Chapter 30: #30 - Checkmate
"What do you mean? What do you mean by that?"
"Well, uh, you see..."Ms. Mary started.
This better be the greatest excuse I've ever heard.
Anything worse than that would be bullshit.
"Some days ago, the princess approached me, asking me about my husband's business."
Uh oh...
"I don't know anything about that, so I told her that. But then the prince barged into the conversation".
Uh Oh...
"He got close to the princess's ear and told her something. I only heard some vague things about Africa and Germany".
Hmmmm...
"After that, the princess was surprised but continued the conversation as usual."
I don't know...
"...It doesn't seem that important of a conversation"
Someone in the room said.
But I wasn't paying attention to who said it.
Because they were right, it doesn't seem that important.
But there's something underlying there.
Let's look at it slowly.
The princess approached her first.
She talked about George.
Then the prince talked to the princess.
He talked about Africa and Germany.
Trade, Germany, Africa, and George.
Let's change ¨George¨ for higher powers of the economy in general.
So, is it about international trade between Germany and Africa?
Africa doesn't trade, it's just some colonies.
What does this have to do with Germany?
Who governs Germany?
At this point, Otto Von Bismarck.
I'm being evasive about the answer, but it seems a bit obvious now.
If you have any memory of history, you will remember one of the biggest parts of the colonization of Africa.
Of course, I'm talking about the Berlin conference.
I think I mentioned it sometime before when George wanted me to inherit his position.
To put it simply, Mr. Joseph was doing something in Africa that attracted the royals' attention, and the princess talked to Ms. Mary so that they could get some preliminary information.
It worked in reverse though, Ms. Mary was the one who got some information with her stand, and somehow, those two royals realized that she knew things, so they got her killed.
Seems plausible.
I don't know how much of this is true though.
The overall event should go like this.
Of course, Ms. Mary would think that her conversation wasn't important since a normal person has no idea when Bismarck will summon a conference to decide ownership of a whole continent.
Shouldn't there be news about this? Or are they waiting to announce it?
George wanted to talk to me. Is it about Africa?
Oh God, I don't know what I would do if it were about that.
I mean, what could even be done in there?
'What about the stand arrows?'
They will be found 100 years into the future, so there is no point.
'Just find them yourself?'
How would I do that?
'With hope and dreams'
What are you even saying...?
But that makes a bit of sense. Gaining the Requiem arrow would be completely worth a trip to Egypt.
Even if I don't have a stand, I may get one.
If everything else fails, I'll just give it to Jack or Apolonia.
Plans aside, everyone in the room is staring at me again.
"Anything to say?", asks Jack.
"...nope".
"Huh?"
"I have a rough picture of the events, but not how we should proceed".
What can I do from here?
The princess has taken note of Ms. Mary.
The prince also has some vague remembrance of her.
Mr. Joseph is already in the scope of the two mentioned.
No matter what I think about it, it seems like a futile effort to try and divert attention from these two.
Ugh, I need to think.
"..."
"..."
"...What if we go talk to the princess?"
"?"
What did he just say?
"I'm sorry Jack, I think I just heard the biggest pile of shit coming out of your mouth. Would you care to repeat what you just said?" I proclaim in the biggest British accent I had since I came to this world.
"I said, just go talk to the princess".
"How in the fuck would we, and why?!"
"Well, the murder is going to be around the end of November, so they will fish for information for at least one month before deciding she's going to be killed, meaning that they will come once again to talk."
"As for the ¨Why¨, is because we have no other option."
"Every word you just said has made me violently angry"
Because he's right.
We can't do anything but wait until they make their next move.
Anything else is rash, especially considering that they are both royalty, even if they are the youngest and probably discarded.
"Damnit, he's right...", Sir Joseph drove the final nail into my will.
"..."
Everyone was quiet, letting the implications set in their minds.
There's truly no escaping this situation.
We're on checkmate.
...
..
...
Well, a bit dramatic on my part, but that's the overall point.
We can only wait. And hope that this doesn't go out of hand.
If we want to be a bit specific.
"There's one thing we can do...", I suddenly say, grabbing the attention of the 4 around me.
