Ch.232The Seventh Entanglement – Variations on a Blind Revolution (2)

The headquarters of the Half-God Party, which had kept its doors wide open as if welcoming everyone, was now tightly locked after the uprising, or riot, or whatever lesser event had occurred among the Idealists.

Devils are entrepreneurs. With their strong sense of kinship, they were accustomed to training newly adult devils as apprentices in their businesses, so very few devils actually lived the life of bottom-rung workers.

Therefore, allowing only devils inside was a safe method. A certain method. Rose, who had entered the party headquarters safely with the help of the party leader, felt a twinge in her heart.

Idealist terminals had stormed this building too, but even when dozens of them swarmed to invade, the magically reinforced glass walls remained intact.

People who came running after seeing that intact building knocked on the glass doors asking to be let in, but when security guards with submachine guns tapped the glass walls with their gun barrels while shaking their heads, the twinge in her heart grew particularly intense.

The angels didn’t care about those people either, simply flying toward the factory district. She knew there were priorities, but… those people had to flee again to find shelter somewhere else.

Inside these walls was safety. There were devils. There was a devil of angelic origin. They were powerful enough that even the Idealists could be enjoyed with a cup of coffee.

Though she desperately wanted to help the people outside, she had already learned how blind goodwill generally comes back to haunt you, so she couldn’t easily suggest it.

To prevent her usual goodwill from becoming a chronic habit that ruins everything, she needed reasons and methods. Rose wasn’t with Michael right now, but she steeled herself, believing she could handle this alone.

The first thing to confirm was whether not helping people would have any negative impact on the Half-God Party. Methods could be created as needed. What mattered was justification.

Receiving an elf tea with just a few tea leaves along with an invitation to have a drink, she looked around. Most devils were relaxed. Some seemed to move a bit anxiously.

Relaxation is satisfaction. Both satisfaction and relaxation were forms of indolence, which was ideal for devils. If someone wasn’t feeling ideal in such a safe and ideal situation, something must be wrong.

She approached that devil. He was large. His goat-like horns, characteristic of devils, were enormously large, and even the skin on his face had a texture similar to the horns, with raised calluses.

His emotional agitation was evident. As an elf, she could feel the heat rising just by standing close to him, and rough fur protruded from his wrists even through his gloves.

She approached the devil confidently under the watchful gaze of the Half-God Party leader. The devil, who had been anxiously looking around, turned his head fiercely when he noticed her approach.

A hot wind blew. But after seeing that the approaching figure was merely an elf about 5 feet tall, he became somewhat more docile. In true devilish fashion, he tried to be polite.

Despite the nearly 3-foot height difference, Rose didn’t feel particularly small. She knew exactly what needed to be done, while he was uncertain about what to do.

“Is something wrong? You look very… anxious from a distance. You should be able to relax a bit since it’s safe here.”

She knew this was rather provocative. Still, sometimes you need to poke the uvula to bring up what’s festering inside. At her provocative words, heat began to rise in the devil’s horns.

Red sulfurous flames flickered at each curve of his goat-like horns. Fortunately, he restrained himself from spewing fire, but he seemed to have no intention of holding back his words.

“It’s a waste of the name ‘Half-God Party.’ Even the God-President always stands by, but at least he doesn’t stand by behind walls like this! We’re observing from inside walls, and that makes my blood boil…”

Not everyone in the Half-God Party would be united in purpose. After talking with the party leader, Rose had discovered that love was his reason for wanting to bring down the God-President, but not all party members would share that motivation.

Rose herself couldn’t be an ideologically neutral person like a detective. She wanted to do good things, and if possible, do them in good ways. So she would handle ideological people better than him.

As he half-shouted, devils enjoying their tea and coffee turned their attention toward them. But no one tried to stop him. He was a devil with some right to speak.

But such complaints weren’t enough. A party leader of angelic origin could easily suppress such complaints. As she had seen, devils were quite authoritarian. She needed a method.

First, she asked the devil. She was playing the role of a journalist. Giving people who had something to say the opportunity to speak. Even better if she could achieve what she wanted through this.

