Chapter 178 - A Story of the Past, I’m the Teacher and You’re the Student

"... You tricked me?!"

"Hahaha. Robbed right under your nose, weren’t you?"

"Die!"

"Aaah! Careful! Knives are dangerous!"

"If you were afraid of knives... you shouldn’t have done it! Grr! Let go...!"

"Oh. I meant you should be careful of your hands, Miss Sephier. Swing it like that and you’ll cut your own fingers. Those hands have the important task of leading Seamless Heavenly Garments someday."

"I don’t need them...! These stupid things...! I’d rather not have fingers...!"

"Is that all your determination to protect Seamless Heavenly Garments amounted to? Your grandmother is still alive. Seeing her granddaughter’s fingers cut off would crush her and break her heart."

"..."

"... You are never, ever going to die peacefully."

"I expected as much. But isn’t how you live more important than how you die? Even if the world ends tomorrow, I intend to enjoy a cup of black tea today... Huh. This tastes strange. Did you poison the tea, by any chance?"

"... Laxatives."

"Heh... heh. I knew, but drank it for your sake."

"Liar! Tch, I should’ve used deadly poison...!"

"Let’s finish this conversation after I visit the bathroom. Oh, sorry, but please don’t attack me while I have diarrhea. Even I can’t fight back without getting it everywh— Urgh, it’s coming."

"Stop being disgusting! Human garbage like you should just get sucked down the drain!"

"... Why do I need to learn how to shoot a gun?"

"You should learn when the opportunity presents itself. When else would someone like me get to learn marksmanship with all the ammunition I could want?"

"So you’re the one who wanted to learn."

"Oh! You caught me!"

"Living it up on my grandmother’s money...!"

"Now, now. Wait. Don’t get worked up. What you need most when shooting is a cool head and a slow heartbeat. Calm down, aim over there, and pull the trigger. No, not this way!"

"Die, you scum! ... Huh? A flower?"

"Ta-da! It’s actually a dummy round modified to make a flower pop out. Haha, did I surpri— Ow! Ow! Even a fake hurts when you hit me with it! They say you shouldn’t hit people even with flowers!"

"Hey. What’s this?"

"Today we’re having an alchemy lesson."

"Alchemy? A lesson? You? Teaching me?"

"Oh, were you thinking, ‘You’re going to teach alchemy to me, the heir to Seamless Heavenly Garments? Someone like you?’"

"Exactly. After that I thought, ‘Go to hell, idiot.’ Didn’t catch that part, did you?"

"Hehe. Then why not put me to the test? See whether I’m qualified to teach alchemy."

"How?"

"Ask me anything. I’ll get every answer right."

"Wait right there."

"... Here."

"Wow. I asked for questions and you brought me an exam paper. I haven’t done anything like this since my final assessment at secondary military school."

"I wrote every question myself, based on what Grandmother taught me."

"This is hard. Hmm. This goes here, and that goes there."

"Hmph. Grandmother reached the pinnacle of tailoring and alchemy. Her work truly was as seamless as heavenly garments. She had the incredible ability to make clothes by exquisitely controlling the order in which every single strand of alchemical thread formed. The skills she devoted herself to developing made the brilliant concept of clothing packets possible! I wonder if you can understand even a fragment of those techniques..."

"All done."

"Liar! How?!"

"There’s nothing I don’t know. If you know it, miss, so do I."

"Hmph. You must’ve just scribbled down a bunch of wrong... Huh, that’s right... How?"

"I told you I know."

"That’s... im...possible. Then I... Why did I..."

"Oh, that reminds me. Miss Sephi."

"... What?"

"Come to think of it, I’m the teacher and you’re the student, so the way you address me is a little rude. Now that we’ve established the pecking order, why don’t we straighten out our forms of address?"

"... To what?"

"Call me ‘Teacher.’ I’ll call you Sephi. Understood, Sephi?"

"Uh... ugh, T-Te..."

"Now, now! More spirit! You should say, ‘Yes, Teacher!’"

"Forget it!"

"Sephi. We’re expecting a guest today."

"... A guest of yours, Teacher?"

"A guest for all of us."

"Who? Friend or foe?"

"I’ll explain later. For now, would you take your clothes off?"

"How much?"

"... How much? Even I’m a little taken aback by that. Surely it’s obvious I mean your coat?"

"Oh, r-right... But in this weather?"

"It’s precisely because of this weather that I’m asking."

"All right... Brr, achoo! It’s cold."

