Ch.299Final Curtain – Those Who Loved Life

# “To a New Year’s Eve Where No One Dies!”

The toast was always the Professor’s responsibility. It was also his decision to schedule the year-end drinking gathering in the early morning of the 31st, wanting to greet the new year sober, and selecting the alcohol was his responsibility too.

The Argonne Invincibles gathered at the veterans’ hall shared whiskey, which they usually only drank as a memorial. They raised their glasses and drank to the Professor’s words. This time, it wasn’t a memorial drink.

After the Poet’s liberation, the whiskey perhaps tasted somewhat of freedom. The small amount of whiskey barely covering the bottom of the glass seemed too little for the large Brooklyn. He approached the Mongrel and patted him on the back.

“Why is it so hard to see your face, Mongrel? Oh, did you write any letters in the name of the veterans’ association? A letter came here a few days ago from Mrs. Bunyan. You know why I’m asking you, right?”

The Mongrel, who was leaning back in his chair with a somewhat relaxed expression, nodded. Here, that was his name. He asked without particular suspicion:

“I wrote a Christmas greeting after meeting her on Armistice Day. You didn’t open it, did you?”

Brooklyn shrugged, then clicked his tongue a couple of times when he noticed the silhouette of the pistol inside the Mongrel’s coat.

“The fruits of your labor are yours to keep. And put that gun away. First you bring what’s not even a knife but a sword tucked in your coat, and now you’ve added a gun too?”

“It’s advice from my old boss. You might leave the house without a suit, but never without a pistol.”

Even as he said this, the Mongrel pulled the pistol from his coat and left it at the veterans’ hall entrance before returning. The leather-sheathed sword he had left there flashed its cold blade.

It was something he’d been carrying around since meeting the Industrial Spirit King the morning after Christmas. Even though it was from a god the Mongrel despised, it was still something left by a deity, and it could be misused.

If the Industrial Spirit King was plotting something beyond his imagination, he might want the divine weapon available nearby. Even when things seemed fine, he always had to be careful.

Perhaps it was the Mongrel’s paranoia after witnessing the Rat-Catcher’s end. Perhaps it was just preparation for an ordinary level of danger. Machines dream of becoming human. Humans often dream of becoming gods.

By the time the Mongrel returned, the Professor was sitting in his seat. The Mongrel let out a small laugh, raising the corner of his mouth, and sneered:

“Did that cold-blooded divinity not even provide enough chairs for the veterans’ hall? Then tell me. I’ll go grab that lordship’s beard and shake him until we get some.”

It was a somewhat irreverent joke, but the Professor burst into laughter. After adjusting his non-prescription glasses, he swirled his untouched sip of alcohol before downing it. Looking up at the Mongrel, he said:

“I just wanted to come over and say it’s been a miraculous year. The Poet succeeded, and you convinced that magic user of the gruff divinity to at least let us know who’s bound. Just… thank you, Mongrel. It’s my job to speak on everyone’s behalf. Always has been.”

They spent the night gathered at the veterans’ hall like animals licking each other’s wounds. Dawn came. Men with twice the strength and twice the vitality wouldn’t get drunk on such small amounts of alcohol.

Instead, they poured out stories they could only share with each other. Starting with visits to the families of soldiers who had clung to their bodies on Armistice Day, they spoke like vomiting blood that had pooled in their stomachs.

Then, a power outage occurred. The Industrial Spirit King had risen. It wasn’t difficult for them to see through the darkness. It was easy to hear the voice echoing throughout New York.

It wasn’t hard to hear the small voice of an elf boldly confronting that voice. The Mongrel knew the owner of that voice, and the Professor knew its meaning.

In the darkness, slightly more than a hundred eyes were shining. There was no ominous murmuring. The Professor stood on the chair he had taken from the Mongrel and spoke:

“Just when I thought we’d have a peaceful year-end, now the Industrial Spirit King has risen and wants to turn us all into terminals. Honestly, it’s not a bad offer for us. We’re people who want to shed our souls! But can we, of all people, nod to those words? Huh?”

