Time seemed to stand still as a crimson pool spread out from Necrus’s throat, staining the ground beneath them.
“Dammit,” Xylo hissed, his eyes filled with rage. “I didn’t get a damn thing out of him…! What the hell am I doing?!”
Tsav couldn’t shake the feeling that this could have been avoided if Xylo had just been a little less honest, but he kept that thought to himself. Instead, he rested his lightning staff against his shoulder and sighed.
“Bro, this makes me so sad… Am I really that unlikable?”
After a moment of silence, Xylo said sullenly, “I wonder. You’re not that bad…I guess.”
“You guess?! …Well, I guess this is just another depressing episode in my life. Maybe I should tell the others all about it when we get back.”
“What is going on in that head of yours? How do you just get over stuff like that?”
“It’s just one of my many strong points! Besides, we don’t have time to chat, right? Can you walk?”
“Yeah… Hey, let go! I can walk on my own.”
“You can barely even stand on your own, Bro. Come on, let’s get outta here. Gotta make sure we don’t run into any more faeries.”
“Stop trying to use me as a faerie detector,” grumbled Xylo, before pounding the wall with his fist.
How close were the other faeries? The two of them would have to force their way through. Looks like I still have one last job to take care of, thought Tsav: He needed to look after his poor, helpless teammate, Xylo. But just as that thought crossed his mind…
“…Wait. Something’s wrong.” Xylo frowned. “The faeries are disappearing. Is someone—?”
A door swung open, and two figures stepped through, as if they’d been waiting for Xylo’s words.
One was a man with a smug grin, and the other was a tall woman in a white robe with an image of the Great Sacred Seal hanging from her neck. She was clearly affiliated with the Temple. They both looked eerily familiar, especially the man, with his sadistic smile.
But who are they?
Though Tsav prided himself on his memory, he just couldn’t recall where he knew them from.
“Hey.” The man smirked and raised one hand. For just a second, he looked them over and narrowed his eyes. “I’m glad to see you two are okay. I took care of the faeries and came to rescue you. Looks like I made it in time today.”
The significance of the word “today” went over Tsav’s head. Meanwhile, the man fiddled with his slender lightning staff, ejecting its luminescence cartridge with a subtle hiss. The quiet sound spoke to the quality of the weapon. It must have been the very latest model.
“Kafzen,” said Xylo. That must have been the man’s name.
“Who’s that?” asked Tsav.
“…Some asshole from the intelligence division. As you can see, he’s a real bastard.”
“What an awful thing to say,” said Kafzen. “Can’t you do a better job of introducing me?”
“Nope. What are you doing here anyway?”
“This underground fortress is under our jurisdiction. We use it like a secret passageway to get around undetected. At any rate, we managed to clean up the place rather easily, thanks to you two distracting the enemy’s main force.”
It was clear now that they had been used as decoys. Tsav considered making a witty remark but thought better of it. Even he felt this was out of character, but he was just way too tired to bother.
“If you’re here to help us, you’re too late.” Xylo made no attempt to hide his displeasure. “We tried to take one of the big shots in Gwen Mohsa prisoner, but he killed himself. We lost our chance to find out who’s behind this or what they were planning—”
“Oh, no worries. As long as we have the corpse, we can figure something out. Enfié, you’re up.”
Kafzen called out to the woman behind him, and she silently crouched next to Necrus’s body, still lying in a pool of blood. Sparks danced at her fingertips. Tsav narrowed his gaze and watched. He recognized that light—it looked a lot like the sparks Teoritta created when she summoned her swords.
“So this girl…” Tsav watched as a book materialized in her hand. “She’s a goddess! Does that mean you’re a captain of the Holy Knights?”
“That it does. Good work, Enfié.”
The woman held the book up proudly and bowed, still not saying a word. Kafzen placed a hand on her head and stroked her hair. The gesture seemed almost automatic, as though he’d done it countless times before.
“Everything that man knew is in here.” Kafzen traced the book’s spine with his finger. “You can’t hide anything from Goddess Enfié.”
Tsav glanced down at the floor. Necrus’s blood had crept up to the toe of his boot.
It’s just sad.
In the end, nothing had gone right for Necrus. He probably still believed he’d done the right thing, though. Tsav couldn’t understand a mindset like that. What must it be like, he wondered, to act with such conviction—to be so sure of one’s choices? It was a thought that had never occurred to him before.
“That book…!” Xylo’s eyes widened as he stumbled toward Necrus. “Let me see it! I need to see who he was working with!”
“Relax. I’m extremely curious as well.”
