Volume 2 – The World Sneered
“I just handed over full control of Majoram to another manager.”
Noted spoke in a calm voice.
“Huh? Father, what do you……”
Cutie could not hide her confusion after this.
“I’m sorry, Cutie. I was planning on working as the president for a while longer, and designate you as the next one, but…… I think that will be difficult. No, I suppose you can take it by force anyhow.”
“What are you talking about, father!?”
“I’m under World’s control, right? How can someone like this keep working as the president? Besides, our enemy is someone who has no problem destroying Captis. I’ve always been prepared to transfer the company’s central command in case something happened.”
“T-Then…… Am I speaking…… to my real father right now?”
One of her wishes came true.
It was something that would be cut away with only a little effort, a fleeting thing.
But it was still a big relief for her right now – tears started flowing down her cheeks.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a fake trying to appear sane right now. Maybe I handed over control because I was made to.”
“Stop! Don’t talk like that, father!”
“I don’t even know how this happened. Really…… Haha, I thought I was being careful.”
“M-Maybe…… we made some kind of a mistake……”
“Ahahaha, Cutie…… you know that makes no sense.”
“But! C’mon, it’s possible to make fake comms! I bet a different person sent those messages to Pupa!”
“It was ‘me’, wasn’t it? In that case, you know it would be difficult for someone to disguise themselves as me.”
Majoram Technologies boasted the highest technological prowess in the Kingdom.
The president’s room was firmly secured with that technology.
Sending fake messages from there would mean surpassing Majoram’s cutting edge technology.
Even if Yueri’s laboratory was cutting edge for Pupa, this would still be difficult to do with their technological prowess.
“Then…… Umm, well, uh……!”
“Cutie.”
“Stop…… Please, stop it! Don’t say my name with such a kind voice!”
“I love you.”
“Stooooooop!”
Cutie’s shrill scream resounded in the room.
But she could not put the device away from her ear.
She did not want to hear.
She wanted to listen until the end.
Her two conflicting emotions tormented her.
“Ever since I took you in that day, you’ve really been the most precious thing to me, my family.”
“Father…… This isn’t the end. We’re still family.”
“I may not have been a perfect father these 18 years. But, I did my best, in my own way. I’m proud that you grew up to be such a fine girl.”
“I’ll come back there when the fighting is over, okay? If you’re my family, welcome your daughter when she comes home! Okay!?”
“Thank you for everything.”
“Stoooop…… No, no! Fatheeer…… You’re my father, so, so, let me see your face again…… let me hug you……! Hey, please, please. Please, please, pleaaase!”
“Cutie, could you put Princess Mary on?”
“Noooo!”
“Please.”
“No! I’ll never get to talk to you again if I do that!”
Cutie shouted, begging in vain.
Even now, after completely losing her composure, she knew that these were parting words.
“Father…… I love you, father. You took in an ordinary commoner like me, and raised me so well! And, and, I still…… still haven’t returned the favor for that…… this is too early……!”
Noted did not want to die, of course.
However, living like this would just keep causing more trouble.
And, most of all, the reason he could not keep on living was in his left hand.
Seeing as Cutie was not handing the device over to Mary, he tried to persuade her.
“Please, Cutie. This might be selfish, but I want to be a good father. I don’t want to make you suffer by parting after telling you ill omens.”
“……No. No. I don’t care, I don’t care if you’re a bad father! I don’t care if I suffer!”
“Cutie, this is my last wish as your father! Please.”
“Father…… Uh, uuuh…… Uuuuuuh……!”
Cutie held the device tight while groaning.
Letting it go meant she could never talk to her father again.
To tell Cutie to do this by her own volition…… It was a very cruel ‘wish’ indeed.
However, she could not refuse his last request.
With trembling arms, Cutie slowly handed the device over to Mary.
While confused, Mary took it in her hand.
Then, she put the device, which still had Cutie’s warmth on it, over her ear.
“Hello…… Is this Mr. Noted?”
“Princess Mary, good. I did something unforgivable to all of you.”
“No. You’ve helped us a lot more.”
“I hope I was of some use. Unfortunately, however, this is where it ends.”
“Is there someone there?”
“No…… I’m holding a gun in my left hand. I never noticed it, but even after I saw it, my own hand wasn’t listening to me.”
“Mr. Noted……”
“My hand is going up little by little, trying to aim at the side of my head. Now that you know, I’m useless for World. Well, I’m sure this was always the plan.”
“……There’s something you want to tell me, right?”
“Consider it my final vain struggle. I am someone who researches sorcery, after all. So, I’ve been careful. I decreased the number of people I’m in contact with and the number of people I touched as much as possible. And I’ve been recording my body’s data every day.”
“What did you learn?”
“I don’t know. I can’t find any traces.”
However, ‘I can’t find any traces’ was still a fact.
“‘I didn’t see’, ‘I didn’t hear’, ‘I didn’t touch’. So these actions are not necessary for World’s domination to form.”
Mary and the others always questioned it too.
What were the conditions for his domination?
When it came to the other arcana, the stronger they were, the tighter the conditions. So it would be strange if an arcana as powerful as
World
, which possessed the power to control, did not have severe conditions in place.
However, in the end, sticking to this pretext was the reason they could never find out.
As Noted said, it activated without needing any kind of contact.
Perhaps there were no severe conditions in place.
“Perhaps you aren’t controlled after something is done to you, but after you
do
something……?”
“Maybe. I fulfilled the conditions without realizing it.”
Then, Noted stayed quiet for a moment.
Afterwards, he spoke with pain in his voice, while trying not to show it.
“I’m sorry, it looks like it’s about time.”
Mary heard clatters and the sound of something shaking.
No matter how much he tried to push it down with his reasoning power, no human could ignore the fear of death.
“Please take good care of Cutie.”
A gunshot.
The device fell to the ground.
Finally, Mary heard the sound of someone collapsing to the ground, and Noted stopped talking.
Mary hung her head down.
She closed her eyelids, and the tears that welled up in her eyes turned into droplets and fell to the ground.
“Father, say something, father! Father, father, father, fatheeeeer!”
Cutie wished this was just a mean prank.
She would just fly over to Captis straight away and hug him after scolding him very harshly.
But no one answered her.
Mary stood still as she cried, and Cutie shouted the name of her father over and over again as Ami and Calaria stared on with heartbreak in their faces.
That was it.
There was no living human for their voices to reach now.
“Ah…… Aaaaaagh…… Uaaaaagh……!”
The device dropped from Cutie’s hand.
She fell on her knees and collapsed.
“Aaaaaagh! Fa……ther……! Fatheeeeeer! Aaagh, aaaaaaaagh! Uaaaaaaag!”
Then, she started crying and screaming like a child.
All Mary and the others could do was to snuggle up to her.
It was not that they could not think of any way to comfort her.
The only thing Cutie could do was to spit out all the sorrow surging in her chest.
Everyone knew that.
Because Mary, Calaria, and Ami had all experienced the same pain.
(Was that a coincidence? Or-)
You will taste the same pain.
Perhaps this was all because of such a grudge being held towards Mary by someone.