Chapter. 18. Railed (16)
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Q. If you ask Volteus, ‘What happened to the road fragment?’, how will he answer?
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….That one. This is a question I have been thinking about all day since leaving House Brastol.
I knew from the beginning that this was a very dangerous question.
Right? Just looking at the immediately predictable answers, ‘I stole it.’/’Someone else there stole it and kept it secret.’/’Kaaaaaa- this guy! ‘You noticed!’/ This is what I mean. The question itself is a landmine that explodes when stepped on. No matter what answer I get, I don’t think it will all end well.
Since it was a life-threatening matter, I wanted to just ignore it… but right now, my situation was that if Volteus was a weird guy, I would be ruined no matter where I went.
‘Except for the defense power of the railship train itself, Voltaeus is the only elite combatant.’
The four knights, including Volteus, who were trusted, were all passengers. A rail ship without Volteus becomes a group that cannot fight a proper battle.
However, ‘Woohyo~ If you split the body, the fragments are copied!’ I can’t switch to the Brastall family, which is doing the same crazy things.
Whatever it was, the only solution for me right now was to figure out what state Voltheus was in and coax him to go with me.
So, even though I knew it was a landmine, I stepped on it.
Of course, I knew it was going to explode and stepped on it, so of course I took countermeasures!
If you stole it, ‘Good job, you found the original owner!’ As expected, our driver!’
If you sold it for a price, you’d think, ‘You’ve succeeded in making a profit because the nobles will take it anyway!’ Good job! As expected, our driver!’
Whatever it was, I was planning to watch it while shaking the rattle. Even though it is a bit of a big theft, it doesn’t mean that Volteus is an unforgivable person.
Even in the worst case, Volteus turns out to be crazy about power and says, ‘Kaaaaah, the power of the Mute Lord!’ If only I had this power, I would…!’- I was planning on coaxing him to go with me somehow, even if I got contaminated by the same load fragments!
Even though Mute has a passive ability to hate humans, you’ve been hanging out with the Railship guys up until now, right? Since the mutes of this era are acting individually on a rod-by-rod basis, I was hoping that something would happen if I worked hard to shake my mouth. There are still more things I don’t know about April World than I know, so I thought about various cases.
“Lord Voltaeus. “Where did the fragments of the defeated Mute Lord ‘Kool Pag’ go?”
After preparing for all possibilities and mentally preparing to minimize damage no matter which direction the mine exploded in, I threw myself into it.
Slam!
“I will ask. “Mute.”
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?
“….yes?”
What am I doing?
“Who sent it? Creeping Thebeus? Autumn of the great heavens? Or… are you from the mainland? To retrieve the fragments of the rod?”
??????
I swear to heaven, Jesus, Buddha, and Roharam that I never expected such an answer to come out!
‘why? Why suddenly mute? where? I? Does the Shard Knight have the ability to recognize experienced workers?’
Right now, I don’t know if it’s the muzzle of a gun or the muzzle of a gun being thrust into my forehead, but the hole is overflowing with energy that could blow my head off, and the sharp end of the crystal is growing as if it’s going to cut out my eyeballs.
Indeed, the sense of crisis that I had experienced for the first time in a long time began to pound my overweight head.
‘Mute. ‘What were the remarks related to that keyword?’
Volteus said, [The talent to activate other people’s fragments is a rare talent even among Lords.]
Volteus’s mood suddenly changed immediately after his Shard Arms were activated. If we infer from a situational perspective, it would mean activating talent-fragments.
‘Now that I think about it, I felt a strange attraction. Assuming it was me who activated the fragment of Volteus.’
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Professor Brastol
A person suddenly brought in from outside.
At only nine years old, he possesses great magical talent.
When I was nine years old, I went home and found out that there was a plot targeting us. Even from that house.
We will not stop here, but will seek out appropriate means to combat the conspiracy. On a nine year old subject.
Ding ding ding!
Conclusion: A very suspicious outsider who doesn’t look like a nine-year-old.
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He was already quite a mysterious person based on his circumstances alone, but the fact that was just confirmed has been added to this.
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+ Has the talent to activate other people’s fragments. Only a few Mute Lords have the talent.
= A mute from outside who is very suspicious and doesn’t look like a nine-year-old.
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‘…Is it worth shooting?’
Isn’t this enough to praise Volteus’ prudence? If it were me, I would have already hung around the corner saying, ‘I’m from that family.’
Crackling-
‘Ugh! ‘Time, no time, no time!’
While I was thinking about something else for a moment, a sharp crystal touched my eyelashes. Voltaeus was rummaging through the pouch on his waist with his opposite hand, which was not holding the gun, with his lips tightly closed. If you think about how emergency medicines like potions and hemostats are usually kept in that place…
‘You’re thinking about it until after digging it out and treating it!’
