721
Side Story Episode 1
On the high walls of Himonas Castle, a lone wolf fought with a sword against the incoming enemies.
Behind the wolf who had slain hundreds of enemies alone, the burning fortress could be seen.
Around were the corpses of knights killed by enemy swords, piled like mountains.
After defeating the enemies, the wolf looked at the hellish scene before turning to gaze somewhere else.
Her small lips moved.
"Zeke Murray..."
The northern wolf with sad eyes muttered something in a whisper too quiet to be heard, then brought her greatsword down on her own neck.
The wolf's body fell from the castle wall, tumbling down the icy cliff below.
A man was watching this from afar.
He reached out his hand trying to reach that place, but there was no way he could.
In reality, he neither existed there nor witnessed this terrible scene directly.
The man knew all of this was a dream he had created.
Yet despite this, everything felt as real and vivid to him as reality.
* * *
"SIGH..."
The man rose with his upper body completely soaked in sweat.
His body, packed with solid muscles, was densely marked with scars both large and small.
His face, as he pushed back his black hair, was also covered with scars and burn marks.
His black eyes, of unfathomable depth, shook back and forth, losing focus.
The man grabbed the bottle beside him and drank the hard liquor as if it were water.
He hoped the liquor flowing down his esophagus would shake off the nightmare, but for a long time, he couldn't escape that battlefield.
"Damn it..."
A battlefield he had never been to had been tormenting him as a nightmare for years.
Perhaps if he had been at the scene, he wouldn't have had nightmares like this.
At the time, the man had no choice but to leave Himonas Castle due to another mission.
He received news of the Himonas Knights being annihilated and the castle falling to the Imperial Army weeks after it happened.
The Northern Wolf he had followed was said to have slit her own throat and thrown herself from the castle wall.
All sorts of news from every direction stuck in the man's mind, creating virtual memories that turned into nightmares.
Every night, the man writhed in regret, screaming in his nightmare as his comrades were annihilated while he could do nothing, only to wake up and repeat the cycle.
He couldn't even remember when he had last slept properly.
The only way to avoid nightmares was to empty several bottles of hard liquor and pass out as if losing consciousness.
The man emptied the liquor and threw the empty bottle onto the floor.
Just as the rolling empty bottle stopped at the door, someone knocked briefly before opening it and entering.
"Zeke Murray."
A captivating woman with wavy red hair, wearing a velvet dress with a deep neckline, called the man's name.
Zeke raised his head and looked at the woman who had called him.
"Kei."
Taking his naming of her as permission, she tried to enter the room, but Zeke pulled out a dagger hidden under his pillow.
The Syndicate hitmen behind her stepped forward as if to protect Kei.
The hitmen glared at Zeke with murderous intent as they held their weapons.
Then Kei spoke to the hitmen.
"Everyone, wait outside."
Being an executive of the Syndicate, the hitmen retreated slowly at her words, though still wary of Zeke.
Kei sighed and shook her head at Zeke, who was still holding the dagger.
She slowly came in, pulled up a chair in front of Zeke, crossed her legs, and sat down.
"Would you put that down?"
Zeke merely continued to grip the dagger despite Kei's words.
Kei, seeming accustomed to Zeke's behavior, nodded and spoke.
"If that makes you comfortable, do as you please. But having made an oath of covenant with me, do you still want to be so cautious?"
Zeke and Kei had made an oath of covenant that was engraved on their souls to maintain their contractual relationship.
The Syndicate Kei belonged to was a smuggler cartel that moved soma produced in the south to the central continent.
However, their sea transport route was blocked by the Dorta Navy, leaving them unable to move their goods.
Kei, an executive of the Syndicate, sought out Zeke Murray, famous in the industry as a fixer, to pioneer a new transport route.
She wanted to commission him to develop a land route through the desert region.
Zeke Murray successfully completed the nearly impossible land route development task, and the Syndicate found a new way to transport soma.
Thanks to this, Kei was able to solidify her position within the Syndicate.
Having witnessed Zeke Murray's capabilities, Kei urged him to join the Syndicate as her loyal subordinate, but he detested belonging to organizations.
Instead, he demanded an equal partnership with Kei. The condition was an equivalent exchange: he would fulfill Kei's requests while using the Syndicate's information network to obtain information he wanted.
Kei agreed to this arrangement because she wanted the capable fixer Zeke Murray by her side. She even took the initiative to make an oath of covenant to earn the suspicious Zeke's trust. It was a powerful deterrent because if either betrayed the other, the signature engraved on their wrist would disappear.
Despite their relationship lasting for years, Zeke Murray still remained guarded and wouldn't open up to Kei.
Zeke Murray looked at Kei and said,
"Why did you come in person? If it's a job request, sending someone would have been enough."
At his dry words, Kei clicked her tongue and pulled out a note from her inner pocket, extending it to him.
Zeke carefully took the note and read its contents. Though written in the Syndicate's code, he quickly understood it.
"...The mad emperor is searching for something in the Ice Mountains."
Kei nodded at Zeke's words and spoke,
"Yes, that's the information you asked for. You wanted to know where the mad emperor is and what he's focusing on."
In their exchange, what Zeke requested from Kei was information about Nero, the mad emperor of the Rom Empire.
Tracking the emperor's movements while avoiding the notorious Rom Empire Intelligence Agency was extremely difficult.
Knowing this, Zeke wanted to use the Syndicate's information network.
