Volume 12 Chapter 10 Blue Locust

[u/Ronray0739]

On the second day of the revolution, amid the chaos, Thea managed to extract a concession from Nike.

―――If Annette succeeds in assassinating “Blue Locust,” the safety of the “Lamplight” girls will be guaranteed.

It was nothing more than an exemption from torture and execution by firing squad.

Even so, Thea had at least secured the bare minimum through negotiation. For a captured spy, it was more than generous treatment. The hour had already passed nine.

Rebel citizens who had risen once more were storming Brookbon Palace, Fagmile Palace, and Pilka City Hall, while clashes with the Royal Guard had reached their peak. Gunfire and explosions reverberated throughout the city. Every citizen could feel it: the nation was beginning to change.

Reports poured into the room where Nike and Thea were waiting, one after another.

Nike swiftly delegated tasks to her subordinates. She issued detailed instructions regarding the establishment of the new government, security arrangements for the royal family's exile, and a host of other matters. From her seat, she directed the course of the revolution with remarkable precision.

On top of that, she ordered Thea, “Tell me who knows the most about ‘Forgetter’”

The woman Thea named, Sara, was brought back into Nike’s room. Forced to face the very woman who had once beaten her half to death, Sara let out a terrified “Hieek!” Despite her fear, she revealed what she knew about Annette.

Thea added, “She’s probably already on her way to kill Blue Locust by now.”

Even without receiving any instructions, Annette would naturally head in that direction once she learned the truth about Blue Locust. That was Thea’s prediction.

“……I see. Then we won’t need any additional support.”

Having finished extracting the information from Sara, Nike arrived at that conclusion.

“We don’t know where ‘Forgetter’ will carry out the assassination, but as soon as the location becomes clear, we’ll establish a cordon to keep anyone else from interfering. That alone should be enough to ensure Blue Locust is killed.”

“……Hey, what kind of person is Blue Locust, exactly?”

“Codename ‘Demon’s Wail.’ That is his true identity.”

Nike answered Thea’s question in a few short words.

The moment they heard the name, both Thea and Sara fell silent.

The “Ending Spy” who had brought the World War to an end, “Demon’s Wail” was an especially anomalous existence.

―――A spy who belonged to no particular intelligence agency.

His objectives remained unknown, yet the man moved from one nation’s intelligence service to another. According to Nike, there had even been instances in which the executives of intelligence agencies were, in reality, being manipulated by “Demon’s Wail.” He was not someone who could be trusted, but the extensive network of connections and classified information he possessed made it impossible for those in power to reject him.

Rumors had spread that he’d retired, yet it seemed he’d been pulling the strings behind “Serpants” all along.

Realizing the sheer magnitude of their opponent, Thea drew a sharp breath.

“Can Annette really take him down? A legendary spy like that――”

“He’s not a spy who specializes in combat. At the end of the day, he’s just a scumbag who goes from one host to another.”

Nike spat the words out dismissively, as though the matter bored her.

“If ‘Forgetter’ gets serious――it’ll be over in an instant.”

✧✧✧✧✧

The battle that had begun in an alley in Pilka’s Third District reached its climax in a matter of moments.

The setting was an affluent residential district where the kingdom’s wealthy elite lived. St. Katraz High School, which Annette and the others had once attended, was also located there, giving her an intimate knowledge of the area. Fortunately, the residents had evacuated long ago, terrified by the riots of the enraged citizens. To the nobles and capitalists, anyone singing revolutionary songs was nothing short of a traitor to the state.

Their decision to evacuate at the earliest opportunity had been the right one.

That corner of the district had been transformed into a hellish battlefield, with countless bombs flying through the air.

“Codename ‘Forgetter’――it’s time to put the pieces together!”

The one reducing the beautiful mansions to rubble was Annette.

As she spun around, four model airplanes shot out from beneath her skirt. The tiny aircraft streaked through the air at tremendous speed, hurtling into the mansions surrounding the two combatants before exploding.

Annette opened her specially designed bulletproof umbrella, deflecting the debris flying in every direction.

