Volume 4, Ending

A voice as lovely as a bell's ring spoke in one corner of the world.

“Oh, you’re done with it already?”

Anna Sprengel, who looked like a 10-year-old girl, shrugged in response.

“That was always the plan for that company.”

“Still. Even if you raised it to be a sacrificial pawn, don’t you grow attached to it while keeping it nice and warm? And I feel like you would be especially prone to such capriciousness.”

“Aradia.”

“Sorry. I will keep my mouth shut this time. Especially because I know how bad your capriciousness can be.”

historical

The woman placed her index finger on her lips, winked, and smiled. R&C Occultics was a global company not bound by any national borders, so they had they not needed an HQ building as an obvious central point. Yet they had built one. Why? Because without a central point, it was impossible to tell if it had been defeated.

In other words, the giant IT company had been set up from the beginning to be destroyed.

This was the same as Aleister Crowley’s allergy attack. They had created a nonexistent weak point, built it up to the point that it was impossible to ignore, and lured in an external attack to have it destroyed.

All so they could sneer and watch as the world suffered.

“Now everyone will be shouting to restrict the giant corporations and for the state to manage the successful. They will insist that the exceptionally rich are sure to use some ghastly illicit methods, so they need to be torn down, crushed, and pushed face-first into the mud. They will say the world’s standards must be aligned to the lower classes to preserve peace and safety.”

Anna Sprengel laughed and stated her conclusion in a singsong voice.

“After causing so much trouble on camera, we will soon be seeing a reign of terror where anyone who rises even slightly above the masses will be cut down. Hee hee. Maybe you won’t want to do it, but you will have little choice with the crazed masses forcing their hand, President. Your beloved justice has been poisoned so it will kill all of the people you hope to protect. So enjoy this new age of uncontrollable riots.”

Anna acted like she reigned over the entire world. She could have done exactly that if she continued using R&C Occultics and the Rosicrucians instead of sacrificing them, but she was not actually that fixated on the idea.

She acted more like someone who was sick and tired of having to stand at the top and look after everyone.

She had had more than enough of providing that sort of help during the mess with the Golden cabal.

She never wanted to do it again after everything returned to ashes at the Battle of Blythe Road.

Now it was her turn to have someone look after her. She wanted to enter under someone’s protection, rely on them for everything, and make all the selfish demands she wanted whether they had the patience for it or not. But no one in the open part of the world was capable of ruling over her.

(With Melzabeth’s intelligence and good nature, I thought it would be interesting to obey her. Being a sensible person and a genius both is a miraculous balancing act. That’s obvious enough just looking at those Level 5s. Sigh, it really is a shame I lost someone of even greater character than Einstein.)

But what about in the hidden part of the world? Perhaps nothing there would meet her expectations either, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

The woman named Aradia tilted her head curiously.

“I don’t really care, but does this wild new age mean anything to us?”

“Why not ask Alice? I’m sure she’s as bored as ever.”

“Everything she says is downright indecipherable. It makes me dizzy and I feel like my brains are spilling out my ears. Listening to her absurdities is like getting lost in the woods. She really needs to control her dopamine or endorphins better.”

“Well, it is Wonderland.”

“You can tell she’s the real deal since she was faced with that psychedelic nonsense and still went along with a game of croquet and a trial without questioning any of it,” responded the witch of the moon and light with an exasperated shrug.

Aradia was “the god of all witches” from a famous witchcraft grimoire. Said to be the daughter of Diana and Lucifer, she was the goddess who shines in the dark night and it was said she had taken a physical body and descended to the human world in order to truly save the poor from the wealthy Christian Church. According to this story, all the witches’ sabbaths around the world were used to worship her and involved rituals designed to teach people how to resist the oppression of the rich.

It goes without saying that Alice was the name of the protagonist in a world-famous children’s story. ..But was it as well known that the Crowley had suggested that familiar story as a must-read for those wishing to deepen their understanding of magic? That eccentric had listed it right along the Goetia and the Golden Bough and he had said it took on a completely new meaning when read by someone with sufficient knowledge of Kabbalah.

Now, a question: where did the name Anna Sprengel come from?

Some said it had been entirely invented by Westcott, one of the three founders of the Golden cabal, and others said it was a reference to Anna Kingsford, a teacher to Westcott and Mathers. There were any number of theories, but had a conclusive answer ever been found?

The Rose and the Golden.

This mystical woman had passed between the old and the new world-famous magic cabals and was a necessary part of them both. But who in the world could say for sure who she really was?

“Everyone is waiting, Maiden of Nuremburg.”

“Says the picture book witch who was pierced by its many spikes.”