In an interrogation and torture situation, treatment is not kindness, but an act of life support for long-term interrogation, right?
If I’m not careful, you can really enjoy April World-style field torture in a full 18-hour course.
How many seconds does it take for that shrapnel crystal to grow and reach my eyeball? 10 seconds? 15 seconds?
‘I knew the cause. I also figured out why I misunderstood and what the other person was thinking. So what should I do to stop the other person’s actions?’
Think, think!
‘Sever the legitimacy of your actions! Just by looking at his stiff expression, he doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who enjoys gouging out other people’s eyes! If you break the flow of thinking about [what you have to do]….’
I’m running out of ingredients! Information What did I miss in the conversation just now?
torture. The act of eliciting a desired answer from a subject.
What did Voltaeus want? It was my identity. You asked me what I was.
20 hours of maintenance was crazy, right? You said you were going to arrest me for 20 hours… Damn it, has everyone on the railship already agreed to interrogate me?
After I was sure I was mute, I asked. A few cool names and obviously…
‘…are you from the mainland? To retrieve the fragments of the Lord?’
‘To retrieve the fragments of the Lord?’
To recover fragments?
collect? collect….?
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!!
‘Fragments! Voltaeus has a fragment of the Rod! And every railship driver knows it!’
Sudden action.
Radical movements that are different from usual behavior.
An act that requires such strong will that even Volteus, who has little emotional agitation, bites his lip.
What underlies all of this behavior is… anxiety.
It’s not that he thought of it after meeting me, but he must have already been making assumptions about this situation for a long time.
One day, someone related to Mute came to me and asked where the Lord’s fragment was.
The moment my question was asked, I accepted it and thought, ‘What is coming has come.’
‘Now that I think about it, I said it clearly when I told you about the Brastall family’s conspiracy. The Brastol family [thinks] that Voltaeus took the fragments of the missing Lord.’
This is something that the Brastol family only speculated on, considering the high possibility, but could not confirm it.
He certainly said so, but none of the railship engineers, not even Naelda, who swears freely with Volteus, asked, ‘Do you have that?’ Didn’t ask the same question.
why? Because you already know!
Right now, a dazzling energy is flashing in the tail compartment, but no one is coming to see it.
All in one bucket. The entire Railship team is involved in the theft of the Lord’s fragment, and they implicitly suspect Professor Brastol, a very suspicious outsider, to be the one pursuing it.
‘A closed group… I looked down on the group called the Magic Train.’
There was definitely a hint.
From Straug to Fortress Pardau, we spent at least a week living and sleeping in a hot and cramped train.
Instead of relieving their frustration after arriving in the city, aren’t the train drivers not even taking a step outside the station fence?
There was only one person who entered. Voltaeus Straug.
In the event of an emergency, the Shard Knight is the only one who can at least survive.
They are very wary of something, and my presence and questions have fatally stimulated it.
‘There is no way to convince him.’
Fear and anxiety. It is impossible to resolve logic that has grown outside the realm of reason within a short period of time within the realm of reason. To solve it, you need a long period of persuasion from the root until perfect logic reaches the edge of anxiety.
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“…It’s better.”
Smirking –
Every time I blinked, I suddenly burst into laughter at the fragmentary crystal that came so close to me that it felt like a foreign body.
That smile made Volteus even more anxious.
“monster. There is no need to answer right now. “I have enough time left to prepare for you, and as the remaining parts of my body become scarcer, the reliability of my answer will increase.”
“okay? “Then, why don’t you take a look at that great full course…?”
“hmm?!”
Push!
‘Kwaaaaaak!’
Even though I was used to the pain, it took a lot of patience to bear without screaming the feeling of something like a sharp crystal piercing my eyeball.
‘If it’s the realm of irrationality and logic, this is also a champion level, you bastards!’
I am someone.
The pinnacle of blind faith and sensibility, the highest level of logiclessness!
I am the number one figure in the religious world in the past and the person whom people dared to call ‘the great heroic saint’!
Parrrrr!
‘I’m agitated, I’m agitated!’
I could feel Voltaeus trembling in his eyes, which were pricked by the sharp end of the crystal.
Not only does he talk a lot right before the torture, but he also shows hesitation several times.
To begin with, Voltaeus is not a person accustomed to this type of behavior. It’s just that I took on this role because, by chance, I was really the only person who could respond one-on-one if I was like a hitman sent by Mute.
Voltaeus was a good man by nature.
And now, before he has completed his final mental preparations, I lean forward and he is suddenly faced with a situation.
A situation in which he had just turned a nine-year-old child, who was ‘suspected’ to be a monster, into a one-eyed child.