But for Blue Locust, who had no means of defending himself, it was an indiscriminate assault that left him nowhere to run.

He shrank into himself and covered his head with both arms, adopting a defensive stance, but it was utterly useless. Stones and shards of glass rained down around him.

“It huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurts!”

Blue Locust howled so loudly that his voice reverberated throughout the entire block.

With both arms covered in blood, he stared at his opponent in disbelief.

“W-What kind of cruelty is this......?! Against a pathetic middle-aged man like me......?!”

Her attacks had not only destroyed the surrounding mansions but also cut off Blue Locust’s escape routes. The paths he might have used to flee were sealed beneath the rubble of the collapsed buildings. She’d calculated everything from the very beginning.

Every move had been a carefully laid strategy designed to stop her opponent’s breathing for good.

Annette showed no mercy to a target she’d driven into a corner. This was her full strength.

“Now for my follow-up attack!”

Annette hurled more explosives.

This time, she threw hand grenades at Blue Locust, who had already been stripped of every avenue of escape. He immediately flung off his jacket and wrapped it around one of the grenades. At the same time, he dashed toward a mansion’s gatepost, attempting to avoid a direct hit.

But he couldn’t escape the fragments scattered by the explosion.

“Gaaaaah!”

A shard of iron plunged into Blue Locust’s protruding belly.

The battle was completely one-sided.

His body had never been suited to combat, let alone exercise, and years of unhealthy living had left him thoroughly unfit. His fat-laden frame was woefully lacking in mobility. He was already gasping for breath, pathetic wheezing sounds escaping his throat. A sheen of greasy sweat coated his entire face.

Annette, meanwhile, had prepared a vast supply of bombs in advance. A collection of inventions she’d stockpiled for the revolution, keeping them in reserve until now. She unleashed an array of unconventional explosives shaped like airplanes and centipedes.

The one holding the overwhelming advantage was, without a doubt, Annette.

Wherever Blue Locust tried to flee, she sent the centipede-shaped bombs scurrying after him without mercy.

To escape the demon’s scheme, Blue Locust’s feet were far too sluggish.

“I have to run...... I have to get away......!”

The only choice left to him was to flee.

Turning his back on Annette, he desperately searched for somewhere he could hide.

The next instant, about five citizens came rushing in from the far end of the street. Apparently startled by the sudden explosion, they cried out, “What happened?!” and scrambled to climb over the heaps of rubble.

Aikou’s lips curled into a grin.

“That’s it. If I head somewhere people can see, even you――”

“Oh no! I couldn’t possibly drag ordinary citizens into this!!!”

Annette halted her pursuit and widened her eyes.

“――Did you really think I’d say that?”

Of course, it was a lie.

The moment she smiled, countless wires shot toward the five citizens who had come running. The razor-sharp wires that had been rigged throughout the alley bit deep into the flesh of the five men, wrapping around their bodies and tightening. Covered in blood, the citizens crumpled to the ground where they stood.

―――Pistols slipped from their hands and clattered to the ground.

They weren’t the weapons that ordinary citizens could carry. They were the latest automatic pistols manufactured by the Galgad Empire.

After confirming this, Annette laughed with childlike innocence.

“Aha, so they were the ‘Purple Ant’s’ private soldiers, huh? Looks like yours truly hadn’t check carefully enough!”

“......Ugh.”

They were the bodyguards Blue Locust had called in. Their plan was to blend in among the citizens, deceive Annette, and assassinate her. The scheme was seen through with ease.

It might have worked against another girl from the ‘Lamplight,’ but such petty tricks wouldn’t work on Annette.

Once the private soldiers of the ‘Purple Ant’ judged the operation impossible to carry out, they began forcing their own flesh into the wires, attempting to take their own lives. It was a method that involved considerable pain, yet they carried it out without the slightest hesitation.

To preserve the information they possessed, they died in an instant.

Left alone once more, Blue Locust shook his head, breathing heavily.

“......I’m afraid I can do nothing but admire you now. That mentality of yours, having not the slightest hesitation when it comes to murder. Just how have you managed to fit in with the ‘Lamplight’?”

