Morning Drama — Finale
A sickening sound tore through him from the inside, and a horrific agony came right on its heels.
CRACK!!
But he had to bear it. Lactea was watching. The Emperor was watching. Eclipse would be watching.
"……Black Wolf, why would you?"
The Emperor was saying something. The pain swallowed most of it.
The sword had been meant for Reyna's throat, and the back he threw in its path was sheared clean through. Skin, muscle, bone, and blood vessel split apart as one, and a cold wind breathed in through the gap. How long he hung there like that, he couldn't have said.
Transcendental-Grade Artifact (SS+) — Activated
"Remember. No pain in this world can kill you."
That same warm voice as before, and he felt the wound seal in a single breath. Flesh slid over flesh, soft and wet. The pain vanished. His mind, which had drifted far off, crept slowly back.
Without the Ring of Iaso, I'd be dead. He had come within a hair of being butchered outright.
……Hah.
He smoothed his face into nothing, wrestled the pain down, and clawed his mind back under him. In that instant—
"Leader!!"
Lactea had already flung her mask aside. White to the lips, she rushed him. He nearly flinched—nearly folded like a coward—and threw a hand out instead to stop her.
"Enough. I'll handle it. Hand me the notebook and the pen, and get clear."
"But your wound—!!"
Yeah. Your handiwork.
He wanted to throw it in her face. He wanted the fight. He wanted, more than either, to get back and sleep, so he answered without giving an inch.
"Lactea. Do I have to say it twice?"
"……No. I'm sorry, Leader."
The anxiety was written all over her, but she bowed her head and obeyed. That bought him a moment at last. He released the Emperor and stepped back.
Emperor of Babylonia. Reyna Babylonia.
He laid the original work, the setting compendium, and Black Wolf's memories side by side. The analysis came out like this.
The Empire is rotten to the bone.
→ Eclipse's doing.
The hero party went off to slay the Demon King, pulled a hard about-face, and just came home.
→ The Hero Party got played by Eclipse, too.
They were about to carve the Emperor's throat up like a banquet spread, but some dipshit bastards (the masterminds, probably?) got in the way.
→ Black Wolf caught on and tried to guard the nation with the Black Wolf at his back. (And got branded corrupt.)
Kill all those bastards, kill the Emperor, screw it, just kill everyone and roll the credits.
→ In the end, defeated by the Hero Party and Eclipse. Bad ending.
That was the result.
Which meant Reyna was this: the incompetent puppet of the hidden mastermind, Eclipse.
And if that was the result—
……If I want to live, I have to keep her alive.
He wrote a slip with a few pieces of information on it and tucked it into her pocket. That was the end of it.
"We're leaving."
"…Yes, Leader."
He took the visibly crestfallen Lactea with him and strolled out of the carnage as if he had all the time in the world.
Once we're back at the hideout, I'm doing nothing for a day or two. Not a thing. Just sleep. And while he rested, he would sort what he had gained from what still needed doing, and build a plan. One by one. In order. Take them that way, and there was nothing he couldn't pull off.
· · ·
Reyna was lost. Why had her sister killed the knights? Why had her sister tried to kill her?
And—
"……Black Wolf, why would you do this to me?"
Held in Black Wolf's arms, Reyna lifted her head as if none of it would settle into sense. A black mask, engraved with the mark of a wolf. Through the holes, eyes like an abyss. And the smell of blood, thickening by the moment.
The target experiences overwhelming terror.
The effect of Mastermind (Ex) is strengthened.
Only then did Reyna understand. He had saved her because he wanted to kill her with his own hands.
"Ah……."
From a distance she could endure him. This close, he was death itself.
"S-spare me……."
She wanted to scream and run that very instant, but terror had frozen her body and would not grant her even that. It caught her by the ankles.
I should have come with Yellow Dragon after all…….
No.
No. Even Yellow Dragon, first among the Continent's 10 Strongest, could not stand against that man.
…Am I going to die?
Her eyes had only just begun to open. She had only just begun to catch Eclipse's tail. She might have untangled the misunderstanding with the Hero Party.
……This emptily?
A shame. But what could she do?
"Leader!!"
"Enough. I'll handle it. Hand me the notebook and the pen, and get clear."
"But your wound—!!"
"…Lactea. Do I have to say it twice?"
"……No. I'm sorry, Leader."
Before a typhoon that swallowed everything, before a tidal wave flooding the continent, before lava pouring down from above—what could a mere human do?
Overwhelmed by the black monster in front of her, Reyna closed her eyes without meaning to.
A soft shift.
The shadow laid over her lifted, and Black Wolf stepped back.
……So that's it? Like a wolf eyeing prey gone rigid with fear—did he mean to savor a little sport?
