Volume 4 - CH 5.2

From that day on, the clock tower was surrounded and monitored by the Royal Knights. Unable to step out of the clock tower, I immersed myself in my experiments.

Since the night I killed Ian, his ghost had been haunting me. The boy with the golden flower on his belly had been following me, standing in one corner, in the corridor, at the top of the stairs. Ian was always by my side, looking at me sadly as I spent my days experimenting.

Ian was faultless.

I had killed an innocent boy who idolized me.

I felt nothing but anger and humiliation that night, but remorse consumed me every night after.

An eerie darkness began to shroud the clock tower. For some reason, the surrounding beech trees started dying, covered in dark cobwebs that seemed like garments for the dead.

Did the students of the academy sense the ominous atmosphere surrounding the clock tower? I did not know. All the students here were odd children who did not speak a word, and moved as if they were mechanical contraptions. I had no idea who they were or what they were being taught.

Then one day…

I was huddled in the clockwork room as usual, spending all day doing experiments, when I heard footsteps approaching. No visitors came to this place. Perhaps it was the boy’s ghost wandering around. I kept my eyes on the ebony table.

My ears caught the sound of heels.

Then I saw a pair of fine but worn boots.

The ghost stood still beside me, waiting. Wearily, I lifted my head.

A young man was standing there like a ghost in the darkly-lit workshop.

I could not see his face, backlit by the orange glow of the wall lamp. When he moved his body, the light from the lamp shifted and his face became visible.

“…Ian.”

The familiar ghost made me rise from my chair. He took a step back, surprised. Then he tilted his head and looked up at me curiously.

It was not Ian.

I was out of my mind. The young man was a little older than Ian. Being holed in the tower, with only a ghost as my company, must have driven me to insanity. The young man, however, looked somewhat similar to Ian. Perhaps it was the casual manner in which he carried himself, and his aristocratic grace. Ian was genteel but unpretentious for a noble.

I took a closer look at the young man.

His soft hair, tied back sloppily, cascaded down his back like a young horse’s tail. His face was pale, and there was a sorrowful glint in his eyes. He must have been 18 or 19 years old. Despite his aristocratic features, he was dressed in plain clothing of a faded shirt and slim pants.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “My name is Albert.”

From the moment I met Albert, I knew there was something wrong with him. I could tell from the look in his eyes that there was something sinister lurking beneath his serene and handsome features. He appeared possessed by something otherworldly.

Albert was an official of the Ministry of the Occult.

“I came here to protect you,” he said.

“Protect me, you say? From what?”

“From the king, of course.” Albert grinned.

“…From the king?”

“Yes.”

Although he had been wearing a serious expression ever since he entered the workshop, I suddenly had the feeling that he was just fooling around.

To him, everything was a game, like he was playing God’s dice.

I did not know why that thought occurred to me.

“At this rate, you will be eliminated by the king,” he said glumly. “He’s afraid of your power, and the realist old men, including Baron Musgrave, are desperate to have you killed. Besides, the Ministry of the Occult is not willing to help you, as that would mean opposing the king.”

“Yes…”

“But I am willing to lend you a hand. My help doesn’t come free, of course.”

“I see. So you want gold as well.”

Albert chuckled. “Nothing so tacky.” He brushed his hair wearily. “I simply wish to prepare for a storm.”

“A storm, you say?”

“Yes. Have you sensed it yet, Leviathan? Or were you too focused on colonial policies that you failed to notice?”

“I give up. What on earth are you talking about?”

“There is a storm coming, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

Albert’s voice dropped low. The forlorn smile on his face was gone, replaced by a look of terrible, dark passion. His eyes, wide open, seemed to be staring into the void. Like a soothsayer, he held out his hands with a sad expression on his face, then spoke.

“The king has not yet noticed. He lacks foresight.”

“What is this storm you are talking about?”

“A Great War.”

I laughed. “A war? There’s always been a war somewhere in the European continent since the era before Christ. History is marked with either wars or pestilence. So, where will this war break out?”

“Nowhere. And everywhere.” Albert’s low and eerie voice echoed throughout the workshop. “Hear me out. The incoming storm will not be isolated to one area. It won’t be countries fighting over territories or grudges. In the next few years, a storm of an unprecedented scale will sweep over the lands. I know it. When that time comes, nations from all over the world will form alliances, fight, and then join forces again. For years, the world will be engulfed in ghoulish madness. A Great War. Do you understand? It’s Sodom. It’s a banquet of insanity. No one can stop it, and no one will be able to figure out how it started, or why. Fire and wind will blanket the world. Every city, every sea, will become a battleground, countless soldiers will bleed, and nations will fall.”

“…”

“I don’t know when it will come or how the destruction will begin. I can’t see that far into the future. It is painful, Leviathan. After that storm, everything will change. The world will adopt new rules, new ways of life, and Europe, the center of the world, will become an old piece of junk. This place will be decimated, and when that happens, all that we believe in, the knowledge that Europe has cherished throughout its long history, will disappear. Mystic arts will be reduced to superstition. The world will slip away somewhere we do not yet know. I find that terrifying. That is why we must prepare for battle, Leviathan.”

“Sauville is a small kingdom,” he muttered sadly. “We must protect it by any means necessary. But the king doesn’t understand that. Neither does my father.”

I shuddered at the sound of his manic voice. My gut told me that this soft-spoken young man was crazy. Yet I also felt that there was some truth to his vision of the future. Perhaps he could foresee a dark future because he was crazy.

In my mind I saw a world mired in madness, a storm of unprecedented magnitude, a world war that had not yet happened. Soldiers bleeding, vehicles that looked like lumps of iron I had never seen before, the dull sound of propellers emitted by bombers streaking through the sky.

After talking about the future like some fortune-teller, Albert cast his eyes down. Then he laid his hand on my knee, and whispered, “I need your help. In return, I will do everything in my power to protect you. I have limited power while my father is still alive, but…”

“You need my help? For a war that might not even happen?”

“Yes. There is something we need.”

“You want gold too,” I said tiredly.

“Of course not!” he spat. “I don’t need gold. That’s not what I want from you. I want absolute power!” Albert regarded me with wide, crazed eyes. “Leviathan, you’re the only one who can create it. It will become Sauville’s trump card in facing the storm. What lies beneath that enigmatic mask will save the European continent from battle and from desolation. I beg you. Please lend me your strength.”

“What would you have me create?”

Albert’s thin lips twisted into a grin. “I want you to create…”

And then he uttered the name of the thing he wanted me to create.

Something accursed.

A bizarre entity that most defied the laws of nature.

“Homunculi!”