Ch.259016 Investigation Record – Double Compensation (9)

Karla, the worker who had passed information to me, feared involving other factory workers in the incident. And Michael’s angelic collaborator was someone who would never engage in such troublesome matters.

He was like a lion who would merely yawn lazily even if a gazelle or zebra passed by, when he already had enough meat from a single prey. He was someone both trustworthy and untrustworthy at the same time.

After waiting briefly, I photographed the truck drivers I had met at the transport company being practically thrown into the police station by the angels’ hands, then left the station. I was used to ignoring curses.

The Industrial Spirit King would receive double compensation for this incident. Getting back twenty terminals and resolving his anxiety was a deserved reward, and what I had carefully selected to tell him from my experiences were the words I thought he would need most. I couldn’t be certain. As the Industrial Spirit had said, betrayal might be waiting. Still, I bet as much as I had been given.

I shouldn’t forget today in my hands while focusing only on the future I’ve wagered, but I also couldn’t die in every game trying to protect what I had in hand. I must willingly look ahead and willingly place my bets.

Am I doing well, Cowboy? After asking a question that would receive no answer, I took a taxi. Heading home. The Industrial Spirit was quietly looking out at the streets without opening his mouth this time as well.

After getting out in front of my apartment, the Industrial Spirit looked around briefly and spoke. The sound of the grinder was still audible, but it wasn’t so bothersome anymore.

“We caught the culprits. I confirmed there’s no backing behind them, and I saw them all being thrown into the police station after being caught by the angels. If you follow their movement path, they were probably thrown into holding cells. So the escort duty is no longer necessary. You said many things. I can be sure they will have meaning. Machines operate on just two signals—on and off—but people speak in colorful words, so it’s something I can’t explain.”

I couldn’t help but like this straightforward aspect of him as a reporter who does what he can and says what he can say. When I stroked the Industrial Spirit’s back again, this time he leaned in slightly.

Just as he had come to resemble me a little, I spoke words resembling him. Everyone resembles each other in some way. It’s a very natural and sometimes even beautiful thing. I decided to do it willingly.

“At the bar, I was incomparably… no, comparable to only one person in terms of safety. You were as reliable as the best operator I know. And I believe you’ll convey my words well to the Industrial Spirit King!”

He told the machines how lofty their purpose was, and at the same time, he fulfilled that purpose better than anyone else. It was mechanical and rational, but it could also be called responsibility or loyalty.

With those words as farewell, the Industrial Spirit returned to the factory district. Among people who shout about who they are, not many actually have proper backing. I contacted the editor-in-chief first, then wrote the article.

There was nothing difficult about the article’s content. Even if I hadn’t seen the beginning of this case, I had followed it all the way to the end. I wrote that the proprietress of the Amber Room had suddenly turned herself in.

While Michael disliked many things, there weren’t many he disliked enough to want to frame, tear down, and bury in the mud. If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t have bothered in the first place.

I wrote the article while some kind of trust relationship or excessive familiarity with illegal matters—I couldn’t tell which—had developed. In fact, both were probably true, so I didn’t specify either.

In truth, she hadn’t plotted some grand scheme. She had simply stolen a brick or two from the wall of trust between the Industrial Spirit King and this city for her livelihood.

But if you keep pulling out bricks like that, the entire wall might collapse. What the Industrial Spirit King feared was being unable to trust.

He was someone trying to prevent the apocalypse he himself had prophesied in order to fulfill his created purpose. For him, the question of whether people were worth it probably didn’t matter.

These small betrayals piling up… as the Industrial Spirit who had protected me said, like a machine that only knows on and off, the moment when the light of trust switches from on to off would surely be terrible.

That’s why I criticized point by point. I questioned whether she had taken the Industrial Spirit King lightly, or whether she had underestimated this city that was still suffering from the aftermath of the uprising caused by his contractors.

The newspaper is a one-sided space. A reporter’s intentions cannot be excluded. Other reporters might not view this incident as seriously, but I decided to do so.

After completing the article and getting it reviewed by the editor-in-chief, it was now six o’clock. I felt somewhat proud hearing that it could make the front page of tomorrow’s morning edition, but I had more work today.

It would have been nice if there was a way to contact the Industrial Spirit King first, but he wasn’t the kind of being who could properly use a telephone. He probably would have sent electrical current directly through the telephone lines attached to his body.

