A man with thick black hair swept back, beneath which are deep-set features and a strong jawline, broad shoulders, and strength incomparable to an ordinary person.
Not just in appearance, but actually a soldier with experience of fighting and winning several times on the front lines where wild monsters attack.
Marquis Gaston.
Gaston, who used to hold several swords and hunt monsters by slashing them, felt he had no chance of defeating the girl before him.
Whatever it was, a terrifying sea rippled on the ceiling that would drag anything up the moment it touched, shrinking it to a point before bursting and disappearing.
Just now, it came down in a rectangular column shape as if cutting a cake, and engulfed the guard standing next to him.
Despite wearing armor strong enough to withstand strikes from most monsters, pieces of meat and iron mixed together floated buoyantly in the water.
How could one win against this?
Gaston was standing within a distance where he could strike within 3 seconds if he lunged now, but he didn't have the courage to try.
With the laws of this world gone who knows where, and a rectangular column from the ceiling rippling, could he win even if he circulated magic power through his body and lunged?
No, to begin with.
Is it really a human using the ability to cover the sky with water?
Although he still had a considerable number of troops from his marquisate that he could mobilize, even if he combined them all, the possibility of defeating this was remote.
So Gaston decided to coolly sell out his opponent to survive here.
"Pride Industry, Rocketmobile Company, Gun & Le Fou Company. These three companies said they would give me a million gold if I could make a minor incident that happened in Bern City disappear. So if you ask for the reason, I can only say it's because I made a deal with them."
Gaston, who had been speaking confidently, immediately lowered his tail and prostrated himself on the floor when Victoria's gaze sharpened.
Pride Industry. Starting as a company that makes mainframes for clockwork machines, it has absorbed related heavy industries and become a global corporation with worldwide influence.
Rocketmobile Company. A global corporation with various subsidiaries using clockwork machines, including Cogni Transport Company. It's essentially one body with Pride Industry, as Rocketmobile Company delivers products made by Pride Industry to customers.
G&L Company. A company in charge of programming for clockwork machines, not only software but also producing dedicated hardware, making it a monopoly in places using smart clockwork machines. Of course, they maintain their monopoly by making it so that the software doesn't work without using their hardware, and vice versa.
Corporate ethics haven't developed yet. Therefore, it's an era where people think that corporations might have become stronger than nations, grasping enormous capital through monopolies and oligopolies.
In reality, even if the king ordered an investigation, they would bribe the noble in charge of overseeing it and lead it in the direction they wanted.
And Victoria knows these three companies.
Because Victoria is studying to become a Clockwork Knight. Since combining those three practically encompasses the entire clockwork machine industry, it would be strange not to know them.
The incident of clockwork machines running amok in Bern City.
Victoria, who had experienced it, thought like this.
The three companies are trying to bury a harmful incident, but the person executing it is right in front of her. Therefore, dealing with the person in front of her would end everything.
No matter what anyone tries to do behind the scenes, right now the group with the most power in Bern City is Marquis Gaston.
Victoria, who was detailed about machines but didn't know much about politics or conspiracies, judged too hastily.
But there's no one here to point that out.
"Oh? You, I thought I'd seen you somewhere, Victoria. Victoria Bete, right? A child living in my city. Ah, I see. Hey. You have family inside, don't you? If you're worried about that, I'll lend you my power. Look. I'm the master of Bern City, right? So please remove this water."
So the moment she thought that if she arrested this person and reported his crimes to the royal family or the press, everything would be over, Gaston made a fatal mistake.
He recognized Victoria. Since the royal family had promoted harvesters so much, it's not strange for Gaston to recognize Victoria. Rather, he couldn't help but recognize her.
But it was a mistake to speak in a carelessly condescending tone after recognizing who she was.
If he speaks like that now.
"No."
Gaston's words were cowardly, but Victoria took them as a threat.
The price for his verbal mistake was high.
A water column pressed down on the three people here, including Gaston.
Not just one person, but an area as wide as the room sank into the ground, and the three disappeared without even being able to scream, leaving only small lumps behind.
Victoria rose up through the water as she was. To Victoria, who could control water, the water in this place was like her own body.
It would be easy to understand if we call it Full Armor Victoria.
And in that state, she moved towards Bern City.
The sea that had flowed out in reverse slowly disappears from the sky like an ebbing tide.
Those who had been trapped between the ground and the water surface, resigned to death, sighed in relief as they watched the sea drain away to the southeast.
Sitting on the debris left after the tsunami passed, they realize the nightmarish night has ended as they look at the stars and moon rising in the sky.
For those who survived, this was neither a protest nor a natural disaster.
A ghost story.
No matter how you look at it, this wasn't a reality that people should experience.
And in the middle of that village.
A left hand, with only up to the shoulder remaining, twitched.
Like an arm-worm, it moved its fingers towards a half-cooked lump of meat with its back of the head and back scorched and crushed dark red.
