Black Wolf Appears
"We've arrived, Captain. Your mask."
"......Right."
Click.
He put on the mask Luna held out and lifted his head, and a tower in the most literal sense rose into view. The gate of the Blue Magic Tower—a means of travel finished at last through the Late Emperor's unqualified backing and the Tower's murderous research. After endless development it had been commercialized and now ran to every corner of the Empire, and still it was so expensive that even nobles hesitated to use it.
Ruby did not hesitate.
"Two passes to the capital gate. One way."
"Huh...? L-Lady Red!? What are you doing here at this hour?!"
"We're in a hurry. We'll talk next time."
"Ah—! I-I'm sorry! Two one-way passes to the capital. I'll have them ready at once!"
No sooner had they reached the gate in the Viscounty of Gapelt than she produced a check, paid the fare as if it were nothing, and stepped onto the gate without a second thought.
Full coverage of gate fees for A-rank mercenaries and up. The Alliance really does look after its own.
I moved to follow Ruby up as if it were only natural.
"You. A moment."
The calm voice stopped me, and I turned.
"You can't simply leave without registering. Come here and fill these out."
The clerk swept a blue robe back, drew a sheaf of papers from the bag underneath, and held them out.
"You see the sections marked in blue? Just complete those."
"......?"
"Ah, is this your first time using the gate? Then I'll fill them in for you, so if you'll just tell me—"
The clerk, midway through activating the gate, turned back and started toward me.
Tock.
Ruby returned in a single stride, her face gone flat and serious, and added, for the clerk's benefit:
"I believe I said this was urgent."
"B-but, Lady Red. You know the rule. Every user's personal details have to be recorded."
"Haah. If you showed a little flexibility at times like this, don't you think the Alliance would use your gate more often?"
"Th-that may be so, but it's a rule laid down by His Majesty the Late Emperor and the Tower Master, so even I..."
Flustered as the clerk was, they would not yield, and Ruby had just let out a short sigh when—
Remaining health of Black Wolf — No. 3 Tal (S) has fallen below 10%.
If remaining health reaches 0%, a bad ending will occur:
5. Omen of the Tyrant (A)
The situation had grown far more desperate.
If a bad ending triggers, that's the end.
The same as losing, completely, any chance of returning to my original world. Which meant—
"Make my dream come true in my place."
—that I would never be able to grant the wish of the only friend I'd had.
Think.
The fastest way back to the capital. A way to save Hanryang, and to stop the bad ending.
A moment later:
"......So they caught on after all."
"Pardon?"
"You get one chance. Listen carefully."
Finished thinking, I settled the mask back into place and bent at the waist toward the clerk.
"I am holding that woman hostage. If you want to live, open the gate."
"......What?"
The clerk's brow creased, and then they let out a short, scoffing laugh.
"That's not funny. I don't feel the slightest power from you. How exactly do you mean to threaten Lady Red?"
The clerk was right. As I was now, I could neither wield aura or mana properly, nor even sense them.
But—
"Please accept them, Captain. The flesh-doll miniatures. My precious babies."
"Put them away."
"Ah...... I've already linked them to you, Captain, so you can take them out whenever you like and command them just as I did. Should I simply throw them away?"
"Put them in my pocket."
If I drew out the ten flesh dolls Ruby had given me, swelled them back to their original size, seized her by the throat, and turned the air vicious—
"Kya, kyaaaaaak!"
"L-Lady Red!!"
"Khk— d-don't open it!! This man is Black Wolf—a monster who must not be allowed into the capital!!"
While Red, having caught my intent, threw herself into the act—
Immersion has been completed.
The likeness of Black Wolf, as you understand it, is reproduced without a single degree of error.
If I layered over that threat the presence of Black Wolf, final boss of the original story, reproduced to perfection—
"You're next."
Besides opening the gate, what exactly can you do?
Sure enough:
"W-wait, please, I'll open it right now, just spare my life, p-please, just let me live!!"
The clerk, gone the color of a corpse in an instant, crawled trembling toward the gate's activation device.
