Ch.227Request Log #018 – The Ghost Wandering New York (3)

“Did anyone see Philip when he smelled like ozone? I’m asking if someone had their hand on the back of his head or anything like that.”

Even though they called themselves The Idealists, they couldn’t simply consume human souls from a distance without consequence. Their method involved forcibly merging souls into their collective that already contained tens of thousands of souls through magic.

If they had done it, there would be clear evidence, but the Industrial Spirits shook their heads.

“Philip was alone, right? He was carrying a paper bag in his hand!”

“He said he needed to buy something to take home! I saw him heading toward the factory district during lunch break! That must be what was in the bag. A person couldn’t fit in there, could they?”

Their innocent and dedicated nature made them excellent workers but not excellent witnesses. I clicked my tongue and cut off the conversation.

If he was alone, then it wasn’t The Idealists. Even if they used teleportation magic from a Blingkerton terminal, the Industrial Spirits who remembered the bag he was carrying wouldn’t have failed to notice their presence.

So I could believe them for now. Trust should be given easily and withdrawn easily. Making it difficult to trust others only makes work harder. The Industrial Spirit must have gotten excited because the meat-cutting blade started clicking.

“Oh, you look like you’ve reached a conclusion! Were we helpful? I hope we contributed to finding Philip!”

They were unpleasantly uncanny creatures, resembling humans yet not quite human. As the trembling blade approached my face, I pushed it away by pressing what should have been the bridge of its nose.

“In your own way.”

After giving a brief answer, I opened the rooftop door and went down. I needed to meet The Idealists. They were convenient when they weren’t enemies. I could tolerate their ideology to an extent.

The factory security guard asked if I was leaving already, and I just nodded before exiting the factory. I needed to move quickly. I didn’t believe the business demon was still waiting for my call.

If a contractor who suddenly called knew about the job they wanted to assign me, they would have shared information at least to determine if I was the culprit, and since there were surely more than three of them, the news would spread quickly.

After that, meeting with The Idealists would become difficult too. I hadn’t used any great deductive powers—I had simply followed the natural flow of events, and people would do the same.

A bald Idealist terminal was waiting in front of the factory gate. His expression wasn’t good. I couldn’t tell if he was focused elsewhere or just struggling.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen through a terminal’s eyes. Can you tell me why we’re under suspicion? We’ve been focusing solely on responding to attacks for days. Despite that, we’ve lost quite a few terminals. I’m taking time to meet you now when I should be looking for those terminals, detective.”

He started speaking cooperatively but couldn’t overcome his anxiety and spoke with an irritated voice. It was human-like. That hive mind was, after all, just a collection of human minds.

It was a genuinely confused response. If they knew and were trying to deceive me, they wouldn’t have mimicked frustration to the point of anger.

“I heard workers are disappearing from the factory district. One case was said to be related to you, so I was going to visit, but since similar cases happened simultaneously, I thought there might be just one culprit. It’s also related to magic.”

“You trust people easily.”

“I can let go of trust just as easily, so it doesn’t matter. What’s going on with your side?”

The Idealist hive mind began gathering mana from the surroundings. Whether or not the original terminal knew magic, when connected to the Idealists’ hive mind, they could use magic.

Magical energy gathered above his palm. I didn’t understand the principles, but it was a delicate and complex magic that only worked when applied directly to the head. It was magic that consumed and merged minds.

It was beyond the understanding of someone like me who could barely light a cigarette. He raised his palm with magic boiling so intensely that the surrounding air seemed distorted, and made a very reasonable point.

“This magic is safe unless there’s complete contact. If we had done it, there would have been witnesses. And since you don’t think we did it, that’s why you’re meeting with us, right?”

I nodded briefly. After proving his innocence and confirming that I believed in that innocence for now, the Idealist hive mind continued.

“First, someone attacked one of our terminals in the factory district. It’s a common occurrence. The attacker knew we see the world through our terminals’ eyes. They made the terminal close its eyes and covered its ears, so we couldn’t learn much… but we could tell their purpose. They were trying to decode the magic that creates terminals. They were interfering with the magic that connects us to our terminals, trying to read it.”