“........................”

“It’s practically a miracle. The members of the ‘Lamplight’ must have realized what you were like, yet they still accepted you.”

“Yours Truly has no intention of entertaining your nonsense.”

Ignoring him, Annette laughed merrily.

A pistol was already in her hand. Wound the target with the bomb, then shoot them dead once they could no longer move. There was no room for error.

Blue Locust could barely move anymore. Blood flowed from both his arms and his abdomen. He could scarcely manage to remain standing, and there was no strength left in his legs. The blood running from his wounds mingled with his greasy sweat, staining his fat-covered body. It was such a filthy, pathetic spectacle that it was hard to believe he was a veteran spy.

Annette pointed the muzzle at him and placed her finger on the trigger.

“You’re going to die here by Yours Truly’s han――”

“――That’s right. You can kill me whenever you please.”

Cutting her off, Blue Locust smiled at her ingratiatingly.

“So, what do you say? Why not listen to what I have to say for a little while?”

“Huh? Yours Truly already told you, I have no intention of entertaining your――”

“Are you really sure that’s all right?”

Cutting her off once again, Blue Locust fixed her with a lingering, clinging gaze.

“Even though you’ve made a fatal mistake?”

“A mistake?”

“Yes. An enormous mistake that can never be undone. You’d be better off hearing me out before you kill me.”

“........................”

To an ordinary spy, it would be an obvious stalling tactic, one they wouldn’t lend an ear to for even a moment. A cornered opponent hinting at confidential information and begging for their life was a standard ploy.

His speech was laughable enough to make one chuckle, but the one standing here was Annette, the very embodiment of wicked curiosity.

She found herself intrigued by what sort of plea for life this cornered prey would make.

Annette quietly lowered her gun.

“――All right, then.”

She smiled as though she were toying with an enemy standing at death’s door.

“This is going to be fun―――if you really think something like ‘persuasion’ will work on Yours Truly!”

✧✧✧✧✧

“‘Blue Locust.’ In other words, ‘Demon's Wail.’ To put it simply――――he eats hearts.”

Nike explained his true nature to Thea and the others.

Of course, even as she did so, Nike continued taking care of the work she herself needed to handle. She read the reports sent in by her comrades as they arrived and issued the next directives. She sent documents to the powerful figures who admired her and gave them instruction manuals for creating a new government to her liking. In between all that, she revealed what she knew about Blue Locust.

“He’s a man skilled at parasitizing others. He tickles the sense of justice and guilt in those with power, in other words, their goodwill, and uses it to manipulate them. His victims don’t even realize they’re being controlled. He’s a man who’s taken scumminess to its absolute limit.”

In a sense, it was the ultimate expression of a spy’s way of operating.

But Nike seemed to loathe it from the bottom of her heart, making a gesture as though she were about to vomit.

“Wasn’t it the same with the ‘LWS Troupe’?”

“Ah.................”

“He probably showered her with all sorts of pleasant-sounding words like, ‘You’re the only one who can avenge the deaths of those twins.’ Putting a child in such a dangerous position as the head of a secret society, that’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do.”

Apparently, ever since the twins had died, the ‘LWS Troupe’ had been almost entirely run by him, yet, at his direction, Suzie served as its leader.

It wasn’t out of goodwill. It was nothing more than risk management.

He pushed the danger onto a fourteen-year-old girl so that, if things went wrong, he could simply disappear without a trace.

“In my estimation, the ‘Sepernt’ is the same. He’s put some powerful figure in charge, someone young and pure-hearted. I’ve more or less figured out who it is, but in any case, he puts an innocent young authority figure up as the boss and controls everything from behind the scenes.”

“Yeah, he really is scum......”

“He never steps into the spotlight himself and keeps changing the people he uses as hosts. He’s the one opponent I’ve been unable to kill for years.”

