The Outer God Needs Warmth

Now, nothing blocks Victoria’s path.

Victoria crosses the city. I wonder why she’s headed towards the city center; perhaps she’s aiming for the eastern part of the city.

The address on the letter was in the eastern part. Referring to the memories of the Harvesting Period, the eastern part is where the middle class, working class, and the poor live, among four social strata.

High-density buildings stand everywhere, and there are commercial buildings on every major road. It seems they standardized the architecture during modernization, as the buildings follow a set shape along a chaotic road.

It appears they built buildings without planning the roads first.

However, the direction is consistently extending in one way.

To the east, where the river flows upstream.

While flowing westward, the enormous river is expanding the city chaotically.

To explain the geography simply, based on the site of what was once the Bern City’s city hall; to the north flows a river.

The west is the old city center, which has now become a slum for the poor and working class. The south is where the middle class and above used to live, or rather, still live.

Victoria hails from the south.

Beatrice is a branch manager of a fairly large corporation in Bern City, and Morris was a researcher at Gun and Lupu Company, a big corporation, until he resigned.

Anyway.

Lastly, the east is a residential area that expanded when people, drawn to the lights of Bern City, settled after finding jobs. And it’s said that Morris and Beatrice moved there.

It seems that Victoria is heading in that direction.

While I share what Victoria sees and feels, it’s a bit frustrating that I have no idea what she’s thinking.

Meanwhile, during the Harvesting Period in Bern City.

As soon as Victoria vanished from their sight, those holding power began to grumble.

They spat things like, “She’s a witch pretending to be a good girl,” “A trashy human—surely the royal family knows,” and “Everything the media says is fake.”

Desperately trying to dust off the dirt on their faces, they rambled incoherently, fearing for their own safety if they couldn’t tear down Victoria somehow.

The square quickly became filled with curses.

Then it happened.

Geeek

With the sound of steel distorting, people’s gazes shot upward.

The lightning rod towering skyward made contact with the sea above, creating a ripping sound. Unlike Nantes, where the sea had receded to below the ceiling of one-story buildings, this sea was at a considerable height. But something tower-like, like a lightning rod, was touching the sea.

At that moment, the heartbeats of the Harvesting Period rang out loudly, and it was quite hilarious.

It’s a total disaster. Especially since Victoria didn’t mean for this to happen.

However, the fear that was created didn’t last long. As if to forget the fright, they began shouting even harsher words. Just like a frightened dog barking louder.

The denunciations morphed into calls to eliminate the issue. It turned into a narrative that Victoria was the source of the current chaos.

Indeed, it’s fascinating how quickly the narrative twisted when someone with malicious intent incited the crowd. The Harvesting Period turned their sights on that person, gathering everyone’s suspense. Not in a rush at all, just casually walking around adding a word here and there.

If the Harvesting Period didn’t concentrate hard, they couldn’t even catch what he was saying; it wasn’t loud.

Like a plague, where all that followed his path echoed his words back.

Could it be that there’s a kind of brainwashing magic involved?

No.

Not at all. You still can’t use magic in Bern City. Some Harvesters stand where power devices are stored.

Listening to their chatter, it seems that once a certain amount of proper magic power is collected, the only remaining altered magic would cause erratic operations until they stop, adjusting the machines to halt.

Right.

Among the Harvesters, there were many who could handle Mechanical Puppets, like Morris.

Half of those capable of teaching at laboratories were already dead, yet these machines continue to function well.

All those who questioned and pointed out what was wrong with the Mechanical Puppets were assassinated.

Protests intensified, and as some residents of Bern City began to flee the city, it finally came to a stop.

I never knew why until now.

At that time, Marquis Gaston had snuck away from the knowledgeable individual branded as the instigator of the protests and aimed to push the protestors into the city, trying to wipe them all out.

If there had been a space where magic couldn’t be used, and no one capable of psychic abilities within that space, Gaston would have succeeded.

Even if magic could be used, Gaston’s army is strong. Armed with mechanical gear, they would’ve successfully subdued everyone.

But it failed due to the Harvesting Period being the root cause. So, when they were threatened that the corporation wouldn’t pay them if things continued like this, he hastily set up a command post in Nantes and launched a full-scale attack on the city.

Thus, people were trapped like jars in Bern City, one by one deteriorating.

Ah.

I see.

I learned why the individuals presumed to be from the corporation turned the Purple Twilight Society aggressively. And I understood that their plan had practically succeeded.

It’s treason.

No fool would be unaware of what treason means in a monarchy.

Even if Gaston fails, he made it clear why they must search for and eliminate survivors to ensure that no one from Bern City can set foot in this nation.

Whatever the traitor says will simply be drowned out.

They will probably try to leave no trace of their words.

Smart move. Yet, as it’s a fundamental flaw, it will happening in other cities sooner or later.

