"Not to worry?"
Frenfitz may have gotten himself into this mess through no fault of his own, but Osian didn't know of any official way to deal with the Marquis de Debussy.
Ronan must have read the thought in Osian's eyes, because he smiled suspiciously as usual.
"Yes. By tomorrow morning, he'll have met his end in a humble form that won't even grace the back page of the newspapers."
"How can you be so sure of that?"
"Because of this."
Ronan slipped the pendant in his hand into his breast pocket.
"Because this is the city of Tirna."
*
Marquis de Debussy stepped quickly onto the airship as the people following him stared at him nervously.Normally, the Marquis would have screamed at the top of his lungs for such behavior, but he was quiet now.
That meant the matter was serious.
The docked airship rose and flew over Tirna and the Marquis de Debussy looked out the window.
Towering spires and clock towers, a polluted river running through the city, countless people, and a constant stream of trains and steam cars.
Even the smog from the factory chimneys made him feel like the city itself was alive.
A city full of life.
A city that was growing.
He was fleeing from this coveted city now.
He thought the chance for the Kingdom of Carleon to claim it was not far off in the future but this was going to be completely wrong.
'Damn it, why did I fail at something so important? And most of all, Orlea's attitude has changed.’
The Marquis de Debussy remembered how Orlea’s eyes had been staring at him coldly.
Originally, sprouts were visible, but they were thoroughly trampled to prevent them but now, with this incident, she's grown tremendously.
The blossoming of talent in the midst of a life-threatening situation is always greater and more beautiful than anything else.
Orlea was no longer the person he'd always looked down on.
'We can't let this happen. She must be killed. First, I must return to my homeland, and then I must somehow convince my superiors to at least prevent me from losing my job.’
He'll lose a lot if the assassination fails, but that's okay.
As long as he’s alive, he can find a way out.
As the Marquis de Debussy envisioned the most positive future possible in his mind, he suddenly realized something was amiss.
‘What is it?’
The flowing landscape outside stopped.
"What, what's going on?"
"The airship suddenly stopped!"
"What kind of bullshit is that, the airship suddenly stops!"
Marquis de Debussy's head was pounding as he was desperate to get back to his homeland as quickly as possible.
The Marquis de Debussy rose from his seat and stomped toward the captain's cabin.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
He pounded on the door, but there was no answer.
"Hah. Is this how you bastards act like, just because I've been quiet lately?"
Marquis de Debussy jerked his chin at his men.
As if waiting for him, the officers stepped forward and forced open the door to the captain's quarters.
The Marquis de Debussy stepped inside the captain's cabin, hoping to get a glimpse of the man himself but the moment he saw the emptiness inside, he couldn't help but panic.
"What the hell. Where is everyone?"
If no one was supposed to be piloting the airship, how did it get here?
Something is not right and the Marquis de Debussy felt an indescribable sense of unease, as if a giant snake had already wrapped itself around him and was about to sink its poisonous fangs into the nape of his neck.
"What the hell......."
-Hiss. Hiss.
The communicator inside the airship crackled as if it had been waiting for him.
The Marquis de Debussy lifted the communicator with a trembling hand.
[Alas. Pleased to meet you, Marquis de Debussy Alon Romlesio.]
"Who are you?"
[Me? I'm just an old man who runs things in Tirna. All I do is put a few stamps on the papers that come in.]
The old man over the receiver shook with modesty but the Marquis de Debussy swallowed hard.
"What do you want from me? If you try to do anything with me, it will cause problems with diplomacy with the Kingdom of Carleon."
[Hahaha. Diplomatic problems? That's a funny thing to say.]
The old man's voice turned cold as he laughed mercifully.
[You're the one who started this.]
"......!"
The Marquis de Debussy shivered at the chill, as if the voice over the receiver alone had lowered the ambient temperature by several degrees, if only for a moment.
[Did you think I wouldn't notice? You've been playing some stupid tricks with the military, and if you're going to do it, you might as well succeed.]
"That's......."
[If the assassination had succeeded, I would have been willing to match it. The profits of war are enormous. It makes me sick to my stomach to take some of the weight off the military, but what the hell.]
And then the voice over the receiver said.
[That's if you succeed, of course, but you failed. You made a mess of what was supposed to be part of the city. Well, it paid off. We've learned that Princess Orlea is more talented and resourceful than we thought she was.]
"......She's a rag doll back home."
[Really? I think it's the strings that have fallen off that have allowed her to spread her wings and fly.]
"Cut the bullshit! That's why you stopped this airship? What do you want from me?"
[What, did you think you could get away with this in Tirna?]
"If you touch me, I will......!"
[Ah. You don't have to worry about that.]
"What?"
[Because I'm already done talking to the Kingdom of Carleon.]
The Marquis de Debussy gritted his teeth at the shocking truth.
"Don't be ridiculous! The kingdom has abandoned me? After all I've done for the country!"
[I can see they're desperate to make a scapegoat for this fiasco, and what better time to do it than when you have an idiot who's been entrusted with countless powers and hasn't been able to do his job?]
