Beyond the porthole, the wind smeared sheets of rain across the transparent glass, leaving nothing but a leaden-gray storm in view. Beneath the heavy clouds, flashes of lightning flickered in the distance, as though some primordial beast were roaring at the heart of the tempest.
Lloyd held the few pages of the aviation manual Oscar had torn out for him in one hand, while the other moved restlessly across the complicated control console. After God knew how many attempts, Lloyd finally managed to bring the massive machine to life.
The steel leviathan pushed its way through the storm. Ever since takeoff, the violent shaking had never stopped, as though countless enormous hands were pounding against the airship from every direction. Without enough ballast, this civilian airship might have been caught up by the storm the moment it left the ground, torn apart and scattered into the sky.
It was an outrageously reckless thing to do, but Lloyd was already accustomed to such madness. It felt like walking along the bottom of a darkened sea. All he could do was use the compass to make a rough judgment of his direction. Looking down through the porthole, he could see that all of Old Dunling had been swallowed by the storm. The Thames had overflowed its banks and poured into the streets, making it seem as though the entire earth were sinking beneath the waves, devoured by an ocean of raging water.
People huddled inside their homes, enjoying what little warmth they could find, while workers piled bricks against the walls to keep the freezing rain from flooding into the furnaces.
Lloyd could still see the fiery rain falling in the distance, toward Black Mountain Hospital. In those beautiful ruins, the flames had yet to die.
He had no idea whether the demonic tide there had been completely dealt with.
But… there was nothing left to worry about.
That was what Lloyd told himself as he looked toward the rear of the cabin.
It was completely dark. Not a single light had been switched on.
He had taken the most dangerous task for himself.
This was Lloyd's final gift to the city.
As he pondered that thought, Lloyd took out a cigarette and lit it. Then he picked up the wineglass beside him. This civilian airship had essentially been built for passenger pleasure, so there was no shortage of wine aboard.
"They said I was good for nothing. Cold and heartless. They said no one cared about me. They said I was beyond saving, incapable of affection, with no road left to walk."
He blew smoke into the air, propped his feet up on the control console, and hummed some strange little tune beneath his breath. With an apocalyptic vista unfolding outside the window, Lloyd suddenly felt rather peculiar, almost like an emperor surveying his kingdom. For a moment, it felt as though he controlled everything within this catastrophe.
In reality, he controlled nothing at all.
It just felt rather cool.
His eyes narrowed as though he were about to fall asleep, but the old man's face kept appearing in his mind.
During the fierce battle earlier, Lloyd had had no time to think about such things. Now that he finally had a moment to catch his breath, those memories had followed him like nightmares.
Perhaps he had simply been too shocked.
Or perhaps he had already reached the point where there was nothing left to shock him with.
So this was how everything had been.
So this was what he really was.
"Dunling Tower calling the Reichenbach. You have not been granted clearance for takeoff. Land immediately!"
An agitated voice crackled through the communication channel, interrupting Lloyd's thoughts.
Lloyd was momentarily confused as to how anyone had managed to contact him. Then, after a brief pause, he suddenly understood. That tower apparently had another function: controlling the city's air routes. It seemed the war airships normally operated under its direction.
The speaker sounded extremely agitated. Perhaps he had never imagined that, in weather this damned, some lunatic would actually pilot an airship into the sky, much less a civilian one.
Under conditions this severe, the crash of a civilian airship would cause a catastrophe. If it happened to come down on some factory, the consequences would be even worse.
He probably could not understand what this madman was trying to accomplish.
If he wanted to die, surely he did not have to choose today.
"This is Captain Lloyd Holmes!"
Lloyd answered cheerfully.
"Heading north! Full thrust! Still climbing!"
He had no intention of giving a proper answer.
The steel leviathan accelerated into the storm. The gale was a tremendous obstacle, battering against its massive gas envelope and pushing the entire vessel sideways, but it could not stop it.
It was like a flight from the end of the world.
Lloyd was heading away from Old Dunling.
"Return to port and land immediately!"
The voice on the other end continued shouting, as though still clinging to some faint hope.
But this time Lloyd's excited tone faded. His voice became lower as he replied.
"Can't go back, my friend. I'm a ferryman for the dead. I have to deliver these passengers to Hell before I can return to the world of the living."
Then he deliberately lightened his tone.
