Infiltrating the Octagon (3)
Trying to juggle too many complicated thoughts at once was always a recipe for a headache.
For now, I pushed aside the person I had crossed paths with inside the Octagon. In all likelihood, they wouldn't waste time dwelling on who I was anyway.
I had covered my tracks as cleanly as possible, though I had faintly caught the sounds of two patrol guards raising hell about an intruder on my way out.
As expected, slipping in through that same route a second time was out of the question.
Even if I tried to muscle my way through covertly, the sheer volume of patrols and sentries had surged noticeably. Trying to pull off another infiltration under those conditions would be biting off more than I could chew. This wasn't some run-of-the-mill gambling den, after all. It was the premier parlor of Mirpark Province, established so nobles could indulge their twisted amusements well away from the Principality’s watchful eye.
Still, that brief foray hadn't been entirely in vain. I had managed to pick up a few crucial scraps of information.
"The high rollers are starting to lose interest, apparently. The betting pools are drying up, so the bosses are scouring everywhere for fresh meat."
"Well, the top bracket has been set in stone for months... Even with tournament formats, the champion never changes. Of course it gets boring. Can't blame 'em for keeping their wallets shut."
"Yeah. Some young punk showed up, and no matter how dirty they rig the match cards, he just mows through everyone... Tsk."
That was what I had overheard while timing their patrol rotations, right before slipping through their blind spot.
They wanted fresh blood. They were desperate for a new challenger who could disrupt the status quo and produce an upset. With lopsided beatdowns killing the thrill of the wager, the ringmaster had to be tearing his hair out.
Which meant this was my golden ticket back inside.
So, what was my next move?
"Huh? Junon? What brings you all the way out here?"
I tracked down John, who was in the same class as the kid in question.
My goal was to dig up whatever I could on this academy student who walked into the Octagon, defied rigged match cards, and came out victorious every single time.
John was a third-year, while the guy I was looking for was a second-year... but since this particular lecture was mandatory regardless of year, he was bound to know him by face.
Debating how to broach the topic, I decided to keep it blunt.
"Isn't there a guy in your class who's constantly late or skipping out entirely?"
"Oh, Cain?"
The name rolled off his tongue so readily that it made me wonder if the guy wasn't quite as antisocial as I'd thought. Or maybe John was just exceptionally friendly with everyone. Knowing John, either was plausible.
When I pressed for details, John suggested we step aside, then eagerly spilled everything he knew.
"He wasn't originally placed in Class C?"
"Yeah. Unlike us, he’s not even a frontline vanguard or a support, but he somehow tumbled all the way down to Class C. It was a really strange case. His grades used to be phenomenal, too. I saw them once."
"Give me more. Where does he disappear to? Did he go through some kind of sudden change?"
"Mmm... I couldn't tell you that much. If you want, I could ask around among the other second-years?"
In truth, I would be grateful for the help, but...
It didn't sit right with me to ask. In this timeline, Cain and I were complete strangers. If he found out some random person was snooping into his private life, he wouldn't take it well.
Worry gnawed at me, but I had to know.
I still need to ask.
Knowing the kind of guy Cain was, gathering intel was an unavoidable step. Now then... what could I offer John to buy his silence?
I racked my brain, but came up empty.
"I don't really have anything to offer in return... but could you do me this favor?"
"Oh, knock it off! As if I'd take anything from you! Do you have any idea how much I owe you? Hang tight, buddy."
With that, John ducked back into the lecture hall and gathered whatever scraps he could find on Cain.
The class started shortly after, cutting his inquiries short, but since hardly anyone knew Cain well anyway, there wasn't much else to glean.
Rumor had it he would occasionally stumble into class battered and bruised, and other times people had spotted him returning to the dorms long after lectures had ended.
Yet one detail stood out like a sore thumb. Originally, Cain had been an earnest student who had never left early, let alone arrived late.
A profound shift had shattered his routine at some point.
And curiously enough, that drastic change had occurred right on the heels of the Start-of-Semester Evaluation.
He's been throwing himself into the Octagon since all the way back then?
