Chapter 067
After hearing in detail what Miyako had to say, including the fact Yamato already had a team looking for the culprit, Leon dismissed her, telling her to return so he could focus on his thoughts in silence.
'They shouldn't have been able to remove it from the Fourth Floor...' Leon reasoned, as there were checkpoints at both the entrance and exit of the Floor, not to mention the Tower itself. There was a chance that the person who misappropriated the warhead was a security team member, but that would require conspiracy levels of plotting, and, according to Miyako, the warheads were just discovered that day. There simply wasn't enough time to draft a plot that made use of a nuclear warhead unless the person who stole it simply wanted to kill a lot of people...
'Could it have been Bulma...?' Leon considered, but she was probably the first person Yamato consulted when the warhead vanished. On that note, Yamato was an exceptionally cautious individual. When he learned of the discovery, he likely gathered everyone involved to tell them to keep their mouths shut, took stock of everyone they had already told, and placed a group of people he trusted to guard them. Furthermore, a thermonuclear warhead wasn't the sort of thing someone could just put in their pocket or carry around without drawing attention to themselves. That left the most likely explanation being that someone had teleported it out, likely using a Pokemon...
'Yamato would have considered that, and he likely keeps track of all the Pokemon those close to him own...' presumed Leon. 'That means it must be someone related to the people who made the discovery, but there's no way Yamato wouldn't have considered that...
'Unless I'm placing too much trust in the guy...' thought Leon, reminding himself that Yamato was ultimately just eighteen. It wasn't 'that' difficult to imagine that Yamato had simply overlooked something due to stress or some other factor, such as learning about the theft while he was sleeping or, quite possibly, having sex...
'Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact there's some asshole walking around with a nuke...'
Closing his eyes and exhaling a tired sigh, Leon spent a few minutes just tapping his desk with his right index finger. He just couldn't comprehend why someone would steal a nuclear warhead. If their only goal was killing a ton of people, they could have detonated it at the silo or near the heart of the city. Since they hadn't, that indicated they had a target in mind, but who, and, more importantly, why? There was no genuine hostility between the culturally East and culturally Western inhabitants of Purgatoria, and he hadn't heard anything about any xenophobic asshats making a fuss. There were a few troublemakers and rabble-rousers, sure, but the types that got into barfights or kicked out of brothels for making a scene typically lacked the 'capacity' to pull off something like stealing a nuke.
Though the simplest thing to do would be to head to the Fourth Floor and requisition the remaining warheads, Leon was...hesitant. If there was one silo, there was a non-negligible possibility that other silos existed. Could he confiscate every warhead found? Conceivably. But that would actually generate negative sentiments toward his reign as people generally didn't like it when those in power hoarded all the most powerful weapons. The most aggravating thing about that was that he could publically have each warhead dismantled, but the malcontent would argue that it was just a PR stunt and gradually convince people he had more, waiting to be employed the moment they stepped out of line...
'Could that be their aim?' wondered Leon, speculating that whoever had stolen the warhead didn't plan to use it but wanted to see how he would react and then use it to undermine his standing and authority. There were plenty off petulant cunts like that in his previous world, people who would do everything in their power to harass you and then try to spin it as if you were the malicious or intolerable one for defending yourself...
"This is why I didn't want to be something like a Lord or a King..." sighed Leon. He would rather have someone like Mordred herself in charge and just do his own thing while coordinating with her forces. Unfortunately, he 'was' in charge, so even though he wished he could just sleep, a pastime he dearly missed, Leon got up from his desk and disappeared, teleporting to the entrance of the Tower...
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With the Assign menu's map allowing him to zoom in, out, and even into buildings and subsurface areas that had been mapped, it didn't take too long for Leon to locate the silo by simply looking for sections of the map that ran underground. Instead of teleporting there in his body, however, he appeared in his phantom form, his presence completely masked as he took stock of the situation.
Other than the silo itself, which was a giant cylindrical tube of concrete connecting to a domed, eight-segmented ceiling, there was a munitions production facility and assembly line, a residential complex structured like a fallout shelter, two massive floors dedicated to farming, and an armory, the back of which housed a large, pried-open vault currently under heavy guard by people Leon recognized as Yamato's men, each decked out in a fantasy-esque version of tactical gear and fitted with shotguns that used rock salt in place of metal slugs or beads.
Making his way over to the reinforced lead-lined crates the group was guarding, Leon phased his hand through them and carefully placed the remaining warheads into his Storage before using the Refine function to break them down into their base materials. Some of the more advanced facilities in the Build tab required fissile materials, so while the present situation was one he would have liked to avoid, Leon wasn't incapable of seeing the silver lining in things.
Looking around at the unsuspecting but alert guards, Leon opened his console and took a moment to check each of their Statuses. When he was promoted to a Rank 2 Fledgling Administrator, he gained the ability to see whether a person approved of him as a percentage. Everyone present had a value of at least 70% percent, signifying they had a favorable impression of him, so it was relatively safe to assume they weren't the culprits. At the very least, it suggested they didn't intend to use the warhead against him directly...