And the world faintly cracked.
Like a crack in a glass window, cracks spread like a spider web, looking the same from any angle.
Immediately after.
Instead of a half-cooked lump of meat and an arm crawling alone, two girls with white skin and purple hair appeared.
Atrocious miracles don't disappear.
* * *
Hehe.
It's warmth.
Wow, I love Victoria! I love her!
To think she'd send such a large amount of warmth!
Moreover, she's heading to Bern City riding a huge water droplet. I'm excited to see how many will die at this rate.
She'll continue to bring me plenty of warmth in the future.
This is what a harvester is!
Anyway, that's that.
I didn't know I wouldn't be ejected to the outside even with just an arm left. I really thought it was over when the light came flying, but thanks to the soldier, whom I made a harvester, wrapping around me and pushing, one arm went outside the beam and didn't evaporate.
It was a bit funny that I could still move in that state.
I don't know yet if this is possible because it's a human arm, or because it's a manufactured body.
I should be careful when entering another world or the next doll.
Anyway.
Since I'm also seeing the world from Victoria's perspective, I immediately stopped restoring my body to its original state when I saw the angry Victoria pulling up the sea.
I was curious to see how far she could go.
And I was satisfied.
Moreover, it's excellent that Victoria doesn't hesitate to kill people, perhaps because what she experienced in extreme situations helped.
The case where one is consumed by too much power, and the value of people becomes less than that of insects.
It happens often.
So along with a lot of warmth, memories also came in.
The harvesters can fully obtain warmth from those killed by them, but memories are partially broken.
Still, there are a few things I found out.
First, Marquis Gaston.
This one is really amazing. Amazing in the sense that he grasps reality in his own way.
Perhaps because he heard me saying that screams were coming from the south, the king sent an official document to Gaston to investigate.
To investigate whether there were any unusual incidents in Bern City, or if there were incidents where many people died south of Bern City.
Gaston sent an investigation south of Bern City.
He ignored what was happening in Bern City now, saying it was a common occurrence and not something that needed to be explained to the king.
Because multinational corporations sent people faster than the king and made a secret agreement.
Not to investigate the truth of the incidents in Bern City, and to prevent actions that would reveal the truth.
If no rumors related to the companies circulate in Bern City, 5% of the contract amount will be paid monthly for 20 months.
Therefore, he judged that nothing was happening because profitable businesses were running well in Bern City.
It's really amazing that he believes this himself.
Of course, it was Gaston who immediately started massacring the protesters when they spread information about the events in Bern City.
And saying there was a minor hitch in business, he renegotiated with the companies and cut off all connections between Bern City and the outside.
All these incidents are minor troubles that occurred during business. At least in Gaston's mind.
Looking at this part, it really seems like the royal family has nothing to do with it.
Rather, I want to ask if they're functioning properly as a country because they're too soft. Or maybe they've poured too much manpower into dealing with the witch.
Still, it's really amazing that there's a high possibility they couldn't stop Maleficent.
While organizing my thoughts like that, I greeted Polaris, who had just become a harvester.
"How do you feel?"
"You, how are you alive?"
"It turns out I don't die even with just one arm left."
Polaris frowned at my words, then turned her head to look at the distant sky. Looking at the moving sea in the distance, she sighed deeply.
"That. Is that Victoria's doing?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"The day we first met. That child used water, right? No, but could she do that much?"
Like a spider, multiple legs stretch up from rivers and seas, continuously supplying the sea floating in the sky.
"I didn't know Victoria could do that either."
Other people know.
As the world develops and harvesters have more diverse knowledge, even if they handle the same fire, the level changes.
Perhaps even if it seems like the same ability to handle fire, it might actually be an ability operating on a completely different principle, but the more knowledge accumulated in the world, the more the user's ability to apply it increases.
Based on that inference, supernatural abilities rely relatively on human imagination. In other words, if you can't envision such a scene, you probably can't create it.
It's likely not because of a lack of power, but because you lack imagination.
If you ask where she saw such a scene, at first. She almost drowned where she became a harvester. So it would have been easy to imagine.
Polaris just looks around at me and Victoria with a lost expression, unable to say anything.
Judging by her white skin, it means the burn wasn't life-threateningly fatal. Polaris isn't just strong, her body is tough too.
But seeing her hesitate like this, she's still a child after all.
"Victoria drowned the enemy."
"Yeah... Then Belle. What are you going to do now, Belle?"
"I should follow Victoria. What are you going to do, Polaris?"
She's someone who puts herself as a shield rather than using someone else as a shield in a potentially life-threatening situation.
I know what choice she'll make if I push her like this.
Polaris stayed still for a while, then hung her head low.
"Let's go get Victoria. We need to go and find out what exactly this situation is. Coming all this way and ending up like this, we'd be losers if we just went back. Let's go."
Humans, as always, repeat foolish choices.
That's the human I believe in.
"Yes. Then let's go, Polaris."