Above Old Dunling, a terrifying tornado twisted through the sky, as though an enormous finger had descended from beneath the heavens, carrying torrential rain and howling winds as it reached toward the earth. Blazing white lightning flickered between the gaps in the leaden clouds, and the thunder rolled through the storm like the hammering of countless craftsmen, as though something was being forged deep within the heart of the tempest.
"This really is the kind of weather you only see once in a century... I saw weather like this once when I was young, out at sea. The storm swallowed our ships, and the entire world began to shake violently. It felt as though we would sink to the bottom of the ocean at any moment. I was terrified back then. I thought my legendary life was going to end in some godforsaken place like that. But the Vikings aboard the ship were happier than you can imagine. They believed Odin himself had come to claim them, that he was going to lead them to the sacred halls of Valhalla. So the captain shouted in excitement and steered straight into the storm of thunder."
Oscar stared at the terrible weather beyond the window, and for a moment, the freezing mist of rain seemed to drag him back into the distant past.
"But perhaps it really was some damned blessing from Odin. We plunged straight into the heart of the storm, only to find no terrifying winds or towering waves waiting for us. Instead, it was strangely calm. The entire sky was clear, while the edge of the storm traced a perfect circle around it. We sailed right into the eye of the storm and somehow survived. I still remember kneeling on the deck in excitement, shouting along with those Vikings, 'Odin be praised!'"
"So this really happened to you? You're not just trying to bullshit me with another one of your stories?"
Lloyd eyed the cunning old man before him with deep suspicion.
"If you don't believe me, you can read The Life of Oscar Wilde. I think it was somewhere in the fourth volume. Though I did embellish quite a lot for artistic effect... but that's not important, is it?" Oscar said with a cheerful grin.
Lloyd could not be bothered to argue with him. He wrung out his clothes with considerable force, squeezing enough rainwater from them to leave a puddle on the floor.
This was the result of Lloyd and Oscar's cooperation. Once Lloyd realized that the New Church's target was him, he had joined forces with Oscar as a precaution. Now everything was proceeding according to Lloyd's plan, and control of the game had once again returned to his hands.
"There are dry clothes in the back," Oscar reminded him.
"Forget it. Changing is a hassle, and I'll just get soaked again in a little while anyway."
Lloyd knew exactly what was about to happen, so he paid the suggestion no attention. His eyes settled instead on a black case beside the seat.
"I had Cerys leave first, just to reduce the risk. A battlefield this brutal isn't exactly suitable for her. As for Hercules, after guiding us here, he said he'd already finished the work he needed to do," Oscar said.
"There's no point in keeping either of them here. All I need are your resources and Cerys's, along with Hercules, who can work out the exact location of Blackmount Hospital. Leave the killing to me. You've done your part, so you should leave now."
This was the plan Lloyd had laid out from the beginning.
He looked at Oscar.
"Have you prepared everything?"
As he spoke, Lloyd picked up the case and placed it against his chest. The entire carriage rocked gently with the motion of the train. Amid the swaying, he opened the case.
"Yes. Weapons, and a few arrangements for the next stage... Though your plan looks good on paper, it will be difficult to put into practice. Your enemies are Demon Hunters, after all, not a pack of demons acting purely on instinct. They'll see through ordinary traps very easily," Oscar said.
"I know. But you have to understand something, Oscar. I'm their target. So even if I jump straight into a pit of fire, they'll have no choice but to jump in after me."
Lloyd reached into the case and pulled out a nail sword.
It was different from the nail swords used by the Demon Hunter Church. Lloyd had commissioned Oscar to have these weapons specially made. A folding blade was convenient to carry, but its effective striking range was limited to the blade itself.
The custom nail sword had no Holy Silver coating, but it was made from a far more durable material. More importantly, the nail sword had always been Lloyd's most familiar weapon. Holding this imitation in his hand gave him an unexpectedly profound sense of familiarity.
There were several more nail swords like it inside the case.
On the other side of the seat lay a shotgun. Seeing Lloyd's gaze fall upon it, Oscar reached toward the back of the carriage and brought over several specially made rounds. They were another one of Lloyd's requests.
"This is the best escape route I could arrange for you. You'll take the Iron Serpent to the docks, where a civilian airship is already waiting and fully prepared for departure.
"The Serpent of the Inner Court system has been developing for many years, and ground transportation is now firmly controlled by the Purification Bureau. If you leave by land, you'll inevitably leave traces for them to follow. But a civilian airship is different.
"Especially with this damn weather. All the military airships have been forced to descend. By the time you take off, they won't have any chance of catching you. Fly wherever you like. With your physical abilities, there's no way you'd die from a fall."
