The forty-eight superweapons created by the Empire's founding emperor using the full strength of the nation were the Teigu.
They had been forged by combining the power of the finest alchemists from a thousand years ago with the power of the inheritors of secret arts, granting them abilities that surpassed human understanding.
To recreate that power, Noah had spent years studying alchemy, but secret arts were another matter entirely.
He had no way to even begin.
The methods used to pass down that craft were far too absurd.
They included, but were not limited to, genetic inheritance, cell cultivation, and mysterious rituals.
None of them were things he could reproduce.
But as long as he had a sample, then with Truth Seeker and Weaver, there was no such thing as a secret he could not unravel.
Unfortunately, until now, he had never encountered even a single secret arts user.
After all, they had already been on the verge of extinction a thousand years ago, let alone after another millennium had passed.
Even if someone said secret arts had completely become history, it would not be strange.
"The land of Putra… special abilities…"
Esdeath's nerves seemed to have been provoked.
Her eyes lit up, and the corner of her mouth curled into a wicked arc.
Matched with her exquisite oval face, it gave her an overwhelmingly aggressive charm.
"Interesting. Then I'll set out immediately."
Once she decided, she acted.
Since there was a war, she did not want to waste even a single second. She moved with decisive speed.
Esdeath casually said goodbye, then strode away from the scene.
The person involved had run off.
Looking at the treasure hall, with who knew how many walls smashed through and the ground ruined beyond recognition, Noah also casually found an excuse and slipped away.
He would leave the mess to the Prime Minister and let him explain things clearly to Budo.
Compared to that, Noah had something else to do.
He headed straight for the Science Department and used his authority to pull up his mentor Bill's activity logs.
When he saw "Putra," he was certain.
As expected, the special unit that required support was actually the enhancement unit under Bill.
The units deployed were Squad Fourteen… Squad Seven… Squad Four… and even… Squad One?
Kurome, Gin, and the others had been sent there too.
With the enhancement unit's abilities, four squads had been deployed, yet they still failed to complete the mission.
Worse, they had been forced into a position where they had no choice but to ask the Empire for support.
There was no mistake.
Ordinary tomb guards could not possibly possess that kind of combat strength.
Unless every single one of them was a Teigu user.
But that possibility was clearly even more absurd.
This made Noah even more certain that Putra possessed an inheritance of secret arts.
In fact, the entire group known as tomb guards might possess the power of secret arts, which was why they could so easily repel Bill's enhancement unit.
That old man was probably furious right now.
The enhanced humans he took such pride in had been mercilessly crushed in battle against a group of tomb guards.
He had even been humiliated to the point of requesting aid.
Judging from the fact that Bill had not contacted him through the communicator, Noah knew this was his mentor's last bit of stubborn pride.
At least in front of his student, he wanted to preserve some dignity.
What a stubborn old man.
Noah did not like Bill.
This was not a matter of being ungrateful, their philosophies simply did not align.
What Bill did was correct from the perspective of the Empire.
In fact, in this social environment, even the inhumane experiments he carried out on those children could not necessarily be called pure harm.
Perhaps all of this was inevitable.
It was a problem left behind by history, and also the darkness of the Empire.
Yet that darkness inevitably existed, and perhaps it even had to exist in order for society to advance to the next stage, like the night before dawn.
Children born in that dark night were destined to carry cruel fates.
This made Noah feel even more that the concept of fate in the world of Blazers was not just empty talk.
If this world's future required a reformer, or perhaps several reformers, then she—or they—would be the so-called saviors of this story.
But saviors were still human.
They did not appear from nothing.
They too needed a mother to carry them for ten months and give birth to them.
They too had to grow bit by bit before eventually becoming saviors.
Then what were the people who had not been born in the same era as those saviors supposed to do?
Adapt to a cruel society?
Or give up struggling and sink into corruption?
As Noah saw it, the savior of this world—or perhaps the saviors—had not yet appeared.
