Chapter 31: Declaration of War

“I told you, I’m an ‘Apostle’…”

The girl’s voice was hoarse as she clutched her abdomen, glaring viciously at Ephnel.

“‘Apostle’? Is that your organization? Or a codename?”

“You are ‘Agents,’ I am an ‘Apostle.’ It’s as simple as that… understand?”

“Then, what is your objective?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“The literal meaning. Those guys… they never laid their cards on the table with me. Me? I’m a ‘sacrificial pawn,’ you see. If I knew anything, I wouldn’t have ended up coming here all by myself. Surely you know what that implies… Well, even if I was meant to be thrown away after use, I never thought I’d fall into your hands so easily…”

Ephnel frowned slightly.

The girl glanced at her and continued with an ambiguous tone.

“Ephnel, I have to admit you’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever seen… But even for you, it’s too late to salvage anything now… For those guys, if they can trade a failure like me for something else, it’s probably a very profitable deal no matter what they get, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“It means that I… am a discarded piece of trash… So… Ephnel, you who fought me, what are you…”

The girl was breathing heavily.

The foul smell of blood filled her nostrils and spread in her throat.

She stubbornly lifted her head to look at Ephnel.

“You and I are very much alike, Ephnel…”

Ephnel looked at the girl, her brow furrowing slightly.

“Don’t lump me in with scum like you. And stop talking about irrelevant things. Or are you trying to stall for time?”

Ephnel suddenly shot out her hand and grabbed the girl’s wrist, forcefully twisting it up behind her head and holding it tight.

The immense force made the girl’s hand go almost numb.

The girl gritted her teeth and cried out in pain, her eyes meeting Ephnel’s as she tried to struggle, but to no avail.

“At this point, you don’t actually think I’d let you go, do you?”

Ephnel’s face was expressionless as she clamped down on the girl’s wrist, tightening her grip inch by inch.

The immense pressure made the girl’s face turn white, and she let out a piercing cry of pain, but Ephnel remained unmoved, merely staring at her coldly.

Fuurin Shion, Furan, and Seiran, along with the countless others who had lost their lives in the disasters.

Ephnel still remembered the looks in their eyes when they looked at her.

“Calling yourself an ‘Apostle’… That town was your handiwork, wasn’t it? The Erosion Disaster five days ago, and the anomaly today, that was all you people, wasn’t it?”

“If you already know, why ask me… But let me be clear, I didn’t kill anyone, and it has nothing to do with me.”

“Nothing to do with you?”

Ephnel’s grip tightened again.

The girl clenched her jaw, but a terrible scream still escaped.

“The appearance of ‘Fifina’ was also your doing, wasn’t it?”

“If you’re talking about your sister, then yes, it was…”

“So you admit it.”

Ephnel flung the girl’s hand away and stood up.

She grabbed the spear piercing the girl’s right shoulder with one hand and pulled it out with a clink.

The girl cried out in pain, her shoulder slumping.

“Why did you target my sister?”

Ephnel held the spear in one hand, its sharp, silver tip pressed against the girl’s throat.

“Ephnel! Please calm down!”

Yonomikenami’s voice came through the earpiece.

“Keep her alive… We might be able to get a lot of important information we need for our investigation from her. She’s an invaluable intelligence source for our current investigation, so…”

Ephnel didn’t answer, merely staring at the girl coldly.

The girl clutched her shoulder and weakly lifted her head.

“If I tell you, will you let me go?”

“I don’t know if you can leave, but if you don’t talk, I’ll kill you right now.”

“Looks like I have no choice. I’ll tell you then. But… are you sure that’s okay?”

The girl used all her strength to prop herself up, leaning against the slanted, collapsed wall behind her.

She glanced pointedly at Ephnel’s earpiece.

Ephnel frowned slightly, switched the spear to her left hand, raised her right, and cut the communication link.

“You can talk now.”

“How decisive… Won’t the organization suspect you? Oh well, none of my business. Anyway, I’ll just be direct. The reason your sister was targeted is because she has the aptitude to become a ‘perfect test subject’.”

“‘Experiment’?”