But in the next instant—
"Open your eyes."
Whispering it, Black Wolf wrote something in the notebook and slipped it into Reyna's pocket. That was all.
"We're leaving."
"…Yes, Leader."
As if nothing at all had happened, Black Wolf turned his back and vanished with Lactea.
And so his back was laid bare.
He took that in my place…!
She jerked her head around to find the torn place, but it was clean. The wound, deep enough to bare bone, had long since healed.
Footsteps. Footsteps. Footsteps…….
Only after the two monsters had disappeared into the dark did Reyna stagger and catch herself against the wall.
Monsters……. Not merely the ten strongest in the world. Monsters who would not come up short even beside the Hero Party.
How long she stood there alone and shaking, she didn't know.
Open your eyes.
A rustle.
Reyna, barely forcing herself calm, drew out the note Black Wolf had left and read it.
Trust no one easily.
Neat handwriting. Advice so obvious it was almost an insult.
"Ha!"
Had she, the sovereign herself, looked so stupid that even a specially wanted criminal felt obliged to counsel her? She smiled at herself, bitter, and was about to crumple the note and throw it on the floor.
"……No. That's not it."
Something came back to her. She pulled the skewer still buried in Hanryang's leg and began to write on the back of the paper.
……If it's Yellow Dragon, then surely.
The Emperor finished, set down her own hand and signature, and was letting it dry when the guard and the Imperial Guard, word having reached them, came pouring onto the scene.
"Th-there!! Everyone…!! Mmph!!"
"Get your head on straight, you bastard!?"
"They won't have gotten far!! Some of you, after their trail!!"
"Imperial Guard, rally here!! Her Majesty the Emperor comes first!!"
Thirteen knights with their heads taken off. Behind them, dolls of raw flesh standing frozen. And the Emperor, alive alone.
While the horror held every one of them still, the Emperor called the captain of the Imperial Guard, her face cold.
"Deliver this to Yellow Dragon."
A note written in Hanryang's blood. The captain took it without daring even to look, and asked as if afraid of his own voice.
"How shall the commission be made?"
Reyna added it with a confident smile.
"A named commission."
"Tell him the reward is whatever he wants."
Another peaceful day at the Black Wolf hideout. Not even two hours had passed since the uproar of dawn had ended.
"Leader!!"
The old wooden door banged wide, and Ruby Red swept in, bright as morning.
Lactea was training. Luna was training. Hanryang was out cold.
"Perfect. Like this, I can hand it straight to the Leader without watching my step."
She had read all of that from presence alone. Ruby murmured it, then sang out even more cheerfully.
"Leeeader!! A present, a present!!"
The shout finally woke Nahan, who had only just crushed his unease down far enough to doze.
"……Keep it short."
"Yes! This!"
A letter gleaming gold was set into the hand of Nahan, who had come shambling down the stairs. Yesterday's commission, the one he had taken and finished: the assassination of Gafelt.
…What? They'd even taken what used to be Gafelt, cooing over how cute it was—and forgotten already? He shoved the question back as it rolled in like sleep and looked at Ruby with the doubt plain on his face.
"…?"
"……?"
"………?"
"…………?"
What are you doing? Stand there like that and it would never end, so he simply asked.
"Is there something left?"
"Huh?"
"I'm asking if some part of yesterday didn't get finished."
"Eh…? ……Oh!"
She puzzled over it a moment, then clapped her palms together and added, sunny as ever.
"A new commission, of course!"
"A new commission?"
"Yes! A named commission from Her Majesty the Emperor, for the strongest of the ten—the first, Lord Yellow Dragon!"
Yellow Dragon. A comet of the mercenary world who had appeared out of nowhere one day and taken first place, proud as anything, in the ranking of the ten strongest people alive.
…The information's coming back faster. As time passed, the original work and the setting compendium rose in him, vivid and clear. Black Wolf's memories, by contrast, were returning more slowly.
Either way, once Yellow Dragon's profile surfaced, he pinched his brow hard and asked again.
"So why did you bring it to me?"
"……Huh?"
I'm not Yellow Dragon. I'm Black Wolf.
Now that he was properly awake, sleep came crashing back, so he quietly turned away.
"I'm tired, so go. See that the letter gets to that Yellow Dragon fellow."
"Whaaat?! B-but Leader, you're Yello—!!"
Just as Ruby was about to blurt the rest—
Black Wolf's memory surfaced. He spun back around at once and held his hand out to Ruby.
"Thanks for bringing it."
"Eh?"
"I'm Yellow Dragon."
……Fuck.
"Eh—yes? I-I mean, th-that's right?"
A morning drama couldn't compete.