Chapter 63 – Incident (7)

After I returned having become the Chief Magic Engineer.

The place that fell into the greatest shock in the Ember would definitely be the Magic Engineering Department.

Having spent twenty years with Demian, they had watched my growth process.

Consisting entirely of magic engineers, they knew my disastrous talent very well.

Rather, it was more likely that the sun would show its face in the sky again than for me to become a magic engineer.

Even more so, they would not have been able to even imagine me becoming the top scorer.

That meant one saw as much as one knew, and they were seeing more in me than ordinary people did.

That was precisely the reason why a certain awe was contained in their gazes.

“…….”

Eyes that seemed to look at something mysterious.

Although that was quite a fresh stimulation to me as well.

“I came to see Lord Demian.”

“…….”

“Is he not inside?”

I asked, paying no mind to their gazes.

Although they flinched at my informal speech, everyone seemed to readily accept it.

In the world of magic engineers, skills and rank were practically equivalent to hierarchy, so their acceptance had no choice but to be quick.

‘For instance, one could call it an implicit rule.’

Of course, even though I was the top scorer, all of them were novices like me.

However, ranks were divided even within the novice level, and no one here would be confident that they were better than Leona Melville, who was two ranks lower than me.

“The head is inside.”

“No need for guidance. I will go in alone.”

When I visited the Magic Engineering Department for the first time in ten years, my gaze met Caleb, whom I used to call uncle.

Back then, there were only emotions of disgust and hatred in the eyes looking at me.

‘Even now that I have become the top scorer, his gaze hasn’t changed much.’

If anything, his wariness had grown even deeper than back then.

He seemed to be worrying about the ruin of the Magic Engineering Department that I, who had become the top scorer, might cause.

It was only natural since I had officially sided with the leadership in front of all the citizens of the Ember.

But the same went for Demian, and I had no ill feelings toward these people either.

Why would I, who would become the leader of the Ember in the future, be crazy enough to exclude these capable individuals?

However.

‘To avoid Yan’s suspicion, I must not get close to them before I become the leader.’

Claiming the role of a bad guy was unavoidable for now.

For the same reason, I must not hold a long conversation with Demian either.

I immediately knocked on the office door.

Knock, knock—

“It is Aylen Vale. May I come in?”

I spoke my name on purpose.

To let him know that I had come as a son, not as a magic engineer.

So that Demian would feel greater guilt.

“Come in.”

However, the reaction was different from expectations.

There was no emotion whatsoever in the responding voice.

Creak.

As I opened the door and stepped into the office, I saw Demian in the middle of dedicating himself to research while wearing a loupe.

Without giving me even a single glance, he seemed to be participating in this place solely as a magic engineer.

“If it is not about magic engineering, I have no words to share with you.”

Meaning that if I had not come as a magic engineer, I should leave immediately.

It was certain.

Demian chose his duty as a magic engineer over shaking off the guilt he felt toward me, just as he did ten years ago.

Rather than ‘Father’ Demian Vale, he had solidified his identity as ‘Magic Engineer’ Demian Vale.

It was a moment when the Ember and the citizens once again preceded his only son in priority.

‘Even so, the parent-child relationship is a heavenly tie. It cannot be severed unless one is prepared to kill me.’

But it was rather a good thing for me.

Because only by continuing to treat me coldly would his guilt grow larger in the future.

However, right now, I needed to move emotionally, separate from my reason.

“Your son has returned after becoming the Chief Magic Engineer. Yet you do not even give a single word of congratulations.”

“Congratulations. In the future, serve the Ember and the citizens with all your heat and sincerity.”

“I have fulfilled my father’s lifelong wish. Do you have nothing else to say but those formal words?”

“What more is there to say at this point?”

“Thank you for coming back alive, I am sorry, I was wrong… Beg like that at least. Why do you never treat me as a son, as a human being, not even once!”

Rummaging through Aylen’s memories, I squeezed out emotions that were not there and let them explode.

At that moment, Demian’s busy hands stopped.

Throwing off his glasses, he strode up in front of me and shouted.

“It’s not that I won’t do it. You made it impossible for me!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“From the moment you sided with the leadership, it was destined to be so. You are the enemy of the Magic Engineering Department, the enemy of the citizens and the Ember, and my enemy.”

“……Are you saying it is my fault for abandoning my father and choosing the leadership? You brought this all on yourself.”

“What is to be shared with an enemy is not conversation but only the sword. Go back now.”

Demian was cold.

As if trying to isolate himself as a father from himself as a magic engineer.

However.

‘The corners of his eyes are trembling…’

The trembling corners of his eyes, his sweating palms, his rough breathing, and his rapid heartbeat.

I was capturing all those physical changes.

He was furious.

As if I had blown away the last chance to settle our crossed and tangled father-son relationship.

But looking closely, he was not blaming me.

‘Is he looking at himself…?’

Demian was staring hatefully at himself reflected in my eyes.

Although it was pitiful that the father-son relationship could not be honest with each other, this knot could not be untied right now.

At least not for now.

