Breaking the Egg

Arken Empire Emergency Response Headquarters.

A body convened in times of crisis to handle grave matters that shake the foundations of the Empire.

It consists of five chief commissioners and conducts a postmortem to determine the course of events and those responsible.

The capital of the Arken Empire continued on peacefully without suffering so much as a blow.

That was because the advancing monsters had been swept away in a single stroke.

As a result, many people probably regarded it as nothing more than a minor disturbance.

But in reality, an entire legion had been annihilated.

Alexander had tried to send reinforcements, but those who sought to evade responsibility had only made matters worse.

Alexander had made those who had used illness as an excuse to stay behind genuinely ill.

On the grounds that they had created a plague within the Empire, he had beheaded the offenders and their entire families before having their bodies cremated on the spot.

‘No, I suppose I didn’t make them quite that sick.’

In any case, Alexander was cornered.

It was clear that this had been a blunder born of ignorance, not one caused by an intense battle or an overwhelming disparity in military strength.

There was no way he could avoid blame and responsibility for it.

Ferda had been summoned as a witness to the incident.

“Crown Prince Alexander is cornered.”

“Not necessarily.”

Isabella said that, and Ferda answered reflexively.

Isabella tilted her head.

It was plainly a hearing to hold Alexander accountable, so what did he mean by that?

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s a good chance this is a trap meant for me.”

“A trap for you, Regent?”

Ferda explained what they were scheming.

“At first, they’ll talk about Alexander. They’ll make it sound as though they intend to examine who was at fault and how this happened.”

“And then?”

“Then they’ll suddenly claim that someone else is responsible. Who would be closest to that responsibility?”

“The operations staff who failed to do their job, or……”

Isabella’s eyes turned toward Ferda.

“You, Regent.”

“That’s how it’ll go.”

The more they sought to hold a high-ranking official accountable, the more frequently things like this happened, and since he was the Crown Prince, there was no room for doubt.

Ferda had experienced this sort of thing several times.

At first, everything seemed to proceed smoothly, but then they would begin hinting that the real culprit was someone else, before subtly asking whether he might be the culprit and steering the conversation in that direction.

At first, he had responded rationally, but the chairperson’s increasingly heated mood had placed all the blame on Ferda.

What had happened as a result?

‘I cut down the one who was driving it.’

The room had fallen silent in an instant.

At the time, Ferda had just subdued the Imperial Archmage, so he had been in a position to act recklessly.

Aside from the man who had screamed and shouted, no one had been willing to fight to the point of staking their life on it.

‘It would be nice if I could kill them like I did back then.’

Even though there was a perfectly simple way to settle this, he could not use it.

Ferda lamented that inwardly.

Isabella thought over Ferda’s words several times.

“Of course, the pace of development has accelerated to an unbelievable degree, enough to surprise even me, but even so, you are the regent of the Grand Duchy and the consort of a Red Dragon. Would they really dare to act so outrageously?”

“Even if they don’t intend to, that’s probably how things will unfold.”

The Empire knew that Valdrova was easy to take advantage of.

They had used that fact to toss him a title, dump a useless person on him under the pretext of providing a fiancée, and treat him like a watchdog.

They could hardly be pleased that Ferda was turning that barren wasteland into a land of gold.

The Arken Empire wanted a powerful centralized government and could not tolerate a mere province developing.

“And if you look here, the answer is obvious.”

“……Ah.”

Ferda pointed to the list of members summoned to the emergency council.

The list read as follows.

President of the Serdes Magic Society, Erdes Roton.

The greatest magical organization on the continent had inserted itself into the Empire’s affairs.

Isabella read the name and nodded as though she understood.

“For Lady Erdes to involve herself in such a troublesome hearing……. She must dislike it immensely.”

“Indeed.”

He had wondered what right she had to interfere in this matter, but she was the one who had swept away the monsters advancing toward the Empire.

The seventh-circle Archmage Erdes Roton had succeeded in obliterating the twenty-thousand-strong monster army by driving a meteor shower down from the sky.

That was sufficient to earn her the right to speak.

‘They may not be able to exert absolute influence, but no one can dare ignore them.’

Knowing that Erdes had joined in with the intention of taking Ferda down, he could not sit idly by.

‘I need a countermeasure.’

What would that countermeasure require?

‘Information and strategy.’

Information was a weapon, and strategy was martial arts.

The two were mutually related, and when they were balanced properly, they could produce a dramatic effect.

‘Is there anyone among us who could handle this well?’

Mori was a slave sage possessing the ability known as the Library of All Things.

