Ch.164011 Investigation Record – An Unexpected Opportunity (4)

“Um, next time we talk, I’ll speak more quietly. Somehow, when I talk to someone so enormous, my voice gets louder.”

It seemed the Industrial Spirit King liked how I spoke while swallowing my embarrassment. Or perhaps he appreciated my words suggesting we might meet again. He was craving communication.

“That would be nice, little elf. If you wish to leave, I won’t stop you. Like a gear that turns in place but doesn’t roll, I remain here. However, you’re a reporter, aren’t you? I wonder if our conversation is enough for an article. It was merely personal matters. Ah, but if you’ve turned one gear, then another gear connected to it must turn as well. Go out and follow the commotion.”

The Industrial Spirit King spoke in a much gentler voice, as if promising me a story. Certainly, my counseling session with the Industrial Spirit King wouldn’t make for a publishable article.

At best, all I could report was that the Economic Spirit King had expressed concerns about the Industrial Spirit King’s condition, but the Industrial Spirit King appeared perfectly fine—and I could report this faster than other newspapers.

In such a situation, finding another story would be welcome. It seemed like one coincidence was leading to another. Perhaps it wasn’t coincidence at all, but right now, coincidence was the only explanation I could offer.

“Whatever commotion there might be, I doubt it will make a better story than meeting the Industrial Spirit King. But thank you! As long as the promissory note from the Economic Spirit King hasn’t expired, I can come back, so I’ll visit at least once more.”

My voice wavered at the end. I had habitually started to speak loudly before quietly lowering my voice. Habits don’t disappear easily. Nevertheless, they would eventually fade away.

I barely managed to climb back up what must have been two hundred steps to reach the surface. Only now did I wonder about the true depth of that underground space. The Industrial Spirit King seemed to dwell in the very marrow of the city.

After struggling up the stairs, I grabbed my trembling legs and left the building. I could barely force out a hollow laugh when the angel smiled and said, “Lots of stairs, right?”

From there, I decided to follow the commotion as the Industrial Spirit King had suggested. The factory district wasn’t a good place for an elf to use their sensitive senses.

With all non-visual stimuli at near-saturation levels, trying to focus on surrounding sounds sent signals of pain through all my senses. Elves weren’t a race meant to live in factory districts.

But today was different. I could hear sounds rarely heard in the factory district. The sounds of fighting. While protest chants from strikes could still be heard occasionally, this kind of fighting was uncommon.

Industrial spirits instinctively disliked fighting. They were born with the ability to create things; destruction was merely their byproduct, not their nature.

So the fact that industrial spirits weren’t stopping the fight meant… what exactly? I perked up the tips of my long ears to follow the sound. It was more of a brawl than a simple fight. There must have been at least five, no, more than ten participants.

Following those sounds, I passed through a couple of back alleys between factories. One hand gripped the camera hanging from my neck. The other hand was in my bag. Which one to hold and which to let go would depend on what I saw.

As the Industrial Spirit King had indicated, I found the aftermath of a fight. A man who looked like a vagrant was sitting among corpses with damaged heads. I gripped my gun first.

Even seeing my hands move toward my bag, the vagrant-like man showed no particular wariness. He merely pushed a shaved corpse’s head with his foot to show it to me.

“The bastards I saved ran away when they saw me beating these terminals, and now an elf who arrives after it’s all over wants to frame me for murder. Does this look like a person to you? These are just bodies, little one.”

Looking closely, I saw they were all terminals of the Idealists. Had he smashed the backs of their heads cleanly to disable the terminals? Despite his grimy skin and tangled, greasy hair, he smelled like bedding dried well in the sunlight.

I released the gun handle in my bag, and he began walking toward me.

With each step he took, I saw flames. Different from the flames I’d seen in the detective’s eyes. His displeasure wasn’t because he had killed Idealist terminals that looked like people, but because someone he had protected from those terminals had run away.

Though I wasn’t a mind reader, he somehow looked refreshed.

