The town I'm in now is a port city called Nantes.
Once, before Bern City grew, this was the gateway to Bern City, but as technology developed and the river estuary could be managed, the port in the center of Bern City started to decline, which has its own history.
Previously, even if ships could enter the river, there was no port where cargo could be unloaded, so large-scale cargo was unloaded here.
Among the people Victoria massacred, there were some who had lived here for a long time, so if I piece together even fragments of memories, I can see the whole picture.
By the way, the townspeople weren't particularly enemies. They were just citizens living in this town, but they either died caught up in the sea or took their own lives, unable to overcome the slowly tightening fear.
If you ask if Victoria was a cruel and cold-hearted person, that's not the case.
From what I've observed in various ways, she's a girl who knows that killing people is a bad thing.
But in the face of too much power, morality easily breaks down.
Rather than inherent evil in human nature, it can be called selective indifference.
For example, let's say you have to cross the city ahead to reach your destination, and it's a place you must go no matter what. It's too urgent to find another way.
If you're riding a land battleship weighing over 40,000 tons, do you need to consider the people who might be underneath?
Natural death if they don't avoid it. So you push forward.
With such crudeness, 4,439 people became warmth.
Nantes port city is a declining small town. But because everyone who tried to enter Bern City and was blocked gathered here, more people died than the population of the port city.
Victoria probably isn't coldly considering this, but this is how it turns out for most people.
To put it more simply, it means that ordinary people can press a button to launch a missile without any guilt.
Of course, if others see, they might pretend to be sad, but in reality, only a very small number of people actually get hurt emotionally.
It's not because people are evil, but because they can't actually feel the death of others. Guns are easier than weapons like swords that clearly give you the feeling of cutting down an opponent, and bombs that can blow away unspecified masses are even better than those guns.
People can understand each other when individuals meet, but it's impossible to understand masses. In fact, instead of understanding masses, leaders guide in a direction where masses can be understood.
Anyway.
This harvester was a jackpot.
I hope more people awaken supernatural abilities in the future.
Because they'll give me a lot of warmth without even properly understanding what they're doing.
Thinking like that, I crossed the dried-up river on foot. It's hard to believe that until just a few hours ago, it was a wide river where large cargo ships could pass through, but now it's completely dried up.
As if all moisture has been sucked away, even though it's a riverbed, I'm only stepping on bone-dry sand.
Polaris, following behind with a dark expression, doesn't seem to have gained any supernatural abilities. I don't know for sure, but people who gain supernatural abilities immediately try to test them.
There were people like Tis who completely hid it, but even he secretly experimented with his supernatural ability when he was alone. So unless it's really extraordinary, there's no way I wouldn't know if a harvester gained supernatural abilities.
There's one more thing we can find out from this.
Honestly, abilities like regeneration are hard to know unless you receive a serious injury. But Tis knew from the beginning that he had regenerative abilities.
He didn't know how excellent that ability was.
Looking at that, I guess you find out about on/off at the point when you become a harvester and gain supernatural abilities.
However, no matter what, supernatural abilities come after the point where I gain memories.
So it's a bit disappointing that I can't know how much they know.
Anyway.
After crossing the river on foot, if we go up along the well-maintained estuary, we can see Bern City to the east.
And above that. The sea is floating upside down in the sky.
If we call that the sea, here is the coast. A thin layer of shallow water is visible in the sky, and the water gets deeper as we walk towards Bern City.
The faintly shimmering stars and moon gradually darken and completely disappear into darkness, and despite the sea being above, the bone-dry air that feels like it's tearing at your lungs destroys the sense of reality.
An unrealistic sight that would make you think someone laid a sea texture in the sky if this were VR.
As we enter the city proper, there's no more light in the sky. Rather, the light is below. It's faintly flowing out between buildings.
That's when Polaris approached me with quick steps and grabbed my hand. But strangely, she gripped my hand tightly, so I turned my head to look at Polaris, and she gave me a signal with her eyes.
Polaris saw someone observing us from between buildings. I know because I saw through Polaris's eyes, but I guess Polaris thought I didn't know.
Actually. This is a dangerous place.
So Polaris's caution is desirable.
This place is no longer a gathering of victims who were suppressed for protesting and trapped in the city.
It's a den of would-be rebels who have decided to try to build their own world with different desires. But what's important is who occupies the core.
Purple hair and unusually white skin.
Yes.
They're harvesters.
harvesters are positioned at the top, including the very top, and those without power or intelligence are becoming subordinates.
If I were to create a special group, those are the ones I should treat the best, but.
There's no need to tell them that. I don't care what outcome this group meets.
"Belle. Be careful."
"I know you're scared, but walk confidently, Polaris. Then we won't be in immediate danger."
Because we look like harvesters from Bern City.
And there's no one who recognizes me. Also, fortunately, there's no one among the harvesters in Bern City who's watching me.
Right now, all the harvesters in one place have gone to see Victoria.
