Ch.230Outside. The Faceless Fixer’s Closing Ceremony (8)

Carisia looked up at the person standing before her. He introduced himself as a fixer who worked on commission.

He wanted Carisia to follow his clients. He said that if they recovered her, she could live a life that might not be happy but would be safe.

Carisia believed the nameless fixer’s words.

This existed in a realm beyond understanding or comprehension. The fixer was the first person in this world to show her kindness. The first approach that chose conversation rather than killing intent.

Carisia placed no conditions on her trust.

Therefore, even when he brought her before those suspicious individuals, she showed no particular reaction. Unlike what the fixer had said, the atmosphere was ominous. It seemed clear that not a safe life but a swift death awaited her.

Carisia simply acquiesced. She thought that even if the end of her trust in this person was death, she had already received more than enough value from that one moment of warmth.

However, the fixer stopped Carisia as she staggered toward the clients.

“What is going on here?”

***

“What is going on, you ask.”

My eyes scanned the surroundings. The moment I detected clear killing intent toward Carisia in that man’s inner psyche, I blocked her approach and questioned him.

“All of you are too dangerous. You’re nothing but bombs in magical society.”

The mage who appeared to be the commander at the front replied gruffly. My eyes read the emotions hidden beneath his brusqueness.

Wariness, and fear.

Fear of this white-haired mage named Carisia. The moment Carisia approached beyond a certain point, all manner of spells would be unleashed upon her. It was a tactic revealing their determination not to let Carisia get close.

A deployment map of troops flashed through that man’s subconscious. It was due to magical communication and command. Ambush units hastily changing positions.

The excessive number of mages they had brought to deal with just me was evidence that they intended to kill both Carisia and me.

“That’s why we plan to eliminate everyone here.”

“…My, aren’t you afraid of this mage friend’s power?”

I put on a show of bravado. A threat asking if he wanted to disappear under Carisia’s formidable beam cannon.

But the man replied calmly.

“Save your bluffs. The magical energy here is already under our control. There’s a limit to how much magical power an individual can accumulate, and she’s likely already consumed a significant amount performing survival magic during the desert crossing.”

It was an accurate assessment. Carisia had expended considerable magical energy in obliterating the space of extinction.

The survival magic used during our journey to the rendezvous point without a sand bike was also problematic. Various spells to prevent extra-dimensional erosion, maintain body temperature, and supply water.

It was a decision to leave the dangerous extra-dimensional border zone as quickly as possible and meet the client in a safe area. In our rushed journey, none of us had even rested properly.

Damn. Who would have thought the client would be setting a trap and waiting.

“Your instinct not to come to the designated target location was quite sharp, but this place is already surrounded.”

It was not a threat but a calm declaration. A one-way street with no way back.

“Before we go, let me ask one thing.”

I hung my head, acting the part of someone who had given up. I also released Carisia’s hand that I had been holding until just now.

“What is it?”

“The extra-dimensional explorer ship you promised me. Does it actually exist?”

“Of course not. Access to extra-dimensional spaces is highly restricted. Perhaps for adjacent dimensions, but as far as I know, there is no explorer ship designed to access the deep extra-dimensional spaces you wanted.”

An unconscious thought flashed through his mind. The notion that even he didn’t know if related information might exist in top-secret files accessible only to the commander.

“I see…”

***

“Hahahahaha!”

Suddenly, Ortes threw back his head and laughed uncontrollably. Haltos, watching him, remained unmoved. Rather, a sense of relief welled up within him.

He was accustomed to people driven to the edge of life exhibiting peculiarities incomprehensible to others. How many tasks had Haltos himself handled as a hound of the Ten Towers?

Cult followers also committed strange acts according to their respective deities. Some would stab their own hearts and charge forward, claiming to dedicate the battle to their war god, while others would inexplicably eat deer hearts.

Dealing with such mentally disturbed individuals made one immune to mere laughter.

“I see. So it was a fraudulent contract from the beginning.”

“It’s true that our upper echelons have the technology to create vessels capable of exploring the depths of extra-dimensional spaces. Thanks to eliminating dangerous elements like you and accumulating that technology.”

“Thank you.”

Thank you? Haltos questioned the madman’s unexpected words.

“Your employment relationship with me ends here. I’m unemployed again now, ha!”

With a sharp mocking laugh, Ortes swung his knife. However, Haltos didn’t move an inch.

The distance was too great for the knife to reach. More than a hundred paces separated him from Ortes. Unless he used magic.

‘Has he lost his mind and is just lashing out?’

Just as Haltos was calmly about to order an attack.

He sensed something off. He couldn’t quite express it, but something had fundamentally changed from the situation moments ago.