With such thoughts in mind, Leon teleported out of the vault, relocating to Yamato's office on the 77th Floor of a 79-floor tower, serving as the heart and headquarters of the burgeoning reconstruction project. The 78th and 79th Floors, according to Yamato, were reserved for people more capable than himself, but as they had yet to be summoned, the 77th Floor was the highest occupied at present.
Moving over to Yamato's desk, Leon, just to be safe, checked the drawers for traps and false bottoms. Unsurprisingly, there were seven, a testament to how cautious Yamato was under normal circumstances.
While he trusted Yamato, that didn't stop Leon from carefully placing each item and document within the desk into his Storage before removing them to peruse their contents. To his surprise, though he somewhat anticipated it, one of the documents was a letter left specifically for him, apologizing for the predicament and listing nine people he believed could be suspects but had yet to find any evidence to implicate them. As for their motivation, Yamato suspected they didn't want to harm anyone but to bring an end to the reclamation and development of the Fourth Floor.
'So it's someone who resists or despises modernity and wants people to focus on ascending the Tower...?'
Though it sounded ludicrous, Leon could actually imagine a former otaku or someone with protagonist syndrome stealing and setting off the nuke to inhibit or deter those who clung to their previous lives and wanted to recreate the society they originated from within the Tower, a society that probably treated them like shit. Now, regardless of how the situation was wrapped up, the Fourth Floor was fated to become a restricted area, and Leon would have no choice but to toughen the security of each Floor, just as Mordred had advised him to do from the beginning...
'Could Mordred have put someone in the FES up to this...?' considered Leon. However, while it wasn't impossible, she had sworn to him that she would never deliberately do anything to jeopardize or undermine his trust. This would be a massive betrayal, regardless of whether her reasons were justified, so it wasn't likely. More importantly, she shouldn't have any idea what a thermonuclear warhead is...
Deciding to follow the threads Yamato had left for him, Leon teleported to the room of a geeky-looking 'kid' with dark hair fashioned into a bowl cut and large, circular glasses that largely obscured his eyes and made it look like he had a swirl pattern on the lenses. In reality, as Yamato's world had post-secondary school as compulsory education, even the 'First Years' of the Kawakami Academy that many from his world originated from were at least eighteen years old. Thus, despite appearing to be around 14-15, the glasses-wearing otaku, a former member of Kawakami Academy's Class-S, was nearing twenty.
Checking the youth's status and finding he had an approval value of 88%, Leon temporarily passed over him as a suspect. However, as there was a chance that the person he was looking for felt genuine gratitude toward him for providing them the opportunity to reincarnate, he didn't eliminate the glasses-wearing youth altogether as there was a distinctive possibility that the culprit could have high favorability toward him but secretly loathe Yamato...
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After checking the Statuses of each of the people Yamato had listed, Leon teleported over to the tense, serious-looking youth directly, finding him in the middle of interrogating a slightly older-looking boy with raven-black hair, brown eyes, and a very anxious look marring his face.
"Cut the crap, Orihara-san," said Yamato, his brows creasing further as he stated, "We've confirmed with several different people that you were the one circulating rumors regarding a missing warhead. Even if you initially heard the rumor elsewhere, no one travels to several locations spreading unsubstantiated claims without a motive..."
"What motive?" asked Izaya, nervously contending, "I just wanted to let all my friends know what I had heard, just in case there was some truth to the rumor and an evacuation was ordered..."
'This guy is strange...' noted Leon, checking the man's, Izaya Orihara's, Status to find he had a whopping 98% approval value. What Leon found even odder was the fact he recognized the man as one of the porters of the Frontier Expedition Squad, a non-combatant that helped pick up and transport drop items for other Squads. This was strange because he was still only Red Grade and had a status comparable to someone who had only been summoned recently despite being one of Leon's relatively early personal summons...
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Name: Izaya Orihara
Class: None
Emotional State: Composed
Approval: 98%
Rank: Red(F)
Level: 1
[Attributes]
STR: 49
END: 143
AGI: 68
SPI: 195
MNA: 28
LCK: 124
[Skills]
[Philanthropist(A)]
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Seeing that Izaya's emotional state was listed as 'composed' despite his tense, unsettled demeanor, a frown marred Leon's nonexistent face. The description of [Philanthropist(A)] stated that Izaya had a near-boundless love for humanity, which would explain his desire to warn his friends, but if that were the case, it would make more sense for him to be furious and confrontational, not pretending to be submissive...
After a moment of deliberation, Leon decided against revealing himself and instead watched the interrogation play out with crossed arms. By the time it was over, both Izaya and Yamato 'appeared' to be exhausted, but while the latter's exasperation was real, the former's emotional state went from composed to amused despite being told that, until the investigation was finished, he would be held in a holding cell. This was a stark contrast to his outward behavior, which required him to be detained as he thrashed about and accused Yamato of being a tyrant who exploited his authority...
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