I don’t get why they’d go this far to prevent it.

Or they might not have such grand thoughts at all.

People act surprisingly foolish when intoxicated with power. Just looking at faded memories, you can tell that someone who was a president of a major country would say something inappropriate for their position, or a massive corporation’s CEO would throw a tantrum on social media.

Society is built to survive against those who can strike back.

Once no one can strike back, that society crumbles naturally.

Because it becomes unnecessary. Thinking requires a lot of calories. In other words, it’s a painful act. And the human body dislikes actions that expend a lot of calories. For instance, if you don’t exercise for a bit, muscles disappear rapidly.

Thinking is similar.

It’s much easier to act freely rather than restraining oneself while weighing various factors. Not in terms of right or wrong, but in terms of calorie expenditure.

Ordinary people are sanctioned through violence when they do that, but if you stand atop that violence, there’s no reason to change. Without the threat to life, there’s no need to think.

Logically it seems strange, but biologically, it makes sense.

Do you understand what this means?

It means that I was right.

If given power, people will readily kill others. Victoria and various Harvesters are showing me this.

In the future, when creating Harvesters, I think it would be better to push people into more extreme situations to manifest psychic abilities.

Hehe.

As I was crafting future plans, the dawn began to break in the distance.

As the sun rose, the Harvesters scurried back into the buildings like bugs in a house. A massive rock or metal projectile was hurtling toward them from afar.

By the way, there’s no gunpowder in those metal projectiles; they are solid metal. Even if magic is strangely altered, physical laws like inertia still apply, so they are shooting stones or metals from a distance.

Compared to bombs, they are less destructive, but objects immensely accelerated using magic have the power to slowly chip away at the city.

Thus, soldiers entered after exterminating everyone, surrounding the area outside the zone where magic could be used, and bombarded away.

However, no magic is flying today.

Perhaps someone who survived in Nantes, where Marquis Gaston’s command post was, made contact. While plenty of warmth emerged in Nantes, it didn’t mean everyone was slaughtered.

The lucky surviving Harvesters are unaware that what transpired there was the result of human actions. Listening to the tales from those who survived via the Harvesters’ perspective, nothing is mentioned about Victoria’s involvement.

Along with the fact that orders were given to shoot the protesters, a rumor emerged that the sea gods rained down divine punishment on the fury of the sea.

The sea descended from the sky.

No one mentions that it was human involvement.

Most of the protesters and soldiers either evaporated or fainted from bombardment, and whatever followed is a mystery to them.

Or perhaps they knew but chose not to speak.

“Hmm, is it already morning? How long until school starts, yawn?”

Polaris’s gaze rose from the bed. Stretching, it was dawn, so there was quite some time left until school, but she woke up early, huh?

I also stirred myself awake.

“It’s morning.”

“Who? Oh? Bell? What’s this blanket? I wasn’t using this… Ah.”

As if fully awake now, she looked around the room with a dazed expression.

“This place is…”

“It’s Victoria’s house. This is the guest room.”

“Oh, right.”

From the luggage remaining inside, it seems she hasn’t fully moved in. Most of the stuff from Victoria’s family is still left.

Morris and Beatrice must have sent letters after taking refuge in the east.

So there’s been no news about where they currently are.

As Victoria checks the address, she’s gradually heading toward the address she’s been sending letters to, so I suppose she’ll be able to verify that side as well.

I got up from my spot, pulled back the blanket, quickly tidied up, and took the still-dazed Polaris to the bathroom.

Although no water came out, I lightly manipulated reality to produce water, quickly washing her up before heading downstairs to the kitchen.

Ah, right. There were no ingredients.

“The infrastructure is still alive…”

Polaris, trailing behind me, muttered. It’s not alive; I just manipulated reality. Unlike in the second world, it twisted easily here.

Back there, water would crack when summoned, but here it doesn’t occur. I can’t tell if it’s just the difference in worlds, if it’s because of the original nature of this place allowing water to flow, or if I’ve improved my abilities.

But if it works well, then yay!

So I sat Polaris at the table, took warm bread from a heating device resembling a microwave, and pulled out fruit juice from the fridge.

Initially, I aimed for milk, but it was unexpectedly solid, so I opted for fruit juice, and that worked out.

I placed it on the table.

“Is this all?”

“Seems like it.”

“Well, at least there’s bread and juice.”

As Polaris tore off a piece of bread and put it in her mouth, she suddenly stopped talking, her face turning pale. Huh? According to Polaris’ senses, she didn’t choke at all?

“Yesterday, this place was all raided… Hmm. Right. I should be grateful for this.”

With a face that seemed to close her eyes to something terrifying, Polaris quietly continued her meal. I also had a light bite to eat while gazing outside through Victoria’s perspective.

Right now, Victoria is contemplating how to breach the blockade created by the army.

After finishing my meal, I’ll have to head over in that direction.

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