Because she could not think for herself, she was a weapon.

‘Besides, she’s far removed from the current situation.’

Mori presented objective information based on data.

The argument that Olivia deserved forty-five percent of the credit for this victory had not worked, so this was by no means a situation in which such logic was important.

Ferda needed people who could continuously monitor the situation through their sources and flexibly draw information out of them.

In that regard, he knew an outstanding organization.

‘Black Bandana.’

Every time he used them, they had proven their ability and never once made a mockery of their reputation.

If there was a problem with them,

‘It would be the cost.’

The price of Black Bandana’s information varied according to its scale and difficulty.

They were highly capable, and the larger the scale, the more the price increased exponentially.

This matter was nearly on the scale of the entire Empire and required delving into its very depths.

They might demand such an astronomical sum that even selling one country would not be enough to save another.

‘If I make some halfhearted proposal, I could end up giving them nothing but the information that I’m desperate.’

Even when standing at the edge of a cliff, he had to remain standing proudly until the very end.

That was the fight Ferda had to wage.

“Wouldn’t it be better not to attend?”

Luri suggested that as she handed him his tea.

It was one of the options Ferda had been considering as well.

At present, Ferda had been consistently refusing to attend by claiming that he was busy.

Since there would be no one else to question, he thought that even if he were singled out, he could buy time.

“Since it’s a postmortem, its importance will be considerable, so it would be difficult to stay away by claiming that state affairs are keeping you busy.”

“And if they take away my chance to defend myself, they’ll only bite down harder.”

If someone bit into your flesh and you did not bark, you were no different from a piece of meat.

If he wanted to live, he had to bark; more than that, he had to bite his opponent and assert himself so thoroughly that they would never dare touch him again.

Just then, someone knocked on the open door.

“Regent, may I come in?”

It was Zed’s voice.

“What is it?”

“Um…… Findtith would like to see you.”

“Findtith?”

“Garnet, sir. The head of Black Bandana.”

Come to think of it, he had called her Findtith when they first met.

It was probably a nickname born from her buck teeth, sharp fangs, and dark complexion.

In any case, the timing was remarkably convenient.

She had appeared just as he was considering how much he needed them.

Whatever the case, it was a good start.

When they were needed, the difference between their coming to him first and coming because he summoned them was like the difference between heaven and earth.

“Have her come in.”

Ferda prepared to receive his guest.

* * *

With Ferda’s permission, Garnet entered.

“I greet the Regent and the Administrator. My heartfelt congratulations on your great victory in this subjugation battle.”

Garnet bowed politely.

Because Zed had called her Findtith, her buck teeth kept catching his eye.

“Did you come to discuss the postmortem?”

Ferda immediately got to the point.

“That is correct.”

“You also know that I’m the prey.”

“Of course.”

They were the greatest information organization on the continent; something like that was trivial for them.

“So did you come to get more money out of me?”

“Of course, we are an organization that charges according to the scale and depth of the information we provide, but the purpose of this visit is somewhat removed from business.”

As she said that, Garnet took out a book and placed it on the table.

“Would you please look at this?”

Ferda picked up the document and opened it.

The moment he saw the first page, he had to concentrate to calm the shock rising within him.

Though faded, yellowed marks could be seen here and there, the contents were clear.

Isabella, who had been examining it with him, asked Garnet in surprise,

“Aren’t these the personal details of Black Bandana’s top executives?”

It did not merely record their names and faces.

It listed where they were and whose identities they were assuming, every detail of their activities, and even clues that could be used to track them down.

Garnet had exposed all of it.

Calling it rash was not enough; it was insane.

There was no need to ask whether it was true or false.

Garnet said,

“With this, we have crossed the first stage.”

“What stage?”

“Breaking the Egg.”

The word “secret” was the shell that protected a secret organization.

Garnet was forcibly breaking the shell that had protected them and exposing them to the outside world.

Now that what lay within had been exposed, there was no turning back.

“In simple terms, Black Bandana is entering dissolution.”

By abandoning its secrets, it would lose its neutrality.

With its neutrality gone, Black Bandana would lose its reason for existing.

“And starting today, we will be reorganized as the intelligence bureau of the Far East, the Grand Duchy of Valdrova, and swear our loyalty to it.”

Ferda was flustered by her actions.

The expression Isabella wore when he glanced at her suggested that she was thinking much the same thing.

She looked as though she was wondering why they would do something like this.

“You’re being reckless.”

Ferda tossed the document he had been reading back onto the table.

“What will you do if I refuse? What crime have the people listed here committed that they should die?”