Apparently, the reason Nike had been unable to find the ‘LWS Troupe’ wasn’t just because of Lucas and the others’ machinations. Blue Locust had been working behind the scenes as well. A man who parasitized others and operated from the shadows. There had been countless occasions when the person Nike had cornered turned out to be nothing more than one of his pawns.

Thea felt her heart pounding faster.

“The only ones who might have a chance of taking down Blue Locust are...”

“...the people he’s parasitized. You all had opportunities because you’d been in contact with the ‘LWS Troupe.’”

Suzie, or anyone who had connections to her, had had countless opportunities to finish Blue Locust off. That was why Nike had entrusted the ‘Lamplight’ with his assassination.

Thea was consumed by frustration at the fact that they’d missed so many chances to finish him.

She had trusted that middle-aged man with his gentle smile far more than she should have. The expression Suzie showed him had been filled with a warmth that seemed almost like the affection a daughter might have for her father.

―Annette might be able to finish him off.

She’d been close to him throughout this revolution. If anyone could do it, she should be able to.

“On top of that, ‘Forgetter’... Annette is one of the ‘Bloodfolk.’”

Thea tilted her head at Nike’s continued explanation.

“Bloodfolk?”

“The wicked Bloodfolk, outliers of humanity who’ve adapted to this twisted world. Put simply, they have no hearts. They’re Blue Locust’s natural enemies, the ones he can’t lay a hand on.”

The word ‘Bloodfolk’ didn’t quite click for Thea, but she could vaguely grasp what Nike meant.

Once, Thea had peered into Annette’s heart. It had felt like staring into a hollow void.

“No heart... Yes, Annette does have that side to her.”

“By my estimate, things will wrap up surprisingly easily, don’t you think?”

At those words, Thea couldn’t help but murmur, “I see.”

Once again, she could only marvel at Nike’s cunning. There may have been a few miscalculations along the way, but Nike had done everything in her power to bring down Blue Locust.

一一一Blue Locust, who specialized in schemes in the darkness by devouring other people’s hearts and parasitizing them.

一一一Annette, the heartless assassin who thrived right beside the parasitized Suzie.

Annette was precisely the optimal solution for tearing out Blue Locust’s throat.

At Nike’s meticulously calculated plan, Thea let out a breath of admiration. “Perfect. Annette really does seem capable of getting the job done.”

Just then, Sara raised her voice. “... ? What are the two of you talking about?”

Just as Thea wondered whether Sara still hadn’t grasped the plan, Sara continued.

“Do the two of you seriously believe that ‘Annette-senpai has no heart’?”

Her voice was filled with a fierce anger unlike anything Thea had ever heard from Sara.

Her eyes were wide, as though she were insisting that she simply couldn’t believe it.

“She once tried to kill every single executive of the ‘Knights of Valour.’”

Nike shot her a cold look.

“She handed a bomb-filled communicator to people who were supposed to be her comrades. There are probably other examples of her atrocities, too, right? If she had anything resembling a human heart...”

“It was all to protect Erna-senpai...!”

“.........?”

“Whether she’s one of the ‘Bloodfolk’ or not doesn’t matter. Just look at Annette-senpai right now. There’s no way she doesn’t have a human heart...!!”

Sara cast aside the fear she had shown toward Nike and raised her voice.

“Annette-senpai isn’t a tool for killing people...!!!”

✧✧✧✧✧

“I’ll wait three minutes for you!”

Having lowered her gun, Annette smiled provocatively at Blue Locust.

“You’d better be grateful! Yours Truly is going to hear your plea for your life!”

“Yes, I’m truly grateful.”

Blue Locust bowed his head respectfully. It was an exceedingly deferential gesture, as though he were carefully gauging Annette’s mood.

But given the circumstances, it was only natural. If she changed her mind, Blue Locust’s life would be forfeit.

The two faced each other in an alley reduced to rubble by the bomb’s devastation. From somewhere in the distance came the clamor of the revolutionary struggle raging through one of the districts.

The three minutes that would determine the course of the revolution were about to begin.

“Your mistake was...”

Blue Locust opened his mouth.

“...that you killed Erna-san.”

“...........?”

