It was a knot of the linear-type system. After forming the seal, Rebecca fixed her sulky expression, because even to her, the arrangement of mana was changing evenly.
Rebecca, with that personality of hers where she blows things up all over the place, only knew how to make mana explode like a bomb—she almost never gathered it into a single line like this.
“...Now what?”
“Shoot. At the 「Book of the Typhoon」. Since you can fundamentally command mana like a bell, you can shut that relic down too.”
“What if I miss?”
“Hiaka’s citizens die.”
“.......”
Rebecca furrowed her brow. I wasn’t joking. If Rebecca made a mistake, the damage could be huge.
“.......”
But why was it? Rebecca hesitated and couldn’t properly attempt it. Those few seconds of silence felt as long as a mountain to me.
“What are you doing.”
This psychopath looks like, even if you handed her the trolley problem, she’d deliberately send the train toward the side with more people and wipe them all out. Why is she doing this.
“What are you doing. Shoot.”
Over by economy, the terrorists were still exchanging some kind of signals among themselves, their muzzles pointed at the civilians. Meanwhile, the tilted fuselage had leveled out at some point. The airship had fully turned its head.
“Rebecca.”
“...Hold on.”
“An assassin is coming, isn’t he. Shoot, hurry.”
“...Ah, I said hold on.”
From over there—having noticed comms had been cut off—an assassin stared straight into my eyes as he approached.
That bastard was [Grandmaster] too. Right now he was probably seeing the virtual space I made, but if he came up and opened the door, the fight would explode like a fuse catching fire.
“Rebecca!”
“.......”
I could see the trembling at her fingertips. I couldn’t understand why this murderer was acting like this, not at all, but now there was no choice.
I lowered my body.
Pressed up against Rebecca’s back.
Reached out and layered my hand over her outstretched fingertips, over her wrist.
A shallow breath spilled out.
The top of her head against my cheek was hot.
“It’s like assassination marksmanship training. It’s hard to miss a book that big.”
“.......”
“You shoot on three.”
“.......”
I sent a small signal.
One.
Two,
and.
── .
The mana that flew in a straight line hit 「Book of the Typhoon」 exactly.
“Done.”
“It’s off?”
“Off.”
Rebecca shut off its “ignition.” The 「Book of the Typhoon」 that had been fluttering while rotating a faint sky-blue wind aura returned to an ordinary book.
Nice.
Ah... I don’t want to say “nice” to her.
Rebecca slightly lifted her head and acted prim, with an expression that was subtly pissing me off.
Anyway, her role was over.
The assassin who’d come right up to us opened the door.
What greeted him was my finger.
『 Light Bullet 』
Flash!!
It bored in along the optic nerve and shut off the switches of the brainstem and thalamus.
“Ghk—”
The one who collapsed without even getting out a proper scream went into a seizure from muscle spasms.
“Who the hell is that!!”
When the one who spotted it shouted like he was calling a signal, the assassins moved even before receiving orders. They stamped off the floor, the seats, the ceiling, and surged in an instant. [Footwork-type] close-range, packed assassination.
Speed like bullets.
But all of it, the moment I started moving, froze in midair like time had stopped.
『 Flash Secret of Heaven 』
At the same time, with 『Light Bullet』 I shut off their heads one by one. While I was at it, I reached out and fired a few shots toward the cockpit too.
Around then, their leader assassin moved—his realm really was high.
In the instant I moved, he moved too. With his left hand he grabbed 「Book of the Typhoon」, and with his right he reached out.
『 Secret Art Shuriken 』
My eyes swept all directions in midair. Hundreds of dust-like shuriken, about 4 cm long, fired like dust. Purpose? Kill everyone in the area. Reason? To draw my eyes away.
If even one shot missed, that single one could kill a person.
But the fact it was metal meant he’d already given me an opening.
I reached out my hand.
『 Heaven-Piercing Ten Thousand Lights 』
Thousands of tiny beams fired and shot toward the shuriken. They bounced and refracted, drawing trajectories like a child’s scribbles—yet made only of straight lines. Each one held a basic particle-like formula of light. It was [Reflection].
KWAANG!!!
Every single shuriken flew back to its shooter, which was why he instantly became a toothpick hedgehog.
“Kkh...!!”
Even so, the bastard didn’t die. He hurriedly threw 「Book of the Typhoon」—slipping it to an assassin moving back while stepping lightly on the ceiling.
I, who already knew, reached out to stop it by opening [Armory of the Celestial Soldier], but I didn’t need to.
Clang!
Everyone’s eyes—mine, the flight attendants’, the civilians’—all snapped over.
Rebecca had pulled out a monkey wrench from somewhere and smashed the assassin over the head with it.
“...I caught him!”
Good.
After that, the assassin leader lost consciousness, and I had someone who was shouting strip off an outer garment and cover the corpses.
That ended the terror incident. I took 「Book of the Typhoon」.
“Don’t worry. Hiaka Public Security Bureau.”
When I held out a fake Public Security Bureau badge with 『World Forgery』, only then did the civilians relax.
At the same time, the flight attendants ran out and started tying up the situation.
They dragged the assassins out.
“Th-thank you.... I really thought we were all done for....”
“May I ask what department of Public Security you belong to?”
Once it was over, the flight attendants thanked me. I held back my words at their question and headed for the cockpit, thinking again how hard it is to go to the Empire even once.
But something was off.
Why isn’t the airship turning back?
When I opened the cockpit door and went in, a middle-aged captain, pale as a sheet, was trembling.
“Hiaka Public Security Bureau. Aren’t we going to the Empire?”
“Y-Yes.... We, we requested an emergency landing.... We’re going to land on a nearby sea i-island....”