"Please bear with it a little. I’m sorry."

Teacher opened the door and went out. Alone in the chilly room, where no fire had yet been lit, Sephier shivered. Only one of its two occupants had left, yet it felt as though winter had descended a second time on the room full of wintry air.

She trembled in a room a little too large for one person.

"... More importantly, why am I doing what Teacher tells me...?"

Teacher knew a surprising amount. When she was with him, Sephier felt she was learning, and that wounded her pride.

Stubbornly determined, she studied far more difficult material and brought it to him, but he still answered without hesitation. The only things Teacher didn’t know were problems so abstruse that even Sephi couldn’t find any relevant material.

After quite some time, Sephier acknowledged Hughes as her teacher and began taking her studies seriously. In truth, she was equal parts eager and apprehensive to see what he had prepared this time.

How long had she been shivering in the cold? At last, voices came from beyond the door.

"You! No matter how you try to sweet-talk me, I will never cooperate with those ragmakers, the Bakias!"

"Oh, Mr. Smen. Just take a look, please."

The door burst open, and an elderly man with an untidy beard strode in, shoes and all. He surveyed the room with a displeased expression and grumbled.

"Hmph. Not much of a workshop! This is a factory. Where are the clothes? All I see is something without a shred of artistry..."

The elderly man’s clothes were old, but his appearance was neat. Frowning deeply, he spotted Sephier huddled in a corner, shivering. He snorted.

"Ha! These people claim to make clothes, yet they begrudge a child even a scrap of cloth! Are you a servant here? Won’t your master give you clothes?"

"This is Miss Sephier Bakia."

"... What? The granddaughter of Seamless Heavenly Garments?"

Smen’s expression changed.

"Why is the granddaughter of Seamless Heavenly Garments without a coat in weather like this...? With clothes everywhere?"

"She’s being punished. Her godfather, President Alexei, is a strict man. Whenever there’s a setback in Arche Avatar production, he punishes her severely."

"I heard Seamless Heavenly Garments was bedridden... But even so."

"Oh, of course he doesn’t do anything so barbaric as beat her. He simply takes away the necessities of life one at a time, then returns them. That’s how he disciplines her. Clothing, food, shelter... It seems today was clothing’s turn."

‘You’re the one who told me to take it off...’

Smen could not hear the truth Sephier muttered in her mind. He shouted, so furious that his beard trembled.

"How could... Whatever the circumstances, she’s the sole heir to Seamless Heavenly Garments! How could they leave her like this...!"

"Why act so surprised? You used to make thin, flimsy clothes like that yourself, Mr. Smen. In even colder weather."

Stung where it hurt, Smen shouted in his own defense.

"Those were for balls!"

"Does calling them ball gowns make the same sort of abuse acceptable?"

Teacher gave Smen another ominous smile as the old man’s wrinkled eyes twitched.

That smile was a little more familiar now, and all the more chilling for it. While Sephier pressed her lips together and turned away, Teacher whispered into the old man’s ear.

"You said it yourself, didn’t you, Mr. Smen? Seamless Heavenly Garments’ clothing packets, which cut out and stitch together only the functional aspects of clothing, are a perversion of the craft that knows nothing of aesthetics."

"That was..."

"But who pursued aesthetics until he ended up dressing girls her age in thin clothes and making them dance? Those girls shivered in clothes you made, dancing until their feet blistered to increase their own worth. What’s the difference between them and this young lady being abused under her uncle?"

"It wasn’t abuse... I was merely fulfilling requests."

"And the clothes you made to fulfill those requests were dresses that didn’t cover even half their bodies? That offered no protection from the cold winter air, or the even colder eyes of the world? Ah. Now I understand clothing packets. All the functions of clothing you cut away and discarded ended up in them."

"That was... the Kingdom’s culture..."

BANG

Teacher slammed his hand down on the desk. Smen, who must have been at least three times his age, clamped his mouth shut and stood frozen.

"Nonsense! You people forgot what clothing means and pursued nothing but style. You can’t call what you do making clothes. What you made was vanity and extravagance! Made by stealing the people’s blood and sweat, and the precious warmth they needed to survive another day! Clothes that kill people!"

‘Ah. There goes another one.’

Mired in remorse and regret, the tailor of the old Kingdom finally conceded Teacher’s point.

Whether this was honeyed persuasion or bitter medicine, she couldn’t say. Either way, Smen surrendered completely and bowed his head.

"... What can I do to help?"