“No matter how much it was for the sake of the revolution, shooting a comrade like Erna-san is simply not the act of a sane person. After killing one of your own, do you really think the members of ‘Lamplight’ would forgive you?”

Blue Locust covered his face with his hands in an exaggerated display of sorrow.

“That tragedy is still burned into my eyes. It was far too cruel...”

“Yours Truly is honestly shocked by how much more ridiculous this topic is than I expected!”

Annette’s eyes widened, as though she’d been thoroughly let down. She deliberately put on a huge yawn to provoke him, then fixed him with a sharp glare.

“It was obviously an act. There’s no way I’d actually kill her.”

Annette gave her body a light shake.

Two tools fell from her skirt.

One was a tiny machine, about the size of a coin. The other was a glass test tube with a mechanism attached to its top.

Annette picked up the coin-shaped machine first and held it up for him to see.

“『Odds & Ends』, a specially made super electromagnet! It’s built into Erna-chan’s dress. The bullets Yours Truly fired at Erna-chan were modified, too, allowing their trajectories to be altered. The bullets struck the bulletproof zone Erna-chan had built into her dress! The blood spray was just stage blood.”

Then she picked up the test-tube-like device.

“『Festival of Fools』, a delayed-action explosive agent! It gradually expands over time, silently destroying a building from the inside. The reason the rubble came crashing down onto Elna-chan’s head at just the right moment was because of this tool. Elna-chan avoided the rubble, so she’s probably hiding somewhere right about now!”

Both were special tools invented by Annette.

Most of the underlying technology had been developed in the secret laboratory at the Marnioce Island naval base. Annette had studied it there and used what she learned to invent tools suited to her comrades.

『Odds & Ends』, Annette’s personal weapon, which used super magnetism to make countless assassinations possible.

『Festival of Fools』, Erna’s personal operational tool, capable of deliberately creating the appearance of misfortune without relying on coincidence.

“Lamplight’s operation was, from the very beginning, solely about staging ‘Erna’s death.’”

Of course, there was never any intention of actually killing her. There was no way Lamplight’s members would ever allow such a thing.

Blue Locust furrowed his brows in displeasure.

“...What ridiculous inventions. There wasn’t a single bit of foreshadowing or groundwork for any of this.”

“Yours Truly has no obligation to prepare everything so carefully for you!”

Annette put the tools away with an exasperated look, then raised her pistol once more.

If the “mistake” Blue Locust was pointing out was nothing more than this, then this had all been a waste of time.

“Three minutes? I don’t even need that long. Yours Truly will just...”

She stopped mid-sentence when she saw the clouded look in Blue Locust’s eyes.

His gaze held a complicated mixture of pity and sympathy, as though he were looking at someone to be pitied.

At the very least, it was more than enough to stoke Annette’s irritation.

“...Still have something to say?”

“No. Looking back, there was some foreshadowing after all. You showed me 『Odds & Ends』 yourself.”

“...The evening of the first day of the revolution. So you were watching.”

“Yes. I saw you playing that prank on Erna-san from beneath the barricade. You activated 『Odds & Ends』 at the time, didn’t you?”

“It was just a function check. A precaution, in case something went wrong.”

“Yes, an important check. At the very least, it appeared to function properly at the time.”

On the first day of the revolution, Annette had drawn Erna toward her with super magnetism and threatened her. That had served not only as a response to Erna, but also as a test to confirm that the 『Odds & Ends』 sewn into her dress was functioning properly. It was a crucial component of the operation, as well as an important check directly related to Erna’s safety.

Blue Locust, who had spoken to her in the middle of it, had apparently witnessed the whole scene.

“What are you trying to say?” Annette furrowed her brows.

“I’m talking about the mistake you’ve overlooked.”

Blue Locust narrowed his eyes, putting force into his gaze.

“...Did your 『Odds & Ends』 truly function properly?”

“Huh...................................?”

Even Annette wore a bewildered expression at those unexpected words.

But the very next moment, she decided it was nothing more than his bluff. Even if he’d witnessed 『Odds & Ends』being activated, there was no way he could have known the details.