His expression was like that of a baseball player who had been bedridden with a broken leg finally stepping onto the sand of the field again. I couldn’t understand why he wore such an expression, but he smiled.

Under his thick eyebrows, untrimmed and mixed with many white hairs, yellow eyes gazed at me as if burning. He burst into laughter.

“Well, I’ll forgive that much. The scene was quite strange, after all. A warrior can make such mistakes!”

The unpleasant cursing from moments ago had completely vanished, replaced by hearty laughter. He was as unpredictable as Carmen.

I tried to recall the last time I’d heard the word “warrior” in real life. It certainly wasn’t a term people used these days. While there were many in New York who might use the word “warrior,” most weren’t human.

No, that’s not right. Human eyes don’t burn like that. They shone more certainly than the eyes of werewolves at night, which meant he definitely wasn’t human. He stopped in front of me.

Though his face looked human, he was incredibly tall. Well over 6 feet, almost at eye level with Paulina or perhaps even taller.

After wiping the blood of the Idealist terminals—bodies that were once people—on his sleeve, he extended his hand to me as if requesting a handshake. He was smiling, showing yellowed teeth.

“Call me Mithras. No, no. Sol Invictus would be better. Since I’ve fought after so long, I should use that name. State your name, warrior. You wouldn’t want to refuse a god’s goodwill, would you? Ha!”

An unworshipped god stood before me. Unworshipped gods typically settled in the same places as the people who once worshipped them, living respected lives, but this god was alone.

First, I needed to correct his misunderstanding. Whatever he was mistaking me for, I didn’t want to be called something I wasn’t.

“I’m not a warrior, I’m a reporter. Rose Leafman from Golden Age Press. Um, I’m sorry, but…”

He wasn’t listening to me. While we could communicate and converse, the content of our conversation didn’t seem to connect. It felt as if he and I were people from different eras.

“If you weren’t a warrior, you wouldn’t talk back to someone who was once a war god. Don’t doubt my judgment, little elf. You are a warrior. If Sol Invictus says so, then it is so. Don’t try to deceive me. Claims about not wanting to become something stronger are always lies. All people, all gods desire power! Overwhelming power at that!”

Something felt off about the atmosphere. Unworshipped gods typically didn’t try to reveal that they were gods. They were beings who had given up on being gods and settled here.

But this god, Sol, was shouting as if he was proud of being a god. Shouting like a madman. Somehow, I felt a chill run up my spine.

Perhaps seeing anxiety in my expression, the unworshipped god burst into hearty laughter again. Laughter should be a good thing, but I couldn’t feel good about it. Now even my friendship with laughter seemed to be weakening.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I have no intention of being worshipped. I’m a forgotten god, little elf. Now only history books and damned philologists remember my name. Once, my name hung in the center of the pantheon! Damn it… But more importantly, do you have any spare change?”

Though a god, he looked and spoke no differently than a vagrant. He seemed completely devoid of any will to live. Now I understood why he was as unpredictable as Carmen.

He had only desires and no purpose. Now forgotten and unable to return to being a god, he had nothing to dream of and moved according to his desires. That’s why he felt similar.

Carmen’s desires were more productive than this god’s desires before me. Trying not to let compassion show on my face, I took out a $5 bill from my wallet and handed it to him.

It seemed useless. Though resigned, a god was still a god. His insight was divine.

“That’s quite a sum for charity, little one. Having received this much, this fading sunlight should…”

He stopped mid-sentence while stroking his dirty beard. He turned around immediately and swung his hand at what seemed like empty air. No, it wasn’t empty.

As he swung his hand, the smell of ozone filled the air, and an Idealist terminal’s head was caught in his grasp and thrown against the wall.

Sol rushed forward and lightly struck the staggering terminal’s head with the base of his fist, shattering it. He literally crushed it against the wall.

Though the bodies of unworshipped gods had weakened to be almost like humans, he still seemed as strong as an ogre. Unable to contain his excitement, he began snorting.

“These filthy collectivists seem to want to entertain me! After losing eleven terminals, they’re still sending more!”

