Ch.294The Ninth Entanglement – A Carol for the New God (4)

This Christmas was unusually warm. Even the King of Industrial Spirits, who possessed various thermometers but no device to measure the warmth between people, could vaguely sense it.

He had always been someone who stood at windows, looking in at warm homes. This time too, he was watching the detective through a terminal he had placed on 14th Street. But suddenly, he sat up straight. He was puzzled.

What’s wrong? He just woke up from sleep. He went to bed unusually early. The King of Industrial Spirits swallowed his words. As a being who understood but could not empathize, the King of Industrial Spirits tried to comprehend the detective’s behavior.

Six hours. The detective was facing a feeling like intoxication, a feeling like his fingertips might tremble as if he’d taken medicine. He had slept for six hours. He had taken one step away from the half-sleep that had bound him so severely.

Had it not been close to 3 AM, he would have burst out laughing as if his lungs were filled with air. The detective took a deep breath to calm the sudden surge of emotion.

The King of Industrial Spirits’ terminal mimicked that action. And the detective had good hearing. He turned his head toward the sound of breathing. Someone was spying on the back room of Two Face.

The pleasant elation disappeared the moment he heard that sound and felt that gaze. The detective immediately grabbed the gun on his desk and went outside Two Face. However, there was already no one there.

Almost got caught. The mythril giant hand of the King of Industrial Spirits, standing in the middle of the factory district, exhaled steam. Black smoke burst out with steam from its internal combustion engine. He had almost ruined the plan.

Good thing I used an angel terminal in case something happened. The angel terminal that had given the King of Industrial Spirits confidence rose up. It began to fly silently toward the factory district.

Despite his making an angel into a terminal, the God-President did not respond. The non-response of the omniscient one could be considered implicit permission. He too would not stop work done with faith, hope, and love.

The voice of the God-President was not heard. Not by the King of Industrial Spirits, nor by Michael or Rose. He was observing. An all-knowing being observes all things to which he does not extend his hand.

Am I seeing things because I slept too long? While the detective was thinking about the observer who seemed to have disappeared into the sky, the industrial spirits, who normally didn’t wake from deep sleep, rose and headed toward their creator.

They didn’t know why either. But all the industrial spirits followed the paths of the factory district, empty due to Christmas, toward the King of Industrial Spirits.

The King of Industrial Spirits asked them. Looking at the machines awakening in the human dawn, he spoke like The Prophet.

Unlike ordinary industrial spirits who typically synthesized sounds through magic, the King of Industrial Spirits could not. His voice was simply the sound of a factory operating. The sound of smoke and steam being exhaled.

It was the sound of creativity sparkling, the sound of a righteous will willingly enduring self-sacrifice. Things that were not sounds came together to form his voice. It was a kind of divinity.

“Rejoice. I have found the answer to the end of my creators that has endlessly tormented me. The future will not lose its color. It will briefly cover the brilliant light but will welcome glory again. If the end is an unavoidable wave, I will block it with my bones and flesh, and I will serve my creators in the place where the olive branch has bloomed. Will you help?”

The voice of the King of Industrial Spirits echoed through the dawn air. The air around him was turbulent just from his speaking. The sound he expelled through mechanical devices had the right to occupy that space.

His rightful voice was pushing away the air that was simply there, creating wind. The source of worship was not visible. Or it seemed not to be visible.

The industrial spirits just quietly listened to what he was saying. Being creatures lacking imagination, they couldn’t understand all the metaphors, but they could understand the power contained in the voice.

Therefore, all the industrial spirits raised their mechanical heads. They started their engines. The hymn of six cylinders rang out. A carol toward a new god rang out. It was a commotion that would spread beyond the factory district.

But, ridiculously, no sound rang beyond the factory district. The divinity obtained by the King of Industrial Spirits was preventing it from spreading outside. He could not risk another danger.

The plan had to be perfect. Humans were beings who tried to move. They tried to live in any situation, and would gladly live if no fate such as the end awaited them.

So, to ask them if they could just stop for a moment, they had to be allowed to stop in a place where they could be happiest. That’s why the King of Industrial Spirits remained silent.