In her view, the detective desired desire itself. Everything seemed to want to regain stimulation. Apples becoming red enough to make you want to take a big bite, the sky turning so blue that it felt like a curse that cameras couldn’t capture its color, and every action of smelling and feeling with fingertips seemed to be done not out of necessity but out of desire to return to doing things because you want to.

In contrast, Rose herself desired meaning. She wanted all these things to have meaning. This time was no different. She wanted giving this devil a chance to speak to have meaning.

“Still, the new terminals created by the Idealists can’t be distinguished from normal people. Isn’t it dangerous to accept people indiscriminately?”

Devils are rational. This devil must know a method. Even if he didn’t, they could figure it out together.

As someone who had entered and received protection here only as a bonus through the Half-God Party members, she had no right to speak, so it wouldn’t matter if the devil only lent her his right to speak. She knew how to get more than that.

The heat swirling around the devil subsided. Now he wasn’t speaking to Rose. He naturally turned his head toward the party leader as he spoke. His complaints had found their proper direction.

“Methods, methods. Party Leader, how many party members are gathered in this building? As a high councilor, I ask that you not dismiss this question lightly.”

Good. At least finding the largest devil among those who seemed anxious had been the right move. Devils are authoritarian. As much as authority could be used to suppress, it could also be used to compel.

The Half-God Party leader approached him leisurely and spoke. He did glance briefly at Rose, but he was smiling. He didn’t seem displeased.

“Seventy-three, High Councilor Anthonius. I would prefer if you got straight to the point.”

“Then I’ll go straight to the point. How did you determine that? And I’d like to know how those seventy-three are being protected. A reasonable question, isn’t it?”

It seemed to have diverged from the goal, but sometimes the roundabout path is the quickest. Now the two devils’ gazes were no longer directed at Rose. Devils who had been slightly anxious gathered around the High Councilor.

“I’ve stationed two armed guards at each door, and reinforced the first floor’s exterior walls with magic, as they have many windows. Isn’t that a reasonable measure since we need to monitor the outside situation? As for counting personnel, I used magic. You know that a magician of my caliber can distinguish the mana breathed by each person. Are you dissatisfied with the current measures?”

If such suffocating conversation was necessary to change just one thing, Rose herself might have collapsed from respiratory distress long ago. Courtesy felt like a thick, sticky liquid blocking her mouth.

High Councilor Anthonius began speaking without the slightest hesitation. Though he didn’t say a word about helping the people outside, that was clearly his intention.

“Yes, I am dissatisfied. Even though you, Party Leader, are a former angel respected by angels, such selfish actions making the headquarters appear too safe will only push this building to a lower priority in the angels’ rescue attempts. And I’m dissatisfied that the mana being used to protect the first-floor lobby could be redirected to anti-magic barriers if we moved the mere seventy-three party members upstairs.”

He paused briefly. They knew this unrest wouldn’t last long. They also knew they were thoroughly safe. That’s why they could afford to be merciful.

The terminals generally didn’t use firearms, so going up just one floor would make them noticeably safer. Keeping the lobby open like this was arrogance, not wisdom. Passing grade for a devil, but not for a leader.

“Furthermore! This violates the Half-God Party’s charter which states that when God locks the gates of sanctuary with flame-sword-wielding angels, devils must open the way to the throne room in the ten-thousand-demon palace. Are principles above people, or are people above principles?”

“Principles are above, but evidence is needed. Is there anyone in this lobby who has evidence to support High Councilor Anthonius’s statement?”

Anyone in this lobby. That meant he was giving the right to speak even to a journalist who wasn’t a party member.

The trigger had been pulled by the devil standing before her. The setup had been executed perfectly, and now she just needed to finish it. This must be what the party leader meant when he called her a bullet-like person.

“First, if we’re talking about where most Idealist terminals would be, it would be the factory district, right?”

High Councilor Anthonius nodded first, followed by the devils behind him. When the party leader nodded, the rest of the devils nodded as well.