Haltos, with his keen eye and cold judgment, instantly grasped the situation. Nothing had changed in the surrounding environment. The extra-dimensional desert was still chaotic, and the Blasphemia members’ battle formation was thorough.

But there was one difference. Just one.

Ortes had his eyes open.

***

The magical energy control formula that Blasphemia had painstakingly constructed was gone. No, different. This was a strange distortion.

Haltos felt the connection with the most important personnel, the operators of the magical energy control formula, whom he had placed in the safest location, had been severed.

This was no mere communication disruption. Urgent cries came in succession.

“Confirmed cardiac arrest in formula operators! Acute magical overload! Sequential magical circuit rupture in reserve personnel groups 1 through 3!”

He looked at Ortes again.

He was still laughing, without doubt. But simultaneously, no emotion could be read from those cold blue eyes.

The first face revealed by the faceless Ortes was dissonance itself. Whether the laughter or the emotionlessness represented his true intention remained unknown.

“Begin bombardment!”

Haltos chose the most effective countermeasure available against an unknown enemy. Simultaneous projection of maximum firepower.

But this was a belated choice. Ortes had twisted the magical energy control formula to concentrate the flow of magical energy on its operators, and they collapsed in succession, unable to handle the immense magical power.

The formula was broken.

Freedom came to Carisia.

Carisia enveloped herself and Ortes in a hemispherical barrier, then explosively projected light from the entire barrier. An attack not in lines but in planes. A tremendous waste of magical energy.

For Blasphemia, this was rather devastating news. It meant she had seized control of the surrounding magical energy quickly enough to afford such wasteful magic.

Amidst the madness of light and explosions, Ortes laughed maniacally and reached out to Carisia.

“As you can see, I just became unemployed!”

***

“‘How about it, miss? Right now you can hire the best extra-dimensional expert with no agency fee and no insurance!’…or something like that?”

“What are you suddenly talking about?”

I tilted my head at Carisia’s whining voice as she woke up beside me. What is she saying all of a sudden?

“Why. That’s what you said when you were trying to win me over. In front of Blasphemia.”

“Ah…”

I vaguely remembered. After all that struggle to bring Carisia there, those guys basically said, ‘Not sorry, but please die now.’

Seeing that outrageous scene, my blood pressure rose so high my head went blank. When they said “The explorer ship was a lie,” I was ready to open my eyes without thinking of the consequences.

Once Carisia fired her beam cannon a few times and broke through the encirclement, I came to my senses. I immediately grabbed Carisia and ran.

“I dreamed about that time today. From when you asked if I was okay to when you were trying to sell yourself as an employee.”

Carisia smiled gently and asked me.

“The dream made me curious about something.”

“Huh?”

“My name. Why Carisia of all things?”

I couldn’t easily answer. It wasn’t a name I had chosen with much thought.

“The boss—” “Ahem.”

“…The reason isn’t something you’d like, Carisia.”

I first clarified that my name was given by Old Man Hector. I was prepared to explain that I named her using the naming method I learned from him.

“Old Man Hector saw some kind of tablet in the facility where I was discovered. He took my name from there.”

The writing on the tablet had eroded over the long years and was incomplete. Only two words were recognizable: Orthos (ορθός) and Theos (Θεός).

“Theos means god, and Orthos means something like ‘correct’ or ‘right’?”

‘What was supposed to be right…?’ Carisia tilted her head. Fortunately, I had my own answer to that question.

“The Ancient Divine Order that forged my body considered magic to be the heretical power of outsiders, thus an incorrect force. I think the words Orthos and Theos were written to mean an artificial god created to correct a twisted world.”

“The god of normalization, you mean. Then what about my name?”

“From the name of the research facility where Carisia was. Charis (Χάρις), meaning grace, and Ecclesia (εκκλησία), meaning assembly… something like ‘Assembly of Grace.'”

It must have meant the grace bestowed by the White Light. The White Light’s ability to manifest virtual objects in reality was an extremely high-dimensional magic akin to creating something from nothing.

The name likely expressed gratitude for the generosity of sharing even fragments of that magic with the researchers.

“Not bad!”

Surprisingly, Carisia smiled.

“Charis also means gratitude or joy.”

Carisia didn’t speak her next words aloud. She just gently caressed the corner of my eye, then turned her head away as if embarrassed.

She wanted me to ‘see’ with my ‘eyes’ what she was thinking about.

The joy of meeting you.

“Don’t you think it’s a name that encompasses my entire life since escaping the laboratory?” I asked Carisia as she suddenly turned her head, slightly raising the corner of my mouth.

“So then, Carisia.”

“Yes?”

“Are you alright now?”

Carisia smiled brightly.