” said Urquiaga with a glare. He was right.

And furthermore…

“We’ve already stopped following Lord Motonobu’s class.”

“So we won’t receive his teaching materials.”

“Sounds like yet another reason our enemy has the upper hand.”

Everyone looked to Masazumi. And Narumi…

“I wonder whose fault that is.”

●

Mitotsudaira saw Masazumi growing flustered upon realizing this could quickly turn into a running gag.

“Wait! Are you placing all the blame on me!?”

“They do often say ‘one for all and all for one’, don’t they? The saying never specifies what it is talking about, so it can apply here too.”

“Not so fast!” Horizon raised her right forearm and spoke to Masazumi. “Masazumi-sama! Allow me to speak in my own defense!”

“You sure are blunt!”

“If only,” said Horizon before glaring up at the light pillar in the sky. “My awful father is constantly causing us trouble, isn’t he?”

Gin hung her head a bit in response to that. She moved her prosthetic hands up and down to gesture for the others to stop.

“To be honest, Master Muneshige was the one who interrupted the class back then.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Naito. “Come to think of it, it was Muneo and Gin-chan trying to interrupt class that eventually led us to realize we could leave the path he had set up for us. What even was that fighting at Mikawa? If it was just to interrupt his class, it seems pretty pointless to me.”

“But, um, we have left Tres España since then and Tres España and the other nations are still following that path.”

Mitotsudaira didn’t think she had ever seen Gin being so humble.

But she knew one thing for sure.

“We are delinquents.”

Everyone turned toward her.

●

We are delinquents, thought Mitotsudaira.

Delinquents.

The bad kids. Of course they were. Musashi represented the Far East. They had been “judged” as descendants of those who had destroyed the Harmonic World.

And while the other nations took root across the land and developed themselves, they wandered the skies on the Musashi and weren’t even properly armed.

In that sense, they really were the delinquents But at the same time…

…There are things only delinquents can do.

Her king smiled a little.

“We?” he said. “Nate, you’re more of a teacher’s pet. I’m the delinquent. Since I’m the king.”

“And I am actively following that delinquent king.”

“That’s cause you’re my knight.”

Hearing him say that excited her, which settled the matter for her.

“We are all delinquents.”

They opposed the powerful and the clever in order to do what they wanted. But…

“We are delinquents…but that does not make us evil.”

The other nations had their own ways of thinking. But there were national borders and they would frequently clash with neighboring economic blocs and such. That had led to the “survival of the fittest” rules of the Warring States, which had made things less comfortable for Musashi.

If they were going to be delinquents, they might as well do what it was they wanted. Making a mess of the world this way should probably be called “interrupting class”. So…

“What happens to the world if we win?”

“Well, we need to figure out what to do about the Apocalypse first,” said her king.

“Oh,” said the Secretary, raising his right hand. “About that. I have an idea about the part of that coded text we couldn’t figure out.”

Eh? thought Mitotsudaira. Then Naruze moved forward and held out her palms so everyone could see. That meant “calm down” as she looked up at the Secretary from below.

“Are you surrrrre?”

“Wh-why do you sound so skeptical!?”

“Well, you know, it’s just kind of sudden.”

“I made sure I would be done in time for Honnouji. That’s all this is.”

What did he mean by that?

“I can decode the entire message. But that doesn’t mean I know what it all means. So now we need to think about that while using some hints.”

Naruze sighed and let her shoulders droop noticeably when she heard that.

“Are you for realllllll?”

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