As I emerged from underground, I could feel the poison finally beginning to wear off. I squeezed my eyes shut, then reopened them. The sunlight was blinding, a sharp contrast to the darkness I’d grown accustomed to. And judging by the sun’s position, the election would be starting in only a few hours.
While I was confident Venetim’s plan would secure our man’s victory, I still had to deal with Simurid Kormadino, just to be sure. After all, he was bound to have some sort of trick up his sleeve, and I wasn’t in the mood for any surprises.
Where are we…?
As my eyes adjusted, the surrounding terrain slowly came into focus. Just as I’d suspected, we’d just come out of one of the exits to the sewers. I was beneath Ceremonial Light Bridge at the eastern end of the Domeili River. The area was on the outskirts of town, far from the main plaza. I needed to move quickly if I was going to meet up with Teoritta and Patausche.
“They’re here, Bro! Right on time!” Tsav exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.
He wasn’t joking. Menacing figures stood on the bridge as if they’d been waiting for us. Wearing matching uniforms and equipped with lightning staffs and daggers, they could easily pass for city guards—but there was one glaring difference: They lacked an armband emblazoned with a blue hazel branch—the unmistakable mark of the First Capital Guard. The armband used a complex combination of luminescent paint and contained a sacred seal used for identification, making it difficult to forge.
“Looks like this district’s already been closed off from the public,” Tsav remarked.
“Sure does,” I agreed.
The Luffe Aros Festival was currently underway. On days like this, numerous traffic restrictions were imposed throughout the capital. It would have been easy to use that as an excuse to close off an area like this.
“How many are there?” I asked.
“Six on top of the bridge.”
Squinting against the harsh glare of the sun, I hammered the ground repeatedly. From here on out, I could use Loradd at full power.
“Two groups of four by the riverside as well, and they’re heading this way… There’s also a carriage on the bridge with a steel doll inside. Just great… Another coblyn.”
“Hold up. Is it just me, or is that, like, a lot of enemies? Are we really this popular?”
“It’s your bad karma catching up with us.”
“Hey, you’re no angel, either!”
He wasn’t wrong, but we didn’t have time for idle chatter.
“Tsav, how many shots left in your lightning staff?”
“Four! What about you?”
“I’ve got three knives on me. It’s not gonna be easy, but we need to break through them.”
I could already see our opponents rushing down from the bridge, and we were going to meet them head-on. We needed to take out as many as we could before their reinforcements arrived from the riverside.
“Let’s do this,” I muttered.
All six of them moved in perfect unison—these guys were way more coordinated than the Gwen Mohsa assassins. They were probably soldiers, or at least trained professionals. But that meant I could take them by surprise. I whipped out one of my few remaining knives and threw it.
“Whoa!”
The moment they saw the blade flying toward them, they scrambled to dodge, but it was just an ordinary knife without any explosive power. A trick like this would only work on people who knew who we were and what we were capable of.
This is what you should’ve been watching out for, I thought, flicking a pebble I’d picked up off the ground at them. It quickly exploded, releasing a blinding flash as Zatte Finde activated. The blast wasn’t as strong as the knife’s would have been, but the light and shock wave were enough to make our opponents flinch.
I immediately capitalized on the opportunity, propelling myself toward them with my flight seal.
“Outta my way,” I said, kicking one of them toward the river. It was surprisingly easy, and another followed in nearly the same breath.
“Dammit! That’s…! That’s Xylo Forbartz! The Thunder Falcon!”
As someone shouted, I moved like water through the crackling volley of lightning staff bolts. Soldiers like these were predictable—always targeting the head or torso. All I had to do was dive toward the shouter’s feet, then ram into him with my body.
“Stop right there—!”
I wasn’t going to let this turn into a scuffle. All I had to do was strike my opponent’s abdomen with the heel of my hand, then follow up with a blow to the head. It was more like a slap, but with Loradd activated, my strikes wreaked havoc on my opponents’ internal organs and rattled their brains. The resulting momentary weakness was all I needed to deliver a solid kick, and then it was over. My leg strength was simply on another level.
