Editing City Series:Volume6b Chapter6 (section)

===Part 1===

The party in the Geheimnis Agency HQ mess hall was coming to a close.

But Schweitzer was not attending that party.

He was not below the mess hall lights or a part of the chatting agency bigshots.

He was drinking alone on the open-air terrace jutting out east from the mess hall. He leaned against the railing and looked up into the sky.

The stars were out and the breeze blew in from the forest.

He could hear the laughter from the open door a few yards away from him, but he ignored the voices and the light stretching out to engulf his feet. He was only interested in the sky. On occasion, he would take a sip from the wooden mug in his biological left hand, like he had only just remembered it existed.

He had been like this the entire time. He had greeted so many people once the party started and been freed from the torture after half an hour, at which point he had withdrawn to the terrace.

Through the door, Lowenzahn was surrounded by people and receiving their blessing, dancing with Alfred at Rose’s insistence, and exchanging serious information with people so important a salute would be insufficient.

What did it mean that he could not bear to be in there?

“I must be such a boring person,” he concluded.

He heard a woman’s laughter, but it was a little too deep and mellow to be Lowenzahn.

He looked down to see a woman in black. She was in her mid-thirties and had unkempt short blonde hair.

“Army Division Lieutenant.”

“No need to salute. Tonight, you have become one of us.”

“Lady Jeanne, I fail to see how being introduced to you all improves my standing quite that much.”

“Think about it. You saved our commander’s life three years ago and you fulfilled the Messiah’s prophecy two years ago. You have great value. Maldrick is here for his family and for being a quick learner, but you are different.”

Jeanne Schmitt laughed quietly and parted her lips to let her voice spill out.

''In the deep darkness of the Black Forest

''Born from the abyss

''The wheel emerges

:''It whips up the wind and speaks with the dragon

:''It reads the wind and weeps

:''It carries power in its hand and hesitates

Once done, she said more.

“Our commander told Karl and me we needed more patience. She said the current prophecy tells us the Messiah is still not ready to be our leader.” She sighed. “Our Army Division took matters into our own hands to secure the Messiah, but all we get for it was an ‘It’s too soon. Cut it out, okay?’ ”

“If you ask me, her greatest talent is in putting things lightly.”

Jeanne placed her hands on the railing next to Schweitzer and looked up.

She gave him a solemn look for a moment, but he did not let it bother him.

Then that look bordering on anger was replaced with almost the opposite.

She laughed in a childish way.

“I can’t believe it. Now Karl and I look like the bad guys.”

“I am sure she knows you ordered the Messiah’s capture because you care so much for the Geheimnis Agency.”

“I know, which is why I can’t be mad at her. I used to be famous for butting heads with my superiors, you know? …That girl suddenly mastered true leadership last year,” Jeanne said pleasantly. “Harsh rebukes earn a leader defiance and anger, but…the previous generation of the Naylor family, Lady Frobel, and her husband Sir Lebenheit were just like her.”

“Those two build the foundation of the Geheimnis Agency, didn’t they?”

“Sir Lebenheit died in a British attack in ’18 and Lady Frobel died of heart disease…when Lady Lowenzahn was only 8.”

“Hey, hey. No discussing my life story with a beginner.”

They were interrupted by a clear voice.

They looked up to see a slender figure standing in the terrace’s entrance.

It was Lowenzahn.

She still wore her plain waitress uniform and walked briskly over to stand between Jeanne and Schweitzer, where she leaned her entire body on the railing.

She went limp and stretched out like a cat.

“I’m exhausted.”

Jeanne and Schweitzer exchanged a glance over her head.

Schweitzer looked down to see the girl slipping from the railing to the floor. After a moment of thought, he reached out and caught her. Using his metal right hand.

She thanked him as he pulled her up, but she kept her eyes straight ahead with a slight smile on her face.

She was viewing the mess hall, where the agency’s leaders were holding a serious discussion on a variety of topics. The center of the discussion was a skinny old man who looked awkward in his military uniform and a short and fat elderly man who looked like he had never worn anything but his uniform.

“Not often you see Development Division Chief ‘Dachs’ Konrad Elrich and my adoptive father Air Force Division Chief ‘Standhaft’ Herbert Müller speaking together like this.”

The three of them watched as a lady in a blue dress walked by the group and stopped when Müller called out to her. She tilted her head and looked over with a face that’s youth was fading and leaving only a powerful sorrow behind.