Or maybe they had already appeared, but had not yet risen to prominence.
He had always kept an observer's attitude toward the development of this world.
In truth, with his otherworldly knowledge and abilities, he could absolutely push this world forward by himself.
Whether it was the social system or technological level, even starting an industrial revolution would not be difficult.
But to him, this was ultimately only something he experienced over the course of one night.
For this real, existing world, however, such a change would create enormous and unpredictable consequences.
It might even lead the world toward destruction.
He was not a "great man."
He was not a "reformer."
Nor was he a "savior."
In this world, his identity was simply that of a seeker of knowledge.
A simple person should have simple wishes.
If he treated himself as some special existence just because he had a few unusual abilities, grew intoxicated with himself, and tried to change the fate of the entire world and everyone in it, that would be far too arrogant.
If he did that, then halfway through, he would discover that he had never possessed the ability to properly accomplish it in the first place.
The result would either be abandoning the work halfway and throwing the situation into chaos until it became impossible to fix, or driving everything toward the worst possible conclusion.
Whether Bill was right or wrong was not Noah's place to judge.
Perhaps Bill was right.
He had simply hurt many people while doing the right thing, and perhaps, in doing so, he had also saved something.
If one day Bill came to a miserable end, then as his student, Noah would try to keep that ending from being the most painful one possible.
That would be his way of repaying the man for teaching him.
Of course, he also wanted to prevent Bill from reaching that situation in the first place.
But considering the nature of Bill's work, the old man himself had probably never expected a peaceful end.
After all, he had no wife or children, and no bonds of family or friendship.
The only things he had poured his emotions into were science and loyalty to the Empire.
The Empire had made his research possible, so he repaid the Empire with loyalty.
After checking the mission logs, Noah casually added himself to the support team roster.
Bill was not present.
And even if he were, Noah had authority no lower than his, allowing him to perform this series of operations.
...
After finishing his preparations, he walked out of the confidential room.
Suddenly, he sensed a faint presence.
With a soft sigh, he erased his scent, sound, and other traces, walked straight to the corner, reached out, and grabbed someone by the collar, dragging her out.
"Gweh!?"
Chelsea was hauled out by the back of her collar awkwardly.
Looking at Noah's cold face, she timidly said, "G-Good morning, Master Noah?"
"Haha."
"Ahaha."
"…"
After awkwardly laughing for a while, Chelsea realized she looked like an idiot, so she stopped that foolish fake laugh and gave up completely.
"I'm sorry. I was wrong!"
Thud.
"Ow, that hurts!"
Chelsea landed on her backside and immediately complained in a delicate voice.
Noah looked at this rare sample with a serious expression.
"I did say I wouldn't restrict you too much, but that's only as long as you follow the rules. The confidential room is not somewhere an intern like you is allowed to enter. Understand?"
"Oh… so I'm not allowed in. I know now!" Chelsea stuck out her tongue, trying to muddle through.
Seeing her act like that made Noah annoyed, so he chopped her on the head with a hand knife and turned her face into a meme.
"Don't play dumb. Also, there's something else I need to tell you. I'll be going out for a while soon. It may take some time. I'll have Taeko watch you, so don't think about doing anything. Otherwise, from now on, you may end up living without hands or feet."
Because he said all of that with almost no expression, Chelsea panicked badly.
She could not tell whether those words were true or false. But at the very least, she knew Noah was serious.
And if she lost her hands and feet, life would absolutely be worse than death.
"V-Violence is wrong…"
In the end, Chelsea could only weakly struggle with those words before obediently going back to work.
Her current job was sorting documents, binding them, stamping them, and filing them away.
The workload was not heavy, and it was basically an assembly-line process, almost like working in a factory.
The difference was that after work, she could enjoy a super-luxury residence, and her salary was frighteningly high.
After living in the Imperial Capital for a few days, Chelsea's extremely high adaptability had already allowed her to more or less adjust to her new environment.