Even though he was saying something that would choke someone, the old man's voice had the tone of someone saying that the sun rises in the morning, as if it were a matter of course.
[So goodbye, Marquis de Debussy, we spoke for the last time and it wasn't much fun.]
The Marquis de Debussy hangs up the receiver and immediately tries to escape the airship.
-Kaaaaaah!
The airship explodes, red flames engulfing the interior in an instant.
Engulfed in flames, the airship crashed in the wilderness on the border.
There were no survivors.
*
"Huh."
The morning after the attempted assassination of Princess Orlea, Osian smirked as he checked the newspaper reports.
‘An event that could have caused a real war, and they just ignored it like this?’
She had come as an envoy from the Kingdom of Carleon, as an envoy, and her near-death experience was a dangerous one that could have sparked a war.
'The 202nd Airborne Division's actions have turned into the work of established terrorists trying to overthrow the city.’
There was no mention of the military.
The 202nd Airborne took the lead, but were they the only suspects?
There must have been others higher up who knew about it and either condoned it or encouraged it.
In essence, the military itself deliberately tried to start a war but not a single word of that was written in the newspaper articles.
As if deliberately avoiding the word "military," the articles only talked about the terrorists.
In exchange for the cover-up, the military probably had to give up a number of interests in the city.
The newspaper had a large photo of Albert shaking hands with Orlea.
'Mayor Albert. I always knew he was a man of many talents, but I never realized he was so resourceful.’
Albert Lorenzo, Mayor of the 33rd District.
He allowed Orlea to stay at his office in the name of protecting her, and conducted the interview on her behalf.
-I'm deeply sorry for what happened, and I'm increasing the budget for the guards to increase security in the 33rd district.
The guards are Tirna's civil servants in the first place, and Albert's men are his subordinates, so he's essentially empowering them.
The citizens' reaction was explosive as a righteous politician stops terrorism and doesn't tolerate it.
It was no wonder people were so enthusiastic when he said he would fight for them.
Economists predicted that the budget for the 33rd district would increase by at least three percent this year.
'As for the Marquis de Debussy, he's really just a footnote in the back.'
All the papers said was that one airship had broken down and crashed outside Tirna.
‘No mention of who was on board or how many died.’
The Kingdom of Carleon had also remained silent on the matter, apparently placing the blame for the failure squarely on Marquis de Debussy.
‘I wonder if this is what Ronan meant by the city of Tirna.’
Tirna was definitely an amazing and terrifying place.
‘But that has nothing to do with me.’
Osian folded the finished newspaper neatly and placed it on the table.
Just then, the door opened with a click.
Lorraine and Ena walked in, carrying shopping carts full of groceries.
"Mr. Osian. Congratulations, and I'm glad you're safe."
"Oh, new guy! I heard the story! I hear you handled it just fine again!"
Ena said with a nervous laugh, and Lorraine walked over to Osian and spoke to him in a friendly manner.
"Don't feel too bad, though. I'm sure you'll be paid the same as you were when you got the job, but this experience will come in handy later."
Osian realized in hindsight why Lorraine had said that.
The contract Osian had signed beforehand was to escort Princess Orlea.
It was only a nominal escort, so the fee specified in the contract was not high.
Of course, he couldn't expect to be paid for saving her life, though Orlea could make a case out of gratitude but she would have her hands full with the path ahead of her.
Lorraine realized that, too, and comforted Osian.
"Don't worry too much," she says, "sometimes you don't get paid what you think you're going to get, and you have to pay a penalty!"
"In Lorraine's case, it's because she went against the pre-plan by causing an unplanned explosion, which inadvertently blew up an ammunition store full of gunpowder."
Ronan said, coming down from the second floor just in time.
Lorraine pouted her lips.
"I had no choice then. One of the newbies was about to get caught by the gang and turned into a hornet's nest, so I shot something to get their attention, and it worked!"
"Yeah. It did, though it left a lot of property damage in its wake."
"Do you have any idea how hard I've been working to pay off the penalties, and more importantly, Osian hasn't been paid his fair share, so you should come and console him!"
"Ah. You don't have to worry about that part either. Mr. Osian's paycheck will be coming soon."
"Huh?"
Lorraine's eyes widened as if she had never heard of such a thing before.
"What does that mean?"
"It seems that Princess Orlea has made a private request to Mayor Albert. She wants him to reward the fixer who saved her life."
"Uh......."
"I'm told that Mayor Albert was sympathetic to the cause and readily agreed."
With that, Ronan slid a piece of paper in Osian's direction.
Lorraine leaned in close to Osian and read the words on the paper.
"What is this, extra compensation? This is it. Even if it's just for assortment, the amount is one, ten, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million......."
Lorraine's voice dwindled to a mosquito's as she counted the units in the next line.
"Uh, huh?"
Lorraine's eyes widened at the sight of a sum of money that even a mid-level fixer couldn't touch in a lifetime of work, let alone a rookie fixer.
"......Why?"
She couldn't quite get the words out, but the look in her eyes said, "I couldn't do it, so why can you?”