Müller was two heads shorter than her and he kept his pleasant smile as he explained something to her with ample gesticulation. After a bit, she nodded and the two of them turned toward Elrich. The elderly chief of the Development Division loosened his collar and nodded in greeting, never smiling.

The blue beauty smiled and joined the discussion centered on those two men.

“And now Naval Division Chief ‘Wasser Meister’ Lillie Telmetz joins in. That’s the Big 3 accounted for.”

Lowenzahn kept her tone light and Jeanne crossed her arms.

“Lillie shouldn’t have let them drag her into their conversation. I’m betting she was searching for Graham.”

“He went to meet Karl.”

That revelation seemed to catch Jeanne by surprise.

“Once this is over, I’ll be visiting him too, Jeanne. I need to tell your husband to stop sending his wife to get chewed out while he naps in the hangar.”

Jeanne smiled at that.

“Was that meant as a kindness to me?”

“We ladies need to stick together.”

Hearing that, Jeanne turned toward Schweitzer.

“Did you hear that, Schallmauer Zerstörer? That’s her excuse for protecting her own position above all else.”

“Now that I know she pulled the wool over my eyes for past three years, I think I finally see how she does things.”

“Now, let’s not be mean, Captain…oh?”

Lowenzahn’s note of surprise guided Schweitzer’s gaze back toward the mess hall where someone else had joined the Big 3’s discussion.

It was another skinny elderly man who looked uncomfortable in his uniform. He rubbed his bald head and appeared to be providing comments and additional information on what the others were saying.

“Intelligence Division Chief ‘Hellsehen’ Witzmann.”

Lowenzahn identified him and looked meekly up into the sky.

“Hmm,” she groaned. “Drop one well-placed bomb here and you could alter the course of history.”

“Let’s not tempt fate, shall we?” laughed Jeanne, stepping away from the railing. “I need to pay my husband a visit. And I need to bring Lillie along.”

She returned quickly to the light without even looking back.

She soon entered the mess hall and joined the people within.

Several distinct groups had formed and she easily extracted the woman in a blue dress from one of those serious discussions.

They all watched Lillie leave with some grumbling comments.

But just as Jeanne was leaving with Lillie, she gave one short comment to the others.

The men’s faces stiffened and they all scratched their heads and reformed their group.

Their discussion began anew and Lillie shrugged somewhat guiltily as Jeanne dragged her out of the mess hall.

Lowenzahn had only one thing to say after seeing it all play out.

“They’re like schoolchildren.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Captain.”

“Yes?”

“No need to be so formal. And I apologize for lying to you all this time.”

“Understood, ma-”

Schweitzer sighed and leaned back against the railing. It creaked under his weight, but he rested his elbows on it all the same.

“I am so tired.”

“So am I. Oh, but I do appreciate the chance to speak with you like this. War is coming and the ruin in ’43 isn’t long after that. I need to make sure all the powerful people near me know the stakes.”

“Does that…include the lower-ranking people?”

“It isn’t time for that yet. Did you know the Development Division is analyzing Germany’s Tons that the Vaterlands have extracted? They’re breaking down and analyzing so much to refine fuel for the Babel Kanone and Himmelsschild.”

“Have they discovered anything?”

“I stopped Jeanne and Karl’s capture of the Messiah because Elrich says the Ton analysis is close to allowing us to extract the Concept Existence Ton that allows this land to exist.” She hung her head a little. “If we can extract that Ton, process it with ether, and reinject it, she won’t be able to leave Germany anymore. Because she will be a part of the very concept of Germany.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, that is a more effective method of keeping the Messiah here than physically capturing her. If the prophecy says we are to capture her, I imagine it will be done through that Concept Existence Ton, not anything physical.” She sighed. “Because that means she can never leave Germany.”

“And will you move to the forefront once that happens?”

“Yes,” confirmed Lowenzahn, still hanging her head. “The Geheimnis Agency still isn’t complete. We do have the most well-known noble families gathered as our main force, but we are still lacking so much when compared to the Germania Dragoons. So many gave up their noble position after the war and so many others left because they didn’t like our methods. …A Sofort Leser girl isn’t enough to bring them all together again.”

“…”

“Before she died, my mother said to keep Graham as the public face of the agency until we had the Messiah. She said…”

She fell silent there.

Her lips formed a few unsaid words before she finally spoke again.

“She said I had nothing to worry about until the world’s ruin in ’43 as long as I kept prophesying.”