In just ten hours, she had built friendly impressions and relationships with the surrounding neighbors.
She had even considerably shortened the distance between herself and the personnel in the Science Department.
There was almost no barrier between her and anyone she interacted with.
And then she discovered something.
The lives of the people in the Imperial Capital seemed somewhat different from what she had imagined.
It was like a ball placed in front of her.
There were parts illuminated by light, and there were also dark parts that light could not reach.
These people had no real worries in their daily lives. Their occasional troubles were only things like not knowing what to make for dinner.
There were clearly people struggling painfully at the bottom of society, yet Chelsea could not bring herself to hate these people.
These people were simply alive, living their own lives.
She could not curse them simply because she was jealous.
If the Revolutionary Army succeeded in assassinating the Prime Minister, defeating the Emperor, and overthrowing the Empire, would the lives these people currently enjoyed disappear?
If so, could it be said that the Revolutionary Army had harmed them?
For the sake of a greater cause, were small sacrifices necessary?
She had to get herself together quickly.
Before even she began losing sight of the answer to that question.
…
Noah instructed Taeko to keep an eye on Chelsea and told her about several possible situations he had anticipated.
If Chelsea made a mistake, she would definitely not escape punishment.
Noah spent some time inspecting Black Nightmare.
Once everything was ready, he prepared to depart.
He left the Imperial Capital by some distance, then let Black Nightmare descend from the sky.
The long-distance journey this time would be even farther than the previous trip to the White Wolf River border.
After all, this destination was already outside the Empire's territory.
In a sense, it counted as an international business trip.
Black Nightmare hovered there steadily.
Just as Noah was about to board, a startled voice came from behind him.
"Well, well—so there's even something like this exist. What an eye-opener."
The owner of that voice made no attempt to hide herself.
Along with her words came the sound of footsteps stepping on weeds.
The moment Noah heard that familiar voice, he froze.
He stiffly turned his head, and his vision was immediately occupied by that ice-blue figure.
"You?"
Why is Esdeath here?
Seeing Noah's surprised expression, the woman revealed a pleased smile.
"I've hunted Danger Beasts since I was a child. Their senses are very sharp, and even the slightest movement can startle them. In order to successfully hunt them, I put a great deal of effort into learning how to hide my presence."
"…"
Noah had thought that, with his "rich experience," he would not be easily followed.
He had not expected this wild girl to slap him in the face!
She had remained outside Weaver's range, so his barrier had not detected her.
If he had a Noble Art like Flash Eye, he could have detected her through the bioelectric currents inside her body and guarded against her in advance.
Unfortunately, with his current ability, he could not yet do that.
Esdeath curiously examined the pitch-black object in front of her, which shone with a metallic luster, and asked, "Hey, what kind of tool is this? The thing I saw earlier should have been this, right? It flashed past from the sky at incredible speed."
Although she had not fully seen what had blown up her iceberg, she could confirm that it had to be this black thing.
It could fly through the sky, and it could move that quickly.
To figure out what it was, she had pretended to leave while actually following Noah.
In the end, she really did see what she wanted to see.
She just had not expected it to be something so far beyond common sense.
"Why did you follow me?" Noah asked with clear distaste.
Esdeath blinked and asked like a young girl, "Let me guess. Can you sit on this and fly through the air?"
Noah was speechless and silently shifted his gaze away.
Seeing that, Esdeath showed a surprised expression.
"Eh? Really?"
She had only guessed casually, but Noah's reaction was far too easy to read, and for a moment, she found it a little unbelievable.
This thing could not only fly, but also carry people?
Thinking back to the speed of that black flash, Esdeath spoke impatiently, "If we use this, can we reach the battlefield very quickly?"
Hearing that, Noah could not help but said.
"Wait. What do you mean, 'we'?"
He had not even said anything yet, and this woman was already planning to hitch a ride?
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