So I can move around comfortably.
By the way, Victoria is now having a conversation among the harvesters. She's explaining that Marquis Gaston made a deal with three companies and messed this place up, completely omitting the fact that she killed Marquis Gaston.
But that doesn't mean much to them.
Because they've chosen to create a world where they're not wronged, rather than resolving their own grievances.
So they're eagerly persuading Victoria.
Pointing to the huge sea floating in the sky, they're trying to convince her that she can become the greatest person.
As we're walking while watching that, Polaris tugged at my collar.
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going to Victoria's family's old house now."
It's a place where upper-class people live gathered in the southern part of Bern City.
So we're walking around the outskirts, not the center where tall buildings that could be called proper Bern City are built.
There are no proper buildings here and there.
As the sea floating upside down in the sky gradually becomes shallower, and the moonlight faintly shines like starlight in the distance.
Suddenly, Polaris screamed.
"Eek!"
Hmm... I know because of the sensation, but.
I turned to look at Polaris. The clothes she was wearing have fallen to the ground. When she protected Victoria earlier, her back was completely burned. It's more of a miracle that her clothes didn't burst when she regenerated.
But that seems to have reached its limit too, as her clothes completely collapsed, revealing her pure white naked body.
Polaris's face is so red it's visible even in the darkness.
"Shall we go into a house and put on some clothes?"
"Um, that. How long until we get to where Belle is going?"
"We have to walk for quite a while."
"I guess there's no choice."
Polaris hesitantly walked towards a relatively intact private house, covering her body with her small hands.
I follow her in.
Then I saw her pure white back.
Even if I could move my hands, it was impossible to see Polaris with this body because I had no eyes. So I looked through the eyes of a harvester who had survived nearby but was dying.
I thought it was no different from a corpse at that time, but looking through Polaris's memories, it seems it wasn't such a severe injury after all.
She's about the same height as me so she looks like a small child, but I suspected something when she tore apart clockwork machines with her bare hands. Apparently, people from the Bearington family are physically exceptional from the start. Long, long ago. That's how the first generation became nobles, they say.
The same goes for Polaris.
I jokingly called her Polarbear, but she really was like a bear.
Even if not for her hair, her self-assessment was that injuries would heal with half a year of recovery, which seemed like it would take that long.
But entering an abandoned house with a naked girl on a dark night must look like an incredibly insane scene to others.
Since the person following is also a girl, there's nothing to say if someone calls it school violence.
As we went inside, I felt something mushy under my feet, so I looked down. Between fragments of stone and wood, the half-rotted bodies of a woman and a baby are tangled and stuck together. It looks like they died when the house collapsed.
Hmm.
The light has long since disappeared, and there's no warmth left either.
So, it's a structure that would be traumatic if Polaris saw it.
Should I say it's good that at least the house owners won't be inside?
I completely crushed the corpses by stepping on them and buried them completely by kicking the debris with my foot. There's a rotten smell, but such smells are barely noticeable, masked by the heavy atmosphere permeating this town.
Meanwhile, Polaris found clothes inside and came out wearing them.
She was a cute girl until just a moment ago, but it's funny how she suddenly looks like a middle-aged woman because of her outfit.
She's too small to be called a middle-aged woman, and her appearance is unrealistically cute, but.
Should I say the outfit itself is too focused on convenience...
No, it might be good for adventuring in a place like this, but even though it's baggy clothing, her chest is asserting itself, creating a look that deeply stabs at certain preferences.
The me in faded memories might die of joy, but I'm not particularly.
"You look much more like a local now."
"You're making fun of me, aren't you?"
"I'll say you look like a middle-aged woman."
I got hit.
"There are things you can say and things you can't."
"I meant you're less noticeable. There are many people in Bern City who gave me looks."
Polaris nodded at my words.
"I know. There was a big incident here about two months ago, right? That incident led to you and Victoria enrolling in the Royal Academy."
"Yes. That's why I told you to walk confidently earlier when Bern City people saw us."
"Ah. Yes. I understand. My clothes were rags anyway, so I must have looked like a local."
She understood immediately. So before Polaris realized the cause of the stale smell pervading this entire place, I moved abruptly and blatantly.
Polaris follows me.
"It's so damaged, can you really find your way?"
"I remember pretty much every place I've been to once."
I'm going while drawing a map in my head, so even if there's a slight error, I can find it quickly.
"Ugh, I wish Victoria was there when we go. But Victoria won't be there, will she?"
Huh?
"You know?"
"The water up there is getting shallower and shallower. Victoria will be at the place where it's thickest."
"But you just followed me?"
"We're going to find the people Victoria is looking for, right? Her parents."
I nodded.
"Since we can know where Victoria is just by looking up, let's find what we can find first so we don't waste too much time. Meeting her now would only prolong things anyway."
I'm glad if you understand.
With a lighter step, I head towards the house where Victoria's family and I lived dozens of days ago, casually wiping off the last piece stuck to my sole.