Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Epilogue

Epilogue

The magical combat tournament that served as this year’s Catastrophe had finally ended.

Karuta’s victory meant the collected jackpot of lost bets went straight to Second Grimnoah. None of that would end up in Karuta’s pocket, but he just hoped it would be used for the benefit of the world. He was afraid being given that kind of money out of nowhere would ruin his life.

He had just barely squeaked by with a victory, but he didn’t have it in him to go along with a grand award ceremony.

His torn-up body could regenerate in 30 seconds, but his battered mind was a different matter.

“A future where evil defeats good and the world ends?” was all he could say.

What was that supposed to mean?

That girl’s divination had managed to reveal the presence of the human string pullers without even trying to look for them, so he felt certain there was some meaning hidden there.

He heard some creaking metal.

It came from a wheelchair’s wheels.

“Karuta-kun.”

“Did you find anything?”

Karuta and Marika’s parents and Kyouka’s brother had been manipulated into tormenting the Four Living Gods, but interrogating them wouldn’t reveal any real information.

This, however, was a different matter.

Some snipers or assassins presumably sent by the human string pullers had been hiding within the crowd. Although they had been partially turned to mincemeat by Pendet Denpasar when they tried to interrupt the dance she was offering to her god.

They had likely been there to eliminate Karuta if things strayed from their scenario.

Kyouka had hoped to find something by checking through those bodies and their equipment.

“Let’s talk in the student council room. Where’s Aine-chan?”

“In me.”

“I already spoke with Marika-san. She should be in the student council room already.”

They could not discuss this over the phone.

She was not letting it show, but that fact showed how nervous Omotesandou Kyouka really was.

She had found something unpleasant.

Her tension reminded Karuta of Pendet Denpasar when she had discovered the outlines of something at the end of her dance.

Once Karuta, Aine, Marika, and Kyouka were in the student council room, the president got down to business.

“First, I found a few different contact points. They used satellite phones that linked directly to an unregistered communications satellite. That was probably meant to hide from random AI searches, but using a secret line was their undoing. I just had to follow that direct line to find the human string pullers at the other end.”

“And what did you find?”

“Chrisbart.”

“?”

Karuta was not the only one to frown. Marika had fought on the side deck too, so she also looked puzzled. What did any of this have to do with that electric battleship the Greek group had hijacked?

But that was not what Kyouka meant.

“Chrisbart Firenze,” she clarified. “One of the most prominent figures in crystal magic theory and also a rather unusual civilian weapons researcher who used an Italian luxury car maker as a stepping stone to get involved in the joint EU munitions and heavy industry businesses. Did you forget that modern warships are named after famous historical scientists now? Especially ones who research magic.”

There was that.

But Karuta also recognized the last name of Firenze. Sophia Firenze was a Sub Category teacher. And wasn’t that also the name of Kiyosawa Hadome’s former teacher?

“Once we start focusing on Chrisbart Firenze, the human string pullers’ identity comes into focus. Basically, they are a secret network connecting the world’s munitions companies behind the scenes. It began with a collection of amateur inventors from a time before anyone used the name World War One. That was an age where tanks, airplanes, barbed wire, and any other ideas people came up with ended up causing far more damage than they ever could have imagined. Seeing so many countries and governments going berserk, those reclusive engineers began exchanging letters in an attempt to control the spread of war from a civilian standpoint.” Kyouka sighed. “By intentionally adjusting the development speed of magic and weapons, that unseen organization could control the power balance between nations without anyone noticing. They are merchants of death who used hierarchies, discord, and antagonism to build up vast fortunes. And they were of course involved in the militarization of magic, so I’m sure they had a hand in the creation of Second Grimnoah and its escort fleet.”

“But wouldn’t they be charged with serious crimes if word got out? Aren’t they dealing with national secrets and stuff?” asked Marika.

Kyouka nodded.

“I imagine that is what led to their abnormal obsession with secrecy. And at the same time, their vast fortunes have been spread among so many industries that they have become ‘too big to fail’ so to speak. Large corporations never seem to go bankrupt even when they’re billions in the red, right? People fear those corporations’ collapse would bring down the entire country, so public funding is poured in to help prop them up. …So their position might have been precarious at first, but things have changed. I doubt it would help if we leaked this information onto the internet. The human string pullers have already evolved into an immortal monster.”

A heavy atmosphere bore down on them.

If none of the usual methods would solve this, they would have to rely on some unusual methods.

The first time Karuta’s group had been faced with that, they had played the violence card.

But since they knew Sophia Firenze personally, would they have the courage to make that choice this time?

And would doing so really qualify as “courageous”?

“Next, look at this. This is even worse. It’s the human string pullers’ plan.”

The president tossed a multipage printout of some kind of data onto the table. It was full of technical terms and Karuta didn’t understand a lot of it, but he very clearly understood one passage:

“Our top priority is Pendet Denpasar. Utagai Karuta doesn’t matter – just do not create a situation where a stray shot could hit that girl. Avoid even the slimmest possibility.”

“So…” Karuta placed a hand on his chin. “They wanted Pendet to win, not me? They wanted to shoot me during the match if they could, but they didn’t dare for fear of hitting Pendet on accident?”