The Train Boiler struck the stone table with his fist and stood up, shouting. His forehead would already be flushed with blood, veins bulging prominently. He was always like that.

The Professor knew that pretending to agree like this could rally the Invincibles. He wasn’t called Professor just because he wore glasses.

“Absolutely not! Those bastards who know we have comrades clinging to us, suffering! Fuck! Are we going to say, ‘Oh great, now we don’t have to be responsible anymore!’ and hand them over? Any bastard who would do that should have their head…”

That was the Train Boiler’s part. The Professor naturally took over. There was always a need for someone to get angry and curse, but anger and cursing alone wouldn’t change anything.

“Right! We should smash those heads that barely show up in photographs! Brooklyn, take the Mongrel and assess the situation outside. It’s a time when there shouldn’t be pedestrians, but quite a few might have come out because of this blackout. You know? The rest, clear the alcohol and stand by! Salem, can you light a fire with magic? Like a lamp?”

He had little to do with witch hunts, but the somewhat malicious nickname “Salem” came from his skill with fire magic. That was generally how it went. Nicknames were either careless or deliberately malicious.

Salem rose. The metallic smell of mana reacting with air, the scent of ozone, began to spread around him. A fireball spontaneously combusted inside the veterans’ hall, emitting a soft glow.

At least people who lived too far away could find their way by the light emanating from the veterans’ hall. The Mongrel and Brooklyn headed toward the heavy door, not bothered by the darkness.

“Seems like it wasn’t a good time to tell me to put down my gun.”

The Mongrel sneered, making a frivolous comment. He appropriately relieved the tension. In one hand, he held the leather-sheathed sword, and with the other, he grabbed his pistol. Seven rounds plus one already in the chamber—clean.

Brooklyn touched his forehead at those words. Trying to forget the gravity of the situation with jokes was a fairly common habit among the Argonne Invincibles.

“Introduce me to that old boss of yours sometime. A true life mentor.”

Brooklyn, who had been sneering with the corner of his mouth raised, turned and opened the peephole on the veterans’ hall door. He flinched backward in surprise.

Right in front of the peephole was an eye. Not a human’s. One was the eye of a terminal whose soul had escaped, and the other was just a red blinking light.

Before the terminal could reach out, Brooklyn closed the peephole again. There seemed to be no need to assess the situation. The sound of terminals shouting outside the veterans’ hall could be heard. It wasn’t just one or two voices.

“Heroes! I desire the future. And I want you to be its vanguard! Won’t people listen better to heroes? Michael, I know you’re in there. You… understand me.”

There seemed to be no need to go out and assess the situation. The Professor held up his palm to stop the Mongrel from speaking, indicating he would answer. He whispered to Salem, who was providing light:

“Prepare to convert to mana bullets, Salem. Carpenter and Chef, focus on protecting Salem. Brooklyn, Mongrel. When I signal, open the door. The rest of you, the Industrial Spirit King didn’t come to persuade us.”

It was at least a threat, and even if rejected, a threat made with the intention of forcing through regardless. The voices of terminals near the veterans’ hall numbered well over a hundred.

Nevertheless, the Professor felt relief. It was reassuring that the main force of terminals was here. They were the Argonne Invincibles. The Industrial Spirit King didn’t know them.

If he didn’t know them, he couldn’t prepare. If he couldn’t prepare, he couldn’t respond. They weren’t just veterans. The Invincibles tensed their bodies, filled with twice the strength and twice the vitality.

“Think there were only a few who tried to rely on the name of ‘hero’? But it was all bullshit, Machine of the Age. You’re the same, trying to rely on the name of the Argonne Invincibles. Tell me. What do you really want? Terminals made from veterans?”

