Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume2 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 2===

“Oh, goddammit!!” shouted the modified China dress beauty named Lu Niang Lan.

She was in Aika’s apartment and they must have reached a break in the rain because she could not see any out the window. However, she could not see the starry sky either. Was that due to the thick rainclouds or Toy Dream 35’s Rainy Screen campaign?

The white liger must not have liked the moisture because she looked a little upset as she gave a large, large yawn.

Meanwhile, Shut-In Aika was more cheerful than she had been during the day (although it was hard to tell just by looking at her). She was busy leaning against the ferocious beast while watching a late-night variety show and posting complaints on a message board in real time. But as a summoner who was forgotten when not seen with the naked eye, no one would respond to any of her posts. Her information could not reach anyone without some help from someone below Award 100 who would not be forgotten by normal society. Even if she bought something online, the order would be forgotten if she did not use one of those people.

Lu Niang Lan switched her phone to speakerphone and called someone with the results of her investigation still on the screen.

She was calling Shiroyama Kyousuke.

“I found it, I found it. Hayato was a dead end and the incense registration list didn’t turn up anything, but I finally got a hit with the vessel named Benikomichi Fuuki. She’s registered as one of the vessels paired with a summoner called Illegal Award 910, Telomere’s End.”

“One of…the vessels?”

“Telomere’s End kept several vessel ‘candidates’ on hand. He would bind and cancel contracts over short periods of time to choose the right vessel for the job like a set of golf clubs. Benikomichi Fuuki was one of those. She’s been active since she was nine years old.”

She had been able to stand on the public stage as a high school student council president and blend into human society without anyone forgetting her because she had repeatedly cancelled and renewed her contract like that.

It may have been that history of risky usage that allowed her to do that without fearing the unknown side effects.

It was not that her body had built up a resistance to it. Her mind had.

“So the person trying to create this world without death is that Telomere’s End guy?”

“No, Telomere’s End is already dead,” dryly answered the modified China dress beauty. “After his death, his vessel candidates scattered. Some returned to normal lives and some bound new contracts with other summoners. In the end, none of the vessels stayed with Telomere’s End. …Except for one, that is.”

“And that was senpai…Benikomichi Fuuki? But she has a contract with a summoner other than Telomere’s End, doesn’t she?”

“What if that summoner was a memento of Telomere’s End?”

“…”

“Telomere’s End had brought together a small organization as a member of Illegal. And Illegal families focus on bonds of blood. It might sound odd for criminal organizations to care about familial love, but it’s far deeper and stronger than people think. You could call it an idiosyncrasy of Illegal. …Even if Telomere’s End himself didn’t want it, that would have had some effect.”

Yasuzumi Hayato was his heir from a physical and genetic perspective.

Benikomichi Fuuki was his heir from a psychological and technical perspective.

They were trying to follow in the footsteps of Telomere’s End by joining forces. That was the identity of Shiroyama Kyousuke’s enemy.

“Our Awards are mainly dependent on the summoner rather than the vessel. That’s why I’m not Government Award 1000 and why your enemy is on par with Telomere’s End and yet has not inherited his name or Awards. A child does not inherit his parent’s Awards just because he is using the same vessel.”

“That would explain why someone so skilled isn’t in any of the records.” Kyousuke sounded annoyed. “And from what I’ve heard, I don’t think the summoner is in charge here. It’s probably senpai…the vessel who has seen both father and son who is leading the pair. She has given the son some special education to help him learn his father’s techniques.”

“That’s an unusual arrangement. When I was a vessel, I wore a collar and was kept in a cage.”

“I’m not sure how I should respond to that.”

“Feel free to get all flustered while you imagine it,” readily answered Lu Niang Lan. “I don’t mind if it’s you.”

That was something she had already dealt with.

Dealt with by personally killing the summoner behind it, that is.

“As the name Telomere’s End suggests, he was an assassin and he apparently really thought he could bring about peace if he killed everyone standing in its way. But based on what you’ve said, Kyousuke-chan, it sounds like his son is heading in the opposite direction.”

“When the one-man leader died, it may have cast a shadow over his ideals. That’s why they decided to take the other way. If they succeed, they’ve succeeded. And if they fail, it proves that his father was right all along.”

“By the way…there’s one thing I need to tell you about and then apologize for.”

“Just one?”

“ ‘Just one’? That’s not a very nice thing to say!! …Ahem. Remember when you helped me retrieve that attache case at A Block’s international airport?”

“Yeah. The one carrying a plan to defeat a certain country, right?”

“Right. …The thing is, that plan was a lot like this.”

“?”

“The method of destroying their assumed enemy nation was just like this deathless world. But instead of creating an indefinite state of immortality, the plan was to only create a temporarily deathless world. Once the nation’s system had collapsed, they would switch off the deathless part.”

It was simple enough to describe, but what it meant was truly nasty.

The targets themselves would thoroughly destroy the “kind system” that was necessary to preserve their normal lives and then their immortality would suddenly be snatched away from them. What would happen then? They would no longer have the clothing, food, shelter, currency, electricity, gas, water, and everything else provided by that “kind system”, but a world of normal death would suddenly return.

Without what was needed to live, they would of course be unable to live.

Even if that meant one or two hundred million people, there would be no exceptions.

They would have destroyed themselves and driven themselves to death.

It would be mass suicide on a grand scale.

That “peaceful solution” was really a horribly cruel way of destroying a nation without firing a single bullet.

“So that’s why Yasuzumi Hayato and Benikomichi Fuuki showed up at that international airport. Had someone intercepted their plan and built it into their own plan or were they trying to prevent a coincidentally similar plan from getting out? Either way, they needed to steal that no matter what. That’s why they showed up and pretended to be our allies.”

“I’m glad I didn’t trust them,” commented Kyousuke.

“I know what you mean. It’s looking like those so-called Black Wings that occupied the airport may have actually been soldiers from the old Telomere’s End days. In that case, simply stealing the case during the first wave would have worked, but if that failed, they just had to slaughter their own soldiers to earn our trust and begin a summoning ceremony from close range.”

Lu Niang Lan traversed the world of the summoning ceremony with nothing more than her bare hands and hidden weapons, but not even she could escape the basic rules. Once she was closed in an Artificial Sacred Ground and her target was contained within a protective circle, none of her attacks would get through.

They might have been in trouble had that second wave tricked them.

“It’s the same method they used when blowing up the factory with their soldiers inside…”

“For advocating a world without death, they sure are quick to take people’s lives, enemy or ally. They’ll probably be the first to ‘starve’ if their plan does succeed.”

“By the way, what are the three major powers doing?”

“They’ll probably take action soon. A world without death sounds nice, but it will only bring harm to everyone. …However, these people planned for your interference from the beginning, so they’ll have put together their timetable on the assumption they were going to blow up their HQ. Their next move will be checkmate, so shouldn’t we assume this will all be over by the time those large organizations get going?”

“In that case, we’ll have to do this on our own.”

“Do you have any idea where their ignition will take place?”

“Yeah. There’s only one place it could be.”