So I decided to wait until I could arrive at Two Face by eight o’clock. I restrained my immediate desire to leave for Two Face and waited. Thirty minutes became an hour, and soon the phone rang.

I happily picked up the receiver and heard a familiar voice. It was the Industrial Spirit King. The time was… around when the evening newspaper would have come out and started selling well. He seemed to have called after checking if the article had been published.

“My little component informed me that the small and clumsy conspiracy has ended, yet it wasn’t in the newspaper. Is something wrong, little elf? If there’s anything I can help with, tell me.”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that. Usually, morning newspapers sell better. It’s just a common criminal, right? A petty criminal who didn’t even know what consequences their actions would bring. So, since it’s such an ordinary incident, I wanted to publish the article at an ordinary time. Like saying, ‘Look what could happen because of this ordinary crime!'”

I wasn’t looking for praise, but the Industrial Spirit King laughed. The way all those non-laughter sounds combined like well-tuned instruments to create laughter was always pleasant to hear.

“That would be the right approach, little elf. Ah, my component has completed his report. It seems attaching a spirit to you was indeed the right decision. He fulfilled his created purpose admirably. Yes, perhaps it’s something even I cannot know. Maybe I, as an outsider, cannot determine what you yourselves don’t properly know. I called to thank you for speaking well.”

His calm voice was truly reassuring. If a being could communicate, it was never dangerous. Even if standing at the edge of a cliff, wanting to talk meant wanting to get away from there.

As the Industrial Spirit had said, even with the Industrial Spirit King tired and on the verge of giving up, one could somehow apply for an extension of trust and an advance payment. Until the day of the apocalypse he had prophesied.

After exchanging goodbyes with him in laughing voices, I left home. I took a taxi to Two Face. At 14th Street where Two Face was located, New York looked like the Emperor’s San Francisco.

It was peaceful, and thanks to the plants Sarah grew, there was no smell of smoke in the air. Workers came and went but didn’t cause trouble like in other places. The smell of crime that had seeped into the city’s marrow wasn’t absent, though.

I showed my invitation to Two Face to the doorman and entered. This place was also an illegal bar, but the atmosphere inside was always comfortable, as usual. It reminded me of home. It was actually a bit more comfortable than home.

Whenever I thought of my family, I always saw a reflective surface. Just as Michael’s image remained blurred when captured on camera, my family’s images also had masked reflective surfaces.

I shook my head to clear it. I looked around the bar for Michael, but he didn’t seem to have arrived yet. It was 23 minutes before 8 o’clock. Having left right after finishing the phone call, I seemed to have arrived too early.

Sarah, who had already transformed into a wolf, was lightly holding a bottle in one hand that would be too large for me to hold even with both hands, making drinks for Draig. She saw me and waved her hand with claws retracted.

“Aren’t you coming too often, regular? Sometimes I think you come more often than Mickey. Want your usual?”

“I’m here for an appointment today! Anyway, yes! I’ll have my usual Silver Bullet, please!”

I took a sip of the drink filled with fresh cream. Not ordering a drink immediately upon entering and not drinking it right away when served were things one shouldn’t do to a bartender.

The weather was cold, so I thought I’d need to drink at least two glasses to warm up, and Michael arrived only after I had emptied one glass and half of another. I was starting to feel pleasantly tipsy.

I looked up briefly as Michael exchanged greetings with Sarah in a way only decade-long friends could. He took off his coat and sat next to me. He waved at me with a smile.

“I came too early for our appointment… Ah, don’t worry, I remember saying I’d pay today! Are you starting with Dragon Slayer again today?”

It felt a bit awkward ordering a cocktail with such a name with a dragon nearby, but he nodded without concern. Draig didn’t seem to mind either.

While Silver Bullet was a smooth drink with lots of cream, Dragon Slayer was on a different level in terms of alcohol content—strong enough to knock down a dragon with hot sauce added—but we drank at a similar pace.

Perhaps he drank such physically taxing alcohol to remind himself that he had twice the vitality. After finishing the cocktails and sharing some of Old Empire’s elixir, I remembered something.

With the alcohol reaching my throat and pushing out the voice that had pooled there, I spoke. I probably wouldn’t remember what I said the next morning.

“While working on this case, I met an Industrial Spirit, you know? The child who was beside me, you saw him? He was exactly the same size as the dog at my family home, which I really liked… Anyway, do you know why that spirit said he came to me?”

