WeTried Translations
Translator: Botanica
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◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss ◈
Chapter 57
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Decision (2)
Right after their return to Etna City, Karisia sat down alone with Ortes.
This time, unusually, it was Ortes who had sought her out first. He'd come to report on the three-way balance of power he'd built among the Order of the Divine Name, Blasphemia, and Argyrion.
"I have set up channels to draw information out of both the Order of the Divine Name and Blasphemia, and to feed it back in as well. Hydra Corp now holds a position from which we can guide, to some degree, the movements of all three factions."
Even Karisia hadn't expected results like this. It was effectively the same as planting spies inside both Blasphemia and the Order of the Divine Name.
The most brilliant part was that the spies had no idea they were even acting as spies while they handed over information.
As far as either side was concerned, Ortes was one of their own.
She'd already gathered, from the rough report out of Elysion, that Ortes had pulled off something again, but this...
"And you're telling me you did all this with Kyne in tow?"
"Words alone did not seem like they would be enough to convince the priest, so I brought along some insurance. Once I actually showed him Kyne's divine power in action, he turned out to be surprisingly easy to fool."
'I'm not sure "easy to fool" is really the phrase for what just happened.'
Karisia kept the thought to herself, out of consideration for her right hand's feelings. It wasn't as if this were the first time Ortes had dreamed up and pulled off some outlandish scheme.
"So, President. Have you come up with a way to take the Ten Towers?"
The Ten Towers. The one Karisia had firmly marked as an enemy was the White Light Tower alone, but if she waged full-scale war against them, reinforcements from the other Ten Towers were bound to come.
"If we pick the fight under the banner of a Succession War, the other Towers will not interfere. Though..."
"Whatever happens, the second we destroy the Commandment, the word 'succession' won't mean a thing anymore. If the White Light's Commandment disappears, they'll come after Hydra Corp either way, whether it's for revenge or to protect their own Commandments."
Karisia wound a lock of her long hair around her right forefinger, twirling it. After three or four loops, she suddenly spoke again.
"You know that three-way balance of power of yours has a problem, right?"
"Yes. Argyrion, Blasphemia, the Order of the Divine Name, I've set up a battlefield for the three of them, but there are people who could flip the whole table over."
The Ten Towers, in the end. Wasn't this whole dilemma happening precisely because of the overwhelming, asymmetric power of the Commandments?
"For now, the most rational play, the proper move (正手), looks like pushing the Divinity Investigation forward as fast as possible."
Once the artificial Ten Commandments were complete, Etna City would become an impregnable battlefield even against an expeditionary force from the Ten Towers.
"A first line of defense using the city's outer walls. A second line centered on Geryones and Kaicel's towers, with Hydra Corp itself as an anchor. A final line to be built into Mount Etna. Even an airborne assault by airship would have a hard time breaking through."
Ortes wasn't exaggerating. With staged destruction and redevelopment happening almost daily, Etna City was steadily trading its chaotic underworld and crumbling outer walls for something closer to a deliberately planned fortress city.
Of course, having the advantage against the Ten Towers only held true for a defensive siege.
"Though I can't just relax because we have the defender's advantage, there have been cases of even the Ten Towers losing a Succession War and getting replaced. And in the end, we're the ones who'll have to go on the offensive."
A means of bringing down the White Light. She would need to work out, separately, a way to make the White Light's mana field collide with the artificial Ten Commandments' own. Karisia felt a few more items had just been added to her list of homework.
One solution occurred to her.
'What if I just close my eyes and hand the whole thing to Ortes...?'
No. No, that wouldn't do. Karisia shook her head. Ortes looked like he could do anything, and in practice, throwing him at almost any problem so far had ended in success, but that didn't actually mean he was omnipotent.
'Something he's actually failed at, specifically... let's see....'
Ah. Friends.
"Come to think of it. Do you keep in touch with your friend often?"
"No. We had not been in touch for years. Luckily, though, he still remembered me well."
Ortes seemed genuinely glad to have run into a friend after so long, and he went on, rambling through one story after another.
"I told you before about the time someone said to me, 'I'll betray you before you can betray me!' Lampades was the only one who took my side back then."
"Sounds like he's got a good eye."
