While walking around the city holding Victoria's hand, we saw a large restaurant and went inside.
Sitting in a rather secluded spot, I fed her meat and sweets, and the child seemed to cheer up a bit as if she had calmed down.
"What will happen to our dad..."
"At least he's a good father. Although his sanity has weakened from being ground down at the company for days and nights, at least he didn't move to cross the line and succeed."
He didn't come home for a week after going in, was suffering from performance pressure, and was immediately fired after going home to sleep for just one day.
I understand.
Yum.
Unlike the sweet and greasy cake we ate on the ship last time, here there's a clean cake. It has fruit and whipped cream, but the amount is just right to eat, so it's delicious.
This kind of thing is tasty.
"Earlier, you two had a conversation that only you knew about."
Now that sugar has reached her brain and she can think, Victoria opened her mouth while staring at me.
"Are you saying dad could have succeeded if he crossed the line? What on earth is that?"
It's a question meaning "Don't talk about things only you know, explain properly."
"There were at least two at that moment."
So I decided to tell her about both possibilities.
"Two?"
"One. Putting your ability on the test bench. Special abilities are good for research. Especially if it's a quite powerful ability. It's a way to sell me off while he's at it."
Hearing my words, Victoria quietly bowed her head.
She understood immediately. That if he just gave up one child, he could have done various things in the future.
Moreover, Victoria is Morris's daughter. If a father says he wants to experiment on his daughter, it's likely he would easily get priority.
"I knew there was such a path. Then what's the other one?"
"Do you remember the technology that absorbs magic power from the air and converts it into rotational motion among the things Morris was explaining?"
"The one that's not usable because the efficiency is low? Why that?"
I lifted my fork and pointed at the last piece of cake.
"This is a person. This fork is just the order of that machine slightly changed."
Stab.
I stabbed the cake and lifted it.
"As long as this cake exists, it creates power that's efficient enough to satisfy them at least."
Aside from the fact that it grinds people and uses them as fuel, it's a not-so-bad method of power generation.
They say it was technology that existed in the Great Kraken's world too. It disappeared in a flash because the efficiency was too low compared to the method that grinds even souls.
"You're a monster."
Victoria looks at me with a deflated expression.
As I ate, my stomach became full, so I put down the fork. And as I was watching Victoria eat, suddenly there was a loud bang from outside.
When I turned around, beyond the store's glass window, in the distant intersection, several cars were tangled up. And seeing smoke rising above them, it seems there was a traffic accident.
"Huh? What's that? An accident?"
Not just Victoria, but all the people eating in this store stood up. And they approach the window while murmuring.
Watching is fun.
Victoria wants to see too, but she seems to think the cake in front of her is too precious, so she sits in her seat and quickly shoves it into her mouth.
If you're going to do that, why not take it with you and eat?
Just as I was thinking that.
Crash!
Thud!
A huge object broke through the window and rushed inside, and it happened to pounce on the people gathered by the window. Since people were packed on the only side of this building facing outward, it was natural for people to die from objects entering from outside.
Fragments and chunks of meat scattered in all directions, and the store was instantly soaked with blood and fragments of bodies.
Something that hit people.
It was a taxi. An unmanned machine in the form of a centaur with its legs replaced by wheels. The front is all wrecked, and a thick red liquid is flowing out through the door cracks, suggesting someone might have been riding inside.
The interesting thing is that the wheels of the broken machine are still rotating at a ferocious speed.
At that moment, I heard swearing from behind.
It's a familiar voice.
Victoria spat out some thick curses, went to where people were hit to check for survivors, and after confirming there were no survivors, she approached this way.
"What the hell. Why is it still operating in this state? The interpretation organ seems to have stopped already."
Suddenly Victoria cut off her words and threw a water bottle from a nearby table over there. Crash! As the bottle broke, a membrane of water was sucked into the middle of the mechanical device.
And a little later.
Screech.
A bright red lump shot out along with the water. According to Victoria's memory, it's a device that converts atmospheric magic power into motive power.
However, it's not Morris's invention. What goes in and comes out is similar to Morris's invention earlier, but it's a machine that uses a different principle.
If I had to describe the difference, it's like the difference between a steam locomotive and a diesel train. Morris's invention is more like the diesel engine.
Anyway. That thing immediately evaporated all the water surrounding it.
Thud.
It was so hot that as soon as it was thrown onto the wooden floor, the wood caught fire.
So Victoria asked the store owner, who couldn't come to his senses due to the horrific scene in front of him, to turn on all the water taps, then controlled the water and poured it for a long time.
The surroundings became soaking wet, and only when the corpses around were pushed outside did it barely lose heat and become a lump of machinery.
For reference, the wheels that were spinning even though they were embedded in the wall started losing power from the moment the device was removed, and now they're almost at a stop.