“And calling the police station now wouldn’t connect, would it? They must be swamped with calls from all over the factory district. I noticed some receptionists trying to make calls after hearing instructions to report.”

The response came that the lines had been dead. No one knew when the factory district would be cleared, and until then, calls obviously wouldn’t connect. It was all so obvious. Everything was obvious.

“Then the easiest way to assess the outside situation would be either to forcibly summon a few angels heading to the factory district where the situation is most serious, or to make the angels take interest in this place. The former would interfere with resolving the situation. Like the standby God-President. For the latter, we need to gather people here who the angels must protect. That’s obvious, isn’t it?”

For someone asking the obvious, just stating the obvious wasn’t enough. There should have been a rebuke asking why they were asking the obvious, but since they were dealing with devils, courtesy was necessary.

Rose Clichy spoke again with fatherly eyes. They were the eyes of someone who wanted to achieve what they desired right now. Some kind of genetic mania.

“Clearly the party leader’s duty is to protect party members, but… isn’t blind and rigid pursuit of objectives more characteristic of angels than devils?”

The Half-God Party is a party of devils. It was where devils held devil values and desired what devils would desire. The party leader was a devil without a drop of devil bloodline.

Rose willingly used polite words to scrape the party leader’s most vulnerable flesh down to the bone. She scraped with words that would compel the party leader to do what was obviously right. The party leader burst into hearty laughter.

“I’d believe you if you said you had recessive devil blood even though no horns are visible. The Idealists don’t use firearms, so going up to the second floor would be safe enough. Everyone, please go upstairs.”

The party leader and Rose were thinking the same thing. They both thought it would be better to open the doors and accept people fleeing, since they had a way to filter out the Idealists. The difference came after this.

Rose knew how to feel compassion for people and did feel it, but the party leader had no interest whatsoever in people below his standards. That’s why he merely fulfilled his duty without going beyond it.

He was an elitist who believed in the existence of philosopher kings. A somewhat acquired mania.

Though the journalist had stated the obvious, she had done so in the way most likely to be effective. She had once again exceeded his standards, so it was time to reward her.

“Then, High Councilor, would you help me reinforce the glass walls? Even for me, it takes effort to create an anti-magic barrier strong enough to filter out the hive mind of those worthless Idealists.”

The journalist understood the party leader’s intentions and came to despise him somewhat. She didn’t dislike him. New York was a city where even the things you loved most had at least one aspect worthy of contempt.

Even Michael… no, that’s not right. Even Father! It was a city where he had hidden the fact that he was the Forest’s Firstborn. Rose remained on the first floor.

Some people fleeing from the streets rushed into the now-open Half-God Party headquarters. About a dozen people who looked like they worked for the same company came in, but one person couldn’t cross the threshold.

Their eyes lacked focus. They hesitated before the semi-transparent wall with an ozone smell that stood between the open door and the building interior, as if they knew what it was. A devil security guard reached for the collar of that person—the terminal.

As the collar was pulled, the terminal’s body passed through the powerful flow of mana strong enough to refract light. They collapsed forward. They must have had their mind merged on the way here.

Like a weak current being drawn into a stronger one, the hive mind’s magic that connected the terminal to the hive mind with minimal mana became mixed with the mana flow.

The party leader clicked his tongue twice. The security guards lowered the muzzles of their submachine guns to the head and back of the neck of the soul-devoured body, embedding bullets into it. They kicked it away, throwing it outside the headquarters.

The age of noblesse oblige and aristocratic consciousness had died during the Great War. The firmly closed doors of the Half-God Party headquarters opening to allow people to evacuate wasn’t due to goodwill but the entanglement of desires.

However, there were people for whom such things weren’t immediately important. Whatever the reason, the doors had opened. They could be protected by security guards with submachine guns. Instead of having to run to avoid having their minds merged and becoming terminals, they could simply endure the ozone smell emanating from the anti-magic barrier to find safety.

That’s reality. It wasn’t just the National Guard coming to save people that was realistic; being protected by the magic of a powerful devil of angelic origin was also realistic. That was Rose’s conclusion.