Elaine's Shield (1)
'I didn't see that coming.'
When Elaine appeared, Cassion had withdrawn his manifested Origin, pretending he had fought with his sword alone. In that same desperately earnest voice, he had called out to her—saying that Harad was defecting. The performance had been flawless. Probably thanks to his years as a spy. Or perhaps the concept had simply swallowed him whole.
At that moment, Elaine should have chosen Cassion. Setting aside the sheer force of his pleading, it was the perfectly obvious judgment. And yet Elaine had picked Harad, who was in too much pain to even speak.
'Because of a dream? She probably still thinks it's a pipe dream.'
Of course, Elaine had been changing. But this choice went beyond anything he had anticipated. There had been hardly any hesitation in the way she swung her sword at Cassion—it was over in an instant. Even if Ellen had arrived exactly as expected, she would never have decided that quickly. That alone was astonishing enough, and yet Elaine hadn't even killed Cassion.
Cassion was no ordinary magician. He was an Outlands magician—a spy, at that. A decision the Elaine of mere days ago couldn't have dreamed of. Choosing Harad, sparing Cassion—all of it.
'It's not as if she did it to get one over on me.'
Harad watched the triumphant Elaine for a moment, then shook his head. She wasn't as foolish as he'd assumed.
'Well, so be it.'
He didn't dig any deeper. One way or another, it was a good sign for him. It meant, in the end, that Elaine was changing.
'One more variable on the board... though I suppose it depends on how I use it.'
The fact that Cassion had lived left a nagging unease, but truthfully, that was never Harad's call to make. Ellen kills Cassion—that, in fact, was Harad's hope. But in the end, the regression belonged to Elaine, and Elaine mattered more to him than that insignificant Cassion ever could.
'The shock should have done its job.'
The jolt delivered through Cassion would return to Elaine as a dream, and that dream would in turn become the trigger for the next shock. Harad was the one who had to keep that virtuous cycle turning.
Cassion was shedding tears. It was, in its own way, a moving moment—Elaine seemed to feel a trace of it too. The man called Cassion had, at last, truly become one of Serzila's own.
Harad felt a flicker of excitement himself. He had captured Outlands magicians alive a few times in his past life, but Cassion was the first Outlands magician ever to become a double agent.
"I have plenty of questions."
Cassion and Elaine's faces crumpled. They looked as if to say, must you call time on this moment right now?
"Go on, ask me anything. That's where it all begins, after all."
Cassion's expression soon softened. Harad's influence ran deep in how all this had come to pass—Cassion was jealous of Harad, and yet found jealousy itself strangely difficult.
"Though I doubt I'll be of much use."
The newly minted double agent spoke without a shred of confidence. Harad took it for false modesty.
"There are seven towers in the Outlands. The Red Tower alone has no Tower Master. The rest all have one, yes?"
"They do."
"And the 6th Circle numbers seven, as I understand it."
"Does it?"
Cassion pushed back.
"This is no time for jokes."
"I genuinely don't know."
Cassion said it with the composed face of a knight. He truly seemed not to know.
"I'm told the Tower of the Moon has no 6th Circle either. What tier is your strongest, then? Is there perhaps a Moon?"
"I don't know."
"..."
Harad's words jammed in his throat. He lobbed a few more questions after that, but every answer that came back was equally unsatisfying.
"So the magic towers each move on their own. Well, I suppose that tracks—Outlands magicians do call their tower's master a king."
A few of the details were new to Harad, but most of it was stuff he already knew.
"And? Nothing else? Don't tell me that's all of it."
"Nothing else comes to mind right now. If something does later, I'll pass it along."
Harad found that hard to fathom.
"You'd have to make an effort to remember?"
Other things, maybe—but how could anyone stall when describing their own homeland? Harad could have held forth about Iagar for hours.
"What can you expect from a bug?"
The words came out laced with thorns. Yet regardless of the emotion behind them, Cassion genuinely seemed not to know. A Gu tool was a tool. And a tool did not know its master's will.
"If anything, I probably know Serzila better than the Tower of the Moon or the Outlands."
"Quite the boast."
"It's true."
"..."
It had been sarcasm, but Cassion swelled with pride.
"Then tell me more about your mission."
"I was a seed. The position I was meant to be planted in was never the commander's seat of the 2nd Knight Order."
So keeping tabs on Serzila's movements hadn't been the whole of Cassion's duties after all. Bug he may be, but the man was 5th Circle.
"I'm told 5th Circle is precious even in the Outlands."
"It is."