Passing him, I stopped in front of the desk and spoke.

“I came to return something.”

What Demian Vale handed to the Wayne brothers, and what the Wayne brothers handed to me in turn.

And now what I am handing back to Demian.

“Fare for the afterlife.”

Tap!

I placed one gold coin on the table with a sharp tap.

“Since I returned alive without dying as Father wished, it is only right to return it.”

“You rascal! What parent on earth would wish for their child’s death!”

“What is to be shared with an enemy is only the sword, didn’t Father just say that? Doesn’t that mean it has become destiny for Father to wish for my death?”

“……!”

Glaring at the speechless Demian with resentful eyes, I retrieved the afterlife fare, the gold coin.

“On second thought, you would probably prefer that I keep it. If that is our destiny.”

The fare for the afterlife was an ominous item related to death.

If I, who became the enemy, carried such an unclean thing on me, it would not be a bad thing for him.

“Then I will be leaving now, Father.”

Having provoked Demian’s guilt to the absolute limit like that, I left the Magic Engineering Department without looking back.

“Even if it isn’t my own business, my chest feels heavy…”

Come to think of it, I was ruining someone else’s family relationship.

But I had no choice.

Demian was someone who would go as far as to abandon his son to choose the Ember and the citizens.

Extreme measures were needed to make him accept my dictatorship.

Since proving overwhelming ability was a matter of the yet-to-come future, I had to draw out his compliance through his sense of debt toward me.

In a way, it was harder than becoming a leader.

But he would also understand in the end.

That there existed an absolute, flawless dictatorship and dictator that only existed in ideals.

That it was precisely me, and only I could execute it.

To do so, I had to make him accept it first.

“The last is… the tavern.”

Having been hit by the snow for a while, I shook off my stray thoughts and headed straight home.

Since I had met Yan Casellos and Demian Vale to settle things, all that remained now was Jeremy Scott.

* * *

Radiance, the intelligence organization directly under Grand Magic Engineer Herman Melville.

Natasha McGrain, counted as one of the top agents even there.

“Phew…”

At this moment, she, who did not lose her composure even in the face of death, was trembling all over in front of a mere tavern.

“I will call you when the time comes.”

“Yes…”

Aylen, who opened the door of the tavern whose business was suspended due to the mutant incident, stepped inside first to meet Jeremy Scott.

Former captain of the Ember of Progress, but now the owner of the tavern Night’s Haven, Jeremy Scott.

She had ruined him, but the one who saved her life instead was right there.

‘I haven’t decided on anything to say…’

Natasha agonized for hours over the words to offer Jeremy, just as Aylen advised.

No, since she thought of Jeremy’s last appearance from the time things turned out that way, she could be said to have agonized for two years.

That operation was a failed operation that planted the thought in Natasha that the information of ‘Radiance’ was also not absolute.

When Jeremy, whom she thought was only an evil man, helped her escape the Ember; when Major General Baltics threw himself to save her and sacrificed himself; when she finally opened the briefcase he handed over and verified the truth…

‘What right do I have to speak? What right…’

How much had she suffered from what she had done.

It was from then on that she began to hate herself, who had believed in a paltry sense of duty and righteousness to save the world, and that Radiance was flawless.

However, once something had happened, it could not be undone.

Not knowing did not mean it was not a crime either.

Natasha had committed an indelible sin against Jeremy and now had to clean it up.

“Natasha.”

Soon, perhaps because the atmosphere had ripened, Aylen signaled, and Natasha calmed her trembling heart and stepped inside.

In that place was the person she wanted to meet so much, but was at the same time afraid to meet.

He was repeatedly gulping down alcohol as if trying to shake off his failed past.

In the past, there was a time for him when he radiated the dignity of a captain in a perfect uniform without a single wrinkle.

But now he was wearing a scruffy beard that had not been maintained for a long time and ordinary clothes that were worn to threads.

Rustle.

Natasha clenched her fists tight at the sight of Jeremy, who was ruined to the limit.

Soon, overcoming her fear with guilt, she pulled back her hood and revealed her appearance.

“A customer, woman?”

But Jeremy did not turn his head.

He was only repeatedly drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, enjoying the present.

At that, Natasha realized something.

The words she could not decide on for two years automatically completed the moment she saw him.

“Commander Jeremy Scott.”

Speaking heavily while suppressing her surging emotions, Natasha brought her legs together straight.

Her left arm was stuck close to her side and thigh.

Her right arm was raised and adjusted so that the fingertip touched her eyebrow, and also so that the palm was not visible.

There were words that followed.

“Loyalty. Major Charlotte Grace.”

“……?”

“I report that I have completed the mission according to the Commander’s orders.”

“……!”

“I am sorry… that the report is late.”

Unable to hold back her tears in the end, Natasha hung her head.

Yet her saluting right arm was still held at her eyebrow.

“You performed a difficult mission outstandingly. You may rest now, Major Charlotte Grace.”

At the words that she could rest now.

“Sob…!”

She was finally able to lower her arm at those words.