I claimed my opponent’s lightning staff as a trophy, noting it only had one bolt remaining. Wish he hadn’t wasted all those shots, I thought. Welp, might as well take his dagger, too.
Up here in the daylight, there were few who could best me in simple combat. After all, I had access to a wider range of weapons.
“Yesss! This is a piece of cake! Let’s keep going, Bro— Whoa?! Eek!”
Tsav, for his part, had already taken care of half of the attackers on his own and had even managed to climb onto the bridge. But his gloating soon twisted into a shriek of alarm as the steel doll lurched to life.
With a grating metallic screech, it swung its arm, carving a lethal arc through the air. Tsav rolled desperately out of the way as the ground exploded beneath him, the coblyn’s strike missing him by a hair’s breadth and pulverizing the bridge’s railing.
“Man, I hate these things!” he shouted. “Their bodies are hard, and they don’t even have any intestines!”
“Break it until it can’t move anymore! Hips, shoulders, and knees!”
“Sure, but what do we do next?!” Tsav yelled as he deftly countered the coblyn’s attacks with his lightning staff. “Patausche and Teo are heading straight this way, right?! And there’s probably gonna be way more of these things!”
“Probably. Okay, we’re switching things up. Time for Plan B, just like we discussed. Got it?”
“Seriously? You sure about this?”
“Just do it. You’ll be fine. Probably.”
“I mean, yeah, but I really don’t think we should.”
After dodging a few of the coblyn’s strikes, Tsav unleashed a bolt of lightning from his staff, bisecting the mechanical beast at its midsection. It toppled over, its arms swinging wildly from the force of the attack.
“This is the best chance we’ve got, and you know that,” I said. “Besides, you’re the only one who can pull it off.”
“Well…yeah. Seriously, what would you guys do without me? You’d be dying left and right, that’s for sure. Don’t you think I deserve some heartfelt thanks?”
“I know. You’re a huge help, so I don’t want to see you depressed anymore.”
“Huh?” It took a moment for Tsav to understand what I’d said. “…Me? Depressed? Why would—? Wait… Yeah, I guess I am.”
“You are. And I can’t have you being all gloomy right now.”
“Heh-heh. Well, I did say good-bye to my master today. That was kind of a downer. I bet I could make it into a script and become filthy rich. It’d be a real tearjerker!”
Perhaps all of Tsav’s “moving” tales about his past were real experiences, simply filtered through a mind lacking the proper means to express them, or even to recognize his own emotions.
Then again, maybe his uncanny control over his own mental state simply gave off that impression. He’d once remarked, “What kind of idiot would choose to live with unpleasant emotions like fear, anger, or grief?” Following that logic, his behavior seemed almost frighteningly optimized.
“I’d rather die than admit it, but our unit needs you.” I knew I might be crossing a line, but I needed to say it. “Your old master—dammit… I don’t know how to put it. It’s just…”
I was searching for the right words to say to Tsav, but I knew there weren’t any, so I decided to just blurt out what was on my mind.
“I need your help, okay? I’ll buy you a beer later to pay you back.”
“…Heh!” Tsav’s lips twisted into a grin, and he raked his fingers through his hair and adjusted his hat. Then his face settled back into its usual irritatingly flippant expression. “Heh-heh-heh! You’re terrible at this, Bro. Like, the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Hey!”
“And make it wine. Red wine from House Clivios! And…”
“Sure. Whatever. You got any other demands?”
“When we’re done, you’ve gotta make sure everyone else knows this plan was all your idea!”
“Got it.” I didn’t get why it was such a big deal, but it was my idea, so I had no objections. “Whatever you say. Now let’s go!”
“Roger! And no take-backs, either. You better not forget, even if you die!”