"First, teach Miss Sephier all your trade secrets. Perhaps you’ll gain something from it yourself."

In the end, Sephier’s workload increased, but she no longer rebelled needlessly. She studied steadily, trusting that all of this would help.

The days of ceaseless learning continued. She laid one block, climbed atop it, then laid another. Thus, she built a firm footing piece by piece, gradually climbing onto the shoulders of giants.

One day, Sephier dressed neatly and waited for Teacher. She had already poured the tea and sat with her hands folded demurely when he arrived, brushing off his coat as he entered the room.

She spoke to him in a low voice.

"Teacher. I hear Alexei is expanding the business."

Teacher answered as he turned his coat back into a packet.

"Oh, you heard? Yes, that’s right."

"I heard Smen is helping him."

"Yes. He has experience making leather accessories too. President Alexei was delighted to have a craftsman with both skill and experience."

Facing Teacher as he spoke so nonchalantly, Sephier clenched her teeth.

How could he betray her with such a carefree expression?

Sephier spoke, awash with anger, disappointment, and sorrow.

"... Leather can’t be worked with alchemy. Animal hides have a messy, complicated structure. The only way to make better products is to use the hides of naturally powerful beasts."

"Yes, so I’ve heard. Unless it’s particularly high-grade leather, it’s mostly used for accessories."

"So... if Alexei gets into leather, I can’t do anything. It’s outside my domain."

"I suppose it is."

BANG

Sephier slammed her hand down on the desk. Alchemical thread, fabric, scissors, and diagrams of Arche Avatars jumped into the air, then fluttered back down.

Her voice, too, was lower than ever. Her violet eyes shone with a dewy sheen.

"Teacher... weren’t you on my side?"

"Strictly speaking, yours is the side I’m closest to, Sephi."

"Then why did you help Alexei?"

"Because I’m not his enemy either?"

"If Alexei lines his own pockets... I won’t have any way to stop him. I’ll be nothing but a machine that makes Arche Avatars."

"Well, that could happen."

This mattered so much. His casual reply left Sephier drained.

Deep down, she had been hoping. Hoping that taking Alexei’s side was a ruse, that he meant to lull the man into complacency and betray him at the decisive moment.

But no. He helped Alexei in every way, materially and otherwise. In earnest.

The moment Alexei began lining his own pockets, Sephier’s influence would rapidly shrink. She could no longer stop him unless she was prepared to destroy Seamless Heavenly Garments itself...

No, she already couldn’t stop him. Seamless Heavenly Garments was her everything, her dream. She had to protect it, no matter what.

"Please leave, Teacher."

Sephier spoke as though she were tearing her own body apart. After silently sipping his tea for a moment, Teacher picked up the coat he had taken off and bowed.

"If that is your wish, miss."

There was no poison in the tea. Though her tears had mingled with it.

That day, Sephier cried for the first time.

A few weeks later, someone from the Military State came to see Sephier. The uniformed man, his collar pulled up to his mouth, silently handed her a letter.

The Ministry of Public Safety.

A secret department whose very name was said to silence crying children. A special operations department overseeing classified operations both within and beyond the Military State, with everything from its existence to its investigations top secret.

The merciless gardeners of this concrete nation, ruthlessly pruning and cutting away whatever was necessary—companies, individuals, even officers loyal to the Military State.

The letter from its chief, the Ghost Casket of the Five Generals, who had shaped this country since the Military State’s earliest days, was filled with things difficult to believe.

"... Huh?"

[To the esteemed third Seamless Heavenly Garments,

Our nation expresses its deepest regret over the unfortunate circumstances of the two living bearers of Seamless Heavenly Garments. We hope you know that every citizen of the Military State feels profoundly indebted to Seamless Heavenly Garments for its efforts and devotion.

However, though Seamless Heavenly Garments is now the name of a company, it began with a tailor who had attained mastery. The great ideals handed down by the first Seamless Heavenly Garments have endured through the generations to this day, yet recently, certain incompetent individuals have sought to sully that lofty purpose and name...]

The letter was written with a courtesy rarely seen in the Military State, but that only made it eerie, like a monster wearing human skin.

With trembling hands, Sephier read on.

All manner of incongruous flowery language followed, but the real point lay in the final line.

[... Therefore, our nation intends to carry out a sweep operation targeting these individuals.]

Seamless Heavenly Garments faced destruction.

"A year has been enough to teach you, Sephi. Now you must choose."

Teacher, who had probably orchestrated all of this, pressed Sephi to make a choice.

