Right Arm of the Saint (14 page)

“Ah…”

Yukina inhaled slightly. She shook her head, seemingly mildly confused.

“B-but if that’s so, where are they now?”

“Yeah… Hmm, maybe a foreign branch company?”

As he tried to think of where Eustach could walk in broad daylight without anyone being suspicious, he said the first thing he could think of.

“What?”

“I mean, just ’cause he’s an Armed Apostle doesn’t mean he can’t be somewhere other than a church. In the first place, we don’t know that the old man’s an actual Armed Apostle. He might just have claimed to be one.”

“I—I see…”

A perplexed expression came over Yukina as she politely conceded the point.

No matter how great her combat capability, she was still an inexperienced, apprentice Attack Mage. Having such a frank personality to begin with, she might well have been particularly vulnerable to maliciously spread misinformation.

“Having said that, I don’t think he can really hide with looks like that. I think he’s gotta have some kind of trick. The easiest place for a Lotharingian to avoid suspicion is in the middle of other Lotharingians, so somewhere like a Lotharingian embassy… Well, there probably isn’t one in the city, though.”

“So a branch company headquartered in Lotharingia…or such?”

“Right, right. That’s what I mean.”

Kojou nodded without a conscience. He did feel like it made sense, but the idea lacked even one shred of evidence supporting it. If anybody asked, he wasn’t confident enough to say he was absolutely sure.

But Yukina had a serious expression as she thought about something.

“Senpai…I’m impressed.”

“Eh?”

“I’m quite surprised. To think that even you are capable of logical thought like this, Senpai.”

She looked up at Kojou with sparkles in her eyes. Without thinking, Kojou averted his face from her radiant gaze.

“Is—is that so… Kind of doesn’t feel like much of a compliment, but…”

“However, if it is a branch company inside Itogami City headquartered elsewhere, how should we investigate, I wonder?” Yukina spoke as she immediately snapped back to a serious expression.

“Yeah, that has me stumped, too… The Gigafloat Management Corp must have data on all the corps, but they won’t hand that out to just anyone, after all…”

“Wait,” Kojou muttered as he remembered something. “The Gigafloat Management Corp, huh?”

From the back of Kojou’s mind emerged the face of a very familiar classmate.

It was just before the end of lunch break. Kojou, his breath ragged as he returned to the classroom, rushed over to Asagi’s seat.

Ever since the incident that morning, Asagi had clearly been in a foul mood for some reason, but noticing that Kojou seemed serious for once, she reluctantly raised her face. Apparently they were at least on speaking terms. And then…

“—Lotharingian-based corporations? Why do you want to know about that?”

When Asagi finished listening to Kojou laying out the bare essentials, she asked back rather dubiously.

“Er, that’s… It’s not a really big deal, but…”

Kojou hemmed and hawed rather than saying,
I’m looking for a guy indiscriminately hunting demons.
Asagi glared with annoyance at Kojou’s halfhearted posture.

“This isn’t…something that Himeragi girl put you up to, is it?”

“Wha? No, that’d be ridiculous. No, no.”

“…”

“It’s really not that! Right, I’m doing personal research on Lotharingia for summer break homework.”

“Ah? Personal research?”

Is there such a thing?
Asagi wondered, tilting her head, but it was a fact
that Kojou, serial skipper, had a huge pile of extra homework dumped on him. As if giving up on pressing the point further, Asagi fished out her smartphone and started it up with a sigh.

“I guess I have to. Yes. Yes, I’ll look it up.”

“Oh, thanks a ton, Asagi.”

“You’re gonna have to show your gratitude. Lotharingian corporations, huh? …There are none. Not on the island.” Tapping the keyboard like a first-class pianist, Asagi easily extracted the confidential information. Her answer threw Kojou off.

“None? Not even one?”

“There’s a bunch of companies that do business with Lotharingian corporations under subcontracting agreements, but all the workers are Japanese. I mean, there’s no reason for European corporations to have branches on Itogami Island in the first place. They have Demon Sanctuaries over there, too, and with the yen’s value being high lately, wouldn’t most have pulled out?”

“…Pulled out?”