Kafzen flipped through the thick book. The pages looked like official documents. There was a certificate of residency for the First Capital, travel permits, even transaction records for sacred weapon transfers. Were these actual documents Necrus had seen during his lifetime? Or did Enfié’s ability let her transform memories into documents?
Xylo wasn’t sure how her summoning ability worked, but one detail caught his eye: Every document he saw bore the seal of a bow and flower.
“Xylo Forbartz, have you ever seen this crest before?” Kafzen flashed him a sarcastic grin.
Xylo was unusually quiet. But after closely observing the seal, he muttered, “Yeah. That’s the Kormadino family crest. The current head is Simurid Kormadino—the governor-general. Don’t tell me—”
“We’ve already looked into him. We know he’s a coexister, but we haven’t been able to lay a finger on him. There are just so many people you need to talk to when eliminating someone of his rank. That’s bureaucracy for you, I suppose.” Kafzen shrugged. Like all his movements, it came with an exaggerated flourish. “It appears he’s the assassins’ benefactor and the one behind the recent series of unfortunate events.”
“So he’s the one controlling Unit 7110, eh?”
“Almost certainly. Enfié’s books don’t lie. Do you know him?”
“He’s an old acquaintance… He became the governor-general soon after I met him, now that I think about it. Simurid Kormadino… So he’s the one responsible.”
Xylo muttered the man’s name again under his breath.
Whoa… A chill ran down Tsav’s spine. He’s really pissed.
The more Xylo tried to suppress his anger, the more concentrated it seemed to become. Though Tsav had no idea who Simurid Kormadino was, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy.
“This book spells out every detail of Governor-General Kormadino’s plan. Would you like to have a look?”
“Yeah… Though I have a fairly good idea of what he’s up to already.”
“I suppose so. Unfortunately, it appears we were one step too late.” Kafzen leisurely flipped through the book’s pages. “The coexisters have already cut ties with Gwen Mohsa and are in position to carry out their plan all on their own. Their first goal is to assassinate High Priest Nicold Ibuton. And if that doesn’t work, they’ve made preparations to overturn the entire election.”
“How are they going to do that?”
“This man didn’t know much, but I suspect it will be violent. It would probably be in our best interests to arrest Simurid Kormadino as soon as possible, but… I don’t like the sound of this, either.”
Kafzen’s expression shifted, and his cruel smirk seemed to twist almost imperceptibly.
“What’d you find? I get that they want to assassinate Ibuton, but is there something else?”
“You could say that.”
Kafzen quickly covered the rest of the page with his hand, but Tsav had caught a glimpse of what was written. It had looked like someone’s name, followed by the phrase “the Crypt of Gray Lights.” Tsav had no idea what it meant.
“Our boss has become a target, so we need to go on defense. That means you all will have to take care of High Priest Ibuton yourselves. Keep in mind that if you fail, we will be forced to take drastic measures.”
“…What kind of drastic measures?” asked Xylo.
“We will raze the First Capital to the ground,” said Kafzen calmly. “We have Demon Blight Number Nine sealed and in our possession, and we will release it into the heart of the city. Countless civilian lives would be lost, helping us to unite the survivors. It would be a last-ditch effort to force mankind to join hands and fight the Demon Blight in a final showdown. Naturally, it would come at great economic cost as well.”
“Ha-ha! Nice!” Tsav couldn’t help clapping. “That’d give you an excuse to slaughter the coexisters, too, so you’d be killing two birds with one stone!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” barked Xylo, clearly unhappy with this suggestion. “I won’t let that happen. I just need to get our high priest elected, right?”
“Do you have any means of doing that? I’m positive Kormadino has already rigged the election so that High Priest Mirose will win.”
“There’s no way he’ll beat Venetim at cheating.”
“…Venetim? Does he have some sort of plan?”
“I wouldn’t call it a plan, exactly. It’s too ridiculous.”
Now that was something Tsav could agree with. It would be naive to expect Venetim to cook up some elaborate scheme. No, Venetim was the kind of guy to just show up with results, as if they’d materialized from thin air.
There’s something wrong with that guy. In a way, he confuses me even more than Dotta.
But if even Xylo thought it was a good idea, Tsav thought they had a good chance of succeeding.
“We’re going to win this election,” declared Xylo. “And we’ll capture Simurid Kormadino, too. I’m not letting him get away.”
Despite the lightness in his tone, Tsav could feel the intensity of Xylo’s anger—stronger than anything he had ever sensed before.
“He’s going to pay for what he’s done.”