WeTried Translations
Translator: Botanica
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss ◈
Chapter 99
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An Unexpected Visit (4)
"Yes. The auditors have left? Already?"
"I granted them maximum access to the tower's mana core, and even opened up the confidential Ether Space documents for them, so they just gave it a formal once-over and left."
"Well, that's no good. You can't handle things that sloppily."
Ortes shook his head slowly.
'These days the agents have gone soft. Back when Blasphemia used to play tag with me, they worked so diligently and passionately.'
If Panoptes's agents had known what Ortes was thinking, it was the kind of remark that would've dropped every last one of them on the spot with a stroke.
Nine-tenths of their current, swollen workload was tied directly to Ortes, and if you traced the remaining one-tenth back far enough, nine-tenths of that too turned out to be some butterfly effect he himself had set in motion.
A track record bad enough that it wouldn't have been strange for some random Panoptes agent passing by to lunge at him screaming, "If I just erase you, the whole world normalizes overnight!"
But a future like that could never come to pass.
Even Ortes himself had no real idea what consequences his own actions had actually caused.
When the butterfly that stirred up the storm didn't even know it was the cause, the people swept up in that storm couldn't very well hold a grudge against the butterfly.
All Ortes actually knew was that, today too, every word out of his mouth was somehow adding to Panoptes's per-agent workload.
"Ah, by the way. Don't you think it's about time we put Geryones to good use on the Divinity Investigation as well? For the detailed scheduling, I think it'd be best to leave it to Director Arabel, since the auditors leaving early should have freed up some room in her schedule."
Arabel, too, apparently.
* * *
Some time later, once Ortes returned to the reception room, Lampades laid out a few requests.
"I don't suppose you could move our tower's lodgings somewhere else? I hear the conflict's still ongoing. Somewhere safer, I mean."
Now that he thought about it, that was fair. In Etna City, destruction followed by reconstruction had become practically routine, and things had settled into what amounted to a lull, but outsiders would read it very differently.
Getting caught in the crossfire of a war between Magic Towers and dying without warning. Or being invited as Hydra Corp's guest, only for some hostile tower to kidnap you and use you as a hostage.
There was no end to the ominous futures that could unfold out of a Magic Tower dispute.
'Huh. Could that be why the Panoptes agents went through their inspection so halfheartedly?'
If the reasoning behind volunteering for this preemptive inspection now was to avoid getting falsely implicated by a rival tower, it made sense that the agents' inspection would end up loose.
In a conflict between Magic Towers, reporting a rival tower to the Ten Towers to tie its hands and feet while you seized control of the battle was a classic tactic.
By now it was such an old trick that it barely worked anymore, but an exceptional situation like this one, with the Ten Towers baring their fangs, was a different story.
From a Panoptes agent's perspective, it was only natural to think, "These towers are too busy fighting each other to have any reason or spare energy for treason anyway, so let's wrap this up fast and go shake down somewhere more suspicious."
"That's unexpected..."
"What is?"
"Ah. Just talking to myself. Of course, I can move you. Please give me just a moment."
Hydra Corp's headquarters had plenty of vacant rooms. Even just the top floor that Karisia and I used had a fair number of empty rooms left over.
Back in the Lernian Magic Tower days, this building had housed anywhere from several dozen to a hundred people at minimum, and if you counted the test subjects, well over several hundred.
These days, about the only ones who actually lived at Hydra Corp headquarters full-time were Karisia and me.
Ah, Arabel too, conditionally, I suppose? Karisia had her working overtime an oddly excessive amount. Poor thing.
Setting aside exceptions like Arabel, most business outside the Divinity Investigation got handled within each Director's own personal organization, and people only dropped by Hydra headquarters for general status reports or meetings.
'The top floor's out, for starters. Knowing Karisia, she wouldn't want anyone else in her own space.'
The middle floors wouldn't satisfy Lampades, who'd specifically asked for "safety."
It was a spot with no easy escape route either up or down. Which left, quite naturally, only the basement floors...
"Is there some kind of problem?"
"No. I'll move your lodgings down to Hydra Corp headquarters' basement... a kind of shelter, you could say."
"A shelter, is it."
"Both its defenses and its amenities are solid. I'll give you the master key to the basement sector."
* * *
Ortes drew a card key from inside his coat and handed it to Lampades. It was, on the surface, an utterly casual gesture.
Lampades read the weight hidden inside that casual gesture.