Currently, besides the Rom Empire Intelligence Agency, the Syndicate handled the most information.
Since the Rom Empire was the largest consumer of soma imported from the southern continent, the Syndicate's information network was densely spread throughout the empire.
Not only the empire's magicians but also knights and soldiers sought the drug soma, so they tacitly allowed the Syndicate's activities.
As a result, all kinds of information about the empire flowed into the Syndicate.
Zeke placed the dagger on his knee, picked up a cigarette from the table, and put it in his mouth.
After lighting it with a match, he burned the note Kei had brought and stood up while exhaling smoke.
WHOOSH!
Zeke's body was covered in scars from head to toe. His well-developed muscles made his body as elastic and powerful as a black panther.
Zeke gathered his clothes from the floor, picked up the sword leaning against the bed, and stood before Kei.
He dropped his cigarette butt on the floor, crushed it with his foot, and said to Kei,
"He's looking for something in the Ice Mountains. You have more information about that, don't you? Give it to me."
Kei responded with an incredulous look, "You think information about the emperor is something I can just bring whenever? Even getting this much involved enormous risk."
Zeke silently stared at Kei with his black eyes.
After meeting his gaze briefly, Kei finally couldn't bear it and turned her head away.
Reluctantly, she pulled out another note from her bosom and handed it to Zeke.
"It's not yet verified information, so I was going to wait a bit longer..."
Without listening to the rest of Kei's words, Zeke strapped the sword to his back and walked toward the door.
Pausing briefly at the door, he turned to look at Kei and slowly said,
"Thank you, Kei."
With just those words, Zeke immediately opened the door and left.
Kei rose momentarily to stop Zeke who had left after just a word of thanks, but then sat back down.
"...Damn it, I must be crazy. That bastard."
She thought this might be the last time she would see Zeke. She had hesitated about coming all this way to give him information about the emperor, knowing that no matter how much she warned him of the danger, he would certainly head there.
Just then, the Syndicate hitmen approached Kei.
"Boss, are you going to let him go like that?"
Though outwardly Kei's subordinates, they were actually placed by the Syndicate's head boss to monitor her.
The head boss and other executives wanted to use Kei's skills to control Zeke, but they also feared him. They knew he was responsible for bringing down the Mekein Cartel, the largest cartel in the southern continent.
Don Juan, the boss of the Mekein Cartel, had died at the hands of Zeke Murray. This meant that if Zeke set his mind to it, he could just as easily kill the Syndicate's head boss and executives.
That's why they ordered Kei to be thoroughly monitored to ensure she didn't have other ideas.
Kei took out a cigarette, put it in her mouth, and snapped her fingers to create a flame to light it.
She exhaled smoke and said to the hitmen,
"What if I don't leave him alone? Are you going to go deal with Zeke Murray?"
The Hitmen flinched at Kei's words.
Taking down Zeke Murray, the legendary hitman of the Mekein Cartel, was beyond their capabilities.
Kei took a deep drag from her cigarette, then tossed the still-long butt to the floor as she stood up.
"Even if we don't touch him, he'll destroy himself. He's charging straight into the Emperor's hounds' territory."
Kei continued with a bitter expression.
"Go tell the other executives. Tell them there's nothing more to worry about regarding Zeke Murray."
With those words, she left the room where Zeke had been staying.
Only discarded cigarette butts and toppled liquor bottles remained lonely in the room.
* * *
WHACK!
The informant's face became a bloody mess after taking Zeke's punch.
He trembled violently while dripping blood from his mouth.
Zeke grabbed the informant's shoulder and said.
"Now do you remember something?"
The informant quickly nodded at his words.
Zeke brought a chair and sat down in front of him.
Then he lifted his chin as if to say speak quickly.
The informant opened his mouth while shaking uncontrollably.
"I-I'm not entirely certain..."
"Doesn't matter."
At Zeke's firm response, the informant spat out the blood pooled in his mouth and slowly began to tell what he knew.
"Th-they set up camp at Himonas Castle... and I s-saw them l-leading people up to the I-Ice Mountains."
Zeke took out two cigarettes, put one in his mouth and lit it.
Then he lit the other one and handed it to the informant.
The informant took a drag from the cigarette Zeke gave him.
After coughing briefly from the extremely strong taste of the cigarette, he seemed to calm down a bit and continued more composedly than before.
"When I saw them carrying not only people but loads of equipment... it looked like they were trying to excavate something."
At the informant's words, Zeke exhaled cigarette smoke and nodded.
"Excavation, huh."
Having investigated the Mad Emperor for a long time, Zeke was well aware that he was obsessed with ancient artifacts.
There was a possibility that ancient artifacts the Mad Emperor wanted were buried in the Ice Mountains.
Zeke looked at the informant and asked.
"Did they say what might be buried there?"
At that, the informant shook his head and said.
"I-I don't really know that much..."
Zeke stared into the informant's eyes, then tossed his cigarette butt on the floor and walked out.
The informant finally breathed a sigh of relief after confirming Zeke had disappeared.
"Damn bastard... I'll send my boys to cut off your head for sure..."
The muttering informant suddenly grabbed his throat and collapsed on the spot.
With foam in his mouth, he struggled in agony, unable to breathe, before his life was extinguished.
In the dead informant's hand was the cigarette Zeke had given him.
A faint green smoke was slowly seeping out from the cigarette with its ember still burning.