Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Iden: Leila Asprey

JANUARY 14, 2022 ~ FLAMETJD

She liked stained glass windows. Individually, the bits and pieces were just uninteresting shards of glass, dyed with color and molded into various shapes. However, once they were strung up together with iron wire, they’d undergo a drastic transformation. Each of those shiny bits and pieces would become part of a gigantic mosaic, gaining a different meaning and purpose.

The state of the glass; the relationships between each individual piece and the whole, were all indescribably beautiful. Such was the basis of Adelaide Astrid’s aesthetic judgment.

She woke up groggily.

“Ugh…” She half-rose from the sheets, and, finding it too much of a pain, flopped back down and stretched a little. Curling up in the blanket, she rolled off the side of her bed.

Thud. A rather loud impact followed. 

“I’m not that heavy, am I…?” Slinging a futile complaint at the floorboards, she sat up and looked around her. 

The familiar sight of her own room filled her eyes. Bookshelves overflowed with tomes that spilled onto the floor, countless seaweed paper memos clasped between their pages. Books practically covered up two wall-mounted closets, and metal shards which glowed with a faint light littered the floor. Sunlight shone in through the edges of a closed window, heralding the start of another day. 

“Hmph…”

Rise and shine. Wriggling like a caterpillar, she finally stood. Now’s not the time for lazing around. Her gaze drifted toward a wooden board, attached to the wall, that displayed her tremendously cluttered schedule for the day ahead. 

First, the girl took a shower to clear her head. She couldn’t find her favorite hair clip, so it took a bit longer than usual to do her hair. After troubling for a moment over her dress, she put on a pair of red silk gloves, embossed with the finest golden thread, for a finishing touch. 

She twirled once in front of the mirror, and decided to put on a smile. A familiar face beamed back from the glass. The girl to whom it belonged was aged seventeen, what people would normally call a maiden’s golden years. She had sparkling golden hair, clear blue eyes, and pearl-white skin that looked almost polished, making for an alluring countenance. Those were the features of Imperial nobility, a rare sight in the ethnic melting pot of Basilfeld. Naturally, she also wore luxurious clothing that the wealthy nobles favored. Adelaide was well aware that doing so was the best way to draw attention.

“Alright.” She was neatly dressed, her smile was splendid, and it didn’t seem as if there was anything wrong with her hair—she’d plucked at a few strands to check.

Today, she’d give it her all once more, with this country as her battlefield.

“Morning!” 

With a light wave of her hand, Adelaide dashed into the administrative office of the Astrid workshop.

 “Miss Tilly, you’re very pretty today… Luca, you’ve got some serious bedhead… Sara, I almost finished that book you lent me yesterday… Mr. Snow, I’m still waiting on that report… Mr Bizmell, yesterday’s case was handled very well. We’ve received good news from the other side, and…” Hurriedly crossing the room, she spoke to them one after the other.

“Boss,” someone called out to her, “imports of stardust powder to Workshop Three have halted.”

“Again? Use Two’s reserves, for now. Oh, and go investigate our supplier’s accounts. It won’t do for our order to land in another company’s lap.”

“It looks like the vigilante groups want to avoid this year’s Sea Serpent Festival.”

“Get them to stay. Say that we’ve called in external reinforcements.”

“As for the Furuami Ward benefit payments, accounting says we’re donating too much, even if it’s for the purposes of tax mitigation.”

“Tell them this for me: Since we’re doing it to gain publicity, we might as well pull out all the stops rather than half-ass it.”

“If so, aren’t there more newsworthy beneficiaries?”

“Hmm… Let’s not sweat the small stuff. Besides, it’s good for the development of the whole neighborhood!”

With that, she trotted to the manager’s work desk. As always, it was stacked with a small mountain of unfinished paperwork.

“Jeez, business is booming again today, huh…” Grumbling, she twirled the ends of her hair with a fingertip.

“Good morning, Boss.” As that mellow voice drifted toward her, a middle-aged man walked over. “Please finish doing the paperwork by noon. Aside from that, I have two things to report.”

“C’mon… It’s not everyday that I’ve got blueprints I wanna try and build at the workshop. Can’t we just scrap all those tasks, Uncle Joshua?”

“I’ve already reminded you plenty of times not to call me Uncle at the workshop, Adelaide.” The middle-aged man she’d addressed as Uncle Joshua sighed, giving her a genial, pained smile. “I’m the deputy director, and you’re the boss.”

“Ugh, Dad truly left me a sprawling ol’ dump.” Slumping like a deflated balloon, she was tempted to rest her chin on the table, however unsightly it might look.

“He believed that with your talents, there was no doubt you could successfully inherit his business. In fact, you’ve done exceedingly well, which proves he made the right call.” He spoke warmly, eyes shut a little. 

Through the corner of her vision, Adelaide glanced at those eyes, and the faint glimmer that lay hidden within.

“Forget it, complaining is useless anyway. What was it you wanted to report?”

“The third son of House Seth has invited you to dinner, and we’ll soon have some customers from the continent,” Joshua serenely replied in his deputy director’s tone.

“I see. House Seth’s…” She recalled that short, pudgy man’s face, and her own features clouded with annoyance. “That issue regarding the dispatch of personnel to the Sea Serpent Festival has already been discussed, right? Or maybe he wants to start another vendetta, and would like to court me as an ally?”

