A Wedge Beneath the Wheel
The scent of damp soap lingered in front of the stables at dawn.
The gray cloaks of Ronan's team were clean.
However, because they had been dried in a hurry overnight, the edges of the fabric were a bit stiff.
As soon as Lya boarded the carriage, she placed the medical supply box on her lap.
"I'm not letting this out of my arms this time."
Ronan smiled as he sat opposite her.
"If the box had seen the laundry room yesterday, it would feel safe too."
"The box might be at ease, but I'm not."
Cerise sat by the window, holding her scabbard upright. She secured it between her knees to prevent the tip from hitting the other luggage when the carriage jolted.
Neris sat in the innermost seat.
In her hands was a black envelope.
It was sealed with dark wax. The seal bore the crest of the Royal Academy of Knights, and only a short phrase was written on the outside.
Neris's fingernail stopped at the edge of the wax.
Her face betrayed her desire to open it.
She didn't even try to hide it.
Ronan asked.
"Is the envelope calling out to your hand?"
"It is not calling to me. However, the probability of internal information being verified before external danger is high."
"Which means you want to open it, right?"
"Precisely."
Lya narrowed her eyes.
"It clearly says not to open it before passing the checkpoint."
Neris looked down at the envelope.
"That is why I have not opened it yet. Placing my fingernail on it does not constitute opening it."
Cerise spoke up curtly.
"That sounds suspiciously like an excuse."
Laughter erupted from outside the carriage.
It came from the cadets in the carriage behind them.
Among them were faces that had sided with the drenched seniors in the laundry room last night. They deliberately tailgated Ronan's carriage.
"Looks like they managed to dry their cloaks."
"They'll probably end up rolling out of the carriage before we even reach the Monster Forest."
"It'd be quite a sight to see that black envelope rolling around with them."
Lya hugged her medicine box even tighter.
Cerise's gaze turned cold.
Neris did not reply.
Instead, she pulled her hand away from the envelope.
Ronan noticed the small gesture.
"You held back."
"I did not hold back. I merely followed the proper sequence."
"That's a good line. I'll have to use it next time I want to eat snacks early."
Neris shook her head with a deadpan expression.
"It does not apply to snacks."
At that moment, the carriage climbed the ramp in front of the checkpoint.
The wooden wheels rolled over the damp stone road.
Thump.
The front left wheel jolted slightly.
Just as the coachman was about to pull the reins, Ronan felt an odd resistance from beneath the floorboards.
Opposing the forward momentum of the wheel, something sharp bit into the axle.
Ronan's gaze dropped.
A black wedge was protruding from beneath the wheel.
It wasn't just a stray piece of wood that had rolled under.
The end was cut at an angle. It was coated in black resin to prevent it from absorbing the wet mud.
If it wedged in completely, the carriage would tilt to the left.
At this angle, Lya's medicine box would spill first, Cerise's scabbard would fly, and Neris's black envelope would slide into the cracks of the floorboards.
Someone in the carriage behind them stifled a laugh.
It was the sound of someone fully prepared to mock them.
Cerise grabbed the door handle.
"I'm jumping out."
"Don't."
Ronan cut her off quickly.
"If you leave now, we lose your weight. It'll tilt even more."
Lya crouched down, clutching her box.
"Then we have to stop the carriage."
"If we stop, the wedge will only drive in deeper."
Ronan slowly raised his right hand.
However, he did not manifest his Phantom Sword immediately.
First, Ronan scanned the interior of the carriage.
Lya's medicine box, Cerise's gear, Neris's envelope, and Dorman's knees.
He calculated who would get hurt first.
Only then did he look at the wheel.
First, he looked at Neris.
"Neris."
Neris was no longer looking at the envelope.
Her eyes were fixed on the mark on the wedge beneath the wheel.
There was a tiny white line on the black resin.
Under the dawn light filtering through the carriage window, the line was broken in the shape of a horseshoe.
"That is not a checkpoint wedge," Neris said.
"The ones used at the checkpoint have flat bottoms. That one has a hollowed-out underside designed to dig forward when pushed from behind."
The carriage jolted once more.
Instead of replying, Neris stared at a nail in the carriage floor.
A very fine black powder clung to the nail head.
It was evidence that someone had manually slid the wedge under the floorboards before it reached the wheel.
"It came from the back right," she murmured.
"They waited until just before the wheel rolled over it. They didn't want to stop us; they wanted to overturn us at the checkpoint where everyone could see."
Lya's lips tightened.
She pressed down on the lid of the box with her elbow. The faint clinking of medicine bottles echoed from within.
"If we had overturned, the medicine would have shattered."
"My scabbard would have flown, too. But the medicine box would have broken first," Cerise said in a low voice.
"And then they would have claimed we were the ones who lost our tempers and caused a scene."
Ronan heard the laughter from the carriage behind them.
There was anticipation mixed in that laughter.
The anticipation of watching someone else get hurt.
At that moment, Ronan's fingertips grew slightly cold.
Neris's shoulders leaned forward.
Ronan caught her elbow.
The black envelope, which was about to slide off Neris's lap, stopped.
Ronan pulled his hand back immediately.
"Sorry. I wasn't treating you like a specimen."
Neris swallowed hard.
"I know. It was a preservation measure."
Lya didn't get angry even after hearing that.
Instead, she gently pressed the envelope on Neris's lap with the back of her hand.
"Then I'll preserve this. We can't have it falling."
Neris looked at Lya.
A strange silence fell between the two.
It wasn't jealousy, nor was it wariness.
It was the silence of allies that only forms when their carriage is on the verge of overturning.
Cerise let go of the door handle.
"Tell us, Ronan. Where should we hold?"