Karisia answered a little sourly. Was it really true that he "didn't" betray Ortes? Or was it just that he'd been too scared to?
"My friend has some real ability, I will give him that."
An out-of-nowhere brag about a friend. Karisia's mood soured. At least now she knew for certain that Ortes wasn't good at everything. Social skills might just be his weak point.
'From what I saw, he looked less like he thought of you as a friend and more like some kind of monster.'
"Ortes, is he the only friend you have?"
"Ha. President, I may not have much of a social streak, but it is not like I have none. You have no idea how hard I worked on the extradimensional frontlines."
Karisia bit back the urge to say, "Didn't you tell me you got betrayed more than once at that very place you worked so hard?"
"Speaking of Lampades Tower, has Kyne told you anything about it?"
Before her self-control ran out entirely, Karisia decided to change the subject.
"Kyne, you mean? Aren't the detailed terms of the corporate scholarship, and her employment contract after she finishes Museion, something you handle directly, President?"
Ortes's question made it clear Kyne hadn't told him anything at all.
"I heard a kid from Lampades Tower named Astrape has seen you before. Or, more precisely, heard of you."
* * *
"Heard of" me. What was that supposed to mean?
"You're saying my friend Lampades told her about me?"
"She said you saved her from being sold off as a slave. Ring any bells?"
Huh?
There was only one slave trader I'd gritted my teeth and taken down recently. If it connected to Astrape, that made it all the more certain.
The Toress Magic Tower branch that had been dealing with Cryton. The one whose chief was named Taknia, wasn't it?
But when I'd asked Taknia myself, hadn't he flatly denied knowing any such kid?
The Astrape I'd actually seen hadn't been mechanically modified at all. If the Toress School had gotten its hands on her, her whole body except the brain should have been converted into enchant-ware.
'...Was Astrape one of the people who'd just been dragged in and left waiting in the warehouse that day?'
What a ridiculous coincidence. Astrape had apparently been hiding somewhere in the crowd I'd stirred up while handing out Magic Imprinting Drives.
It wasn't a bad thing that Astrape remembered me. For one, it meant one fewer ally for the Mage King.
My goal was to destroy the White Light without ever clashing with the Mage King, but the world rarely goes according to plan.
If I looked at it as one fewer person who might become an enemy down the line, it was a good outcome.
'Still, just leaving a good impression feels a bit shaky to rely on. I'll need a way to bring her over to our side for certain, one that'll help win Lampades over too.'
I settled on a way to make both Lampades and Astrape cooperate with Hydra Corp actively.
I'd give them so much that turning it down wouldn't be an option.
* * *
Karisia recalled what Kyne had said to her while passing along the news.
'She'd said it scared her, not knowing where Ortes's planning started or stopped.'
"That is good, then. Astrape is a mage with real talent, like Kyne. It'd be nice if the two of them got along at Museion," Ortes said.
Ortes himself, the one who had actually saved Astrape, seemed to have no particular thoughts about it. The moment she thought that,
"Given that Lampades came in person to rescue Astrape, he must think rather highly of her as a disciple. Since she happens to have a good impression of me, let's use that to try making contact."
Ortes had saved Astrape a few months back. She'd since joined Lampades Tower, and Lampades's technical expertise was something Hydra Corp's goals needed.
For whatever reason, Lampades still hadn't given a firm answer on partnering with them, and now, by sheer luck, it turned out Astrape remembered the debt she owed Ortes....
"That's a coincidence, right?"
"Hm? Ah. Yeah, a coincidence."
Ortes rubbed his chin for a moment, thinking something over, then spoke again.
"Lampades probably sees Astrape's lightning magic, her talent for manipulating electromagnetic waves, as essential to finally completing his extradimensional detection spell."
Karisia nodded. Lampades was undeniably a fairly conscientious figure, for a Tower Master, but it seemed unlikely he'd have personally charged into a city crawling with terrorists purely out of conscience.
"Lampades is a superb mage himself, and with her admission to Museion already a given, simply offering to support Astrape's studies will not be enough to move him."
"True. As a Tower Master qualified for listing himself, he's probably fairly well off financially too."
"But as it happens, I know a place where there's likely to be an artifact suited to her."
Karisia rubbed her temple, a habit she'd picked up from Ortes.
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