“No. Reportedly, it’s to corroborate the facts of the Cheshire Cat incidents. He intends to exchange the information we’ve gathered from our separate investigations before making his next move.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Those incidents…” 

She thought she’d concealed her disquiet fairly well. “Cheshire Cat” was a code phrase for the steadily increasing spate of disappearances occurring in the district of late. Because there were no bodies, they weren’t viewed as murders; the absence of blackmail or any kind of common link between the victims made it very difficult to treat them as kidnapping cases as well. What’s more, public safety in the district wasn’t very good to begin with. While random disappearances and the like weren’t a routine occurrence, they weren’t so uncommon that they’d cause an uproar either. 

To put it bluntly, they’re just a bunch of similar incidents that “happened” to pop up one after the other. No wonder Basilfeld’s other factions aren’t paying it too much heed—or at least, that’s what they’d like everyone else to think. 

“Have you found any leads?” she pressed.

“Nothing of note. Although it’s likely the same for House Seth; no doubt this enterprising gentleman is using it as a pretext to make a play for you as well.”

“Oho, is that so? Such a pain… I almost thought he’d learned his lesson, after the hiding he probably took from his missus the last time he tried.”

“Not even a passing glance? He’s still a rich and powerful man.”

“Those are the only two things that oaf has got going for him. If his looks, intellect, personality, physical figure, strength, wit, morals, reputation, future prospects and common sense even met the bare minimum, I’d at least pretend to care.”

“It’s hard to argue with your assessment.”

“I know, right?” she answered listlessly. 

In any case, Adelaide Astrid was still in the prime of her youth. And I don’t look half bad, if I do say so myself. Naturally, men would rush to court her like moths to a flame. She accepted that reality, and resolved to utilize that advantage of hers to the fullest. 

Of course, she also knew that it would become problematic if she attracted resentment by baiting others willy-nilly. Due to several reasons from the nation’s early years, to this day its foundations were still unstable in more ways than one. Various factions jostled for power, both publicly and in the shadows. Conflicts and clashes were a dime a dozen, with new casualties every day. To survive in this kind of environment, you found strength in numbers by banding together to form a strong alliance, or by joining one of those powerful groups yourself—even if doing so was the spark for the next feud.

For better or for worse, House Astrid, led by Adelaide herself, was one of those groups, though its territory, members and fighting strength were all pitifully inadequate. In other words, House Astrid rested on a precipice, faced with the constant threat of destruction from the factions that surrounded it. 

She needed to gather allies, but at the same time she was unwilling to make enemies. Dad really did leave me a sprawling ol’ dump… This time, she kept her frustrations to herself. 

“Oh, by the way, who’s our next customer from the continent?”

“The Regal Brave Leila Asprey.”

“Hmm…?”

“I heard you had a rather intense quarrel with her at a dinner banquet when you last visited the capital?”

“Well… That was hardly a quarrel.”

“That Regal Brave believes in our expertise, and has some top-secret business she would like to entrust to us.”

“Ugh…” Adelaide covered her face in dismay. She knew she ought to keep her personal opinions apart from her professional life, but… There’s always gonna be someone who ticks you off the moment you see them, huh? I swear, if I accept this request, no, the moment I hear—scratch that, the moment I see that stupid face… Nothing good will come of this.

“Gods be damned, it just had to be that scarlet-streaked sow.”

“The ship will be here within the next week.”

“Can’t it sink before then?”

“Nonsense,” Joshua chided her as an uncle would his niece. “It’s all very well to have these thoughts, but please don’t voice them out.”

“You’re right. Even if it sank, that troublesome cow would just waltz out unharmed.”

“Now, now, you’d better keep that to yourself too.” Creases appeared on her uncle’s forehead, as if he were beginning to feel a migraine coming on. “Unlike the other factions who hold sway in Basilfeld, our House has no powerful backer. We ought to make good use of this commission to strengthen our relationship with the Holy Empire, as well as the Church of Holy Light. Do you understand?”

“Well enough.” She pursed her lips. “I really wanna head out to the workshop, I wanna tinker with the talismans, I wanna invent something new…”

“Please just shelve those plans for today.” The long-suffering Joshua switched back to his deputy director’s tone.

“When can I go, then?”

“When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, and when Basilfeld finally knows eternal peace.”

“Ha!” Adelaide couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s a pretty funny joke.”

“Just so. They say laughter is the best medicine, so please start getting to work.”

“Dammit, what a pain!” No matter how much she yelled or sighed, reality wouldn’t change, so there was only one thing for Adelaide Astrid to do. She patted her cheeks with both hands, and started on the mountain of paperwork in front of her.

Many kinds of people existed in the world. Most were fairly normal, with limited potential and bland, uninteresting thoughts. Nevertheless, there was no doubt that each and every human being was a beautiful existence. When these humans joined forces to form their own organizations, however, different traits would emerge. Once a million different specks of light, those lives would be absorbed into a giant mosaic, each beginning to take on its own meaning and purpose.

The state of the glass; those threads between each individual piece and the whole, were all indescribably beautiful. That was what Adelaide Astrid believed. Hence, the sort of person who could only ever shine as a lone star was, in her view, rather lonely. 

“Leila Asprey, huh…” She murmured the name dispassionately. “She probably hasn’t changed a single bit.”