"You know how it is. If you're going to do a job, you might as well love the job. Right?"
As he spoke, Lloyd glanced to the side.
Weapons had been neatly arranged there: an armor-piercing hammer, a nail sword, a shotgun, and more.
Sometimes he remembered the world he had seen during the [Divine Baptism]. He recalled that world having something called video games, and in those games, before the protagonist faced a great battle, they would always stop at a save point, load their progress, and then fully equip themselves before confronting the final enemy.
Looking at it that way, save points really did exist everywhere.
And according to Lloyd's understanding, this should be the final one.
"What are you talking about?"
The voice on the other end sounded increasingly convinced that Lloyd was insane.
"Ah, forget it. Let's talk a little longer. There are only the two of us in this godforsaken place now. Who knows what's going to happen next?"
Lloyd spoke almost conversationally.
"I have to admit, this job is pretty damn dangerous. I could die in some random corner of the world without anyone even knowing… Though maybe I won't. After all, I'm the invincible Lloyd Holmes. But…"
The old man's death flashed before his eyes again.
Even after calculating so much, the old man had still been unable to escape the fate that awaited him. Beneath that ominous solitary light, his body had cracked apart and disintegrated.
"But there's always room for accidents in life, isn't there? Have you ever thought about that, friend? You could be on your way to work one morning and suddenly get hit by a carriage, just like that, and say goodbye to this beautiful world."
"But people can't live every day terrified of accidents. All we can do is reduce the risks as much as possible. Walk on the sidewalk. Look both ways before crossing the street."
Lloyd continued rambling.
He was sometimes like this, suddenly saying the strangest things for no apparent reason.
"But some accidents simply can't be avoided. Demons, for example. Those things don't follow any rules. They're like physical manifestations of all the evil and distortion in the world, suddenly forced into existence where they don't belong. You can avoid being killed by a carriage, but sooner or later, you'll run into those damned things anyway."
Lloyd's voice suddenly grew angry.
"D-Demons?"
The voice over the channel sounded surprised, as though he had never expected Lloyd to know that such things existed.
"Hm? You know about them?"
Lloyd was surprised as well.
He had already prepared himself to face everything alone. He never expected the communication channel to remain connected at the very end, much less that the stranger on the other side would know about demons.
"Who exactly are you?"
The voice questioned him again.
"The great Mr. Lloyd Holmes!"
Lloyd repeated himself.
This time, the voice fell silent.
"Wait…"
Something about the name suddenly seemed familiar.
Then the man spoke again.
"Wait for me!"
A burst of commotion erupted on the other end of the channel. Apparently, the man was scrambling around to do something.
Lloyd did not hurry him.
Half his cigarette remained. There was still wine in his glass. He had plenty of time to chat with a stranger.
"I'll be honest. There's a hole in my chest. It comes from the things I did in the past, and from this gun in my hand…"
He continued humming.
His indifferent singing drifted through the silent communication channel.
At some point, Lloyd had set down the wineglass. He picked up the nail sword and armor-piercing hammer, then took the shotgun loaded with ammunition.
"Lloyd Holmes!"
The sudden shout rang through the channel.
"Broken Dome calling the Reichenbach. This is Gareth, Knight Commander of the Cleanse Bureau!"
"Broken Dome?"
Lloyd froze.
Then he turned toward the porthole.
Although the storm obstructed most of his vision, the towering Dunling Tower remained visible through the rain. It stood like a torch in the darkness, unmistakable even from here.
So Dunling Tower was the Broken Dome?
As a detective, Lloyd's mind worked quickly.
But he soon had another thought.
If he simply flew this airship straight into the tower, would that count as directly destroying the Cleanse Bureau's headquarters?
Unfortunately, there was no time to entertain such ridiculous ideas.
The voice on the channel came again, this time demanding an answer.
"What are you doing, Lloyd?"
"I'm running away, Gareth!"
Lloyd picked up a map beside him. Several rough markings had been made across it.
This was the plan he and Oscar had agreed upon. Northdello would assist Lloyd in escaping Old Dunling.
"What?"
Gareth was momentarily at a loss.
He had expected Lloyd to say something else, but he had never imagined the answer would simply be that he was running away—and that he would say it so openly.