“Seems they succeeded. And they succeeded in a way better than the original. The missing person I mentioned was apparently affected by that magic, with just the smell of ozone and no physical contact.”

The Idealists’ magic required contact, but the worker abductor only needed to spread the smell of ozone without contact. The hive mind spoke as if it couldn’t comprehend this.

“That’s, that’s impossible. Such a thing can’t be possible. It took ten of me three years to develop this magic before becoming this hive mind. There’s no way someone could improve such magic in just a few days, especially not by merely observing the pattern on a terminal without understanding the exact operation. It’s objectively impossible in such a short time.”

If such a thing were possible, magical patent law would be much more complex. It was a sufficiently logical argument, but it ultimately tied their own hands.

I had decided to trust The Idealists precisely because the culprit used magic without contact, unlike them. And there was something that caught my attention in what they just said.

The hive mind didn’t deny the possibility of improvement itself. They denied that it could be improved in such a short time. That meant it might be possible with sufficient time and effort.

I knew of beings in New York who could invest that kind of time and effort. It didn’t require great deduction. It was right in front of me.

“Back to square one. You’re still the most likely suspect. Let’s set aside the attack from three days ago that you can’t even prove happened. If we assume it’s impossible to instantly understand and improve that magic, is there a better explanation than you finding a way to bypass the biggest limitation of the magic you’ve been using all along?”

Since there was still trust remaining—like jam stuck in the corner of a jar that a knife can’t scrape out—I gave them one more chance to explain. It might have just been a slip of the tongue.

For The Idealists, who suffered from unwarranted distrust, even this much trust was sweet beyond measure. Their contemplative sounds were like pleas for mercy.

They seemed to realize that my trust wasn’t so blind. Those who spoke of cooperation or unity often suffered at the mere mention of incomplete trust.

The Idealists finally reached a conclusion. The bald terminal wearing workers’ overalls nodded with determined eyes.

“I’ll show you the attacked terminal. I’ll extract memories using our mind-manipulating magic so you can read them. We still can’t prove how the improvement was possible, but we can prove the attacker’s existence. That should be enough to maintain this fragile trust a little longer. Let’s go to the Idealist Union building.”

The Idealists’ magic wasn’t welcome enough to be used on main streets. It was magic that made even the self equal only to those who supported them; most people saw it as devouring others’ souls.

It wasn’t a dangerous situation for me. If you don’t know an Argonne Invincible, you can’t prepare for one. If you can’t prepare, you can’t deal with us. Even if I were thrown alone into the Idealists’ den, getting out wouldn’t be difficult.

“Not bad. I suppose I can trust you with driving?”

I got into the back seat of my car. The Idealist terminal naturally took the driver’s role. We drove through the factory district. I could almost hear the heartbeat of the Industrial Spirit King.

The Industrial Spirit King is a massive being but not a powerful one. I had seen it suffering from phantom pain due to anxiety.

Seeing its name occasionally in newspapers, it seemed like it wanted to say something to people. Unfortunately, New Yorkers didn’t listen well to others until someone started bleeding.

Soon we arrived at The Idealists’ headquarters. It was a building full of symmetry, plainness, and repetitive straight lines. It couldn’t be called Art Deco. Art Deco at least had beauty.

This was… more like standardization. I pushed through doors that showed almost no signs of human use.

The only thing that was practical yet sensory was a huge painting depicting terminals with identical faces holding hands in a line against the backdrop of the city.

Not a good sensation. Looking at hundreds of people with the same face and same thoughts created an instinctive discomfort. Equal selves, equal possessions, and equal futures. An unpleasant motto.

Numerous terminals moved in mechanical unison, even more mechanically than the Industrial Spirits. Yet dust had accumulated on the floor. It seemed there was no terminal assigned to cleaning.

They wouldn’t have let dust accumulate for days just to bring me here for one day. I recalled their mention of losing terminals and struggling with basic maintenance.

“Wait a moment. Other terminals are bringing the attacked terminal. Ah, and I did come up with one hypothesis… quite far-fetched. Would you like to hear it?”