A light went off in the back of Kojou’s mind. Eustach was lying low; he didn’t need a corporation that was actually in business. The opposite was no doubt all the better.

“I see… Asagi, can you look into ones that pulled out, ones that have shut-down offices still here?”

“Hmm, I feel like if it’s within five years in the past, there should still be records, but…”

Asagi operated her keyboard once more. This time there was a short wait. It apparently took time to squeeze the data out. Finally the screen switched, with detailed data now filling it.

“Here we are. There’s just one, though: the Sfelde Pharmaceutical Lab. The head office is in Lotharingia. It was mainly researching new, experimental drugs used for homunculi. Two years ago the lab was closed; looks as if the building’s been seized by creditors.”

“…That’s it, Asagi! Where is it?”

Kojou leaned over to peek at the screen of the smartphone. Asagi blushed a little at Kojou’s innocently getting so close, they were practically touching.

“Err, Island North, second level, section B. It’s a corporate lab district.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

As Kojou spoke, he turned his back on Asagi all of a sudden like he was brushing her off.

“H-hold on, Kojou. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Something just came up. I’m headin’ out!”

“Huh?! What are you talking about? What about afternoon classes?!”

“Make a good excuse for me. Please!”

Kojou made a pose like a pleading bow, leaving behind only those words as he really did leave the classroom this time. Realizing that Yukina was waiting for Kojou in the hallway, Asagi kicked her chair back as she rose up.

“H-hey you…! What the hell is this?! I’m really going to kill you! You jerk—!”

As Asagi yelled in the direction of the corridor, her fearful classmates hurriedly averted their eyes.
So that is how it is
, Yaze’s face seemed to say, having watched the whole thing from start to finish.

And, without anyone noticing, Rin Tsukishima, the class representative, gave a gentle sigh.

Island North—Itogami Island’s northern R&D district, with corporate labs lined up one after another. The abandoned laboratory site remained standing here, in a corner of the futuristic district that felt the most artificial of the entire man-made island.

It was a four-story building largely shaped like a box.

It had no windows, perhaps to protect trade secrets. For that reason, it didn’t really feel like the place had been shut down. It was an ideal environment for a criminal hideout.

“So that is the pharmaceutical company laboratory?”

Peeking out from behind the shadow of a roadside tree, Yukina asked with a guarded expression, “Probably,” said Kojou with an uncertain nod.

“The parent company pulled out, and the lab was apparently close. But since the word is that the place was seized, I think the facilities in it are still intact. The one for homunculus adjustment included.”

“A homunculus adjustment facility… That’s just what they’d need, isn’t it?” Yukina murmured with a serious expression.

Homunculus
was a title given to an artificial life-form constructed via biotechnology.

Though completely artificially designed down to the genetic level, there were fundamental differences between them and chimera.

The technological difficulty was higher, but the level of freedom in design was larger as well.

The first methods for producing homunculi were supposedly established by the sixteenth century. Research had long continued at the hands of a wide variety of people, either to produce a cheap labor force or to develop a partner for mankind.

However, in the end, widespread use of homunculi never happened.

There were two rather large reasons people cited for that.

The first was the ethical problem.

There was deep-seated opposition centered on religious institutions against creating life, viewing such behavior as humans intruding upon the realm of the divine. Furthermore, a fierce debate raged as to whether homunculi should be granted human rights; the debate remained unsettled to this day.

And the other reason was a simple matter of construction cost.

The methods for producing homunculi simply cost too much to use them for labor or sending them onto the battlefield as soldiers. Cloning technology, etc., using genuine human beings, was decisively cheaper.

For that reason, homunculi production was now rarely undertaken, and the number of scientists researching it had greatly dwindled.

However, even now, there was one exception: a field that incorporated homunculus research. That was using homunculus technology in the development of pharmaceuticals. Homunculi, whose genetic construction could be artificially altered, were optimal for clinical trials and researching immune responses and so on; criticism had been blunted to a degree because it was for the just cause of the advancement of medicine. For that reason, most large pharmaceutical firms had their own facilities for the construction and research of homunculi.

The Sfelde Pharmaceutical Laboratory had apparently once been one such medical research facility.