"Running away! Leaving this city. Leaving all of you behind. I've found a place I like. They say you can see beautiful auroras in the Viking nations. I've been working for so long. Surely I'm allowed to take a little vacation, aren't I?"
Lloyd's finger slid across the map and stopped at a corner marked with a red X.
Gareth was speechless.
He had imagined all sorts of bizarre plans and tactics Lloyd might have come up with.
But he had never imagined that, at this moment, Lloyd was thinking about taking a vacation.
Listening to the silence on the other end, Lloyd suddenly felt a little bored.
He had never met Gareth, but judging from these few exchanges, the man had to be painfully dull.
"All right. Though you might not believe me, I'm actually trying to save this city, Knight Commander Gareth."
As he spoke, Lloyd stuffed various weapons into his pockets.
He no longer felt like teasing the furious knight commander. He could almost picture the man smashing his fists against his desk.
"So hijacking an airship is your method of saving the city?"
Gareth roared.
As the Knight Commander stationed permanently at the Broken Dome, he was currently drowning in work at the command center. Several hours ago, all contact with Black Mountain Hospital had been lost. A terrifying corruption reaction had erupted, the disaster protocol had been activated, and the Sweepers had entered the field.
In other words, beneath this storm, Old Dunling was experiencing a secret war unlike anything it had ever seen.
And once the disaster protocol had been activated, there was almost nothing Gareth, as Knight Commander, could do. All he could do was wait for word from the Sweepers.
"Lloyd Holmes, you are currently a target of the New Order. You should immediately evacuate to a safe area. And in a situation like this, you're piloting an airship? Are you insane?"
"I know, I know. You think I haven't considered everything you people can think of? I'm not stupid."
Lloyd picked up the nail sword and drove it hard into the gap in the control lever, twisting it until it broke and remained locked in the fully engaged position. Full power.
According to the map, it would not be long before the airship left Old Dunling.
"I know I'm a target of the New Order, which means those bastards are definitely going to come looking for me. And I have a personal grudge with them. That's something the Cleanse Bureau has no authority over."
Lloyd calmly explained everything he had just done to Gareth.
"I waited at the airfield for a long time before taking off. If the demon hunters from the New Order were fast enough, they should have already infiltrated the airship. Which means that right now, those bastards and I are locked inside together."
"You… What are you going to do?"
For a moment, Gareth could not understand what Lloyd was planning.
In truth, ever since the airship had taken off, one question after another had been hammering at him. No one knew why Lloyd had appeared here, how he knew there was an airship available, or even how he knew how to pilot one.
It was as though everything had been planned in advance.
"This actually benefits the Cleanse Bureau, too. The demonic tide at Black Mountain Hospital is already terrifying enough. If I fight the New Order there as well, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to keep the battlefield contained within the hospital. Old Dunling is densely populated, after all. You don't want the fighting spilling into the city center, do you?"
"Lloyd! Calm down. You're a target of the New Order. Once you…"
Gareth tried to say something to stop him, but Lloyd simply ignored him and continued.
"But this time is different. On this airship, they have nowhere to retreat. They can't threaten me with ordinary people's lives like they did before, and they can't simply hide inside some building. This is a dead end. There's nowhere for them to run."
"Either they kill me and stop this airship, or I kill all of them and stop this airship…"
"The result is basically the same, isn't it?"
His words were casual.
But on the other end of the channel, the casualness in Lloyd's voice was met by silence.
Lloyd did not rush him. After a moment, he asked quietly,
"Anything else to say, Gareth? The Reichenbach is about to leave Old Dunling and pass beyond the signal range."
"I… We'll find a better solution."
"That's your solution, not mine."
"What solution do you want?"
Lloyd did not answer immediately.
Several figures flashed through his mind.
Then his fingers tightened around the nail sword.
"The demons killed my friends, so I'm going to eradicate every last one of them. And the New Order hurt my roommate, then arrogantly looked down on me as if they were invincible…"
Moriarty's face surfaced in his mind.
Yet Lloyd felt no anger now.
Instead, he felt almost delighted.
He could hardly wait to see the fear on that bastard's face.
"An eye for an eye. Is that really so difficult to understand, Knight Commander?"
The Reichenbach passed beyond Old Dunling's signal range.
The static on the channel gradually faded into silence.
Lloyd kicked open the cabin door. He had already switched off every light aboard the airship.
Then he stepped into the darkness.