Stagnant Water Rots
The abandoned pumping station lay even farther down from the eastern side of the main keep.
Following the unused waterways, an old facility still remained, hidden between the valley and the crevices of rock.
On the map it had been nothing more than a simple mark, yet on the night path it felt almost like a beast’s den.
There was the peculiar smell of a place long abandoned by human hands—wet stone and rotting wood, and a dampness that had stagnated so long it no longer felt like water at all.
We lowered our lanterns.
I still took the lead. Dein and two knights followed close behind, while farther back the Imperial Princess and the Lady kept their distance carefully measured.
They had only just rushed out after fighting the fires at the main keep, so everyone’s breathing was still a little rough, yet no one spoke first. Words were unnecessary.
After descending the mountain path for some time, the pumping station finally came into view.
A half-collapsed gray stone building. Behind it clung an old sluice-gate shaft and a waterwheel already falling to pieces; along the side wall an ancient iron maintenance ladder hung rusted in place. The roof had caved in halfway, yet the darkness within felt far too ominous.
I stopped and raised my hand. Everyone halted.
The Lady asked very quietly,
“Do you sense something?”
“…A little.”
I marked with my eyes the dried drainage ditch below the pumping station. On the surface it was empty ground, yet the flow inside was still alive. Someone had not fully closed one of the sluice gates. A waterway that had not died and was still breathing. And at the end of that breath clung a black energy.
The Princess moved her chin.
“How many do you think are inside?”
I listened for a moment. The faint scrape of wind against rotting timber. Between those sounds, two mana signatures. At most three.
“Two for certain. One inside, one by the sluice.”
Dein gritted his teeth.
“Bren will be there.”
Instead of answering I pointed to the collapsed wall beside the pumping station.
“You two knights take that side. Dein, with me from the front. Your Highness and My Lady, please take an angle where you can see inside.”
The Princess said shortly,
“Good.”
The Lady asked nothing further. She merely adjusted the hem of her coat and quietly shifted toward the collapsed drainage wall.
We held our breath and each moved into position. It was so quiet that even the sound of dry grass underfoot felt loud.
And the moment I drew near the front doorframe, a low cough sounded from within.
Not a familiar voice. A man’s voice without strength. Not Bren. Then one inside, one farther back.
I peered through the gap in the doorframe.
Inside the old pump room more remained than expected—the waterwheel shaft and ancient control levers, and boxes lined across the floor. The sacks and crates that had vanished from the main keep’s supply warehouse were stacked exactly as they had been taken.
One person stood before them. A thin figure in a dark brown coat. A face rising pale under the lamp light.
It was Bren Theo.
He was far thinner than the Bren in my memory. He had always been pale, yet now he looked flat as paper. Dark circles under his eyes, lips cracked dry. Yet his hands alone moved with strange calm. He opened a box, checked the contents, closed it again, and briefly noted something on a ledger page.
Truly a records officer to the bitter end.
At that moment Dein ground his teeth low.
“That bastard…”
Bren’s hand stopped. A beat later he raised his head toward us.
“Come out.”
When I spoke the words quietly, Bren did not startle. Instead he exhaled very slowly.
“…As expected, Young Master.”
That tone was so ordinary it was chilling.
I stepped inside the doorway.
“Didn’t think we’d come this far.”
“No. I knew you would come.”
Bren set the ledger down on the desk.
“I simply didn’t expect you so soon.”
The moment those words ended, a shadow burst from the rear sluice. The one who had been hidden. He drew his sword and charged toward me, yet in the next instant the Princess’s golden light cut through the darkness and flew.
Paat.
A short scream, and the man’s wrist snapped. Before the blade even struck the floor, the Lady’s ice coiled around his ankle and toppled him; the two knights outside stormed in at once and pinned him down.
Bren did not flee even at the sight. He merely curved the corner of his mouth very faintly.
“As expected, at this stage that sort of thing no longer means much.”
Dein roared until his throat nearly tore.
“Bren Theo! It was you who laid hands on the main keep!”
Only then did Bren look at Dein.
“How long do you intend to live doing nothing but shouting at the top of your lungs?”
“You son of a bitch—”
“Dein.”
When I called his name shortly, Dein barely managed to stop.
I looked straight at Bren.
“Why did you do it, Bren Theo?”
Bren regarded me for a moment. Very briefly the old face overlapped—the man who had always sorted papers with ink-stained hands in the corner of the main keep’s ledger room. Few words, dull eyes, the sort of person no one remembered clearly. Yet it was precisely people who did that kind of work who knew best what others failed to notice, and where the gaps lay.
Bren spoke very low.
“Why, you ask.”
He lightly tapped the top of a crate with his fingertip.
“Because this territory has already been collapsing for a long time.”
Dein swallowed a curse. Kyle’s face had gone rigid behind us; the Princess and the Lady said nothing.
Bren continued.
“The outer lines weaken year after year. The main keep claims to hold, yet it has always been temporary measures. The capital is late, the north is far, and we were always last.”
Saying so, he looked at me.
“Young Master left. The Viscount held on. People grew used to it—even as everything was falling apart.”
I could not say he was wrong. That only made it more irritating.
I opened my mouth very slowly.
“So you set the fire?”
Bren’s eyes flickered minutely.
“It’s already rotten. What difference does it make if it collapses a little sooner?”
“It makes a great deal of difference.”
My voice came out lower than I expected.
“People die.”