"Why did excessive heat generation occur? Wasn't this a phenomenon that only happens when magic power becomes suffocating?"
Victoria mutters while disassembling the machine, bringing something like a poker from the store. Every time she breaks it, white smoke rises, but the membrane of water in front of her blocks it all.
She handles it freely like her body.
While Victoria was examining the machine, I went outside.
The city is in chaos. Not just the intersection that was visible from afar earlier, but black smoke is rising from everywhere my gaze touches.
It's not targeting somewhere specific.
Accidents have occurred in most parts of the city called Bern City.
It wasn't just Cogni Transport Company's taxis that had problems. Most vehicles seem to have suddenly accelerated, as everywhere my gaze touches is full of vehicles crashed into buildings or other vehicles.
Perhaps not just vehicles, but devices using the same mechanism are likely to have broken down.
Looking around from the perspective of the five people working in the outskirts of Bern City, no accidents are noticeable.
They're just working at construction sites. Since there are no tall buildings in that area, the eyes of those working on scaffolding can see very far, and only faint smoke rising from the center of Bern City is visible.
In other words, this phenomenon is only occurring within this city.
"What is this?"
Victoria, who had disassembled and examined the machine, came to my side and opened her mouth. It doesn't seem like she asked expecting an answer.
"Dad... Let's go see Dad, Belle."
It's a childlike reaction. Where did that appearance of slaughtering Sahaggin that day go?
Victoria gritted her teeth and started walking towards the company we left this morning. But she stopped walking before even seeing the company building.
Because she met Morris running towards us.
"Victoria!"
"Dad!"
The father and daughter hugged each other. It was an emotional reunion.
"Child. Let's go to Bee first."
Bee is Beatrice's nickname. Immediately taking care of his wife shows he's an excellent husband.
Thinking that, I follow the two people crossing the street.
Walking through the city in the midst of disaster, mixed with the sound of explosions, things burning, people screaming, and crying.
Among the screams of the confused city people, there are also people crying out that magic isn't coming out.
If you raise your gaze just a little from the ground, you can now see buildings on fire. And it's not just one or two, but many buildings are burning.
It's not just that the fire from vehicles has risen up, as you can see only the higher floors burning.
The device Victoria took out earlier is used not only in vehicles but also in buildings. If this happened due to environmental problems, fires would break out everywhere.
Given the personalities of the two people in front, they would normally be discussing the current incident, but they're walking forward silently, holding hands tightly.
That means they're that tense.
And their desperate wish was finally answered.
Beatrice was there, shouting loudly at people who looked like her subordinates to bring people out first from between the burning buildings.
Victoria immediately ran and hugged Beatrice.
Beatrice was surprised to see Victoria, then smiled seeing Morris behind her. She seems to have felt better seeing they're safe.
"I'm glad you're safe too."
Beatrice approached me and examined my body here and there. This body is incomparably tougher than the previous one, so there's no need to look like that.
Beatrice asked me while gesturing around with her eyes.
"Do you know what this is about?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know either. What on earth is happening..."
Beatrice sighed.
Surprisingly, she's not suspecting me. Has she let her guard down after living together for just a week? This person. At first, she was extremely wary, but the speed at which she lowered her guard was strangely fast.
I was comfortable with it, though.
Beatrice took me to where Morris and Victoria were, then said to Morris:
"Morris. Take Tori home right now."
"No, Bee. Not that way. We need to get out of the city."
But Morris shook his head. And looking around, he opened his mouth.
"The air-sucking rotator is malfunctioning due to residual magic power, so... Excluding technical terms, the city is full of bombs about to explode, and the usable magic power has drastically decreased. It's safer to go outside where magic can be used."
As expected of a technician, Morris, who had at least judged what was happening here, explained with a calm expression. It was interesting how he changed to an easy-to-understand explanation midway through, seeing Beatrice's expression looking at him as if asking what on earth he was saying.
Anyway.
Beatrice nodded and immediately went among the people, shouting to take people and head to some area right away.
Meanwhile, Victoria was looking up.
Up.
High up on the building. A child who came out to the window to escape the fire is hanging outside the railing. But the fire was already heating up the railing.
Victoria's gaze was watching the child fall. And Victoria waved her hand. A mass of water appeared as the atmosphere dried up rapidly and safely caught the child falling to the ground.
Victoria looked down at her hand and stepped forward.
"Tori?"
Before Morris could grab Victoria, she slipped out of his hand and ran towards the place where the fire was occurring. And streams of water gushed up from the sewers, going ahead of her and extinguishing the fire.
As always with people who help others.
Because they can, they do what they can do.
Without particularly mustering courage, without being prepared to die, without any noble thoughts like intending to do good deeds in their head.
In a space where no special power remains, a person who can use special power moved without thinking to save people.