To stop the clock at the happiest moment of the happiest golden age, he waited for this happy Christmas to approach. He waited for the time when everyone could be healed and make a fresh start.

He believed that in this happiness, they would willingly stop. He hoped that happiness could be preserved like seeds loaded onto an ark. He gladly loved the people who shared that happiness.

The King of Industrial Spirits felt the divinity flowing through his wiring. Divinity was a catalyst. A catalyst stronger than mana. While mana only reproduced existing phenomena, divinity could create things that did not exist.

For the first time, he cursed the fact that he was a being lacking imagination. If it weren’t for that, he could have ended everything with just divinity. But he couldn’t.

He had to swallow from the small parts. Starting with a very small part of New York. If he could perfectly subdue that small part, others would not resist.

The King of Industrial Spirits estimated that possibility at about fifteen percent. The possibility that after isolating Manhattan Island, people would not resist or would be unable to resist becoming terminals.

The remaining eighty-five percent possibility was that they would resist. He knew they would treat the King of Industrial Spirits’ plan as absurd and point guns at him without even knowing how to prevent the end.

Then some sacrifice would be necessary. When the God-President built the ark, only a handful of people boarded, didn’t they? If Manhattan Island could be filled with terminals, it would be easier to fill New York.

If it became easier to fill New York with terminals, the nearby states would more easily give up, and swallowing one by one would become simpler, eventually allowing everyone to become terminals without harming anyone.

The Machine of the Age spat out another pile of parts from its mechanical wall to review the plan. This time it was a somewhat intentional assembly.

He recreated No. 1, which he had first made to hear opinions. Mechanical devices were forcibly grafted like a human body. They were literally grafted together so they wouldn’t work, so the gears wouldn’t mesh and turn.

No. 1 had simply mimicked humans. He had made it thinking that if there was a machine that could speak like humans and think like humans, it would help spread the story of the end.

The result was a failure. People were disgusted by No. 1, which was simply assembled to resemble a human. But in this situation, it had its uses. At least as a conversation partner.

It took less than an hour for an industrial spirit to be created and for those non-meshing mechanical devices to be forced to work as if they meshed. No. 1 knew exactly why it was created.

“Wouldn’t my lower models be more suitable for the role of advisor, Machine of the Age? Weren’t No. 7 and No. 8 superior to me as advisors?”

The mechanical human, with a frame instead of a skull and two lenses connected to nowhere instead of eyes, opened its mouth. It looked like it was mocking the King of Industrial Spirits.

But the Machine of the Age needed a human voice. Or, without realizing that he was talking to himself anyway, he fell into the illusion that he was handling things rationally.

“No. 7 and No. 8 collected information and gave advice as machines. But you, No. 1, have something they don’t have. You have randomness. That’s why I’m asking you.”

The human-like assembly protruding above the Machine of the Age quietly nodded. To fulfill the purpose for which it was created, it asked the King of Industrial Spirits.

“There seems to be no deficiency in the plan, Father. You must have limited the initial isolation location to Manhattan to avoid the dragons. Since the dragons’ lairs are mainly in the forested northern part of New York City. I don’t know well what can be done with divinity, so I assumed it’s possible to isolate by putting up a wall.”

The dragons were strong enough to disrupt the King of Industrial Spirits’ plan. And, above all, they were a race that wanted short-lived species to live freely. They would not understand.

It was better to exclude them from the very first step of the plan. With divinity, putting up a wall should not be a major problem. No. 1 and the King of Industrial Spirits agreed.

Without the dragons, there seemed to be nothing to worry about in New York. They were all busy, fragile beings struggling just to save their own lives. But No. 1 expressed concern.

“What will you do if the variable you’ve bet on disrupts the plan, Father? There are no missing parts in the plan, but your decision to wait makes me worried. If the plan was completed today, it should be implemented tomorrow at the latest. But you’re thinking of waiting another week.”

The King of Industrial Spirits dismissed that concern. Just as he hadn’t listened to No. 8, he didn’t properly listen to No. 1 either. People who believe they can save someone tend to become dogmatic.