Bren did not answer. This time his gaze turned to the Princess. In that look there was neither reverence nor hostility—only the resignation of a man who knew a board larger than his own thoughts was already in motion.
The Princess asked coldly,
“Where is Edgar Roen?”
Bren smiled very briefly.
“That man is not one who would be here.”
The Lady asked at once,
“The northeastern third line?”
Bren closed his mouth. Not an answer, yet not a denial either.
I took another step closer.
“Why did you siphon the supplies?”
Bren’s gaze fell again to the crates.
“I never intended to hold out long. I only needed to move what was necessary.”
“Where to?”
“Even if you leave the moment you hear it, you will already be late. It is already too late.”
That was the moment.
A very low vibration rose from beneath the floor of the pumping station.
Drrrk.
I lifted my head at once. Bren heard it as well. Yet strangely, for the first time he wore a truly startled expression. I did not miss it.
“So even you did not know everything.”
Bren’s lips hardened. Almost simultaneously the waterwheel shaft behind the pumping station began to turn by itself.
Creak—creak—
The long-dead sluice mechanism moved of its own accord. Gears meshed, and somewhere beneath the floor a waterway opened with a soft sound—only a little, yet enough.
Bren turned almost reflexively.
“No…”
The Princess narrowed her eyes.
“Interesting.”
The Lady said low,
“This is not Bren Theo’s hand.”
She was right. Bren had used the pumping station as a base, siphoned supplies, and managed the contamination routes into the main keep. Yet the device that had just moved lay one layer deeper still. Someone had laid a scheme so deep that even Bren had not been allowed to know the whole of it.
From a crack in the floor, not black water but something faintly silver leaked out. A strange color—too ambiguous to call pure contamination, too turbid for a proper barrier.
I shouted on instinct.
“Everyone back!”
In that instant the central floor stone of the pumping station sank inward.
Kuuung—!
Two crates were sucked down, and a circular space hidden beneath was revealed. A small underground chamber. Even I had not known something like this remained under the abandoned pumping station.
And at its center…
There was a single small barrier core.
It had the shape of a storage room, yet its true purpose had been an auxiliary barrier chamber. An auxiliary core not even waist-high. Yet its interior was already stained black.
The Princess murmured very low,
“…They hid it.”
The Lady understood at once.
“It is the intermediate knot collapsing the outer perimeter of the main keep.”
Bren’s face went completely rigid at the sight—clearly the expression of a man who had not known. So Bren had been a coordinator, yet not the final core.
I looked down immediately. Around the auxiliary core, newly drawn lines overlaid the old patterns on the floor. The flows connecting the main keep’s well and storage water, the outer watch posts, and the waterway management office all converged here.
In other words, this was the true heart.
The Princess said shortly,
“Sir Elverhart.”
“Speak.”
“If we destroy this…”
I answered almost reflexively.
“Most of the contamination lines planted in the main keep will be severed together.”
The Lady added,
“But there will be backlash. If it is broken without preparation, the remaining outer lines could all rebound.”
A short silence. And in that gap Bren suddenly twisted his body. Too late. He was leaping down toward the auxiliary core.
“Stop!”
My voice and Dein’s charge came together, yet both were a step behind. Bren threw himself into the space below and shouted,
“It’s already too late!”
Before the end of the words even reached us, the Princess’s golden light fell. The light that pierced Bren’s shoulder twisted him sideways. He tumbled not onto the core itself but onto the stone floor beside it. The Lady’s ice followed at once, freezing his legs and the floor together.
Bren gasped and spat blood—a face that had failed both escape and self-destruction.
The Princess looked down.
“Good. Now let us truly end it.”
I approached the edge of the floor. The auxiliary core was far smaller than the main keep’s underground barrier core, yet its very smallness made it worse—easy to hide from human eyes, perfect for slipping beneath waterways and supply lines. The reason Bren had been able to touch the waterways, the wells, and the stockades was because he had used this as his base.
I closed my eyes, then opened them again.
“This time it is different from the Imperial Palace or the main keep underground.”
The Princess asked,
“In what way?”
“…It will be faster to discard this one.”
The Lady understood at once.
“You mean to blow the auxiliary core itself.”
“Exactly.”
I pointed at the core.
“It is not a central axis worth preserving like the main keep’s underground core. This is an intermediate knot the enemy planted. Cutting it here will weaken the entire string.”
The Princess asked nothing more. The Lady also nodded shortly.
I looked down at the frozen Bren below. He seemed to have understood as well. His blood-stained mouth trembled.
“No…”
I spoke very coldly.
“Why? Attached to it?”
For the first time Bren wore a truly fearful face. If the core broke, every line he had painstakingly connected would collapse.
Good. That expression of yours is enough.
I looked from the Princess to the Lady.
“Your Highness. My Lady.”
The Princess answered,
“I’m listening.”
“Let us finish it in one stroke.”
The Lady said,
“We will match you, Sir.”
In that moment, strangely, my mind was utterly quiet. From the Imperial Palace to this place now, the scattered points had finally gathered into one.
Bren ends here. Edgar Roen is rolling a larger board above him. And if we sever this auxiliary core now, at least the first line that has been gnawing at the main keep can be cut away.
I drew a very slow breath.
“Now.”
The Princess’s golden light rose straight from the back of her hand. The Lady’s blue-white radiance spread, freezing the edges of the floor patterns. And I, as if pointing with a finger at one of the lines flowing beneath the auxiliary core, found the weakest knot.
“There!”
The light fell.