Ch.46Elysion (2)

Tap, tap. I deliberately made noise and footsteps as I approached Lampades.

I’ve always been told I have little presence. If I suddenly appeared before him, he might be startled.

Though we were friends, we hadn’t been in contact for several years, so my face might be a blur in his memory.

Hearing the sound, Lampades turned his head. Somehow, the unnaturally slow way he turned his head suggested he might have muscle pain.

No. His pale face and beads of sweat. This was tension.

Was he nervous about the upcoming certification review?

Well, he did say it was his lifelong dream, so it’s understandable. What would be the best words of encouragement in this situation?

After pondering briefly, I decided to offer words of encouragement that would work in any situation.

“Hey, good to see you! You’ve achieved your dream!”

***

Thud.

It was strange.

Elysion’s floating population was world-class. A place where not hearing footsteps would be unusual.

Yet these footsteps were exceptionally clear. Unlike other non-directional noises, these sounds seemed to be aimed solely at Lampades himself.

Thud.

The second sound came. It was getting closer.

Lampades’s breathing quickened. No. It couldn’t be. The dark elf who loved machines slowly looked around.

That slow movement wasn’t so much due to caution as it was a desperate struggle to postpone inevitable doom.

Like a child who senses parental anger but tries to hide their wrongdoing despite knowing punishment is coming.

Lampades turned off the sound collection device in his antenna. The recognition range of his audio sensors, which could pick up even distant lovers’ whispers, narrowed instantly.

Thud.

Yet the footsteps didn’t disappear.

They were coming from the direction he was trying to turn toward. There was no escape.

Lampades finally turned his head.

That blurry face appeared. As in the past, an ominous smile spread across that face.

“Hey, good to see you.”

Lampades couldn’t say anything. You. You.

“You’ve achieved your dream!”

Weren’t you dead?

Lampades’s response was more a reflex of social conditioning than the result of any logical thought process.

“I can’t really say I’ve achieved my dream yet. I’ve only passed the document…”

This was the limit of Lampades’s reflexes. Fortunately, the augmented reality display in his field of vision showed greeting suggestions from his secretary spirit intelligence.

“—review. The practical exam is the biggest hurdle, isn’t it?”

“Come on, what are you saying? A magic tower that passes the document review will surely pass the practical exam too. You’ve practically achieved it already.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

Dozens of everyday conversation phrases recommended by the spirit intelligence were appearing in Lampades’s vision. But he couldn’t choose any of them. What he truly needed to know was something else entirely.

“You… I heard that you died?”

“Ah. I have never experienced death.”

***

So that’s why he looked so pale when he saw me just now.

Well, it’s a situation where Lampades might misunderstand. Everyone else on that mission with Carisia died due to our employer’s betrayal, and I disappeared while escaping with Carisia.

The other colleagues who participated in the mission probably left no corpses, so to the public, it would have been reported as “missing in action.”

And in the fixer and mercenary industry, “missing in action” was synonymous with “dead but we couldn’t find the body.”

From Lampades’s perspective, a friend he thought dead for years suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It’s like the beginning of a horror or mystery novel.

I moved closer to help ease Lampades’s tension.

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Look.”

I spread both hands before his eyes.

“I’m perfectly alive, aren’t I?”

***

This is impossible.

Lampades kept repeating those words to himself.

After that incident where only he and Ortes survived out of ten fixers, he desperately saved money to open a magic tower, and as soon as he reached the minimum capital requirement, he retired.

Even while building up achievements for the certification review, he lived in constant fear that the author might come looking for him again.

The fear that they might suddenly appear saying something like, “The expiration date of the whim that saved you back then has ended.”

And then he heard the news. Missing in action.

The place where Lampades had worked as a fixer was notorious as the frontline against extra-dimensional threats.

A place ordinary people would never even hear of, a place where even those at the bottom of society would rather sell their organs than go.

The fixers who gathered there—or more precisely, those who managed to survive there—were the industry’s top experts.

It was a daily war against extra-dimensional contaminants.

And the mission Ortes was last deployed on was a special assignment that selected only five from among these top fixers.

The details of the mission were never revealed. All that could be vaguely surmised was that five fixers disappeared simultaneously and remained missing.

Top-level fixers dying because they couldn’t handle a mission—this too was common on the extra-dimensional frontline.

But Lampades didn’t believe in Ortes’s death. This was because Ortes had a record of unnaturally returning alone from several missions.

The reason Lampades only went for the certification review years after Ortes’s disappearance was that Ortes might appear before him at any time.

Ortes had clearly said:

‘I support your dream. When you achieve it, I’ll come see you.’

Though circumstances made it certain that he was dead, Lampades had agonized for years, wondering if news of his survival might come tomorrow, and now at the certification review he had finally undertaken—

Lampades faced Ortes.

‘Ah…’

The faceless Ortes had returned.

***

“How have you been?”

“So-so. Busy gathering the achievements needed to pass the document review…”

Lampades’s eyes looked elsewhere. It seemed people from Lampades’s magic tower were over there.

“Oh. Are those people from your magic tower? Should I greet—”

“No! No. That’s not necessary. They’re all visiting Elysion after a long time, so I gave them free time. How awkward would it be if the tower master joined in?”

Lampades spoke rapidly. I could feel the kindness of an exemplary tower master caring for his members.

“Wow, the people at Lampades’s magic tower are lucky. They serve someone on a completely different level from my company’s boss.”

“Boss?”

“Ah. I’m sorry. I forgot to mention it.”

I handed Lampades a business card with simple personal details like my Ether Network mail address.

It was a business card for external activities that Carisia had prepared for me while I was getting ready to come to Elysion. Since I couldn’t reveal my title as Director of Divine Investigation, it was changed to Chief of Staff.

There was something quite amusing about a secretarial office with only one chief of staff. Though the Divine Investigation Office also only had me as a member, strictly speaking.

‘But soon Kine will be listed as something like an intern.’

Lampades’s expression twisted grotesquely after reading the business card I handed him, then returned to normal.

“You, in a company. I find that hard to imagine.”

Aha.

“It’s true that during my fixer days, I worked alone without belonging anywhere. But as I said before, it was all a misunderstanding. Everyone pushed me away when I approached them, so I had no choice but to work alone.”

***

“I’m not that socially inept.”

Even now as he said this with a smile, Ortes’s impression remained vague.

If passersby were asked to describe Ortes’s features, they wouldn’t remember them but would only say “he was smiling.”

Lampades himself was no exception. Unlike passing pedestrians, he could recall a bit more.

A faint smile and narrowly opened eyes. A memory where only the smile remained, without a clear face.

That’s why Ortes was called the faceless Ortes.

Lampades recalled the ghost stories about Ortes. “Always returns alone,” “Devours others’ faces and acts as them,” and the like.

He had never experienced the second story. But Lampades himself was almost a victim in the first story.

He could easily read Ortes’s implications.

A boss on a “different level” from himself. Lampades was someone who had “survived” Ortes and witnessed his true nature. If someone was different from him, there were two possibilities.

Did it mean they were monsters like Ortes? Or were they much more innocent than himself, unaware of Ortes’s true identity?

“Ah. There’s the person.”

Lampades followed Ortes’s politely extended hand with his gaze.

Snow-white hair that seemed to know nothing of darkness. Golden eyes like the twinkling of stars.

This person couldn’t be of the same kind as Ortes.

“Someone to whom I owe a great debt after my last mission. Now serving as my boss.”

‘Ah.’

A person who has fallen into Ortes’s clutches without knowing the truth!