"Brace the right wall with your scabbard. Just hold the weight."
"Understood."
Cerise braced the carriage wall with her upright scabbard.
Only then did Ronan take a breath.
The pure mana of the atmosphere gathered at his fingertips.
A single silver Phantom Sword materialized in the shadow beside the wheel.
The blade was still thin.
But this time, it did not rise upward.
Remaining nearly flush with the ground, it slid beneath the bottom of the wedge.
Someone in the carriage behind them shouted.
"Huh? It's not tipping over?"
Ronan muttered in a low voice.
"It's not our carriage that's going to tip."
The Phantom Sword did not lift the wedge.
It didn't even touch the weight of the wheel.
The tip of the blade merely nudged the hollow underside of the wedge by half an inch.
The rolling force channeled into that gap.
The wedge failed to drive forward.
Instead, it rebounded backward.
Crack!
The black wedge bounced off the stone road and flew toward the carriage behind them.
The coachman didn't even have time to pull the reins.
The wedge lodged itself right in front of the rear carriage's horses.
The horses reared and came to a sudden halt.
The rear carriage jolted violently.
The laughing cadets were thrown forward all at once.
And from inside their carriage, three large sacks tumbled out.
The sacks hit the stone ground of the checkpoint.
Thud.
Thud.
The mouth of the last sack burst open.
Round ration bread rolled across the ground.
They were loaves stamped with the academy's seal.
The cadets at the checkpoint fell dead silent.
The coachman was the first to mutter.
"Those are the spare ration sacks..."
The faces of the cadets in the rear carriage turned pale.
One of them hurriedly bent down.
"T-They were just loaded in by mistake!"
Ronan's carriage stopped.
Ronan stepped down slowly.
He didn't step on the wedge.
As he curled his fingertips, the Phantom Sword lightly scraped the dirt next to the wedge.
Beneath the black resin, the same white line was revealed.
Neris spoke from inside the carriage.
"It is the same paint as the right footboard of the carriage behind us. There are scratch marks there as well."
Lya added, clutching the envelope to her chest.
"So the thing they prepared to overturn our carriage ended up right back in front of theirs."
Cerise stepped down from the carriage and blocked the path to the bread sacks.
"And the stolen supplies returned with it."
One of the cadets from the rear carriage raised his voice.
"Where is the proof?!"
Ronan looked at him.
"Right in front of your feet."
The cadet looked down.
The black wedge was embedded right in front of the toe of his boot.
The bread sack lay burst open next to his knee.
The faces that had been laughing earlier were now staring at him.
This time, no one laughed at Ronan's team.
Ronan picked up a loaf of bread from the ground and dusted it off.
Then he handed it to the coachman.
"If it's a spare ration, it should go to those who need it."
A small cadet hesitated as he reached out to pick up a rolling loaf.
He stood in a side line, belonging to neither the front nor the rear carriage. He was the youngest member of a group that hadn't received their morning rations.
The cadet from the rear carriage glared at him.
"Don't touch that."
Ronan looked up, holding a loaf.
"Why?"
"It's our sack."
"I thought you said it was just loaded in by mistake."
The words bounced right back.
Too quickly, too accurately.
The cadet's mouth shut tight.
Low chuckles broke out from the crowd.
This laughter was brief, but it stung far worse.
What they had been waiting for was the downfall of Ronan's team.
Instead, what rolled around the checkpoint was their own horse and bread.
The coachman took the bread and looked at the cadets from the rear carriage.
His gaze commanded them before he even spoke.
One by one, they climbed down.
They tied the sacks back up and gathered the scattered bread.
With the very hands they had used to mock others just moments ago, they crawled across the stone floor.
Lya said softly.
"Yesterday they washed fabric, and today they're picking up bread."
Ronan chuckled softly.
"When their hands are busy, they tend to talk less nonsense."
Neris did not react to his words.
She took back the black envelope Lya had been holding.
The wax seal was completely intact.
Ronan watched her tuck the envelope away.
Neris always wanted to touch the answers first.
If she was curious, her hand moved first.
It had been that way in the library, and outside the healing room. Even when she noticed the lingering scent on the back of Ronan's hand, she had approached him without any attempt to hide her curiosity.
Yet this time, Neris left the closed thing closed.
Ronan knew it wasn't simple patience.
She had chosen the path that kept the team from falling.
Lya asked.
"You really wanted to open it, didn't you?"
"Extremely."
"Then why didn't you?"
Neris looked at the black powder left beneath the wheel.
"Inside the envelope is the next set of information. But what we needed just now was external information."
She dabbed a bit of the resin powder onto a small piece of paper with her finger.
"And if Ronan's team falls, there will be no one left to read the envelope even if it is opened."
Lya was silent for a moment.
Then, she relaxed her grip on the medicine box.
"Thank you."
Neris blinked.
"Is that an expression of gratitude?"
"Yes."
"May I record it?"
"No, you may not."
Ronan suppressed a laugh.
Cerise slung her scabbard over her shoulder as she watched the cadets tie up the last of the bread sacks.
"We can depart now. At least they won't have the energy to laugh for a while."
The cadets in the rear carriage couldn't lift their heads.
The coachman straightened Ronan's carriage once more.
This time, the wheels rolled smoothly.
The moment they passed the checkpoint, Neris placed the black envelope on her lap.
Her fingernails did not touch the wax.
Ronan asked.
"Is it not calling to you this time?"
Neris replied, looking out the window.
"Right now, the outside is louder than the inside."
Outside the carriage, the walls of the Royal Academy of Knights receded into the distance.
The black envelope remained closed.
And for the first time, Neris was looking at the people inside the carriage before the closed envelope.