Chapter 202
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Late at night, at the Hestia Merchants Guild.
Garnet, disguised as its guildmaster, was with Zed.
Garnet opened the book to a page and showed it to Zed.
“This is the list of Dopplers the Regent brought this time. Give it a read.”
“Let’s see…… Wow, there are a whole lot of names here I’ve heard of.”
Some were known for all the wrong reasons, while others were known for the right ones.
Some had supposedly turned over a new leaf, then spent their wealth feeding their subjects and earned the name “true lord.”
“As expected, there’s no smoke without fire. What does our devoted Regent want to do?
“It seems he wants the Shadow Forces to take care of everything.”
“Oh, dear. The Vani Swallows aren’t an assassination group…….”
The Vani Swallows.
A phantom-thief group that had built its reputation by working here and there since before the Shadow Forces were formed.
Using the influence of the Black Bandana, they traveled throughout the continent, exposing the true faces of corrupt nobles and distributing their wealth.
They were saviors to commoners, and to nobles, a group so detestable that even beating them to death would not be enough.
They were wanted, but no one dared arrest them recklessly, because they adhered strictly to the principle of “no killing.”
Thus, to preserve their reputation, the Vani Swallows dealt with any bandit gangs or impostor groups claiming to work under them.
“Exposing them as usual…… would be dangerous, wouldn’t it?”
“It’d be like lighting a fire in front of a pile of straw.”
The Vani Swallows did nothing more than expose unsavory people and leave them to face a public backlash.
Demon worshippers were people with nothing to lose.
It would undoubtedly lead to even greater chaos—and, at worst, an uncontrollable loss of life.
“Killing them would certainly be cleaner…… It’d be nice if they had some strange trait like the doppelgangers, but those bastards retain the person’s form even after they die, don’t they? If other nobles make an issue of it, the Vani Swallows won’t be able to operate anymore.”
“I suppose not…….”
Garnet knew how important trust was, so abandoning the Vani Swallows’ name and simply suggesting they kill them all wasn’t an option.
“We’ll probably have no choice but to quietly eliminate them one by one through unrelated incidents…….”
Wasn’t there some other way?
It was then.
Knock knock—.
Someone knocked on the door of the room they were in.
Zed reflexively grabbed a dagger.
“Who did you call?”
“There is one more besides you. Come in.”
At Garnet’s words, the door opened, and Penelope entered.
“You two enjoying a little tryst in there. May this sexy demon crash the party!?”
“I called you to come thirty minutes ago. What took you so long?”
“But it’s nighttime, the demons’ hour! What if the demons’ minions ambush me? What do you think they’d do to this delicate body?”
Penelope struck a pose that showed off her figure.
Garnet watched her with an exasperated look, then asked Zed,
“How long are you planning to keep traveling with that?”
“Even if she acts like that, she gets things done when it counts…….”
“The power of attachment is terrifying. You can’t even discard one idiot like her.”
“Heehee, Zeddy, you wouldn’t admit that I’m an irresistible woman—a femme fatale—but your body never lies, does it? Come to big sister.”
“Maybe just slitting her throat and going our separate ways wouldn’t be so bad?”
“I’m joking, joking! What were you talking about? Let’s see! What’s a Doppler? Did you write doppelganger wrong?”
Garnet merely sighed quietly before answering.
“A demon disguised as a human.”
“Huh? There was such a thing?”
“They were conducting experiments on those at the place where we first met.”
“Ah, that place…… Ugh, just imagining it…….”
Penelope shuddered and made a huge fuss.
Suddenly curious, Zed asked a question.
“But why were you being held there?”
“That? It was nothing. The older sister who was trying to capture me was a dark elf, and she had a really pretty face, nicely tanned skin, and seemed to click with me, but she turned out to be a total gold-digger, you know?”
“……According to the records, when she summoned you, you acted like a dog, saying you’d do anything?”
Penelope looked aggrieved and changed her story.
“No! I had no choice. It was a chance to play with an elf. Wouldn’t you have done the same? I’m asking if you wouldn’t!?”
“Please, don’t lump me in with you. I beg you.”
Zed glared at her with an exasperated look.
Garnet stared at Zed and said,
“You’re just like her.”
“What are you talking about? How am I like her?”
“I heard a rumor you tried to seduce the new high elf?”
“I didn’t risk my life. And I didn’t even know he was a man.”
“So if she’d been a woman, you would have kept trying to seduce her?”
