From wild Beyonder to full-fledged Prevention and Suppression Bureau agent, Horn strode proudly through the doorway, filled with the joy of finally coming ashore.
Then the world spun.
Like a starless, moonless night, he crawled through a quagmire. Direction had lost all meaning, vanishing into the darkness alongside the concepts of time and space.
Amid the endless disorientation, he felt a faint chill. A slender hand took Horn's right hand, and his body paused under its gentle tug.
And so the arrow found its direction, thought found its purpose, and the traveler found his home.
Horn had reached his destination.
Birmingham.
The black-haired girl stole a little time for herself. After finishing her work, she slipped into an unused room and happily pulled out that day's Kael-Isum Review to catch up on the gossip.
"Tsk, what kind of reporter's brave enough to spread gossip about a big shot from the Endeavor Society? They even got photos! Let's see!"
"Tsk, tsk, the Ambrose Cup is about to be held again. The new generation's really strong. There'll be more fun to watch."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, the truth behind the Birmingham explosion—an earth-shattering secret, and it turns out to be this and that..."
Huh? Where?
Caught off guard by gossip about her own workplace, Emma slapped her thigh. Her eyes went wide, and she sprang to her feet.
"How can these unscrupulous reporters write whatever they want? This isn't just some ordinary conspiracy theory. We need to hit them hard!"
"What did they write?"
Fired up with indignation, Emma didn't even notice the newspaper being snatched from her hands. She answered offhandedly,
"It's completely outrageous! Mills got his position by making an unspeakable backdoor deal with Director Norbert, who's still at Snow-Shelter Temple dealing with that Worm incident..."
"After years of campaigning, his patterned flesh was no longer as tender as it once was. So, tempted by the Blood Cup Cult, he chose to grow teeth in his backside and suck blood to maintain a false tightness, until he fell into the forbidden path of turning his backside into a cup, overflowing with blood steeped in pleas*ure and pain..."
Veronica nodded thoughtfully in agreement. "That's wilder than anything those Historian-Constructors from the Saint Hydra Society could come up with. The Review really will print anything. Ha, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw the Secret History of the Hours in there one day."
"Exactly! And there's even more shocking stuff... Eek! When did you get back?"
Only now realizing she'd been openly slacking off in front of her boss, Emma snapped to attention and nervously glanced around. The moment her gaze met Horn's, her eyes went wide.
As if she'd seen a ghost.
She barely stopped herself from blurting out, "How are you still alive?" Instead, she got a pat on the shoulder.
"Since you're free, Horn Hohenheim just joined us. I've already taken care of his paperwork. Take him to sign his official contract, then give him a rundown on the basics of the hidden world. You know the training process, right?"
"Mm-hmm, got it. No problem."
Emma nodded repeatedly, relieved.
"But you dealt with the contamination at the scene so quickly? Didn't you encounter any lingering divinity? The fall of a quasi-Immortal isn't something to take lightly. If anything goes wrong, the secondary disaster from handling the contamination could be more troublesome than killing Saliba all over again."
At the question, Emma looked surprised too. "The site inspection's already done. The contamination from [Heart] and [Grail] has been almost entirely cleared—or rather, there was hardly any left to begin with. It's practically negligible."
"The Alchemy master we called in said she'd never seen a scene this clean after the fact. It was like a dog had licked it spotless. Not a trace left."
Huh?
That couldn't be right.
What was going on?
Hearing results even more absurd than her best-case expectations, Veronica furrowed her brow, sensing something was off.
Saliba had performed such a grand ritual. It would be ridiculous if nothing had been transformed. He himself had vanished into the waters of the Styx, and some of his divinity had disappeared with him. But even setting that part aside, the rest still didn't add up to the amount of contamination.
Had the Restless Blood been watered down? Was Saliba just useless? Or was it...
She turned to look at Horn, who was still adjusting to the recent teleportation, and hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.jpg
Stanislav had already checked him. If he said there was no problem, then there was no problem. Any residue would be negligible, and Horn hadn't even shown any aftereffects. A Scholar with considerable skill in both Preservation Arts and Woodland Studies couldn't have missed extensive contamination involving divinity. That possibility was already ruled out.
To be safe, she'd better go check the scene again.
Meanwhile.
Even the testing equipment had come under suspicion. Horn, the one person nobody had suspected, remained unruffled. With a guilty feeling, his consciousness turned toward the dark green desktop in his soul and pulled up the notification from earlier.
[You defeated a powerful foe!] [You changed a fate that had been certain to come to pass. History has veered in a radically different direction under your influence—upward, not downward.] [Reward: True Blood of Saint Januarius] [You obtained a special artifact.] After Saliba's death, a card had inexplicably appeared on the desktop. Its background was pink and blue, and it kept twitching on its own. Its description was the longest Horn had ever seen, and the hardest to understand. [True Blood of Saint Januarius: Also called Dancing Blood, Restless Blood, and the Blood of the Saint. The Vigilant Storm protected a man named "Januarius" from calamity in every past.] ["And so it will never, never, never cease to dance."] [Aspect—Consumption: Fuel, ointment, pigment, and patience: all diminish with time.] [Aspect—Remains: What someone or something leaves behind. Whatever it is, it is no longer what it once was.] [Aspect—Liquid: "What flows downward, flees from on high, and is not bound by the chains of any forge?"] [Aspect—Heart 10: To protect the skin of the world we know, the tireless heart keeps beating.] [Aspect—Vault 8: Gentle breeze, storm, echo, song; that which balances, that which harmonizes.] [Aspect—Key 6: "The lock seeks the key, the wall seeks the door"—language and understanding, opening and dismantling. The law common to thieves and oracles.] [Aspect—Pentimento: If the world is a painting, this is the artist's regret. Things were not meant to turn out this way, yet traces remain. Far more traces remain than the artist expected.] [At the proper moment, you may cast this card into the Flame of Destiny, replacing the Final Ink used to compile history and writing another rejected history, stepping onto a road untaken at the point where fate diverged.]
Well, well, what's going on here? I went out for a stroll, and the thing came back on its own. Any thoughts, Saliba?
Never mind that Saliba was dead and couldn't offer any opinions. The stats on True Blood of Saint Januarius were terrifyingly high, far beyond what someone with Horn's First Seal could handle. Even if Veronica grew suspicious, she wouldn't suspect him in the end.
When you're an Alchemist, is it really stealing?
I found it fair and square!
Before you continue