"!"
"What is it?", Mr Joseph asks.
"We can grab their attention, but only to us, as we are the ones that can defend ourselves".
"What do you mean?"
"I'll go around the bars, beating up people with my Hamon, eventually people will spread rumors of someone with lightning around his body".
"Jack can just summon his stand in public, anyone with a stand will see him and identify him".
I'm willing to bet my lungs that royal factions have stand users.
"We will get approached by someone who will test us to see if we are useful, and when we prove so, we will be let into the inner circle."
This is all speculation, but it should be roughly like that.
"That sounds way too risky", Apolonia said.
"It may be, but Jack has a stand and isn't a human, and I'm confident I could defeat him, so in a certain way, we are as ready as we could be"
I'm being very cautious of the royals and whatever threat that comes at us, but it wouldn't be mistaken to call myself one of the strongest in the whole country.
Sure, I'm just a kid and I don't have a stand, but ignoring these two downsides, I could easily take care of a group of adults.
Of course, trained adults and stand users are another issue.
But depending on the stand and the adult, I could win.
Jack is even more of a threat, with no notable weakness(apart from the sun, but no one would guess that), immortality, body control, heat manipulation(by vaporizing the moisture in his own body), ranged attacks(space ripper eyes), and unknown stand abilities.
We should be able to take care of anything that they could throw at us.
"Still, it doesn't feel right that you are risking your life just to save us..."
"Uh, I'm risking my life too...", Jack weakly protested.
"It's not ¨Just to¨, I want to help you, the same way that you helped me"
"Even more, your case is way easier, I had to kill some overpowered Hamon dudes, this time it's just some normal guys".
Hopefully.
"Please don't kill anyone".
""It will be done in the name of self-defense"", Both Jack and I retort.
...
..
...
All said and done we went back to the mansion.
Jack and I did.
"Wait, why are you here?"
"What? Do you mean I can't visit my best friend's house?"
"It's not like that, but I meant that as an ¨What will you be doing?"
"The usual I guess".
"'The usual' was to train our hamon, but if you use Hamon you will burst from the inside now"
"Oh yeah..."
It's still early for the meeting with George. And It's Saturday.
What do kids do on Saturday?
They play, but that isn't something that we would do.
"What if we go spar or something?"
"Without Hamon, I'm at best, athlete level; while you can destroy through buildings with ease"
"I can?"
"Yeah, do you not understand how big it's to be a vampire?"
"I would if you bothered to explain something more than the basics."
Oh yeah, I only explained the basics
.It would be a big weakness if he got into a fight and he didn't know his capacities.
"Well, apart from being incredibly powerful, and being able to control your body through some sort of telepathy, you can shoot lasers out of your eyes".
The most important part, obviously.
"Wait, for real?"
"For real, real"
"Teach me to do that".
"I can't teach you, I'm not a vampire"
"But you should have a hint or something"
Do I? Yeah, maybe.
"Yeah I have, but I'm not going to let you shoot lasers out of your eyes inside my house".
For context, we're inside my room, I'm sitting in my bed and he's sitting in the chair of my desk, the Roka plant is on the desk, but I told him to not touch it.
"Then let's go out already".
"It's the middle of the fucking day, stop being a bother"
"But I don't know what to do".
"How is that my problem?"
"You turned me into a vampire!"
"If you didn't want me to turn you, then you should've not died."
"Ughhhh".
In the face of complete logic, Jack relents and shuts up for a while, as I lay in the bed of my room.
Wait a moment, talking about knowing yourself...
"Hey, Jack"
"What?"
"What about your stand?"
"What about it?"
"Did you figure out what it does?"
"I know what it does"
"¨Cutting things¨ isn't knowing what it does"
"Let's go try it, then"
"Once again, it's the middle of the day".
The meeting with the Billiard and the extra stuff we did after was around one and a half hours.
So it's around 11 am.
"Can't I just use the hood and go out?"
"Your hood will fall and you will be exposed"
"But I'll just be using my stand, and I will be grab-"
"Let's go"
I give up.
"Hell yeah".
Well, it was time to see what his stand can do.