The Sword-Picker and Hecate’s Arteries

[Warning! The sub-core region has sustained a heavy blow; emergency shock protection mode has been activated.]

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[Repair complete.]

As the sunlight ceased to stream through the window, Iordera finally stirred awake.

Instinctively, she reached for her chest; the tear in her clothes remained, yet not a single wound marred her body, as if she had never suffered a sword injury.

“Awake, are we?” Hecate’s voice floated lightly into the air. “Was that a comfortable rest?”

Iordera finally realized she had returned to Prison Zero, to the place most familiar to her.

“I asked Sir Olcott to bring you back,” Hecate grinned mischievously at her. “No need to thank me; I spoil you, after all.”

Iordera’s lips moved a few times, and she mumbled an indistinct thank you.

She leaned against the wall to stand, dusting off her clothes, though she still looked utterly disheveled.

“So?” Hecate asked, cupping her face as she watched Iordera. “What did you discover?”

“It was all Lord Martin’s plan; he sought to become a new legend.”

Iordera briefly recounted the truth of the matter, and Hecate listened with keen interest, occasionally clicking her tongue in amusement.

Having finished her tale, Iordera hesitated for a long moment before walking to the cell bars and slowly lowering her head.

“Hecate, could you perhaps persuade Mr. Olcott to lend another hand…?”

In all the days they had known each other, Hecate had never seen her look so humble.

But Hecate shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

Iordera’s fingers involuntarily trembled.

“My dear,” Hecate said airily, “you must consider Mr. Olcott’s position. He doesn’t belong to Juneburg; he’s merely here to guard the prison, and his term is almost up. Far from Juneburg, he has his own life, his own family, and his loved ones.”

Iordera took two steps back, wiping her palms, suddenly feeling awkward and utterly at a loss.

She once more forcefully patted the dust from her body, but still couldn’t get it clean.

Then she turned, preparing to leave.

“Are you going by yourself?” Hecate called out, stopping her.

“…Yes.”

She intended to go to the Lord’s Manor once more, to eliminate Martin, the true culprit, no matter the cost.

This time, Iordera would harbor no illusions of luck or avarice.

“Is it truly worth it for you?” Hecate questioned. “While the Lord bears most of the blame for this affair, in fairness, do they bear no responsibility themselves?”

Iordera halted. “They?”

“Even if the Lord is ninety-nine percent responsible, are the people of the city entirely faultless for the remaining one percent?” Hecate tilted her head. “They believed the Lord’s words implicitly, without a shred of doubt. Whatever the Lord said was truth, whoever he declared wrong was wrong; this was the very foundation of all tragedies that befell the city.”

Iordera lowered her gaze, staring at the sand on the ground, remaining silent.

“That’s how people are; they’re only willing to believe those they trust. Just as The Guardian declared me a witch, so they believed Hecate was a calamity upon the world,” Hecate sighed wistfully. “In Juneburg, when the Lord called them minions of the witch, the populace believed it without question. Even after the fact, whoever the Lord blamed, everyone would follow suit and believe.”

She looked at Iordera, her voice ethereal. “So, are they truly worth saving? You know, the populace is ignorant…”

“They aren’t ignorant,” Iordera interrupted suddenly. “They merely wish to believe.”

Hecate licked her lips. Far from being angered by Iordera’s direct refutation, she seemed invigorated.

Iordera bit her lip, then spoke slowly, enunciating each word:

“They are willing to believe the Lord because they trust that human kindness will always outweigh malice, and sincerity will always triumph over deceit.”

“They believe that a certain order exists between heaven and earth; that the wicked and deceitful will all face punishment and retribution. Under the ‘threat’ of this order, no one would dare to easily commit evil.”

Hecate yawned. “What goes around comes around? My dear, you truly have a knack for making a simple proverb sound so terribly complicated.”

“Yet, this ‘order’ you speak of doesn’t actually exist,” Hecate said, gazing at her playfully. “My dear little princess, you yourself understand that the world isn’t truly like that…”

“But the world *should* be like that!”

Within Iordera’s ruby pupils, dark golden fluid surged wildly.

“Moreover, order has always existed; what’s missing are merely those who uphold it.”

Hecate blinked. “Then, my dear, who exactly do you intend to find to uphold this order?”

Iordera exhaled deeply.

A high-pressure airflow, full and overflowing, condensed and lingered in the air.

“Let me tell you a story, Hecate,” she began. “Once, when Juneburg was not yet a city, it was a land rife with suffering and injustice. A young man, wishing to end it all, embarked on a journey to a foreign land, hoping to find a powerful knight to return and deliver justice.”

“But in the end, he found no one, only a sword,” Hecate finished the story for her. “I see. You intend to become this ‘Sword-Picker’.”

The witch rose lightly, her chains clanking.

“My dear, allow me to tell you a story as well: Alchemical creations once saw their progress stagnate because, once a core engine surpassed level 50, it would explode due to efficiency loss and overheating issues. Then, someone solved both these problems, and all alchemists across the land revered that person as a god,” a grin spread across Hecate’s lips. “That person was me.”

Iordera’s heart pounded. She seemed to understand something. “How did you solve it?”

“By directly connecting the engine core to the primary power output point, the problem of energy loss during supply could be resolved,” Hecate explained. “This connection point, however, would concentrate most of the heat, so all that was needed was to design that junction for easy heat dissipation.”

She chuckled. “Of course, it was no simple task; a device to directly power the output point from the core simply didn’t exist. It was equivalent to the arteries in a human body. Yet, I solved all these challenges and invented alchemical arteries.”

“Naturally, before my imprisonment, people called them—Hecate’s Arteries.”

Hecate raised her hand, examining her pale wrist. “However, everything has two sides, good and bad. Alchemical arteries also have a problem: they lead directly to the core, making them incredibly dangerous. Should harmful impurities enter the arteries and flow straight to the core, something truly awful might occur.”

“Like pencil shavings or graphite powder?” Iordera asked, recalling what Cairns had once told her. “What happens if they enter the core?”

“Graphite powder acts as a sort of superconductor within a functioning core, much like an overdose of caffeine or a powerful stimulant,” Hecate explained, her clasped hand slowly opening. “The core would instantly breach its threshold, over-output, and completely lose control. After a short while, it would… *boom*!”