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Farewell, Fiend – Part 08

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Translator: Kell

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A heavy silence descended in the room. With Victorique quiet, no one else spoke. There was only the sound of the clockworks whirring endlessly.

Avril felt something invisible pass in front of her. A shiver ran down her spine. The floor in front of her slowly warped and creaked as something strode past from right before her toward Kazuya. When it reached the little Victorique standing in front of the group, that something stared at her, narrowed its eyes in admiration, and then slowly reached out to touch her rosy cheek.

Avril snapped back to her senses. There were eight of them present: Victorique, Kazuya, Avril, Ms. Cecile, Inspector Blois and his two subordinates…

No, seven.

Avril swallowed. She had a feeling that someone else was there.

An eerie atmosphere blanketed the workshop. She felt as if it would swallow her whole. Or maybe it already had.

Victorique resumed talking, and Avril shifted her attention to her.

The clockworks continued spinning.

“Now I present a hypothesis,” Victorique went on. “Listen closely. The Africans who came walking and rowing in 1873 brought gold from Africa, the Dark Continent. Gold that was mined from the gold rush. All the gold and diamond mines in Africa at that time were owned by European countries. Africans did not benefit at all from the resources. Instead, they were made to work like cart horses, and one by one, they died. The gold was transported to St. Marguerite Academy, the secret armory and vault of the Kingdom of Sauville. It was then brought to the clock tower and hidden in a secret room. The Africans were probably killed to silence them. This happened at the end of the year. For the next twenty years, the gold lay dormant here, unbeknownst to anyone. Then one day, in the year 1897, someone arrived. A man in a mask and a robe: Leviathan.”

Victorique eyed everyone.

“He somehow knew about the secret of the clock tower. He was probably the only one who did. He introduced himself as an alchemist and used this room, where the secret chamber is located, as his workshop. He magically produced gold from nothing, and soon became a star. It wasn’t magic, of course. There was plenty of gold around. An inexhaustible supply, in fact, right in this very room. He just took some, melted it down, reshaped it, and presented it to people.”

“But why did no one else know about it?” Kazuya asked.

“It’s simple. The king had everything done in secret. He had the gold transported without anyone’s knowledge and then silenced everyone involved. But the king suddenly passed away at the beginning of the following year. There was a grand funeral and the succession of a new, young king. I believe the secret of the gold vanished in the midst of the furor. That’s why the fortune wasn’t used during the storm that hit during the new king’s term—the Great War. No one knew about it. Except for one person, Leviathan. Don’t touch that, Avril Bradley!”

Everybody turned their attention to Avril. She had wandered to the stained glass, goggling at the flower garden depicted on it.

Startled, she looked at Victorique. “Wh-Why not?”

“I was about to verbalize the reason,” Victorique replied in her husky voice.

She put a pipe in her mouth and lit it. Ms. Cecile tried to take it away from her, but Victorique circled around Kazuya. The teacher gave a sigh of resignation.

“Kujou, do you remember what I told you about alchemy?”

“You mentioned a lot of things, but yeah, I remember most of it.”

“Share it with us, then. What is the goal of alchemy?”

Kazuya wore a serious look. “To create something out of nothing. Gold, in particular, then immortality, and homunculus.”

“Using what?”

“Uh, something called the Philosopher’s Stone. A stone with mystical powers.”

“Yes. And what color is it?”

“Deep red as a pomegranate.”

“Hmm.” Victorique nodded in satisfaction. She then cast a sweeping glance at everyone. “The first thing that draws one’s attention when they enter this workshop is, of course, the huge clockworks and the pendulum. They’re a sight to behold. But not some people.”

“Who are you talking about?” Kazuya asked.

“Cecile, I have a question for you. The people who have died in this workshop over the past twenty years with discolored index fingers were all outsiders, correct? Newly-appointed teachers, travelers, and the like.”

Ms. Cecile nodded. “That’s right. Students of the academy would sometimes come in and fool around, but they were all fine.”

“Nothing surprising there,” Victorique said. “Now take a look around this workshop. Clockworks, a pendulum, and a huge table filled with lab equipment. Only those who wander in aimlessly would be fascinated by these things. But if you were to enter with the express purpose of learning the secrets of alchemy, what would be the first thing that would catch your eye? Inside this gray workshop is a stained-glass depicting a flower garden, which, at first glance, seems unrelated to alchemy.”

Victorique walked toward the stained glass.

Among the countless yellows and purples was a lone fiery flower, red as pomegranate.

“This is the only red in the workshop,” Victorique said, pointing at the flower. “A small red stone burning in the dark, gray room. If you broke in searching for clues about alchemy, would you not reach for this?”

Inspector Blois gasped. His men scurried to the stained-glass and stretched their hands out.

“Don’t touch that,” Victorique said.

“…Why not?”

“It’s poisoned. I believe the trespassers touched it with their index fingers. The poison has been there for more than twenty years. Leviathan applied it right before he died.”

The inspector’s men backed away in fear. Victorique, standing in front of them, began rifling through the lab equipment on the large table and eventually found a long, thin rod. She gripped it tight.

“It goes without saying that Leviathan was not immortal,” she said. “He was shot with poisoned arrows by the Royal Knights that night, and he died in this workshop. But he did not want his body found. He had to take the secret underneath his mask with him to the grave. He probably entered the hidden room from the workshop, and then silently passed away inside. Finding his body means finding the gold and revealing the secret of alchemy. It is time, Leviathan.”