Prices hadn't spiked until months later, so the realization that he had been desperate for money that far back struck an odd, dissonant chord.
"...This isn't something I can sort out without asking him directly."
Then again, why would someone drowning in their own crisis ever lend an ear to a stranger? The moment I approached him, he’d probably brush me off and go about his business before I could get a word in edgewise.
It was worse than inconvenient; a cold chill settled along my spine.
If he refused to even speak with me, my plans would hit a dead end.
Cain's involvement in the Octagon had to be driven by an urgent need for an exorbitant sum of money, yet as luck would have it, I knew practically nothing about his personal circumstances. And if his heart had frozen shut that long ago... he would never open up to me willingly.
Back then, Goden had moved mountains trying to recruit him.
'I'm sorry. I truly am.' Always that same polite, defensive rejection. Even knowing he had his reasons, there was simply no reaching a guy who kept his emotional walls built so high.
Even if I wanted to shoulder his debt, the only place generating that kind of gold right now was the Octagon itself. And on my end, I had my hands full easing the financial burdens on the vanguard and support students, leaving me with zero spare coin to throw around.
"Nothing else for it."
I hated using the exact underhanded methods that had once been turned against me to dig up his secrets, but the Schytz Great Subjugation Campaign wasn't something I could afford to leave to chance.
Forgive me, Cain. Just understand I didn't have a choice.
Bending the trajectory toward a slightly less tragic path was far better than letting everyone march straight toward ruin together.
"..."
Cain could feel it clearly.
The victory conditions inside the Octagon were growing progressively steeper with every passing bout. It was a transparent effort to engineer his defeat.
The ringmaster, who had once seemed willing to grant his every request, now wore an openly sour scowl whenever the time came to hand over his payout.
It wasn't hard to figure out why.
They wanted their spectacle. Watching him sweep through opponents match after match without breaking a sweat was ruining the high-stakes thrills of their bloodsport.
"...Ugh. Did they botch the bandaging on purpose?"
It was petty grievances like shoddy medical treatment that laid their malice bare. They claimed they didn't want fatalities in the ring, yet intentionally neglecting his injuries was a thinly veiled scheme to force a forfeiture.
"Doesn't matter."
As long as he raised the required sum for the medicine, that was all that mattered.
Most of those trapped in the Octagon were bound by contracts or crushing debts—academy dropouts for the most part, and the rest slaves owned by nobles. Among them, Cain stood as the undisputed champion.
Back at the academy, he had once stood toe-to-toe with Ronelion of the Arcab Party. No matter how absurd the handicaps they slapped on him, he wouldn't fall to the likes of these fighters.
Looking at the savings steadily accumulating toward his target, he estimated he could resolve everything within a few months.
Yet the more exhausted a person became, the easier it was to be swayed by trivial comforts. Having earned a particularly generous purse today, his eyes naturally wandered.
For the first time in ages, Cain spent a bit of coin to buy the pastries Lumia used to love. A flicker of guilt struck him almost instantly, but he hardened his heart, deciding that a tiny indulgence wouldn't hurt.
She'll be happy, right?
When Cain was thirteen years old, he had been beaten half to death for the crime of allegedly blocking the local lord's carriage while running an errand.
Sneering and mocking him for being a wretched orphan, his tormentors had seemed no different from demons. Left alone in that gutter, the boy might well have rotted away into a murderer fueled purely by spite.
Yet at that exact moment, a young noble girl his own age happened to pass by. Spotting him, she extended her clean, delicate hand toward his dust-caked frame.
"Goodness... Look at these wounds...! Can you stand?"
Suspicious and bitter, he had slapped her hand away at first. But not long after, news spread that the corrupt lord and his cronies had been stripped of power and driven out. And then, the girl had approached him once more.
"You don't have anywhere to go now, right? Would you like to work at my house?"
Whenever he refused, she returned. She coaxed him, reasoned with him, persistently seeking him out day after day.
Then came the day demonic beasts raided the settlement, leaving Cain critically wounded. She had appeared even then. Without a moment's hesitation, she ordered her retainers to lift him—the lone severe casualty—into her carriage and bring him back to the estate.