“That is precisely what Breaking the Egg means. If you break an egg and what emerges is an immature chick, it simply dies. Black Bandana’s teams will have no choice but to disband and dissolve.”

Garnet spoke of that immature chick as though it were someone else.

They were the greatest of the secret intelligence organizations, and their reach extended across the entire continent.

The situation was tantamount to an entire nation disappearing.

‘She must have intended this order as well.’

If she had first said that she had offered up their personal details as proof of her loyalty, Ferda’s suspicions would have been even greater.

All he could think was that they had steeled themselves for this.

“So are you asking me to accept you as my retainers after disbanding Black Bandana?”

“No. We will swear our loyalty, but if we merely wanted to receive some cumbersome title, there would have been no need to do this.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Do you know about shadow knights?”

“I know them well.”

Knights who went beyond chivalry in order to protect chivalry.

Unlike the knights who became public faces through honorable wars and duels, they were shadows who engaged in assassination and sabotage.

And every knight denied their existence.

Most of those who knew of that contradiction felt deep disgust at the fact that they were still called knights.

The small minority who understood their necessity and respected them denied them only because they had no other choice.

And Ferda belonged to that minority.

The honor and crowns of knights shone because there were people who silently protected their backs.

“The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. Beneath absolute power, filthy and foul schemes are constantly set in motion—that is the purpose of the shadow corps.”

“You want to become the shadow corps of the Grand Duchy of Valdrova?”

“That is correct.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

More precisely, he could not understand it.

They had no honor.

They could not properly hold any visible power, and if their tails were exposed, they were people who had to be cut off without hesitation.

It was difficult work to endure through pure responsibility alone.

If Garnet felt that responsibility, she needed to persuade Ferda.

“This is our family’s legacy.”

Garnet said that.

“The founder of Black Bandana was Mendel Bandana, the first director of the Arken Empire’s intelligence service, and I have come here to carry on his will.”

Ferda tentatively sent a telepathic message to Mori.

Anything recorded in a paper document, no matter how top secret, could not evade her Library of All Things.

-The name Mendel Bandana appears in records from before the founding of the Arken Empire. After that, he is not recorded in any form.

He had been a real person.

And the fact that he had failed to appear on a page of history meant that Mendel had truly accepted his own filth as an honor.

Ferda’s question now moved on to the next matter.

“What was his will?”

Mendel Bandana had done dirty work for the Arken Empire.

Ferda currently wanted nothing more than for the Arken Empire to collapse, so would that not render his ancestor’s work meaningless?

“The founding ideal of the Arken Empire was to create a land for humanity. My ancestor said that its intentions might one day be distorted, and that we would have to set them right.”

The slogan attached to the Empire now was the arrogant declaration that there was no land it could not conquer.

“As my ancestor foretold, the Empire began to change as later generations took over. He admonished them time and again to correct this and showed them the will of the people, but he failed to set things right.”

The Empire had grown stronger and more arrogant.

Had it not ultimately begun using dragons like dogs?

“So are you trying to take revenge on this Empire for refusing to listen?”

“It is not revenge. We are helping it.”

Garnet answered clearly.

“If a jar has hardened because no hole was made to drain the rotten, stagnant water inside, then it is only right to break it.”

One thing was certain: their goal was the same as Ferda’s.

Ferda was made to ponder once again.

Even so, he could feel his heart leaning more toward her than before.

‘The other party is an information broker.’

An information broker who had sworn never to sell a lie.

He had maintained his reputation by allowing not a single excuse.

That was what Ferda feared most.

If he stood beside them, trusting only in that towering reputation, and was crushed when it fell…….

Would Ferda be able to maintain his reason in the resulting chain reaction?

Ferda asked one final question.

“What reason do I have to trust you?”

“Because you will have no choice.”

Garnet spoke firmly.

“The Empire will use this incident as a pretext to interfere in the Far East in earnest, and that interference may bring us to a halt. Even if you have managed to withstand it until now, you will not be able to keep doing so forever.”

Building a nation was like stacking a tower of stones.

The higher it rose, the more difficult it became, while its collapse happened in an instant.

Evil spread easily, while goodness was difficult to protect.

“If you cannot withstand it, we will die alongside you.”

A neutral secret organization had abandoned its neutrality and exposed even its secrets, so Ferda could use that as leverage.

By exposing their own weakness, they had made themselves part of the same fate and intended to prove themselves through their abilities.

That was why Garnet had boldly broken the egg.

“So.”

Ferda asked her,

“What position am I supposed to prepare for the shadow corps?”