Chapter 837 — The Informant

"After such incidents, the brains of the Royal Mages' Association immediately analyzed the likely cause. We believe some manner of crisis has occurred, and that a great many people in the know are attempting to warn the crown—but all of them are controlled by some magic that monitors the mind, or have been implanted with a curse that triggers of itself upon a keyword," Windsor Mabel said unhurriedly. "At present the Royal Mages' Association and the agents of the Wanderer Corps are secretly watching all of Aldernan, seeking potential 'warners' and attempting to bring them to this room while ensuring they survive.

"But you came here of your own accord, Lord Beaumère. That counts as an unexpected gain for us."

Luoyan nodded, looking into Lord Beaumère's eyes. "Fortunately, Lady Windsor's great power successfully blocked that latent curse, which proves part of our judgment correct. And you, Lord Beaumère... now prove the other part of our judgment correct as well. Tell us in detail what those keywords of yours mean—just what crisis is threatening my empire?"

Beaumère blinked. Now that he fully understood the situation, he calmed completely at last, and with a serenity as though he had passed beyond life and death, and a touch of gladness, he smiled wryly and said evenly: "Your Majesty, I was once beguiled by power and knowledge into accepting a 'gift' I should never have accepted. I... am one of the 'Eternal Sleepers.'

"Your Majesty, at the Throat of Olandelle there is a secret nest, shrouded by a powerful field of psychic suggestion and a wide-ranging prohibition of dreams, which has all along been overlooked by everyone..."

...

North of Aldernan, south of the Shadow Marsh, a magic-powered train in black livery stood quietly beside a newly built platform.

This was the earliest magic-train station completed and delivered in the Typhon Empire, and one of the hubs of transport to the neighboring Cecil Empire.

As early as the Ansu era, when the Cecil Empire was still the "Duchy of Cecil," the related works had already begun. The Grand Duke of Cecil of that time signed a trade agreement with the Typhon Empire, linking Typhon by a rail line at the foot of the Dark Mountains—that was the beginning of "modern trade" between the two empires. And today's station here was an extension of that former railway, as well as one of the "Cecil Railway Investment Company's" projects in Typhon.

High-powered magic-crystal lamps hung aloft on the lamp posts at the center of the platform; the light they cast drove back the darkness around the station and made the surface of that black mechanical serpent gleam. The vast, heavy steel machine loomed under the night sky like a crouching beast, its cold, rigid lines traced out by the artificial lights, while the workers patrolling the platform and servicing the machinery walked to and fro in the lamplight—seen from afar, they seemed as tiny as insects and ants crawling about a beast's flanks.

For Typhon, where magic trains and railway projects had only just begun, this advanced and costly precision apparatus was still far from the stage of widespread civilian use. In the vast majority of cases it served only as a transport line for the industrial cities of the empire's heartland to devour raw materials, and as a tool for hauling goods to and from Cecil; and moreover it was deep night now, the only civil train on this line had already stopped, so that the great platform seemed sparsely staffed.

Two platform inspectors were carrying out their handover before the train—this last train of the day was about to depart for Cecil, laden with textiles and prepared alchemical materials produced in Typhon; beyond this there would be no other service tonight, so that even the staff seemed to have grown slack.

A figure flitted past the rear of the train and slipped inside the vast industrial machine.

The lights in that section were perhaps faulty, for they seemed unusually dim, and not a single patrolman was anywhere in sight.

Yuri, mild-mannered and wearing a monocle, strode quickly through the steel-forged "corridor" in his black coat. He passed through the connecting gates and the freight cars piled high with crates, and in the shadows near those crates, several pairs of eyes lifted from the darkness, then swiftly fell again.

As he stepped into the last car, more gazes turned toward him.

"Everyone is aboard," Yuri said in a terse, low voice. "Fifteen minutes until departure. To avoid checkpoint inspections and any Typhon people boarding en route, we must stay as silent as possible until the train stops at Baisha Station, and no one may cross into the second-to-last car. Everyone get ready."

"It's already been passed down," Wendy's soft voice came from beside him. "How is it outside?"

"Don't worry," Yuri said quietly. "Several key supervisors here and half the front-line technicians are Cecilians—the technical handover and training period isn't over yet, and the Typhon need the Cecilians here to teach them hand over hand how to control these huge, complex machines and manage the railway system. So tonight, everyone who has come into contact with this train is reliable."

Wendy let out a soft breath, then slowly swept her gaze across the car. She recalled the shock she had felt upon first seeing this magitek machine, recalled the "station" outside teeming with countless inconceivable technologies, and could not help murmuring, "This is truly an unimaginable creation..."

"Indeed. If conditions allowed, I would love to study just how this thing moves," Yuri Charwyn sighed. "I only hope that once we reach 'the other side,' there will be a chance..."

"I would rather meet that 'Witch Gipley' and see the magic-web broadcast," Wendy said with a light laugh. "They say... there are even singing 'programs' there, heard by tens of thousands of people all at the same time."

Yuri shook his head at once. "Best not think about it. Your singing would likely drag people into eternal slumber."

Wendy retorted immediately, "I can sing normally too, Instructor Yaoyao."

"The Yaoji Order... let us abandon that title from now on," Yuri said in a low voice, seating himself on a nearby crate. "Call each other by name, forget the past, or simply add 'Mr.' and 'Ms.'—that would be fine too..."

"A good idea," Wendy said with a slight nod. "But Mr. Yuri, you are sitting on Mr. Magnum's head. He has probably already begun cursing you loudly."

"I can't hear him anyway," Yuri said, patting the crate beneath him with an air of indifference. "Besides, this is merely a 'corpse.'"

Wendy shook her head helplessly, then opened her mouth as if to say something—but the next instant her expression shifted slightly.

And almost at the same moment, Yuri's expression changed as well.

In that instant, all Eternal Sleepers of bishop rank and above received an emergency notice from Megol III—

An aberrant mind had broken away from the Eternal Sleeper network.

The "informant" had appeared.