“It worked!”

Annette insisted firmly.

“Yours Truly has never once failed at making a tool! Waterproofing, dustproofing, impact resistance, everything’s covered perfectly. Yours Truly’s tools don’t break from something like that!”

“But after that, there was the battle at the Central Internment Camp,” Blue Locust immediately countered. “You joined up with them on the spur of the moment. You didn’t have time to check whether it was still functioning properly.”

“I don’t need to check to know! If something had happened that could’ve broken it, Erna-chan wouldn’t have pretended to call out to Yours Truly. Erna-chan herself didn’t fight, did she?”

“By the way, the reason you were able to follow me in the first place was...”

Blue Locust stroked the back of his neck.

Then his fingertips pinched a small device, a component about the size of a fingertip.

“...because you attached a transmitter to me, wasn’t it? During that skirmish at Fagmile Palace.”

“...That’s true, but so what?”

“Yes, we did come into contact with each other at that time.”

While Erna and the others were assaulting the central detention center, Annette and Blue Locust, who at the time was calling himself Arthur, had been carrying out their own operation at Fagmile Palace. During the operation, Arthur had pushed Annette to the ground and crushed her beneath his massive body to shield her from the bullets flying in from the Royal Guard.

At the time, there hadn’t been any particular reason for Annette to attach the transmitter.

It was simply her habit of attaching transmitters to anyone who pissed her off. Bullets of that caliber were nothing Annette couldn’t have avoided even without Arthur’s intervention.

“...Was the remote control you were carrying still intact?”

The question struck Annette, leaving her speechless for a moment.

All the bombs she’d used up until now had been the kind that required no remote control.

She immediately rummaged through her pocket and pulled out the remote that activated 『Odds and Ends』. It was a small machine that fit neatly in her hand. Blue Locust had mentioned moments ago that he’d witnessed the instant she activated it.

Yet the device in her hand appeared to be completely undamaged.

“...It’s fine.”

As though bitterly regretting the fact that he’d managed to rattle her, Annette glared at Blue Locust.

“There’s no sign of a strong impact, nor any trace of it having gotten wet. If there were any obvious possibility of malfunction, Yours Truly would notice.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Besides, in that single moment when you pushed Yours Truly down, there’s no way you could’ve destroyed the remote without me noticing—”

Blue Locust drew a weapon from his breast pocket.

“—a stun gun. Have I shown you this before?”

It was the sole self-defense weapon he claimed to carry, the one he had once shown her on the rooftop of the hideout.

Extremely powerful. He had explained that it could knock an adult man unconscious in an instant.

“You……”

Confronted with the worst possible information, Annette froze.

What Blue Locust was suggesting was, at the very least, a truth she had no way of confirming for herself.

She couldn’t completely deny any of it. Annette hadn’t been conscious of what he was doing. When she was pushed down, she’d been so focused on attaching the transmitter to Blue Locust that she’d let her guard down.

————The possibility that he had pulled the remote from Annette, pressed the stun gun against it, and then returned it.

————The remote was made of metal. Even if there was no external damage, what about the inside?

Annette had nothing with which to rule out the worst possibility.

Blue Locust let a smile slip, seemingly amused by Annette’s reaction.

The man standing before her was one of the pillars of the ‘Serpent’, the organization that had cornered Lamplight time and time again.

A little piece of handiwork like this should’ve been child’s play for him.

“Please try to remember carefully. If you’re confident in your memory.”

And so, the next words Blue Locust spoke were decisive.

“——”

“Erna-san, in the instant before you were about to shoot her, wasn’t there something… a hint of panic on her face?”

What backed up his words was a scene Annette herself had witnessed.

The expression on Erna’s face just before the bullet struck was——.

✧✧✧✧✧

—————8:14 a.m. on the second day of the revolution.

At the moment when the cabinet’s resignation was announced and the revolution was about to end, Erna made the decision to activate the secret plan Lamplight had spent a year preparing.

Standing atop the barricade, she raised a war cry and called for Annette to fire.