“—We’ll never be able to tell what’s inside from here, will we…”

As Yukina spoke, she lowered the guitar case from her back. She gently withdrew the silver spear, deploying the blades of the spear tip.

“I’ll go look. Please wait right here, Senpai.”

“Eh? Hold on, Himeragi. You don’t plan on going in there alone?”

“Yes. I intend to do just that.”

Of course I do
, Yukina’s gaze seemed to say as she looked up at Kojou.

“Why?!”

Oh dear.
As Kojou’s eyes widened in surprise, Yukina made a loud sigh and shook her head.

“And what will you do if you come with me, Senpai? You’d only be in the way, so please behave.”

“Er, in the way…? What if you bump into the old man and the girl inside? You gonna fight them alone, Himeragi?”

“Of course. And what would you intend to do if you came with me, Senpai?”

“Stop talkin’ like I’m thinking of doing something dirty. Geez.”

Kojou spoke with a tone of displeasure. However, unlike Yukina, who had a considerable amount of training as a Counter-Demon Attack Mage, Kojou was only a rank amateur who’d obtained vampire powers. Even if he was called the Fourth Primogenitor, he wasn’t even able to control a single Beast Vassal as he pleased. Given that, he couldn’t help being called “in the way.”

“And what could you do as a vampire in the first place, Senpai? You cannot use a Beast Vassal; you cannot fly through the sky; you cannot even turn into mist or the like.”

“H-hey, only a few vampires have special powers like that. It’s not like I can’t do anything.”

“Certainly your raw strength is considerable, but you cannot use it in actual combat with moves like an amateur. Also, you lack caution and presence of mind.”

“U…gh…”

“If you truly understand, then please behave. Do not do anything rash.”

Yukina spoke with a tone like she was brushing him off.

What she’d said was pretty harsh, but she was in no way being deliberately malicious. To her, she was just pointing out the obvious so that Kojou would not place himself in danger.

“But I’ll be worried about you, Himeragi!”

Kojou spoke in a rough, nervous tone.

Those words made Yukina’s eyes go wide. Her cheeks reddened a little.

“Wh-what are you saying…?! I’m the one worried about you, Senpai! If your Beast Vassal runs wild like last night in the middle of the city like this, how much damage do you think will occur then?”

“You do have a point there, but it’s not right for everything to fall on just your shoulders, Himeragi! I don’t like that one bit. In the first place, it’s not like I’ve got nothin’ to do with this whole thing.”

Kojou watched Yukina with a serious look. That vigor awed Yukina into silence.

“I… I understand. I do think you have a point there, Senpai.”

Ahem.
With a small clearing of her throat, Yukina made a serious expression. “Well, yeah,” said Kojou as he nodded.

“So long as it is possible you will be hunted as a vampire, you certainly have something to do with this, Senpai.”

“Wait, you think
that’s
the point I have?”

“In the first place, my original mission is to watch over you; I really should not take my eyes off you, Senpai. Let’s act together as much as we can. However, if we encounter the Armed Apostle—”

“Yeah. I’ll run to safer ground right away. I don’t wanna get in your way, Himeragi.”

“Good. Please do.”

After sighing those words, Yukina went silent as she looked up at Kojou. After a bit of hesitation, she spoke in a voice so faint as to barely be audible.

“Um, Senpai…”

“Mm?”

“Thank you very much.”

“Eh? What for?”

Kojou asked back with a dubious face. However, Yukina gently smiled and shook her head.

“No. It is nothing at all. Let us be off.”

Whoosh.
Swinging her spear, seemingly severing all doubt with it, she walked toward the building.

It went without saying, but the shut-down lab building was locked. Of course that went for the glass doors of the front entrance, but the service entrance was also sealed with a padlock and chains.

The cheap padlock was red with rust, indicating it hadn’t been used in a long time.

“Isn’t this the place the old man and the girl are hiding…?”

Kojou spoke in a discouraged tone.

From what they could see, this was the only way into the building. It wasn’t the kind of building you could access from the roof or from underground, either. Even the homunculus girl couldn’t have made it in through the vents, let alone Eustach, with his huge frame.