“If I were silent for a day, they would be wary, but who would be wary if I’m silent for a week during such a good time? And what can one person change by being wary, No. 1? Don’t worry.”

He seemed to have instantly forgotten why he had created No. 1. He was following the bad habits of gods who received abilities but also received arrogance among those abilities.

The King of Industrial Spirits was not Sol Invictus. He was not an omnipotent servant who was so familiar with how divinity worked that he did things worthy of worship just to be worshipped, but closer to a child with power too great for him.

The child was good. He was good enough to want to find happiness for his parents with that power. But some unknown part was twisted. It was a psychosis common in New York. Everyone had one.

On the day when the King of Industrial Spirits’ plan was almost a week away, the detective spent an uncomfortable dawn despite having had a natural sleep for the first time in a long while. He did not forget the moment when he met that inhuman gaze.

The detective pinpointed a natural suspect. As far as the detective knew, there was only one person who would not celebrate Christmas and would send a terminal filled with inhuman gazes.

Moreover, if something was watching him and suddenly disappeared, it could easily be the Blingkerton-origin terminal that the Hive Mind often used, which he had fed to the Hive Mind.

The American Federation of Idealists answered the phone even after 3 AM. The Idealist Hive Mind’s characteristic voice, without pitch or emotion, connected.

“Yes, this is the New York branch of the American Federation of Idealists. The Hive Mind is currently resting, so please leave a message with this terminal and I will deliver it in the morning. What can I help you with?”

“It’s Husband. Tell it to wake up. I clearly saw it send a terminal to Two Face just now. If not, it can at least tell me who’s playing around with a terminal.”

The Idealist Hive Mind responded not to the “wake up” but to the “It’s Husband.” For the detective to call, especially to call at dawn, was always an ominous sign for the Idealist Hive Mind.

The terminal’s voice cuts off momentarily as the Hive Mind connects. And the single voice became a sound of dozens or hundreds of voices overlapping in a row. It was a mind simply bound together by magic.

“What do you mean we sent a terminal? All terminals are stored away, detective. You know we wouldn’t risk losing what few terminals we have left. And where is Two Face?”

At those words, the detective felt like a tuned piano string had snapped. The Idealist Hive Mind had no way of knowing the location of Two Face.

There was no possibility of being followed. Not long after the affair with the mafia ended, the detective had been moving around, personally keeping watch on his surroundings. He had never seen anyone following him.

Then what is it? The detective naturally moved on to the second possibility. Unlike the Hive Mind, which would need to follow him to find out the location of Two Face, there was one being who could know more naturally.

Moreover, there were exactly two beings in New York now who had terminals. If one was off the list of suspects, it was natural for the other to enter it.

Does the King of Industrial Spirits also have a Blingkerton terminal? The detective, holding onto his sleepy mind, clicked his tongue once and said to the Hive Mind.

“No, never mind. Then I guess the King of Industrial Spirits forgot to check the time while trying to come to a Christmas party.”

He could brush it off like that, but in the detective’s view, that terminal was clearly observing him. At the very least, the King of Industrial Spirits knew well what it meant to send a terminal to a person.

It was also the King of Industrial Spirits who had been there with the Hive Mind when his contractors staged a fake Idealist uprising. The problem was that there was no way to contact the King of Industrial Spirits.

I’d better visit him tomorrow morning. No, is it better to go right now? The detective put on his jacket and left Two Face. The dawn air was faintly permeated with the smell of lubricating oil.

Something did come and go. The detective, with his gun, headed toward his car. However, under the streetlight near Two Face’s parking lot stood a human figure. Its posture was unnaturally stiff.

It’s a terminal. It was a terminal in work clothes that the King of Industrial Spirits carried around. The terminal, as if wanting to apologize, held its hat in its hand and said:

“Ah, so you did see. I was curious about how my little elf was spending Christmas, but it got to this hour while I was checking the Machine of the Age. So I sent a terminal in case you might be awake at dawn, but only saw your appearance. I wasn’t sure if we made eye contact, so I made it run away… but you saw it clearly, Michael.”

The detective felt a sense of déjà vu. He wasn’t sure exactly when.