Knowing it was a question I didn’t expect an answer to, he properly turned to face me and gestured with his chin as if telling me to continue. With alcohol lowering the threshold of my mind, words poured out.

“He wanted to convey a message to the Industrial Spirit King, you see, about how to control the irrational aspects of people. Since he had seen the Idealists being persecuted, he probably wanted to know about that. But! That wasn’t what was important. Isn’t what’s important that I also had something I wanted to say to the Industrial Spirit King, and I had the opportunity to do so?”

Due to being drunk, my story seemed to be meandering too much. I had as much to say to Michael as I did to the Industrial Spirit King. I shook my head and downed a shot of vodka.

No matter how nonsensically I spoke, he would understand appropriately. If it seemed problematic, he would stop me somehow. He had always been a fixer, and he was this time too.

“So, I wanted to tell you something, Michael. You’re not a good person. Even if people say you’re immoral or whatever… you know? You know better than anyone!”

Knowing it wasn’t criticism, he put down his glass for a moment and looked at me. Human communication is so imperfect that even when choosing words with a clear mind, one can only convey about a third of the intended sincerity. When speaking with a mind sparkling from alcohol, it would be even less.

“You’re not the type to make such excuses, but, well… our actions define us, right? And our attitudes define us too. But when I look at you, I see just a little, just a tiiiny bit of a good person.”

He could have said something like “I’m not usually like this” and it would have been fine, but Michael didn’t say such things. He didn’t bring up the environment even though it happened on a battlefield. He just kept his mouth shut.

I decided to just say all the things I had felt while looking at him. I didn’t know if this was a good approach or not. I spoke contradictory words that didn’t even align with what I was saying.

“Is the gleaming light of a polished coin the only color remaining in you, Michael? Money is certain, right? It’s tangible, it breaks down into numbers… Even in your palette where everything is blurry, distorted, imprecise, and unclear, that gleam has color, right? Then, someday when those withered colors on your palette find diverse saturation and brightness… no, I mean, regain them! Then…”

What I was speaking for was quite ambiguous. I didn’t think that one or two words from me could help him. I wasn’t so naive to think that.

“You seem like someone who could willingly help others just for the reward of seeing those colors again. Of course, you’re not that person now. You’re just an operator who takes money and does the job you’re paid for. It seems like you’ve come too far to go back to being that good person, but couldn’t you take a step or two back? That’s…”

The words “I know you’re trying to do that” didn’t come out. I don’t know. I’m only inferring from fragmentary information.

I briefly thought that this might be why Michael said detective work wasn’t about deduction. Deduction was like entering someone else’s heart with muddy feet.

I recalled how dejected and drained the Industrial Spirit looked when he said the machines of the era were getting tired. Even machines powered by energy get mentally exhausted sometimes.

No matter how much he was a person with twice the strength and twice the vitality, his heart wasn’t reinforced twofold. I didn’t think about what words I could offer him. I just said what I wanted to say.

“So, um, that is… I hope you don’t get tired… I don’t know the way back. I might be able to follow, but I don’t think I can walk beside you. Still! I’m good at speaking up, right? I felt like I needed to speak this time too. Just like I spoke so the Industrial Spirit King wouldn’t become the zeitgeist of the Roaring Twenties, I hope Michael…”

Trying to recall what I hoped he wouldn’t become, I ended up only remembering what I hoped he would become. I probably smiled with that typical drunk person’s relaxed expression. And then I said:

“I hope you become the Michael of December 2, 1924. Yes, that’s why I said it…”

People aren’t strong enough to save someone else’s life. After I shot my father, he grabbed my shoulder and said, “Is that the right path for you?” That’s all we can do.

I tried to return that small experience, but he was generally either too far ahead of me or too far in the past for me to look back at. If I wanted to speak, I had to seize moments like this when he was beside me.

That’s why I said everything I had been gathering since the moment he grabbed my shoulder until now. I didn’t know if it all got through, but it didn’t matter. The fact that I spoke was much more important.

All words are volatile anyway, but at the very least, we could decide whether they evaporate in our hearts or after leaving our mouths. I at least gave those words a chance to leave my mouth. That seemed enough.

Tonight, it felt like the time from 1914 to 1924 was all mixed up randomly in this bar. Tonight left no cheap salvation. All that remained was a headache, a hangover, and the morning.