The authority to handle Hydra Corp's headquarters building however he pleased, without even reporting it to the president. Either Ortes was trusted by the president to that degree, or the president was Ortes's puppet.
The exchange back in Elysion came to mind. When told that Ortes wasn't the good person she thought him to be, the way Hydra Corp's president had answered that she already knew that.
Did she really know Ortes's hidden side and trust him anyway? Or was she being controlled so skillfully that she couldn't even notice an overreach like this?
"That said, from basement level three down, it's Hydra Corp's storage, so it isn't suited for living quarters. There are items down there rather sensitive to changes in condition, so I'd ask that you avoid going near it as much as possible."
"Understood. Thank you."
Lampades quietly turned over how he'd go about drawing Knemon out. Where to even start tracing his footsteps, whether the man was even still going by his own name.
He'd have to find him within ten days if he wanted any guarantee of safety for his people.
* * *
It had been a while since Kyne had met with Ortes face to face.
Ever since Ortes's plan to get her enrolled at Museion Academy had fallen through, he'd been running around impossibly busy.
She'd spent her spare time practicing magic, but it was hard to shake the feeling of being nothing more than dead weight nobody had any use for.
Then today, out of nowhere, a new assignment came down.
'You remember Astrape, the one we met back in Elysion? You two happen to be around the same age, why don't you have a chat sometime?'
Kyne had no idea what reason there could possibly be for building a friendship, but she followed Ortes's order faithfully. She still hadn't gotten back the bodies of a single one of her cult family.
If she threw herself into even something like this, maybe the day her family finally found rest would come one day sooner.
After firing off a prayer to Bacchus that was one part curse and one part plea, Kyne dutifully carried out her mission of talking with Astrape.
Actually, calling it a "mission" felt a little childish.
An argument dressed up as a classic, time-honored debate: "which magic attribute is the strongest."
'I only brought it up at first to clear the awkward air, and somehow it turned into a full-blown pride showdown between lightning and darkness attributes...!'
Kyne couldn't believe how touchy she'd gotten over someone putting down dark magic. In the end, magic was nothing to her but a means of revenge.
'Though, learning magic is fun, I'll give it that.'
He'd sent her off to make friends, and instead she'd come back having wasted the whole time arguing about who was stronger and who was weaker. How would Ortes react to a report like that?
Kyne opened her mouth in front of Ortes, carrying a little tension and dread.
"You weren't seriously fighting or anything, were you?"
"It... was just a joke that got a little heated, that's all."
Ortes's reaction was nothing like what she'd expected. She'd braced for a scolding, something like "is that seriously all you managed to do?" but all he did was ask about what they'd talked about.
"That's good to hear. While Astrape's staying here, please be a good friend to her."
Kyne's thoughts tangled up. What was this guy thinking?
There was no way he'd sent her over just because they were around the same age, right?
Feeling like she'd wandered into a maze, Kyne asked again.
"What exactly am I supposed to do, specifically?"
"Come on. Do you really need to do anything specific to become friends? If you're seriously asking, I don't have many friends myself, so I couldn't tell you anyway."
"...Who said I was asking how to make friends?!"
"Oh, weren't you?"
Her blood pressure spiked every time she saw that sly grin of his. Kyne let out a deep sigh and answered, all the fight drained out of her.
"Getting into Museion was supposed to be the whole point of the mission, wasn't it? That's how you're supposed to release the Bacchus cult's people."
"It's not that I release them as a reward for completing the mission. It's that once Kyne's magic is skilled enough to properly lay their souls to rest-"
"Yeah, yeah. But I can't go to Museion right now. I'm saying I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Ortes ran a hand along his jaw. Beneath his thin, half-lidded eyelids, that blue gleam of his stared at Kyne as if it might pierce straight through her.
"The role I first expected from Kyne was, of course, enrollment at Museion."
For the first time, Ortes began to speak of his great plan (大計).
* * *
I started explaining things to Kyne, one by one, taking my time.
Starting with just how exceptional her talent was, and the fact that with talent like that, an invitation from the Black Darkness Tower would come her way without fail.
Then, how to climb to a high position within the Black Darkness Tower by producing research results, right down to the exact means and methods for getting there.
"In the end, the role I'm hoping you'll fill is seizing the Black Darkness Tower's Spartoi."
"You mean those... soldiers made from priests' souls, the ones we saw in Elysion."
"Yes. You'll be able to handle a priest's spirit better than anyone else in the Black Darkness Tower. But, here's the thing."
"It's not as though Museion is the only way into the Ten Towers, after all."
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