What is he talking about?
I did all this to get to the Empire fast.... To shave off even one hour.
“No. We have to go to the Empire right now. Isn’t this an Empire-bound flight?”
“Th-that’s how it is.... Please go back to your seat.... Legally, outsiders entering the cockpit is....”
Mumbling.
Something was weird.
“Hiaka Public Security will protect you. Don’t worry—go to the original airport you were headed to.”
“N-No. No!! You can’t! Get out right now!!”
“...What are you doing?”
“The Empire, whatever—We have to emergency land!! How do we know there aren’t more t-terrorists?!”
The captain snapped and got angry.
I thought it might be [Mental-type] interference.
It wasn’t.
The man who’d had a muzzle pointed at his head until just now had been scared out of his mind.
“Get out! Get out!! First officer, throw him out right now!!”
“Get ooouuut...!!”
The first officer, his pants leg damp, started charging too. The force of that charge made me step back without meaning to.
I shut the cockpit door for now.
Click.
The sound of it locking from the inside.
“What the hell, what’s wrong with them? Now what do we do?”
Rebecca asked.
“There’s a way.”
There was a technique that ate a lot of mana that I should avoid using as much as possible. [Memory Forgery].
“A way?”
Thinking about it, there was an easier way to turn the airship’s head while saving mana.
The best way—one that didn’t require forging memories, wasting mana, or wasting time.
“...And what is it?”
After smashing the cockpit door and going back in,
I pulled out a gun and put it to the captain’s head.
Click—
“Uh!?”
The captain’s spine went rigid.
“Wh-What are you doinggg...!”
The first officer panicked.
“Y-You!”
Behind me, Rebecca panicked too.
“Turn the airship’s head while I’m still speaking.”
“...So, so, so—you were a terrorist too...!?”
“That’s how it is.”
Right. I became a terrorist too.
Hijacking!
It was a little rough, but no matter how you looked at it, this was the best. It saves mana. And it’s the fastest.
“Choose. Turn the airship’s head, or die—you can choose one from now on.”
The cowardly captain, who’d turned the rudder the moment a terrorist ordered him earlier, should’ve listened to me.
...He should have.
“.......”
But then something unexpected happened.
The captain let go of the control lever.
Then he jumped up and turned to face me.
Even with the muzzle in his forehead, he didn’t flinch.
“......I won’t do it!!”
What now.
Why.
“...As a proud citizen of Hiaka, as a captain responsible for everyone’s safety!! To terrorists, I will never. Never! Bow...!!”
“.......”
Resolve was in his eyes.
This is driving me insane.
It must’ve stuck in him like a lump, the fact that he’d bent during the terror incident just now.
“...You mean it?”
“I mean it!! F-First officer! You too, never bow! We are the ones who bear lives in the sky! We have that pride!”
“Yeeees!! I won’t ever submit again!! If you can kill me, then kill me!!”
The first officer’s eyes were half gone too.
Then I’ll just forge their memories.
That was when—
Rebecca suddenly came close and whispered.
‘Undo your face illusion.’
‘What?’
‘Hurry.’
What does she mean? But for now, I released [Cognition Disruption], and Princess Rebecca’s face was revealed as-is.
Right after that, I doubted my ears.
“We... we do not negotiate with terrorists.”
What is she doing now....
Huh?
“T-Terrorist assassin sir. Please stop, and protect everyone’s safety. I, Rebecca Hiakium, ask you.”
This voice....
Hypocrisy.
More precisely, it was that voice Rebecca always spewed when she talked in public.
In that moment I turned my head back and looked at Rebecca.
Rebecca was looking at me with ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) the expression of a tense, frightened, yet noble female leader.
“Princess Rebecca.”
Half a beat late, the captain and first officer were horrified.
“Eek!?”
“P-Princess?!”
The captain, who’d been making the expression of an unyielding warrior just moments ago,
now had his mouth hanging open in flustered shock.
“F-First officer, what is this...!?”
“A-Ah! Earlier I definitely heard royal personnel had boarded...!!”
Looks like Layme somehow deceived them that way.
“Please lower the gun, assassin sir. We proud citizens of Hiaka will never, to terrorists—”
Rebecca started acting again.
She didn’t know I could manipulate memories.
So she made this situation.
She was telling me to take her hostage.
“.......”
I hesitated for a moment.
Then, I had no choice but to go along.
“Shut up, Princess.”
At the same time, two assassins appeared from the shadows and seized the princess. I made them with 『World Forgery』.
“Hngh!”
Princess Rebecca, seized while letting out a groan that sounded like a drama line.
I went behind her, wrapped my arm around Rebecca’s neck, and aimed the gun at her temple. Then I smiled, to look as vicious as possible, like a terrorist.
“Now you understand why I came here?”
‘P-Princess!!’ The captain and first officer screamed in shock again.
That was when. Consciousness flowed in along mana.
‘Hey Xfuck, loosen your grip on my neck...!’
‘Stay still.’
‘I can’t breathe...!’
She started it, and then she started backseat-driving me, and it pissed me off, so I squeezed harder. ‘Kkh-khh!’ Rebecca struggled.
“Choose. Turn the rudder, or watch a hole appear in the princess’s head.”
“Y-You bastard! How dare you, our princess—!!”
Then Rebecca teared up.
“I’m fine...! Don’t submit to a terrorist’s demands...!”
Haa....
There really isn’t anything uglier than this....
“O-Okay! I’ll turn it, I’ll turn it! Please let the princess go...!!”
Anyway. Thanks to that, the airship started flying back on its route again.
And with the fact that the princess that every Hiaka citizen loves had almost died, it looked like the first officer pissed himself one more time.
‘Xfuck.’