“That’s right, an ‘experiment.’ That’s what those guys call it. As for the specific details, that’s beyond my clearance. I only know that if it’s them, their goal must be to create ‘those things’.”

“What ‘things’?”

“I don’t know.”

Ephnel stared at the girl coldly.

The girl seemed to be answering everything, but in reality, she was always withholding the key information Ephnel needed.

“Anyway, that’s what those guys said.”

“These ‘guys’ you speak of, who are they?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them in person. We all call ourselves ‘Apostles’.”

“Where is your base?”

“‘Outer Sakahi,’ roughly seventy-two kilometers north-northeast from here. Of course, as far as I know, that was just a temporary base. It was probably abandoned after I left for my mission… But… speaking of which, your sister, that little girl named Shiomi Yukina, she can adapt to any ‘Beacon.’ An ‘Absolute Accommodator,’ that’s what it means, right?”

Ephnel’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Exactly how much information do you have?”

“If you’re asking about me… everything. I’ve memorized all the data on ‘Shiomi Yukina’ and ‘Absolute Accommodator’.”

“Where did you get that data?”

“From the archives in your ‘Order’s’ database, of course.”

“There’s nothing like that in our database.”

“Did you check the paper archives too?”

“Of course. I reviewed and destroyed all of them.”

“Then what is this?”

A bullet-sized metal capsule had appeared in the girl’s hand at some point.

She struggled to lift her hand, twisted the capsule open, and pulled out something shaped like half a toothpick from inside.

She handed it to Ephnel.

Ephnel watched the girl warily and reached out to take it.

It was a clipped piece of paper, only two fingers wide and a palm long.

Ephnel spread it open.

On it were only a few short lines of small text.

The keywords “Absolute Accommodator” and “Shiomi Yukina” stabbed into Ephnel’s eyes.

And besides that, there was half of a confidential document’s official seal, a style Ephnel had seen in classified files before.

Ephnel looked at the piece of paper in her palm, her gaze hardening.

The girl, however, let out a disdainful sneer.

“Ephnel, you… you’re an indispensable pillar of the organization, yet you’re not trusted at all… This is the ‘evidence’ I specifically cut out. Ephnel, surely you can understand what this means, right? Of course, this could be a forgery, and you don’t have to believe me, but you wouldn’t do something as self-deceiving as that, would you?”

“…”

Ephnel clutched the piece of paper in her hand, silent for a long moment.

Only after a while did she speak again.

“The attack five days ago, that was when, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. This file was one of the main targets.”

“Who else knows about this file?”

Ephnel stared directly at the girl.

The girl stared back at her.

After a moment of silence between them, the girl suddenly revealed a smile of unknown meaning.

“I know what you’re thinking, Miss Ephnel. You’re thinking of killing me to silence me, right? But please, wake up a little. Since I’ve gotten my hands on this, how could I possibly leave only a single copy? This file has already been sent back. You’re too late.”

Ephnel’s eyes narrowed, and she aimed her spear at the girl’s heart.

“Wait a minute!”

The girl raised her almost-broken left hand in a panic.

She looked at the spear tip before her with some fear, took a deep breath to compose herself, and spoke quickly.

“Don’t kill me yet, Miss Ephnel. Let’s make a deal.”

The girl leaned over in pain, carefully observing Ephnel’s ice-cold eyes, and pursed her lips.

“What I showed you was just a part of what I kept. I secretly made several copies of that document and set them to be sent out on a timer online, so killing me now is useless!”

The girl paused, then added.

“So, here’s the deal—you let me leave here safely, and in exchange, I’ll keep your secret, tight-lipped. You can stay here and continue playing house with your sister, or find another way out of here sooner. Anyway, those guys’ ‘plan’ has just begun, so they won’t come knocking right away. And I will leave this city quietly, without causing you any trouble. What do you think? Of course, you can choose not to believe me, or use your authority to immediately lock down the entire city’s server terminals and search for clues one by one to delete them. The choice is in your hands.”

The girl forced a smile and met Ephnel’s gaze.

“Personally, I really hope you’ll accept this condition. I don’t want to end my life as a ‘sacrificial pawn,’ and besides, I still have things I must do… Of course, that’s a secret. I’ll only tell you if you agree.”