“That’s not it at all.” Kyouka breathed a heavy sigh and used a red pen to circle something on the document. “Look here. These are their observation records during the third round. Specifically, when the electric battleship was firing on us. They mostly just passively observed it all, but as soon as a certain facility was going to be hit by a stray shot, they were ordered to interfere with the ship’s line of fire while disguising it as an accident. In the worst case, they were to use themselves as a decoy.”

“I get the feeling this wasn’t some noble story of self-sacrifice to protect Second Grimnoah or the cruise ships full of visitors.”

“It’s an important facility out here on the equatorial ocean.” Kyouka turned to look out the window. “The space elevator.”

“…?”

What did that have to do with any of this?

It was a relic of an older age with no connection to the tournament.

“This means there is a connection,” said Kyouka. “Forget the Decoy Threat at the Crystal Beach and focus on the real Threat that attacked Second Grimnoah. They were curious about crystal magic. They never attacked the first ship like that. It was only once we had become the new world’s strongest that they showed an interest in us.”

“But what does that have to do with the tourna- no, wait a second.”

“The Threat is said to come from outer space and their target is the Original Crystal Embryo found at the earth’s core. They appear to be attracted to the strongest beings on this planet. I don’t know if it’s to eliminate their greatest obstacle or to capture us and have us build a path to the core, but think about it. What if the Problem Solvers didn’t just go running to fight the Threat whenever they attacked? What if the Threat was actually pursuing them?”

“B-but, wait! Do you have any evidence of that!?”

“The Southern Cross Meteor Shower. Apparently all of those shooting stars are actually the Threat.”

“…”

“Do you remember the details about that meteor shower? The first wave alone is measured in the tens of thousands and there are supposed to be nearly 300 million in all. They aren’t pouring down on this region of sea by random chance. They clearly chose this location because Second Grimnoah is here.”

300 million.

Million.

That was too many. Karuta couldn’t even imagine it. How many had occupied Second Grimnoah near the Port of Kobe? And how many times more was this!?

Of course. He had seen the tadpoles and the armored warrior. Not all of the Threat were necessarily bad. But could he apply that logic to ever last one of those 300 million? If they were the same as humans, then wouldn’t that group include a mixture of the good and the bad?

If even 10% of that number wanted to slaughter humanity, it would be more than earth could handle.

And now that some of the good Threats had been killed, some of the other good ones might decide to join the fight.

The president’s red pen raced across the papers, visualizing the information buried in the sea of technical terminology.

This was something he would much rather not have seen.

“Humanity cannot defeat the Threat.”

“…”

It was so decisive.

Karuta himself had brooded over how he had been no match for the armored warrior he had fought on Second Grimnoah and felt like the righteous position had been stolen from humanity.

But hearing it from someone else – and someone much smarter than him – was something else entirely.

“But the Threat can be redirected away from this planet by taking the world’s strongest and using the space elevator to chuck them off the planet as bait.” Kyouka made it sound like a disturbing lullaby. “But first, they wanted to secure the world’s next strongest. They wanted to know who would be the strongest once the current strongest had been disposed of. The Threat arriving from space cannot ignore the strongest out there in space even if the possibility of attack is low. Just repeat that process and the planet can be protected. The string pullers just have to keep using up each new generation of strongest.”

Chrisbart Firenze was apparently a leading crystal magic researcher, but he did not seem interested in the title of world’s strongest. Why would he be when that title was ultimately meaningless and the real power was held by the hidden global network that determined the world’s military balance? He would view the position of strongest as nothing but a troublesome duty that had to be filled again every few years.

And he never gave any thought to how much the people who held that position worried over it all and tried to hold onto it.

“So when the Problem Solvers were working so hard to keep their position at the top…?” groaned Marika.

“They had to prove that they were still useful in that position and it wasn’t time to replace them yet.” Kyouka brushed her long hair from her shoulder. “If they didn’t do that, then it would be time to dispose of them. I imagine they were terrified of us, the up-and-coming world’s strongest that threatened their position at the top. It probably also has to do with the Threat wanting to do something about the Original Crystal Embryo. It can’t be moved from the earth’s core and they couldn’t even draw their power from it like we do, so they must have loathed it.”

“So they went around killing all the next strongests in order to temporarily delay the cycle of replacement? So after all their grand speeches, they only attacked the first ship to keep themselves alive a little longer!?” Karuta slammed both hands against the fancy desk as if to stop the conversation there. “That’s…that’s no reason to go along with it!! We’re already starting to break free of the string pullers’ control on us. We even know who they are. So now we can bring the fight to them!!”

“Yes, that’s true,” agreed the president. “But defeating the infuriating string pullers like that doesn’t solve the more fundamental problem, does it? We would be left with no way to protect the planet from the approaching Threat. We would have created an age where the 5.5 billion people on this planet are slaughtered.”

“…”

This world was trash.

It was a world where their own families had betrayed them with a smile.

But Karuta wouldn’t let anyone say there was no good in it. There was Yamane Deiri, Matsuda Imi, Natalena, Letnahe, and all the others who had fought alongside them.

Not to mention Kazamuki Gekiha and the others from the first ship who were waiting to recover at the bottom of the ship.

If he was willing to just give up on them, he never would have risked his life to challenge the old strongests.

“What do we do?”

He was afraid to die.

That was a normal way to feel, but he couldn’t just run away from this.

He squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his teeth, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“It’s us or the planet, so what the hell are we supposed to do!?”

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