“Oh dear, what does it say here? My eyes are so blurry I can’t make it out!”
When Garnet glared at him disapprovingly, Zed hid his face while pretending to read the list.
‘Why am I even keeping this idiot around…….’
The feeling was unmistakable.
The power of attachment really was terrifying.
Knock knock—.
Silence descended with the sound of another knock.
Zed asked cautiously.
“Who did you call this time?”
“I didn’t call anyone else.”
This time, Zed drew his dagger.
As Garnet quietly prepared himself too, the door opened.
“Huh?”
A woman with narrowed eyes appeared in the doorway.
“Whoa, she’s beautiful……!”
“Shut up. How did you get in here?”
At Garnet’s question, the woman answered with a sheepish smile.
“I’m sorry. It’s late at night, and the road was frightening, so I needed a light.”
Her manner looked no different from that of an ordinary woman.
But their guard did not drop.
“That’s a face I’ve never seen in this village.”
“I only arrived yesterday. With my elder brother.”
“Five people entered yesterday. There wasn’t a single woman among them. Do you really think it makes sense for an ordinary woman to be out this late at night?”
“Hmm……. This is troublesome. I’d heard the guildmaster was an extremely meticulous person, but I didn’t expect this level of meticulousness…….”
Even though her identity had been exposed, her manner remained relaxed.
“If that’s how you want to play it…….”
She raised both hands.
Then, making a grabbing motion, she said,
“The beasts of the night are going to take you away?”
Flap!
A sudden gust blew the window open.
No—something as fast as the wind.
The wind stirred up by that something snuffed out the candle, and it came flying in.
Clang!
Sparks flew before Garnet.
They came from Zed’s dagger, which he had drawn as he leaped through the open window.
The blade that had lunged at her locked with another blade.
The two strained against each other.
‘She’s strong.’
His opponent held a slight advantage.
Before he could be overwhelmed, Zed twisted his blade.
The instant he broke the deadlock, he toppled his opponent and launched a counterattack.
But his opponent was no amateur either.
She twisted her body even farther as it began to lose its balance, escaping the dagger’s trajectory.
The attacker who had come like a summer storm sent tattered cloth and hair flying.
The only thing clearly visible was a pair of blue eyes.
Their shining color resembled one he had seen many times before.
Before he could even place the association, it flew inside and stood beside the intruder.
“Are you all right?”
Zed asked while catching Garnet, who was about to fall.
“I’m fine.”
Garnet raised the crossbow he had drawn and aimed it at the two of them.
As always, Penelope panicked and rattled off a stream of words.
“W-whaaaat’s going on? Who are you? Are you a spy sent by Mother!? Damn it, I should’ve stayed holed up in the castle. I followed that pretty-faced swallow bastard out for nothing, and now I’m getting dragged into this, ubbbl!”
“What are you?”
Zed stuffed a rolled-up wad of cloth into Penelope’s incessantly babbling mouth and asked.
The attacker did not answer.
Instead, the woman answered.
“My name is Angrem, and this child here is Yubel. And this one can only answer with two syllables. Man and Sak.”
“……Sak.”
“Understood. I won’t say anything unnecessary.”
Garnet knew the moment he heard those two names.
“If you’re Yubel and Angrem…… then you’re the Saints of the Sierra Order.”
Sierra’s Wolf and Sierra’s Dancer.
Two Class-A criminals with a dazzling list of charges in the Empire.
But they had vanished three years ago, leaving only rumors that they had been killed by someone.
“That’s right. As expected of the Black Bandana’s leader, you know us well. Though perhaps I should call you the head of the Shadow Forces now?”
Garnet furrowed his brow.
Not only had they launched a surprise attack, they also knew his past.
Which meant he absolutely could not let them leave alive.
Garnet carefully aimed the crossbow at Angrem’s chest.
He intended to pierce her heart and kill her on the spot.
It was then.
Two blue-glowing eyes entered Garnet’s field of vision.
Those eyes clearly showed him something.
Garnet—his own death.
It was a warning that, the instant he pulled the trigger, the terror of reaching death’s threshold would no longer be mere fear.
“Our meeting was rather sudden and rough, but I’d like to end it here. There’s only one thing we need.”
“What is it?”
“The thing in your hand.”
It was a copy of Research Director Linne’s journal.
“Give it to us. If you hand over just that, we’ll disappear quietly.”