The Machine of the Age, understood by no one and rejected by those who did understand, decided to appeal once more. But an appeal made while holding a sword rarely sounded like an appeal.

“As I said, I desire the future! A future not stained by the apocalypse! You too…”

“No! Life is enough for us. One simple, terribly ordinary life is enough.”

The Machine of the Age felt anger boiling again. He felt anger toward those who couldn’t understand his love. He muttered lowly:

“Do you know how numerically disadvantaged you are right now? How long do you think you can hold out in the veterans’ hall with no weapons and those numbers? In the end, I will place the future in your hands…”

“You asked if we know how numerically disadvantaged we are? We’re only vaguely inferring that, but we know very well how long that numerical disadvantage will last.”

The Professor gestured to Brooklyn and the Mongrel watching him in the darkness, signaling them to open the door. Usually, conveying meaning through gestures was inefficient, but they had no connection to the word “usual.”

The Mongrel and Brooklyn pulled open the heavy main door of the veterans’ hall. The massive door of the veterans’ hall, which looked like a church door with iron frames, opened almost in one breath. This was something the Spirit King hadn’t expected.

He thought these veterans would barricade themselves. After all, they would become terminals just like everyone else the moment hands touched the backs of their necks. But they willingly opened the door.

He also hadn’t expected the light illuminating the veterans’ hall to go out, and a mana bullet, condensed like a heat haze, to be prepared with double the magical power. Salem took the Professor’s words as the signal to fire.

“The numerical disadvantage won’t last long, Machine of the Age.”

Salem knew how to target. The terminals, with bodies half-replaced by machinery, could be handled by the Invincibles. Instead, he aimed for the Industrial Spirit leading the vanguard.

The Industrial Spirit didn’t know what that rippling air mass was. As it poked its head through the door, the mana bullet, emitting an intensely pungent mana smell, began flying toward its face.

It was momentary, like a gust of wind. The formless but massive mana bullet struck the Industrial Spirit’s metal-cutting face directly, causing the contacted area to rust and rot as the mana bullet burrowed in.

The Industrial Spirit screamed. Due to its face melting away entirely, it let out a hoarse cry. It didn’t last long. After the second mana bullet struck, piercing from head to chest, it fell silent.

This wasn’t the Machine of the Age’s plan. The goal was to turn Manhattan Island into an island of terminals by force and then spread terminals from there, but he was encountering unexpected resistance.

Some old man who looked over a hundred years old was wielding twin swords, not just killing but slaughtering terminals. And the veterans called heroes… were proving there was no exaggeration in that title.

It seemed necessary to withdraw the terminals and reorganize before sending them again. At least if he made them flee immediately, they couldn’t be pursued. The plan needed revision.

But at that moment, the Train Boiler leaped over the fallen corpse of the Industrial Spirit, holding one leg of the heavy table from the veterans’ hall, and charged at the terminals. He jumped at least 7 feet high.

A terminal raised its mechanical arm to shield its face, but the stone table leg swung by the veteran struck with grotesque strength. One hit was enough to push it back despite its block.

And there wasn’t just one such Argonian. While a terminal extended an arm with a grinder attached, another Argonian twisted his body, punched the terminal’s head, and crushed its steel skeleton.

Yet another Argonian grabbed a terminal’s steel-framed arm and, with a thunderous voice, ripped it right off. The terminal saw a fist flying toward its view before the connection was severed.

He tried to gather the terminals to prevent them from being picked off one by one, but this time the Mongrel dove in. A bullet precisely struck the head of a terminal that couldn’t turn to protect itself, severing the connection.

When they tried to surround and subdue him, he drew a one-handed sword—not even a dagger—from who knows where in this modern age, and slashed. It was a sword whose blade remained intact despite cutting through steel-framed skeletons.

They were absurd. Unfairly absurd. By the time mechanical movements began from a terminal’s head and it swung its arm, the Argonians had already penetrated to its chest and were destroying it.