No one had expected Oscar to go this far.
He had actually managed to secure a civilian airship.
The craft was still in its trial-operational stage, which made the whole arrangement seem even more bizarre. Based on what Lloyd had expected from Oscar, he had assumed the most he could arrange would be an entire train.
Still, there was no need to worry about that anymore. When Lloyd had planned his escape, he had considered both the Purification Bureau and the New Church as his hypothetical enemies.
As things stood, the Purification Bureau was not yet enough of a threat to him.
"But I don't know how to fly one of those things," Lloyd said.
"I remember you learn things rather quickly, don't you?"
Oscar handed him a manual.
"This is an aviation handbook. You still have plenty of time before you reach the docks. You can cram a little on the way."
"Of course, the great Holmes is ultimately just an excellent liar, not some kind of prodigious genius. Learning this much in such a short time would be asking a little too much of you."
Oscar opened the aviation manual and glanced through it. He casually tore out several pages and handed them to Lloyd, then threw the rest straight out the window, where the wind immediately carried them away.
"Learn these according to your requirements. That's all you need."
"What does 'these' mean?"
"Starting it and moving forward... Those two operations should be enough to get you out of Old Dunling, don't you think?"
Oscar gave him a wicked grin.
"But if you want to disappear completely from the Purification Bureau's sight, you'll have to do this. Find somewhere with the sea beneath you and jump. The airship will keep flying and draw their attention away."
Lloyd took the crumpled pages.
After a brief silence, he asked curiously, "Oscar, what exactly do you want? You've gone to all this trouble to help me. What price am I supposed to pay?"
"There are many reasons. A strange sort of teacher-student affection? Birds of a feather flocking together? Or perhaps I simply admire you? Who knows? Though I'll admit, I do have a little selfishness mixed into it."
"Because of Queen Victoria?"
Lloyd recalled the words Arthur had whispered to him back in the birdcage.
"The King's Curse..."
At those words, a trace of surprise appeared in Oscar's eyes.
"The King's Curse... You actually know about that?"
"Sounds like something unpleasant."
"More or less."
"So that's why Nordro has almost no influence within Ingilweig? You're wary of Queen Victoria, while she's equally afraid of organizations like yours that lie beyond her control."
Once again, Lloyd felt the complexity of this world.
There were far more players at the gambling table than the ones he already knew, and their alliances were not nearly as straightforward as he had imagined.
"There's nothing we can do about that. If you were Queen Victoria, would you really allow such an enormous power that you couldn't control to keep growing?"
Oscar's smile faded slightly.
"But she can't do much about it either. As long as the King's Curse exists, the Victorian royal family can only remain trapped inside that exquisite Platinum Palace.
"Without Nordro, because of the King's Curse, Ingilweig's influence would struggle to extend beyond its own territory. But now that we exist... they need Nordro's power, yet they refuse to let that power escape their control."
Oscar smiled faintly. There was little contempt in his voice, only a deep sense of helplessness.
"I wouldn't call this treason. I only ever intend to devote myself to my ideal nation. As for what's happening now, it's merely cooperation between her and me."
"You need the Victorian royal family, but you don't want them to lift this so-called King's Curse, do you?" Lloyd asked.
"More or less. We in Nordro simply want to maintain the status quo. But that isn't what the Queen wants. She's probably hoping to find a way to free herself from the King's Curse through you."
"So you want me to escape, thereby cutting off her objective."
Lloyd said it calmly.
That was the real reason Oscar had gone to such lengths to help him.
Compared to all the nonsense he had spouted earlier, this was the truth.
"But what if one day I choose to help the Victorian royal family instead? Oscar, would we become enemies?"
Lloyd asked.
There were no alliances bound together by absolute unity.
There were only overlapping interests.
And when those interests diverged, that was the moment allies became enemies.
"I'm not entirely sure. We're not a monarchy, after all. One person's word doesn't decide everything. But there's no need to think that far ahead, Lloyd. Let's deal with what's in front of us first."
Oscar looked out the window.
A terrifying spectacle had gathered across the sky. The entire city of Old Dunling had ground to a halt beneath the atrocious weather, and ever since they had set out, the carriage had never stopped shaking.
"If you continue on the Iron Serpent, you might be intercepted along the way. So what are you going to do then? Kill your way through?"
"That suits me perfectly."
Lloyd said no more.
He simply picked up the shotgun and nail sword.
He was fully armed now.
The torrential rain hammered against the carriage, as though the entire world had been submerged beneath a vast ocean. The Thames had already overflowed its banks, and the water flooding the streets had risen above ankle height.
Amid flashes of lightning and rolling thunder, dark figures broke through the howling wind.