…

The place Ephnel longed for… was not the future, but a place called “the past.”

Childhood dreams grow cold and narrow after one grows up.

Ephnel liked looking at her sister like she used to, guarding that simple yet happy everything.

But…

In this gradually crumbling world, protecting a single person was much harder than she had imagined.

Even if she watched over her without relaxing for a moment, the cracks in her vow would soon appear.

Ephnel had learned this lesson profoundly a long time ago.

So, she chose to run away…

Watching the people around her fall one by one, Ephnel would, in her endless pain, also feel a sense of relief—’thank goodness it wasn’t Yukina who died.’

But…

Such a shameful sense of relief brought its own suffering.

Ephnel had thought countless times about what she should do to protect someone.

What was right and what was wrong.

This question had plagued her for a long time, and she still had no answer.

Ephnel gripped her spear tightly, remaining silent for a long time before she finally spoke slowly.

“So, that’s what you meant when you said, ‘you and I are very much alike’?”

“You finally get it?”

A faint smile appeared at the corner of the girl’s mouth.

“I was thinking about it from the moment I saw that file. You’re a really interesting person… fighting as an Agent on one hand, while hiding your sister’s identity on the other. How is it, trying to ‘protect’ others, but unable to find a balance? If destroying this city could save your sister, would you try it?”

A hint of anticipation flickered in the girl’s eyes.

She looked at Ephnel, struggling to prop herself up.

The bone-deep pain left her weak, and even simple movements made her breathless.

“Well, well… just kidding. Anyway, back to the topic—what do you think? If you let me go, I’ll leave right now. I absolutely won’t cause you any trouble, and I won’t let anyone see me. I’ll leave this city, and we’ll never meet again…”

“I would be tempted to try.”

Ephnel cut the girl off.

The girl was stunned, looking at Ephnel with some surprise.

“What did you say…”

“If destroying the city could save my sister, then I admit I would be tempted to try. But… no matter what, I would absolutely never do it, because my sister wouldn’t want that. If a pathetic person like you could understand that, you’d see that we’re not alike at all.”

Ephnel’s gaze was lowered.

The sharpness had disappeared from her eyes, replaced by a deep resolve.

The girl looked slightly astonished.

Ephnel continued.

“So no—I will absolutely not let you leave here.”

“Huh? Are you serious?! Even if your identity, your sister’s secret, is made public, you don’t care? You’re willing to go that far just to not let me go? You can’t be stupid enough to think your secret will be met with blessings once it’s exposed, can you?”

The girl’s brows furrowed tightly as she looked up in disbelief.

“Do you know what the other people in this city will think? They’ll only think you covered for your sister, that she evaded the mission that should have been hers. Then public opinion will fester, and all your sacrifices and efforts will be ignored and slandered. The very people you protected will curse the sister you cherish and push her onto the battlefield. And people like us will target her, constantly trying to get ahold of her, to use her.”

The girl questioned her loudly.

“You must have felt it by now, what the norm is in this withered, rotting world.”

“It’s not your place to tell me what to choose. Don’t use your pathetic theories to make assumptions about others.”

Ephnel withdrew her spear, looking at the girl expressionlessly.

“The world I see is different from yours. Although there is endless despair and darkness, hope and light have never vanished—your filthy eyes can only see blackness and turbidity. You’re just running away, judging others by your own standards, thinking everyone is as pathetic as you are. Someone with your pitifully narrow vision will never be able to understand that, will they?”

The girl stared straight up at Ephnel, somewhat surprised.

After a long silence, the girl suddenly spoke.

“…Then… will you kill me?”

“Not right now.”

Ephnel said.

“But I absolutely will not just let you go. …You don’t actually think that, at this point, you, the only clue, can leave here unscathed, do you? Let me tell you something too…”

Ephnel stared at the girl coldly, enunciating each word.

“You and the people behind you, you should have been prepared to be hunted down and wiped out by me the moment you targeted my sister. I will use you to find those behind you and pierce their hearts… I won’t let a single one of them go!”

Ephnel knelt down, meeting the girl’s gaze.

She held the spear just below the tip, its cold glint reflecting in the depths of the girl’s eyes.

“This is a declaration of war.”

…