One hive mind with a thousand terminals might not create better answers than a thousand people putting their heads together, but when that wasn’t possible, even two of us needed to think. I nodded.

“As long as it’s not more absurd than beings who merge selves through magic and then call their original bodies ‘terminals’ and treat them like machines or slaves.”

The hive mind chuckled. Their reactions were quite human-like now. They weren’t spouting ideological rhetoric either.

“It’s not that extreme. Could the culprits be New York City spirit management officials who have contracts with the Industrial Spirit King? The factory district isn’t made of concrete, rebar, and water pipes. It’s flesh, bones, and blood vessels. The spirit management department routinely channels magic through the Industrial Spirit King’s body… and unless workers were flying through the air, their feet would have been on the ground.”

“That’s…”

I was about to ask if that was possible but swallowed my words. The being before me was using magic in the same way. The hive mind used the magic, but the mana flowed through the terminal’s body. They too were using someone else’s body.

“I suppose it’s possible. But why would civil servants do that? And why wouldn’t the Industrial Spirit King prevent such actions?”

The Idealist hive mind seemed to fall into contemplation, not having thought beyond that point. Two large terminals were bringing another terminal with bandages around both wrists and the nape of its neck, so he concluded our conversation with idle talk to ease his mind.

“Well… maybe it’s a civil servant obsessed with that apocalyptic prophecy the Industrial Spirit King supposedly made, trying to prepare for the future. Just do as you did when you connected to the terminal last time. I’ll handle the rest.”

With his words, one of the large terminals that brought the injured terminal knelt before me. The back of his completely shaved head had a palm-shaped drawing on it, as if asking me to place my hand there.

A humanized tool. At least The Idealists were honest and practical. I placed my hand on it. There were countless others who treated people as tools while claiming they treated them like people.

Though it wasn’t much mana, it drew mine in. The magic circle drawn under the palm-shaped image began to activate. My vision cleared. My viewpoint lowered as if kneeling. An unpleasant sensation.

My mind, freed from my body, was looking down at my body and the terminal now entrusted to me. I moved the terminal toward the injured terminal and placed my hand on its forehead.

The Idealists placed their hands over mine and injected mana on my behalf. Like playing an old projector, a blurry scene appeared.

It was the New York factory district. In front of a familiar textile factory. Few people were around. Probably dawn. The Idealists’ terminals don’t fear crime, so they don’t fear walking around at dawn.

There was a strong impact, as if someone had struck the terminal that was walking back to this building. The vision shook violently. With the sudden shock, the movements became smoother, as if the hive mind had connected.

The attacker was quite skilled. Before the hive mind could properly control the body, they covered both eyes and stuffed something into the ear canals. They were also strong enough to subdue and restrain the terminal that was thrashing wildly.

Could it be one of my comrades? Otherwise, they wouldn’t be this skilled. The next moment, pain began to be felt. The Idealists don’t normally feel pain.

Pain flowed from the back of the head down the spine. As the attacker forcibly extracted the magic, the unstable flow of mana inside the body felt like a tingling pain in the fingertips and toes.

I understood why the Idealist hive mind was showing such human-like and anxious reactions. They had tasted pain they hadn’t experienced for at least a decade. I disconnected.

My original palm was sweaty. An Argonne Invincible’s body only feels half the pain, but for a hive mind unaccustomed to pain, it would have been twice as intense.

“So you were attacked.”

After taking a breath, I continued. I was convinced the Idealist hive mind wasn’t the culprit.

“He’s quite capable as both a magician and an operative. More of a magician. He was trying to decode the magic you placed on the terminals’ heads and spines. As you said, his purpose was to steal it.”

This case would leave a bitter aftertaste too. Someone stole magic from the Idealist hive mind and abducted terminals to test the stolen magic.

If someone crazy enough to do that abducted workers… the workers would already have become their terminals. Unfortunately, a second hive mind was out of the question.

The hive mind’s joke about New York City spirit management officials wasn’t funny anymore. The culprit would need at least that level of ability. Maybe even more.