“……”
“It isn’t even the original, but a copy someone translated, right? How about handing it over—call it the vaunted Black Bandana selling information with your life as collateral?”
“I refuse.”
Conviction was more important than life.
It was the will of the ancestors who had led the Black Bandana—the very creed of Valdrova’s Shadow Forces.
“The Shadow Forces of Valdrova…… Not bad, after all. This much is enough to pass.”
“Sak.”
“Still, I admit I don’t like it. Under normal circumstances, you’d want to kill us all, wouldn’t you?”
“Man!”
Yubel’s eyes gleamed like a beast’s.
But Angrem continued to smile.
“But what can you do? It’s a ‘full moon’ tonight, after all.”
“……Man.”
“What a shame, isn’t it?”
Yubel looked askance at the grinning Angrem.
“So we’ll just rough you up a little.”
The moment she finished speaking, killing intent poured out.
Zed sensed that the battle was about to begin again and pulled the cloth from Penelope’s mouth.
“Pepe!”
“H-Haste!”
Red light wrapped around Zed’s body, accelerating him.
Two streaks of light moved, leaving afterimages like brushstrokes on black paper.
They were fast, but still within the range he could respond to.
‘No.’
Zed sensed it with his sixth sense.
By the time his eyes followed them, it would already be too late.
Zed brought his sword to the left.
Clang!
Sparks flew to the side.
Just as he had expected.
The movement of light had been a feint. The real body was moving even faster in the darkness.
It had only been a single exchange, but Zed could not hide his astonishment.
‘Even with Haste, she’s still too much for me.’
Her body could keep up with movements fast enough to outpace even that swift wolf monster.
Zed acknowledged his opponent’s skill and went on the offensive just as boldly.
“Hup!”
Zed hooked the woman’s sword with the point of his dagger while their blades were locked.
Then he twisted, rotating his entire body in a wide arc.
The sudden force knocked the sword from Yubel’s hand.
‘I’ll subdue her like this.’
Her hands were empty now, so he intended to disable her by cutting her tendons.
But that was an arrogant thought.
“Zed, watch out!”
The hand that should have been empty held yet another blade.
‘How?!’
That question was about to become his final dying cry.
The sharp tip of the sword flew toward Zed’s throat.
“Ugh!”
He threw his body backward and barely escaped the sword’s path, but his stance collapsed.
The woman took advantage of his opening and pointed her sword at Zed’s chest.
He was helpless before it.
Fwoosh!
“!!”
The woman’s attack stopped, and she forcibly twisted her body.
A small bolt flew through the opening and vanished into the air.
The two, still in awkward stances, widened the distance between themselves again.
Zed moved toward Garnet, while the woman somersaulted through the air and landed squarely on the desk.
‘She’s a complete monster.’
Zed used this brief moment to continue analyzing his opponent.
A woman’s body that could keep up with his Haste-boosted body, a sword that seemed to come from nowhere,
and those blue eyes that kept trying to stiffen his body.
‘There’s definitely magic involved.’
This was no time for a leisurely sword duel.
‘I have no choice but to use it.’
If she was using her eyes, he would use his as well.
Zed was the sole survivor of the Red-Eyed race.
The Red-Eyed were also known as the Mage Killers.
They could do so because their race possessed unique eyes capable of destroying magic circles.
Zed’s eyes began to glow red.
“Oh my?”
It was the first thing Angrem, who had been watching with her hands clasped behind her back, had said.
Zed saw something covering Yubel’s head.
He directed his gaze at it.
“Ugh!?”
It worked.
When one layer of magic covering Yubel’s head shattered, her body writhed unnaturally.
Yubel dropped the sword in her hand and clutched her head.
“Uuugh…….”
A groan of pain.
Zed thought.
This was the answer.
But it did not take long for him to realize that this was a mistake.
“Aaaaaaaaaah!!!”
A roar burst from her.
The roar shook the entire building.
“Ugh!”
“Hyaaang!?”
Garnet and Penelope collapsed, unable to keep their balance.
It was as though an invisible, enormous weight were pressing down on their bodies.
Zed could barely maintain his posture on his knees.
Only then did Zed realize it with certainty.
What he had thought was the source of that power had actually been the chain restraining Yubel.
Yubel’s frenzied movements grew increasingly violent.
She lowered the head she had flung back and glared at Zed.
The moment Zed saw those eyes, he flinched and trembled.
Her blue eyes were now glowing red.