‘A child suspected of being a monster! doubt! ‘It’s almost confirmed, but it’s not 100% yet, and there’s still a possibility that I’m just a smart, innocent 9-year-old boy!’
Since I am someone who once disassembled and reassembled my entire body as if it were a plastic model, I know how hard it is to recover if an eye is pierced, and how far it can be solved with potions and basic medical care, but for Volteus, the current situation has already crossed the line of no return. Because blood is flowing from my eyes right now.
“It was a monster after all….”
“Ha, a monster? Are you serious, Voltaeus? “In what way do you think I’m mute?”
Now, when his strong core is shaken, he must strike without mercy and shake his roots.
“Being smart? Voltaeus Don’t you know that you too come from a bastard? People like us who no one cares about cling to something to forget our loneliness! For you, it might be physical training! So, I guess I could have received at least knight training as a blood relative for a marriage contract!”
“That was…”
“For me it was a book! A world made up of words, even without conversation! Adventure story! The biography of a saint with the same name as me! If it is a sin for me to be wise, then please condemn the head of the family who threw me in the rainwater shed without even giving me a name! “Abandoned solitude has made me wise!”
“That’s sophistry-”
“Sophistry! That’s right! It is sophistry and speculation that a child who does not know how to swim falls into a large bucket of water and no one finds it for several hours! Where in the world would there be a child like that? “Unless you’re a bastard from a noble family that no one cares about!”
sympathy. A similar past evokes sympathy for the agitated Volteus.
Take half a step forward from here.
Just as the crystal is about to delve deeper, Volteus, visibly agitated, withdraws his arm as he approaches.
“….Talent! How will you explain your talent, a talent found only in the mighty Mute Lord? “The power to collect the fragments of the Shard Knights alive belongs to the one and only Mute, who has made them the leading power on the fragmented continent!”
“Oh, is it a problem this time that I have a very special and precious talent? If you ask me about the only thing I can have is mute, I will likewise ask you about the only thing I can have is mute!”
Let’s go.
One more step a little deeper. So that Voltaeus, who had stepped back, could feel the wall against his back.
I caught the blood flowing from a fairly deep stab eye in my hand and held it out to him.
“I heard in a book that Mute’s blood is extremely disgusting and has a sweet smell. Lord Volteus has crossed the soft land and dealt with many mutes, so he must at least know their blood better than I do. “Is this blood from a monster or from a human?”
fact.
I bring firmer facts before the eyes of the agitated person so that they forget what I cannot explain.
The only provable fact here. Since this is a different mute from the mutes of the past, I can’t believe it has the same characteristics as the mutes I used to know.
At least it would be clear that the blood was different from human blood.
There is no way that Volteus, the Shard Knight, would not recognize that the fresh blood in my hand, which he pierced with his hand and extracted from a nine-year-old boy, was purely human.
….Tsk!
‘Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Voltaeus’s face is filled with agitation and despair, instead of his drastically reduced life.
The crystals growing on the tip of his gun shrunk and more blood began to gush from his eyes.
Well, the visual effect is just perfect.
“Lord Voltaeus. “Since you haven’t answered any of my questions, let me ask you a question that can be answered.”
“….”
“You asked me. “What is my identity?”
“Then what did I say that would have cleared your doubts about me?”
“Uhm….”
“You know this much, right? Since the question required torture to get the answer, you must have thought about the right and wrong answers!”
Finally, he pours out logic to Volteus, who is agitated and shaken mercilessly by being beaten with facts.
What should I have answered?
What should I say to you that will make you stop doubting me at that moment?
‘You can’t answer? You can’t do it? ‘Because it was my imagination that fueled my anxiety that brought me here in the first place!’
Just as I had no way to logically persuade Volteus, Volteus also has no way to logically refute this question.
“…I made a mistake…”
With a voice that sounded like it was chewing and spitting out, the crystals that bound Volteus and his weapons began to melt and return to his shoulders.
Voltaeus looks at my blood-dripping eyes and his own hands alternately with a face that looks like he’s about to bite his tongue.
‘He is a mentally strong person. Since I accidentally broke my mentality, let’s take this opportunity to erase a lot of the debt I owe to you!’
The moment I was about to push him to at least make an oath to become a godfather, worth the price of an eyeball, –
clatter – BOOM!
“Hey. “Baby? Shall we stop teasing poor little Volteus and talk to his sister?”
“Tsk-”
The heavy iron door opens cheerfully and the engine light brightens the dark tail compartment.
“I heard everything~”
“Naelda?”
“He’s quite old, isn’t he?”
As anyone could see, Naelda, a fallen elf, was coming inside, shaking off her sweaty hair.
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