Глава 13

Not to mention, we still aren't sure what 'pain in the ass' we're even solving.

Then don't bother with it.

W, can you speed up a little? It's time we said goodbye to this clingy convoy of send-offs.

Yeah, my second-hander here's not gonna stand up to much abuse. Good news, though—

We just hit a minefield.

Laid half an hour earlier by yours personally.

Now, butts in seats.

This looks to me like you're just fording Bomb River.

Haha! I left them the bigger share, I promise.

Stop the car once we circle that forest ahead. From there, we'll get off and proceed on foot. A vehicle's too large of a target, and they'd catch up sooner or later anyway.

Here's hoping you DO remember where you buried every mine, W.

Well, hooray for us. We're all in one piece.

How's that? I did remember.

Well, a couple went off, but... uhh, you know, what was the term? 'Tectonic movement' did it.

They haven't caught up. I think we've successfully thrown them off.

We need more information. Ideally, we rendezvous with Rhodes Island ASAP. Ascalon and the Doctor are on Windermere's warship right now.

There's a few things I'm... very uneasy about.

What did you see?

It's just intuition. The less I see any problem, the more uneasy I am.

You guys met this 'Doctor'. And now they're Rhodes Island's Doctor.

...I can't give you the full verdict yet, but there's no doubt that in a sense, the Doctor has 'weakened'.

And I don't mean that in any negative way. But maybe it's not a 'weak Doctor' we need so much right now.

Hmph. You sure? Who knows if some Rhodes op will remember some random thing that happened in Chernobog, and just like that, I get a knife planted in my back?

Are you really as skeptical as you'd like to tell us, W?

Hard to say. There's an old hag kind of keeping me at arm's length from their beloved 'Doctor'.

W.

You've spent plenty of time walking this battlefield. Any ideas?

Haha... I've just been prodded this way and that like some bug. Can't even organize a sensible military op, so all I do is sit in my front row seat and spectate the most magical city siege modern society has to offer...

...Ha. Hmph.

Chaos.

Sometimes I even have to wonder, at this point, is anyone actually conducting this battle?

The Royal Court's legions couldn't work together to save their lives. And who gives a shit about all the smallfry corps scuttling in from the four corners to try and live their dreams of Victorian vengeance?

But the ultimate mastermind here is Theresis. So this chaos has to have been planned down to the last detail.

He wasn't juggling some strategic lollapalooza. He just... set the stage.

—And now he's waiting.

As for what he's waiting for... I don't want to guess.

We can't just go braindumb and reach out to the Doctor or Dr. Kal'tsit, hoping they'll give us the orders. We suffered enough with Babel.

We need to seize the initiative. There's a... source of info that might be more open to us than ever, in our current position.

What position? The pathetic little creepy-crawlies?

Essentially. Sarkaz.

Right, and just on the off-chance—

Have either of you heard of... any method to kill a Lich?