Just as Sword Masters were rare on the continent, 5th Circle magicians were rare in the Outlands. Their luster had only dimmed because there were as many as seven 6th Circles.
'Are there seven in this era too? Or do their numbers grow later on—like Elaine becoming a monster?'
Just as Harad's thoughts began to drift—
"The Tower of the Moon wanted me to climb all the way to the Grand Duke's personal guard. That was the order I was given."
Reporting on Serzila's movements had merely been a supplementary order, Cassion added. The command he'd actually received was to watch Archduke Aratus.
"And had you become his guard... other orders would have followed, I take it."
A knife in the back at the decisive moment. That was what they'd wanted, surely.
The Tower of the Moon had its eye fixed on Archduke Aratus.
"Has it been that way long?"
"I can't say for certain. But I would be the first to ever infiltrate the Inner Castle."
Meaning their fixation was not on Serzila's Grand Duke, but on Archduke Aratus himself.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"..."
It felt like a shit that kept cutting off mid-stream. Harad studiously ignored the Sun swaying at his side, suggesting they might as well just set something on fire.
"Is there anything you are certain of?"
At that question, Cassion rubbed the tip of his nose with his index finger. He kept at it for a long while before finally opening his mouth.
"I infiltrated fourteen years ago."
"I know."
"But I heard that order nineteen years ago—when I was completed as a Gu tool. From that point on, I trained to disguise my mana as aura."
Nineteen years ago. Not Serzila—Archduke Aratus, named specifically.
'The sabbatical, then.'
Twenty years ago, Archduke Aratus had entered his sabbatical. An imperial decree, and a punishment—the price of attacking the imperial palace single-handedly. Because of it, Serzila had been barred from the Boundary.
'So something must have happened in the Boundary in the first place.'
He had no idea what, but that incident seemed tied to the Tower of the Moon. Otherwise there was no reason for the tower to fixate on Archduke Aratus and no one else.
'And the Grand Duke attacked the imperial palace over that incident.'
Harad met Cassion's eyes. The man shook his head—which meant, in the end, only Archduke Aratus himself knew the truth.
'Ah, right—there's also Sir Moresz.'
Elaine's swordsmanship master, that retired old knight, had served Serzila since before Aratus ever became Grand Duke. He might know the whole story. Of course, Harad had no way of hearing it.
'Even if I wrung it out of him, the Grand Duke would kill me for it.'
The sabbatical and the abolition of the retainer system had come as a pair. Wondering why, the Grand Duke had once put Harad to the test.
"I'll spare your life."
That was what the Grand Duke had said when Harad claimed ignorance. He had survived because he didn't know.
'So he'd kill me if I did know.'
What matter could be sensitive enough for that? Perhaps some hidden stain on that man of steel, the Grand Duke himself.
"It does make me curious, though."
If he got one more chance at regression, he would find out. Harad smacked his lips and stomped his curiosity firmly back down.
"Curious about what?"
Elaine was looking at him. He had let his last words slip out loud.
"I said I was curious what you intend to do, my lady."
Harad answered without missing a beat.
"Me? About what?"
Elaine sounded exactly like Ellen. Proof of how much more at ease Harad had become around her.
"About Cassion."
"Ah."
Elaine answered at once, as though she'd already thought it through.
"Cassion will remain commander of the 2nd Knight Order. As a knight of Serzila, he will gather intelligence on the Outlands for us."
"..."
"And I won't reveal what Cassion is, either. That way the Tower of the Moon will swallow the deception whole."
Elaine brimmed with confidence. She seemed certain she could talk Archduke Aratus around.
'That Grand Duke?'
By batting her eyes at him, perhaps? Harad was far more curious about Aratus's reaction than about Ellen's charms. He could not easily picture that man grinning like an idiot the way Kubel did.
"And how do you plan to report this to His Grace?"
"What are you talking about? I just told you—I'm not revealing anything."
Harad tilted his head.
"Only the three of us know what happened today."
"Even from His Grace?"
"Naturally, that's how it must be."
"...And what exactly will you do if His Grace already knows?"
"He does? Impossible."
Elaine waved the notion away as sheer nonsense.
"Was that what you were worried about? You're a timid one, aren't you—I hadn't expected that."
To Harad, that face looked profoundly foolish.
"Honestly, my father wasn't without his faults either. When I was little, I simply trusted him and followed along. But Father was ignorant. All he ever knew was force."
Elaine had said that once. He'd taken it as the kind of joke—and grievance—only family could afford. After all, for all his terrifying power, Archduke Aratus had vanished without so much as a word.