A penniless boy with nothing to his name. A lowly commoner whose death in the jaws of a beast wouldn't have stirred a single soul.
It was Lumia, standing at the opposite pole of the world, who had taken him in and kept him alive. A highborn lady who treated a mere laborer like an actual human being. Unlike most nobles who viewed commoners as cattle, she offered him genuine warmth. Because of her, Cain had never strayed down a crooked path.
Which was why he would repay her now.
Whether his body broke or not, he intended to pour every ounce of his strength into staying by her side for whatever remained of their lives.
"Cain...? Is that you...?"
A frail, trembling voice echoed softly through the dilapidated shack. It was Lumia, calling out the name of the only boy who ever stepped through that door.
"Ugh..."
"Don't force yourself up, Lumia."
"...Still..."
"I said it's fine. Relax, I'll help you sit up."
Watching Cain return late into the night while she remained confined to the bed, Lumia was constantly crushed under a mountain of guilt.
He slept uncomfortably on the cold floor because of her. His life at the academy was completely ruined because he spent all his time caring for her helpless state. And just to put three meals on the table, he would vanish somewhere only to return covered in fresh wounds, exactly like tonight.
"Here. I bought your favorite today."
"..."
Inside the paper bag Cain held out lay the sweets she used to love. He was always like this. Utterly devoted to a girl afflicted with a disease said to be incurable.
Though she had asked countlessly before, Lumia found the words tumbling out once more.
"Why are you so good to me, Cain?"
"Not this again. Stop talking nonsense and eat your dinner—"
"I'm not a noble anymore! You don't have to sacrifice yourself like this!"
Lumia cut sharply through the excuses Cain always used to dodge the question.
"My family is ruined! It's gone, and it's never coming back! You don't owe me anything anymore!"
"Lumia..."
"Even if we fled Lemtert Village, and even if my family's name is cleared someday, I have nothing to give you in return...! There's nothing I can ever do for you!"
The bitter anguish pooling in the girl's eyes spilled over into torrential tears.
Stricken by an unidentified sickness, wracked with agony in this frail, useless body, she was powerless. Looking at the boy who returned bleeding and bruised every single day on her account, Lumia hurled words she knew would cut deep.
"No matter where you search, my illness can't be cured! So just give up on me and live your own life, damn it!!"
Yet across her tear-streaked, devastated face, her profound love and warmth for him shone through plain as day.
Cain simply gathered her trembling frame gently into his arms, knowing full well she didn't mean a single cruel syllable.
"I don't care how many times you tell me to give up. I won't."
Cain knew it all too well. He knew how guilty Lumia felt, how thoroughly broken she was over feeling like a helpless burden.
Because Cain had once felt that exact same shame toward her, he willingly absorbed every bitter tear she wept.
"You're the only reason I'm alive today. If you're going to push me away now, you shouldn't have saved me in the first place."
"..."
"You'll get better. I'll make sure of it, so don't you dare think like that again. Understand?"
By the time Cain finished speaking and gently patted her back, the front of his shirt was thoroughly soaked with her tears.
Following Cain had led me to nothing more than a rundown, miserable shack.
Under normal circumstances, an academy student had zero reason to live in a place like this. The commute alone was an agonizing trek. Why abandon the comfortable academy dorms to stay in a dump like this? That question crossed my mind, but...
...the moment the sound of a girl weeping bitterly drifted out from within the hovel, my perspective shifted.
Eventually, the crying subsided, replaced by the quiet murmur of voices inside.
"All right, now that you're done crying, eat some dinner, Lumia. It's your favorite."
"...I can't finish all of this."
"Didn't you used to clear the whole plate?"
"Ever since I got sick, my stomach won't take much... So eat with me. If you say you're full, I won't eat a single bite either."
"Fine. We'll share it."
So that was why he had walked away from Tembris back then.
Despite Cain's monstrous combat prowess, and despite Goden's countless attempts to recruit him, they could never retain him. Because he, too, had someone he desperately needed to protect.
"...I'll have to change the plan."
I knew fully well how dirty it was of me, even in my own eyes... but this was the only way. Even if it was for the sake of those two.