Victorique stood on tiptoe and pushed the red stone of the stained glass with the rod. At first, the stone only quivered, barely moving, but then it suddenly made a loud noise and sprang forward.

Numerous needles, red as blood, jutted out. It looked exactly like the flower of a pomegranate. Reddish-purple fluid was dripping from the tips of the needles. Slowly, the needles retracted.

Victorique pushed hard again with the tip of the rod.

This time, the stained glass creaked.

Like a drawbridge it slowly rose, emitting an eerie groan.

The radiant golden light shining from the other side gradually brightened the dark workshop. Everyone shielded their eyes from the blinding light. One by one, they grunted in surprise, staring in disbelief at what lay before them.

An inexhaustible pile of gold filled the room from the floor to the ceiling high above, glittering spectacularly.

And in front of it was a large, sinister-looking man, standing like a giant guard at the entrance to hell.

He was wearing a mask and a robe. Both his feet were planted firmly on the floor, his arms outstretched upward. His body, crumbling after decades of decay, was riddled with countless arrows.

No one said a word.

“I found you, Leviathan,” Victorique said in a cheery voice. “I win. How do you like that?” Then, she uttered the words she had been rehearsing in her mind. “Are you frustrated?”

The corpse did not answer.

It simply twitched. There was a crackling sound.

Victorique strode up to the man, much larger than her, and stared up at him. She gazed into the gaping eye sockets behind the mask and smiled softly.

“Leviathan, the fearsome sorcerer. I know what you look like under the mask.” She chuckled. “Surprised? I will bring it to light, now.”

Victorique spun around. It looked like the huge masked man attended her.

“One night fifty years ago, at the end of 1873, a magic trick was performed,” she began. “Magicians call it Black Art. When a black object is superimposed on a black background and illuminated, it becomes invisible to the human eye. It’s how they make skeletons dance, or heads float in the air. The trick is simple: have a man wearing black clothes with skeletal patterns on them dance, or have a woman wearing black clothes with only her head exposed walk around. Kujou. You and your friend heard a certain ghost story in the village cemetery, didn’t you? A story about an invisible ghost that ran through the empty cemetery on a moonlit night. The footprints started at the edge of the cemetery, right around the burial mound of the Africans, and cut through the cemetery before disappearing somewhere.”

Victorique’s ruthless green eyes widened as she continued.

“That night, a dark-skinned boy ran through the darkness. The Africans were killed, but one boy came back to life and rose from the grave. This explains the invisible ghost. It was Black Art all along. This trick was actually conceived when a magician happened to use a black assistant who blended in with the black background and became invisible. And that same thing happened that night in the village cemetery.”

“The boy who rose from the grave that night and disappeared returned to the village twenty years later. Being the lone survivor, only he knew about the secret gold stashed in this workshop.” Victorique’s voice was low.

The masked man’s corpse shook, as if frightened. Victorique turned around and gently stretched her hand toward the corpse.

“Foolish one. I know what lies underneath your mask. O’ foolish one, are you angry?”

She stood on tiptoe, but she couldn’t reach his face. She jumped up and down, her face turning crimson. Kazuya quickly lifted her small body up. Victorique blushed even harder as she flailed her legs around.

“I know,” she murmured as she removed the mask.

A collective gasp rose from the group, and they retreated a few steps.

The corpse’s face was halfway decomposed. Its eye sockets were gaping holes, from which no expression could be discerned. Its lips were wide open, and the gums were exposed, as if he drew his last breath while screaming. The corpse looked like something out of a nightmare, with its anguished pose and horrifying look.

Its leftover skin was as glossy and jet-black as tanned leather.

Inspector Blois took a deep breath. “Leviathan was African?!”

“That he was, Grevil,” Victorique murmured.

She glared at the two large caverns—the eye sockets.

“We meet at last, Leviathan. You were here the whole time, weren’t you? You’ve been waiting for someone to find your memoir and speak on your behalf. I knew all along. The man who risked his life to enter the Kingdom of Sauville’s politics and get involved in its colonial policies was an African. You hid that fact the entire time. You pretended to be a strange alchemist. What a man. Leviathan—no, we have no way of knowing your true name now, but I do know one thing: you were not trying to be a tyrant. You just wanted to save your country. You risked your life to get behind enemy lines and restore freedom to your burning homeland, which the white men of Europe were taking for themselves. It’s a shame that you met such an end before you could achieve your goal. It all happened a long time ago, though. Now it’s nothing but a dream.”

Victorique chuckled. Kazuya gently lowered her on the floor.

“You were quite an interesting fellow. You’re dead now, unfortunately.”

The corpse’s mouth seemed to move a little. As if to say goodbye, Leviathan’s dry corpse squirmed. Victorique’s eyes widened.

“With this, I, Victorique de Blois, child of Marquis de Blois, hereby end my role as the spokesperson of the fool. This is goodbye.”

A strong gust suddenly blew. The pendulum swung loudly, producing a huge wind that shook their ears. The corpse trembled. Then, like a tree toppling, the body fell on its back, slamming onto the pile of gold.

There was a loud thud, and a cloud of dust rose. Kazuya swiftly crouched down to shield Victorique. The jet-black figure towering over them had crumbled to dust, vanishing like an illusion.

“A dream,” Victorique murmured.

The robe alone drifted slowly toward the gold.

The mask fell from Victorique’s tiny hands.

The alchemist was gone.

“Au revoir, dark fiend!” she cried softly.

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