The deafening rain and thunder perfectly concealed the sounds of their movements. The Iron Serpent roared along the tracks, and the figures landed silently upon its roof.
No one noticed their arrival.
Beneath the pouring rain, the city had fallen into complete paralysis. The only thing still moving was the Iron Serpent racing along the rails.
Under the hoods of the Demon Hunters, their eyes remained fixed upon the rain-slicked steel.
To avoid alerting their prey, they had not awakened their Mystic Blood. They were waiting for the perfect moment to deliver a fatal strike to the people inside before unleashing their power to its absolute limit.
Oscar had anticipated this possibility.
But no one had expected the Demon Hunters to arrive so quickly.
They had come before Lloyd and Oscar had even been given the chance to make another move.
Several pairs of eyes exchanged brief glances.
They prepared themselves.
In an instant, Mystic Blood surged through their bodies.
Flames erupted.
Without the slightest hesitation, the Demon Hunters drove their razor-sharp nail swords straight through the roof of the carriage.
At the same time, another Demon Hunter attacked from the side, cleaving the carriage open with a single strike.
It was an ambush.
An ambush they had anticipated, yet one that was still nearly impossible to avoid.
The entire carriage door was torn apart.
The Demon Hunters drove their nail swords into the steel and used them to anchor themselves to the edge of the carriage. They were just about to rush inside and continue the attack when they finally realized something was wrong.
There was no one inside.
The Iron Serpent hurtling through the storm was empty.
Then, because the nail swords had severed the wires fixed inside the carriage, a hidden mechanism was triggered.
Before they could even understand what was happening, the entire Iron Serpent exploded.
It was Lloyd's carefully prepared gift for the New Church.
In weather this violent, mercury vapor would be scattered by the wind, while the poison would be rapidly washed away by the rain. So Lloyd had simply instructed Oscar to fill the train with high-grade explosives.
The more, the better.
They had also loaded it with countless fragments of metal.
The instant the explosives detonated, the Iron Serpent became a blooming flower of death.
Burning heat and explosive force erupted outward, accompanied by metal fragments propelled through the storm like deadly shrapnel.
The Demon Hunters closest to the blast were struck with devastating force. Those whose Mystic Blood had awakened only to a lower degree were torn apart by the violent explosion on the spot.
Blood and flesh were immediately washed away by the torrential rain.
The Iron Serpent, still burning fiercely, continued racing forward.
Watching the flames raging beyond the carriage window, Lloyd knew it was time to leave.
"They really fell for it."
Oscar stared at the blazing wreckage as well, sounding genuinely surprised.
"Of course they did. In weather like this, even street carriages are being blown over. The only thing capable of moving quickly is the Iron Serpent."
Lloyd slung the case over his shoulder and pushed open the carriage door, allowing the wind and rain to pour inside.
This was a fast-moving carriage. To withstand the atrocious weather, its body had been reinforced and weighted down, while several additional horses had been harnessed to pull it.
Under these conditions, Lloyd could keep pace with the Iron Serpent without being blown over by the gale.
"So you had all of this calculated from the beginning?"
"Just adapting as circumstances changed. Now you should leave too, Oscar. I can handle what comes next on my own."
Lloyd braced himself against the edge of the carriage and raised a grappling gun.
The torrential rain had concealed not only the Demon Hunters' movements, but Lloyd's as well.
They had never imagined—and never realized—that Lloyd was not aboard the Iron Serpent at all.
He had been circling along its perimeter, waiting for them to arrive.
"Hmm... all right. I'm getting old. This sort of heart-pounding excitement isn't really suitable for me anymore."
Oscar paused.
"But actually, Lloyd, there's another reason I helped you."
"What?"
"Do you remember those knight novels? The Demon Hunter's Tale!"
Oscar shouted at the top of his voice, forcing his words to rise above the thunder.
"What?"
Lloyd looked genuinely surprised.
Something about this sounded ominous.
"Yes! I wrote it. Only the first volume is out so far, but I have to say, it's selling pretty well. Seems people really do enjoy this kind of grotesque stuff."
Oscar grinned.
"So, Lloyd, don't you dare die. If you die, I won't have anything left to write about. After all, I'm not a Demon Hunter, am I?"
Those were Oscar's final words.
He never received a response from Lloyd, and he had no idea whether Lloyd had even heard him.
All he saw was Lloyd firing the grappling gun.
The hook struck the burning Iron Serpent.
Then Lloyd leapt from the carriage like the wind.
His pupils lit up with a searing white radiance.
No one could tell whether it was the reflection of the raging flames below—
or the lightning blazing across the heavens.
The sound of a blade being drawn rang through the wind.
Then blood spilled into the rain.