In The Original Work there had been a time when the government's forces barged into the Ability Office.
If I had wanted to anticipate it, it wasn't impossible.
Even offering excuses about being Eaten by the Other Side and being hounded by Ichi, that wasn't enough to justify having done nothing at all.
Only.
The fact that in The Original Work that period came much later must be what left me steeped in peace.
There it was around the time midwinter had passed, the year had turned, spring had come, and flower buds were opening.
'Is this a variable created by the Captain taking on the government's commission?'
I have no idea where the butterfly effect started.
Even after the food we ordered came out and a delicious smell wafted up, I couldn't properly chew a bite of it.
'They didn't come looking for me, did they......, no. It can't be.'
Wasn't it too close a call to smooth over as good timing?
The smooth soup was grating enough to jab at the blisters on my tongue.
"What do they say the reason is?"
"Have they ever once given a proper reason?"
"The surface reason, at least."
"What was it. They said it was a processing procedure needed for security because the Captain took their commission. Does that make any sense?"
Seo Mok's complaint was closer to griping.
Seo Mok had also been out on external work, so Sophia was the only one at the Ability Office.
Which meant Sophia had to handle the government's boorish visit all on her own.
It occurred to me that it wasn't that they hadn't taken the calls but that they couldn't.
The Black Zone might be Styx's, but its basic infrastructure used facilities the government had built.
Communications were no different.
"That attack earlier....... Do you think it was aimed at that?"
At my foolish question, Seo Mok nodded.
I had wondered why Felix traced information as far as that, and apparently it was all connected.
"They have shaken us properly."
"Even so, is it right to treat us like this while the Captain is doing their commission?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
Security was an excuse.
What the government wanted was something else.
With high probability it was a matter involving me or the Protagonist.
I kept my mouth shut.
"It seems we must stop being treated like suckers."
At the murderous warning from Ichi, who smiled with curved eyes, I gulped down my saliva.
Ichi, who had been going on about Styx and the government and the Resistance Army and neutrality and all the rest, looked one step away from his reason flying off.
And Seo Mok, who should have been holding him back, got even more worked up and raged.
"Just taking hits doesn't befit the Ability Office's face. Felix already went to clean them out, so he'll bring back results."
"How very reassuring, unlike a certain someone."
"Is that certain someone supposed to be me? You asshole, if it weren't for me you'd have known nothing and just stuffed your face and left."
"Haha, does that sting?"
At this point I was torn.
The Ability Office family going and beating them up on their own in place of me, who was being hunted by the government, was something to welcome with both hands raised.
It also included the worry of what I would do if Felix, digging into the government, dug up information about me along the way.
"Do Hae, your color's gone pale. Don't tell me you're worried? That they came for you?"
"Hmm, that's true. Your complexion is very bad....... Do Hae, do you happen to know something?"
The questions from Seo Mok and Ichi struck the mark and snapped me to my senses.
Rather than agonizing over something this pointless, agonizing over living even one day longer would be more productive.
I speared the spaghetti noodles that had come out as the main dish with my fork, spun them round and round, and opened my mouth.
"I was an intelligence officer at the research institute, remember."
I stared at the noodles buried in the thick sauce as they smeared their way around the plate without going into my mouth, then met Seo Mok's and Ichi's eyes and pulled up the corners of my mouth.
I was torn, but the right move here was to loosen up a suitable amount.
"This government incident can be seen as a case of aiming for several things at once and losing both of them."
Once I brought it out in earnest, Seo Mok folded his arms and listened closely, and Ichi propped up his chin and curved his eyes.
Ha, well then. I should have prepared a briefing that could live up to their expectations.
"When the Captain took on the case the government commissioned, the government's plan went crooked."
"Plan?"
"The research institute is their dragon's inverted scale. Do you know what kind of research goes on there?"
"They research Supernatural Abilities. Even I know that. Next, quickly."
I watched Seo Mok wave his hand about and shook my head.
"To be precise, they research monsters. The attack on the train was also aimed at securing monster corpses, which are research material. And incidentally it served to split our field of view while they raided the Ability Office."
With our attention taken by that, Ichi hadn't even noticed that communications were cut.
And the same went for me.
"The government doesn't want facts like that leaking outside. They had no choice but to commission Styx, but they wouldn't have liked it. Well......, and it wouldn't have mattered who took it."
"Destruction of evidence?"
"Yes. It was a matter of silencing whoever splendidly completed the mission, and, oops. The Captain took the commission?"
"They can't touch the Captain. Heh, serves them right."
A miscalculation had occurred.
The government hurriedly acquired a reason to raid the Ability Office.
It would serve as an example, double as a joint operation for seizing the corpse, and also be a way of checking how far the contents of the commission might have been divulged.
But what nagged at me was that it wasn't enough.
The Captain, who had completed the mission, was out moving around the whole time.
What reason was there to raid the Ability Office at that particular point and invite danger?
Only after pressing down Seo Mok's and Ichi's reason with plausible words could we finish the meal, and that small question was fortunately resolved through Felix, who called around the time the meal was ending.
***
Felix's information wasn't greatly different from what I had rattled off.
When Seo Mok and Ichi both clapped my shoulder at the information Felix reeled off, that said it all.
Just as I was relaxing at Felix's report, which came close to cross-verification, a piece of information popped out that was quite awkward for me and liable to sting Ichi.