"Sephi. You wanted Seamless Heavenly Garments intact. You wanted to cleanly cut away only Alexei and his close associates, who didn’t know their place and dared defy the second and third Seamless Heavenly Garments."

Before Sephi lay an inventory of Seamless Heavenly Garments’ assets and a roster of its personnel. She took up a pen with a trembling hand.

This would be a register of those who would die. Sephi was now Seamless Heavenly Garments’ King of the Underworld, deciding who would live and who would die.

"But is that all right? Isn’t Alexei, who has devoted himself to the company all this time, part of Seamless Heavenly Garments too? What about the relatives who somehow kept the company afloat when its financial lifeline nearly snapped because it supported the coup? Don’t they deserve a place in the beautiful Seamless Heavenly Garments you envision?"

Could Alexei have become president, even temporarily, if he had no ability or business acumen?

For years, he had taken on all manner of miscellaneous tasks under the second Seamless Heavenly Garments. He must have spent most of his youth devoting himself to the company.

"Unable to make Arche Avatars, he held a position in which he could be replaced at any time. Alexei was simply desperate to protect his place too. You might call it the struggle of someone Seamless Heavenly Garments didn’t choose."

After the second Seamless Heavenly Garments collapsed, Alexei became acting president in place of the young heir. No one questioned the decision.

Alexei, who had weathered every kind of hardship, was far more dependable than a mere seventeen-year-old.

"Unfortunately, in all that struggling, he ended up kicking orphanage children too. Dragging them here to work under the pretext of vocational training. The Military State may not care much about convict laborers, but it won’t neglect children who should be in school. To the Military State, children are lottery tickets that haven’t been scratched yet. When a middle-aged man who’s already been scratched clean and is ready to be thrown away goes and does something like that... Sigh."

But Alexei had crossed the line, and the Military State did not tolerate illicit accumulation of wealth. Whether the greater problem was the ‘illicit’ part or the ‘accumulation of wealth’ part, there was no reason to leave him in place.

"Alexei’s wish has come to an end here. It can’t be helped. I did everything I could to help, but he proved his own inadequacy."

For some reason, Sephier shuddered at his regretful lament, as though he were watching a pupil go astray.

"The Military State can easily cut away Seamless Heavenly Garments, but it can’t afford to lose Arche Avatars. The reason it’s approaching arrogant, insolent Alexei and Seamless Heavenly Garments with such excessive caution is to tame you, miss—the only person currently making Arche Avatars."

An Arche Avatar was a human template.

Arms, legs, chest, hands, belly, knees, feet, neck.

A conceptual embodiment of the human form, assembling its individual components so that they appeared ‘human.’ Only with this could one create clothing packets that linked to biometric terminals and automatically adjusted their size.

Without an Arche Avatar, a clothing packet was no different from neatly folded clothes.

The Military State, too, was moving to prune away every branch and leave only Sephier.

"At any rate, it’s a little late, but now it’s time to grant your wish, miss."

Now Teacher looked solely at Sephi. That was certainly true, yet she felt an unease as though she stood before a beast of prey.

"Sephi. Your wish is to create the Seamless Heavenly Garments you desire. But you can’t fix it without breaking it. You can’t rebuild it without tearing it down. The Seamless Heavenly Garments you cherish isn’t simple."

Surely it wasn’t. The more Sephi learned and the wider her horizons grew, the more she understood. She learned what she sought to obtain and what she would have to face, and came to understand Alexei’s position and feelings to some extent.

But she had never imagined it would end like this. In fact, no one could have predicted it.

Except Teacher, standing before her.

Teacher smiled brightly.

"But you seemed hesitant, Sephi, so I broke Seamless Heavenly Garments for you."

Seeking to build a company of his own, Alexei had recklessly expanded the leather business. In the process, he gathered tailors from the Kingdom and brought in orphanage children as labor.

Public sentiment grew ugly, and the Military State drew its blade. The brief reprieve that remained existed only thanks to the third Seamless Heavenly Garments.

If Sephier nodded, the Military State would tear all of Seamless Heavenly Garments to shreds, sparing only her.

"Now pick out what you want, Sephi. Put the things that will survive with you and form the next Seamless Heavenly Garments into your shopping basket."

Though he had driven the Military State’s greatest holding company to ruin in a single stroke, his captivating smile remained pure and clear.

Teacher began the final practical lesson.

"It’s time to make the Seamless Heavenly Garments you want."