"His Grace probably knows already."
"I'm telling you, there's no way."
That wasn't it. Elaine genuinely believed Archduke Aratus was an ignoramus.
As far as Harad knew, Archduke Aratus had never once disciplined Elaine. Overprotection was his way of loving his child. It was a method of upbringing that could just as easily have raised a good-for-nothing, yet Elaine had grown up splendidly—remarkably so, enough to play the part of Serzila's perfect ruler to the hilt. Whether the Grand Duke had ever wished for that much, who could say. In any case, none of that was what mattered.
The problem here was that Elaine would come out of this unscathed. And then, who would be standing at her side?
'No one but me.'
Cassion would be there too, but he would be no help. He would be a burden, if anything. There was no chance in hell that Archduke Aratus would let Cassion live. The reason Cassion died in the previous life was never that he was a spy. Archduke Aratus was a fool for his daughter, but he did not coddle her. If the Grand Duke had been soft enough to grant Elaine's every request, the day of the hunt would never have come at all.
'He'd have granted her the authority to come and go through the Boundary as she pleased, no doubt.'
Elaine could lay on every charm she had—Cassion would still die. Which meant Cassion's life hung from Harad's hands. And hanging from those same hands was Harad's own life.
"Are you all right? You look terrible. Still feeling the aftereffects?"
"That would be your doing, my lady."
"Mine? Don't tell me I used the orb wrong?"
"..."
The distance between them had unmistakably shrunk. Elaine was worried about him, and at the sight of it, Harad couldn't even work up anger.
'Was I wrong to tell her to live however the hell she pleased? No—that's not it.'
There was nothing to be angry about. Elaine had changed like this because of Harad in the first place. Which meant he simply had to save Cassion somehow—because that was what Elaine wished for.
'The regression belongs to that fool.'
And so Harad bore the responsibility of granting Elaine what she wanted...
Such were his thoughts as they arrived at the Inner Castle. The gates of the Grand Duke's residence stood wide open—far wider than they had been when Kubel was granted entry. The aura seeping through them was tremendous. It nearly made him miss the Sacred Ground of Fire, and yet, strangely, his steps felt light.
"The aura runs deep. Something must have gone wrong with His Grace."
"..."
Elaine's aura was shielding Harad right along with her.
"You needn't come in with me."
"I can't very well not worry. What are you so frightened of?"
Elaine had loyalty, at least. That was why she'd spared Cassion, too.
"Don't fret so much. Nothing will come of it."
"..."
Apparently, telling her to live however she pleased had been premature. Elaine no longer seemed to spare a glance for her retainers' reactions—Archduke Aratus's least of all. It was a faster change than he had anticipated, which meant the catalyst named Cassion must have shaken her that deeply. Harad decided to count it as all's well that ends well.
It wasn't as if he lacked ways to talk her around. This was the fourth time since his regression that he would be meeting the Grand Duke, and bit by bit, Harad was getting a feel for how to handle the man.
The office door stood open—about a third of the way. Harad understood at once that this door was the Grand Duke's final shred of patience. If it, too, swung fully open, it would mean the man was in a true fury.
'He knew everything after all.'
Otherwise there would be no reason for that door to be open at all. Harad stepped straight into the office. Elaine followed at his heels, her footsteps harder than they had been moments before. She could say she'd live however she pleased, but with the Grand Duke actually before her, the nerves were apparently beyond her control.
His Grace probably knows already.
Harad had feared as much; Elaine had dismissed it as needless worry.
'There's no way he knows.'
There was no way you could know that Cassion was a magician. Which made this affair, plainly and simply, a merit. If Harad reported it, you would shower him with praise. Even so, she had followed him here—because his worrying was getting excessive. Once the praise was done, she would needle him from the side. See? Didn't I tell you? A grown man, scared of his own shadow... She had plenty to say, and she fully intended to say all of it. Chances to tease Harad were rare.
"You."
The moment Elaine heard the Grand Duke's voice, she knew she had miscalculated. It was cold to the bone. Anyone could see that he already knew. Which meant, once again, Harad had been right.
"How dare you—"
Then Archduke Aratus's words broke off. His eyes widened slightly. Not because he had spotted Elaine. The Grand Duke was looking somewhere else entirely—at the floor. Harad had dropped flat into a prostration.
"Please, go ahead."
"...?"
Even Archduke Aratus tilted his head at that.
"You intend to crush me regardless, do you not?"
He meant to take the lash first. Before saying anything that might prove right.