—There was an incident at the Military Academy.
This was the Protagonist's business.
The story of the Protagonist, a Cadet, realizing that his uncle was Resistance Army, panicking, and running off blindly.
"What connection is there between a Cadet with a weak mentality and the Ability Office?"
When Seo Mok asked on everyone's behalf, a sigh from Felix followed.
—Why do you think, old man? Still an idiot, I see.
—Listen carefully. Follow that runaway Cadet's escape route and you end up at our Rushiang Street. That's what I'm saying.
—Of all places! We got cleaned out because of a Cadet who dropped right into our front yard. Do you understand now?
The Protagonist's movement route was already exposed?
—But what was that from earlier. The research institute was a perverted place like that? They want to do what to the Captain? Destruction of eeevidence? Have these assholes lost their minds?
Felix, belatedly filled in on what I had told them, raged wildly and strung together a line of curses.
Leaving him and Seo Mok to join in and trade them back and forth, I checked on Ichi, who was giving off a strange air.
In The Original Work the Protagonist's exposure was, as I said, in spring.
And late enough to be well after the fact.
The difference here from back then was only the presence or absence of the Protagonist.
The butterfly was the Protagonist.
A side effect of my attempt to delete the Protagonist, at that.
If the Protagonist had settled down on Rushiang Street as in The Original Work, he could have stayed hidden without trouble.
Ichi would have hidden him, and failing that, Ichi's That Person would have erased the traces.
The stupid government couldn't have broken through that and found the Protagonist.
This was a government that wouldn't even have guessed in that direction.
For a government like that to come storming in after this short a time meant.
'Ichi's That Person deliberately leaked the information.'
The Protagonist had secured his safety in a different location.
Ichi having failed That Person's order and yet going around casually fishing at me was all a result of the Protagonist having become safe.
And exposing Rushiang Street was digging a trap in order to guard that new nest of the Protagonist's more safely.
In a word, they released a fake, and the Ability Office took a bolt from the blue for nothing.
'Whew......, one wrong step and I would have kicked it.'
At this rate, isn't it not a butterfly's wingbeat but an eagle's wingbeat, or a tornado's wind?
I tried to kill the Protagonist, and now it feels like the world is trying to kill me first.
Once again, an environment that plays favorites with the Protagonist could not feel more bitter.
Should this terminally ill villain just dab on some tears?
"Do Hae, are you crying?"
"As if?"
Your own conscience got pricked, and you still have the presence of mind to tease someone else?
Or had he already been given a hint?
That the Ability Office would be turned upside down before long, so bolt at a suitable time.
'No, this is insane......?'
Looking at Ichi's grinning face, the timing really was too exquisite.
Especially that he had arranged a schedule that took even me away from that place.
Isn't the intent to hide me, who fled out of the research institute, all too plain?
At this rate, isn't it that he couldn't take the calls but that he really didn't?
When I looked at Ichi with a little emotion and mostly surprise, a prettily curved smile came back.
'I don't know who you are over on the government's side, but you've lost completely to Ichi. Do apply yourself harder. Keep that up and Ichi will come calling with his scythe.'
Slit-Eyes really isn't a role just anyone can pull off.
***
A street a little way off from Styx Headquarters.
Lined with distinctive cafes, it was also a cafe street that Styx Headquarters employees often patronized.
Among them was one regular haunt that the employees came and went from the most, and there was talk that its owner was affiliated with Styx.
In many ways, if the owner was affiliated, it was convenient for talking business, and they did tend to be accommodating.
So the second floor of a cafe that was crowded even on ordinary days being entirely emptied was perhaps an exceptional occurrence.
"Do you yearn for the ordinary?"
A man and a woman sat at the window table of that emptied second floor, and the words just spoken were a question from the woman.
She was the sort of woman who drew the eye, her waist-length straight hair swaying with unusual sheen.
Her white skin, close to pallid, made her bloodless, dry lips look at least somewhat lively, and the irises visible beneath her lowered gaze were a pale color close to silver.
Overall, a woman dry enough to look achromatic.
"Would the same not be true of the Ability Office's Captain?"
The man who answered, by contrast, had an air of vitality pouring out of his whole body.
His bright red hair was like that, and so were the sky-blue suit he wore, the watch glinting with blue light, the green bracelet, and the pure white shoes, all of it a man who resembled the vigor of a summer's day.
"I am already an ordinary person."
"If you become the standard, wouldn't the people living in this world have a hard time? For someone seated where others can hardly catch up no matter how they thrash, you lack objectivity."
"It is troubling when the one who kneads the world speaks of objectivity."
"Hmm, it is because I am lonely."
"......Shall I arrange a blind date, then?"
"Haha, wouldn't the other party faint? For the mental health of some nameless stranger, I shall restrain myself."
They had strayed far from the topic of conversation, but neither of them minded.
Being able to trade talk like this comfortably was a piece of luck they had precisely because of who sat across from them.
"Ah, come to think of it, I hear that child came for the greeting. May I go take a look?"
"......I believe the one who faints will be that child."
"I will look from far off, from far off. And if interest arises, I will go closer."
That the two of them, appearing merely to share a friendship, were in fact a scene of views being exchanged on how to tilt the axis of the world was something no one would know.
And so the meeting between Styx Company's CEO and the Ability Office's Captain was flowing along pleasantly.
On the surface, of course.