The numerical disadvantage truly didn’t last long. The Industrial Spirit King had no choice but to withdraw his terminals like a dog that had disturbed a beehive. An ominous feeling that the plan might really fail crept up his steel frame.

He couldn’t give up hope yet, he told himself. There were still many terminals, and if reorganized and tried again, they could surely subdue these people. There was no need for him to move personally.

His personal movement would deny the very basic part of the plan. The promise to preserve people by turning them into terminals rather than killing them would become a threat: become a terminal or die.

The Professor, watching the situation, saw more Industrial Spirits gathering in the darkness and blew his whistle. One or two could be handled by Salem, but not dozens simultaneously.

“Get back inside the hall! The Machine of the Age has called more Industrial Spirits!”

While terminals were causing disaster elsewhere in Manhattan, here they were being swept away like fallen leaves. New York was a city of people, but not just ordinary people.

Fearing the loss of his Industrial Spirits, the Machine of the Age spread them out widely to keep the Argonians at bay while withdrawing his terminals. The plan was becoming increasingly tangled.

The Argonne Invincibles, having repelled the first wave sent by the Machine of the Age, sat around stone tables arranged like trench lines. This time there were no drinking glasses. The Train Boiler shouted:

“If Salem can make just one hole in that line of Industrial Spirits, we can break through! The terminals seem even worse than those monstrosities, so if fifty of us go and stir things up, we could put a blade to the Industrial Spirit King’s neck! If we don’t stop this now! What will people who don’t have twice the strength and twice the vitality do against these terminals?”

He was quite hot-blooded, but feared the spread of the spell more than anyone. The Train Boiler spoke in a fragile voice, almost whispering:

“Even if we have to dirty our hands once more, we need to handle this somehow. You just saw that the Industrial Spirits had self-awareness. They’re not extensions of the Spirit King like the terminals. The magic that creates terminals requires physical contact, right? If we just deal with the terminals…”

The Professor cut him off. His point had merit, but he was ignoring the most important things.

“We’re all finally reclaiming our lives, so please don’t talk about dirtying our hands. I’m begging you. And what if we provoke the Industrial Spirit King too much and that machine starts moving directly? What if that walking factory smashes all of Manhattan and hundreds of thousands die? We’ve been able to stop him because he’s playing by his own rules. For now…”

Dirtying their hands once more was an option to consider only as a last resort. The Mongrel placed his hand on the Train Boiler’s shoulder with an understanding expression, but quietly shook his head.

The Professor observed the terminals handled by the Industrial Spirit King becoming confused, filled with anxiety and anger. A barking dog might not bite, but an excited and frightened dog would bite and not let go.

To deal with the terminals, they needed to find a way to subdue the Industrial Spirit King first. In the end, they had both backed each other into a corner. The Professor couldn’t think of a good solution immediately and drew out his words.

The long silence that followed was broken by the sound of someone knocking on the back door of the veterans’ hall. Over a hundred eyes turned to the back door without delay. A monotone voice rang out:

“Detective, it’s us! The Idealists. Their Hive Mind. We need help. We’ve found a way to deal with the terminals, terminals, and came looking for you!”

Hearing this, the Mongrel got up and approached the back door. Again, he opened the peephole. An Idealist terminal with lifeless human eyes was there.

Not completely lifeless. Eyes that showed remnants of humanity, or perhaps seedlings of humanity. The Mongrel reassured the other Invincibles:

“It’s as they say. We can let them in. We’ve worked together several times, and last time we even faced the Industrial Spirit King together.”

The entanglement of relationships covering this city was stronger than expected. It was causing a self-purification reaction, trying to sweep away the Industrial Spirit King who sought to overturn the city’s landscape.

But this self-purification wasn’t smart enough to realize it was encouraging a prophet filled with conviction to become a monster left with only madness.

Or perhaps it was foolish to expect the flow of time to possess intelligence and make the right judgment. It was merely flowing.