He didn’t understand the Idealists well enough to be considered modern. He was from a time when swords and magic defined the era. Now I could be certain of it. He growled.

“Stay back, little elf. Gods don’t get many chances to enjoy entertainment. I’ll show the collectivists’ hive mother who they’re messing with!”

Idealists emerged from nearby factories, wielding wrenches and pipes. Not even caring who had damaged their terminals, they walked out to defend themselves with weapons in hand.

The unworshipped god was as massive as an ogre yet as nimble as a goblin. His self-proclamation as a war god wasn’t empty talk. Even if he had lost his powers, a god’s experience and memory remained.

When a terminal swung a wrench, he stepped back just half a step, turning his head so it merely grazed his beard, then slightly pulled the terminal’s turned shoulder to make it roll on the ground. He stomped on its head, crushing it.

Though it might be obvious, he seemed more skilled in fighting than the detective. When another terminal brought down a lead pipe from above, he simply turned his body sideways to avoid it.

Like a boxer, he threw two quick punches and then bent down to deliver one powerful strike. The terminal hit by that punch never got up again.

This unworshipped god didn’t properly understand what the Idealists were, but he was acting like an expert among experts on how to smash and kill them.

Though he was skilled in fighting, this was an unnecessary battle. As the Industrial Spirit King had said, it was merely a commotion in the factory district, nothing more, nothing less.

I approached him as he was enjoying destroying the terminals one by one, blocking his path. Instead of letting him growl, I looked at the Idealist terminal and spoke, calling to the Hive Mind.

“Excuse me, Mr. Idealist! Um, the terminals here got into a fight? Please resolve this through dialogue before more terminals get smashed!”

Only then did a faint sign of life appear in the terminal’s eyes. It looked at me and the unworshipped god behind me… and assessed the number of terminals. The Hive Mind didn’t always manage all terminals.

The terminal spoke with a confused voice. It sounded like it couldn’t understand why so many terminals had been so easily destroyed.

“What happened here? You, the elf, couldn’t have done this. You, the big one, tell me what happened. It seems the terminals moved to defend themselves, but if they initiated unprovoked violence, we will compensate you.”

This was a problem that could be resolved through dialogue. The Idealist Hive Mind was a reasonable entity. The unworshipped god, sounding deflated, let out a sigh.

“Tsk, I was having fun. Your collectivist bodies were beating up workers from the factory next door. I don’t know what happened, hive mother of collectivists. I fought because I could fight. I’m not someone who cares about reasons. What matters is the struggle! Isn’t that what your God-President says? The struggle for life… or something.”

The terminal connected to the Hive Mind looked at me. After considering its words for a moment, it offered a very reasonable guess.

“Is he insane?”

“No, according to him, he’s an unworshipped god. And from what I can see, that seems to be the case.”

Meeting this god who didn’t fit into the modern 20th century was a big problem for both me and the Hive Mind. We could talk, but we couldn’t communicate, so there was nothing we could do.

In the end, the Idealist Hive Mind took a step back. For them, there was no greater loss than entangling with an unworshipped god and losing more terminals.

“The fight has escalated. We apologize, unworshipped god. How can we compensate you?”

The god who had lost his followers, his authority, and had become merely a line or two in literary records, had long since lost his dignity as well. He gestured to indicate money.

“Even I can’t live for free in this city, hive mother. Compensation should be in gold.”

Not long after, a terminal in a suit parked a car at the entrance of the alley and approached us. He took out an envelope of money from his breast pocket and handed it to the god called Sol, who was pleased after checking the amount.

“Worth the fight. Sorry about the smashed terminals, hive mother. I’ll be going now. It was nice meeting you, warrior!”

Until the very end, he was a person who didn’t fit this era. His staggering, vagrant-like departure hardly matched the word “god.” This seemed to be the fate of certain gods.

The Industrial Spirit King had said there would be a story here, but all I encountered was an unworshipped god who had become a vagrant and a madman.