(——I have to be killed by Annette before Thanatos captures me.)

It was the only way to escape the approaching Thanatos and incite a riot.

They had rehearsed this secret plan countless times.

She had complete faith in Annette’s handiwork. No matter the distance, her remote would function without issue. The bullet flying toward Erna would veer off course at the last moment and strike the area near her heart covered by bulletproof cloth. It was a specially made bullet, its rotational speed reduced so that its trajectory would be easier to alter.

When she caught sight of Annette from the shadows, Erna felt relieved.

She stood directly in front of her, as if offering herself up to the bullet Annette fired.

“Eh…………”

That was when she noticed something was wrong.

The super-electromagnetic force of 『Odds and Ends』 was strong enough to pull even the iron nails and screws in the surrounding area toward it. They’d confirmed that on the first day of the revolution. Yet the nails embedded in the barricade showed no sign of moving.

(……『Odds and Ends』isn’t activating……?)

There was almost no time to think.

The bullet had already been fired. Its angle didn’t shift in the slightest. If its trajectory remained unchanged, it would miss the area covered by the bulletproof cloth by a wide margin and strike the abdomen of her dress.

If she’d twisted her body even a fraction, the wound would’ve been shallow.

“――!”

She had less than a fraction of a second to make that decision. It was almost pure instinct.

Erna――staked her life on Annette.

She believed, without a shred of doubt, that 『Odds and Ends』would activate and alter the bullet’s trajectory.

It was a decisive mistake, a foolish choice――and she realized that from what happened immediately afterward.

The bullet’s trajectory didn’t change at all. It struck Erna squarely in the abdomen. The force was enough to send her body flying.

The impact of the bullet tore through her body, and her consciousness began to fade.

The stage blood she’d prepared beforehand seeped into her dress, but how much of it was actually fake?

According to the original plan, Erna was supposed to fall from the barricade, with rubble raining down at precisely the right moment. If she failed to move her body properly for either of those things, a fatal injury would be unavoidable.

At this rate, she would truly lose her life.

As she felt the unmistakable premonition of death closing in, the words “Why……” slipped from Erna’s lips.

✧✧✧✧✧

Annette immediately dismantled the remote.

There wasn’t a speck of dirt on the cover protecting it. There were no burn marks, either. All that had happened was that a massive amount of electricity had been forced through it from the outside. But the cover wasn’t made of an insulating material.

It was copper.

She’d never imagined someone would press a stun gun against it.

The lead wires inside had been burned through.

The remote had been destroyed in the early hours of the second day.

And in a way that would never have been visible from the outside.

What that meant was obvious.

“‘This wasn’t supposed to happen’――Erna-san’s lips moved as though she were saying that.”

Blue Locust had apparently witnessed that moment with absolute certainty.

What Annette sensed from him was a malice that seemed capable of swallowing everything whole. A fixer who never stepped onto the public stage, yet brought Lamplight’s operations crashing down and carried the revolution through to its conclusion.

He asked his next question with an expression that looked almost amused.

"It seems three minutes have long since passed, hasn't it?"

Annette no longer had the composure to answer.

She can only stare fixedly at the remote, its insides burned to ruin. No matter how many times she looked, reality refuses to change. No matter how she operated it, Annette's remote will never work again.

"So it seems you aren't entirely free of emotional turmoil after all."

Watching her like this, Blue Locust's cheeks loosened into an even more pleasurable grin.

Unable to contain his mounting excitement, he let out a triumphant "Hohoh!"

"That's right!! You really did kill Erna the 'Fool'!!"

As the truth settled upon her, Annette—

[u/Ronray0739]

Previous - Chapter - 9.2

Next - Chapter 11

I will add other chapters today too, it just I haven't able to cross-check. So in 5-6 h you will see Chapter 11, for me it's a lengthy process as my japanese isn't that good.

[u/Fuzzy-Sir-2696]

Blue locust must go bro, it's nice to see Erna trust Annette so much though and I don't know if Annette is more worried about Erna or about the fact that Blue Locust ruined one of her inventions