Fear in the target has been detected.
Mastermind (Ex) activates.
◆ Effect
If an opponent feels fear toward you for even a single instant, from that moment they recognize you as death itself. The status ailment Fear, directed at you, will flicker before them until the moment they die.
And so the gate opened. I rose without a word and walked toward it.
Save Hanryang first. Stop the bad ending first.
I made certain to collect even Ruby, still playing the hostage, and pushed my body through.
It was the first incident in which Black Wolf appeared.
The night market glittered on, splendid as ever.
"Kaff—!!"
"Harder than you look. How pleasant, that I do not grow bored. Come, then. Try blocking this as well."
Crunch!
A voiceless shock tore through him.
"Your arm bone must be broken, and yet not even a scream. You please me all the more."
The giant of a man rolled across the ground, and because of him the surroundings were dyed red. Even so, like that giant who would not fall, the night market stayed bright from beginning to end.
The blood-soaked man thought.
"Hanryang! Go buy some meat!"
"Luna. You go yourself—yes."
"Oh, come on, please!! I said it's for the Captain!! He didn't come back yesterday, did he? They say the shops nearby are staying open late because of the dawn market!!"
"......If it is for the Captain—yes."
Meeting her had been chance. That his fury was not—
"The Emperor. My sworn enemy, without doubt—yes."
"Everyone but the Captain is the same, aren't they?! Who among us would like the Emperor!?"
"If I meet her. Hard to endure—yes."
"...Well, I'm the same, honestly. But the Captain will be right there, so he'll stop us, won't he?"
—that, he understood.
Kill her. By whatever means it took.
But Hanryang, swallowed by rage—Tal, third member of Black Wolf—did not know. The woman before his eyes had not become Emperor merely because imperial blood ran in her veins.
"Die—you will!!"
"Haah......"
"You are becoming nothing but noise."
Toward Hanryang, fists clenched as he charged, the golden-haired woman flicked a finger.
"Why did you destroy Our carriage?"
The fruit skewer she had picked up just before the fight punched through his thigh and lodged there.
And that was not all.
A thin, rising whine—then a blast.
From the point driven deepest, golden aura swelled, and exploded where it stood. His center of gravity gave out, and the huge body rolled across the ground. The Emperor, beginning at last to grow bored, did not miss the opening.
Crrrk.
The thick neck was crushed down as if to snap. Looking down at the Hanryang she had pinned, the Emperor asked:
"Who sent you?"
"You—die, you will!!"
"Why did you seek to kill me?"
"That—you ask, not knowing—!!"
Krrrrk—!
A voiceless cry broke from him. Under a pressure that felt truly like death, Hanryang snatched at her foot and heaved it up, but only a thread of breath returned to him. The Emperor's foot did not so much as shift.
It had been the same then as now. Even on the day the lovely lady he had served all his life was killed by that damned Emperor.
"Your knights—with eyes that filthy, they looked down on me—yes!!"
"Our knights, you say?"
"Excuses. Vile—yes!! Your order. Because of it—yes!! Our lady, why...!!"
Crack, crack, crack.
Another soundless shock. Memory rose, and with it fury, and Hanryang tried once more to stand, braced even for death—
Softly, the Emperor's foot lifted from his neck and found the ground again.
"Tell me. In detail."
She whispered it to him, quietly, so the knights who had followed would not hear.
"Quickly. Before they intervene."
But in the next instant:
"Too late. You simply die—yes."
A boom. The gaze Hanryang had locked on the Emperor was driven deep beneath the earth.
"Don't use it, Hanryang. Your body will never withstand it."
"Ah, my lady!!"
The life he had clutched because he could not bring himself to throw it away—he felt, at last, that the time had come to burn it.
And part of him was guilty. Because this would surely be a sin against the Captain, who had become his everything.
"Tal. From now on, that is what I will call you."
"Yes, Captain."
"......Sorry—yes. Captain."
Muttering it from underground, Hanryang was at last about to undo Black Wolf's binding with his life as the price—
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A heavy boom.
The ground nearby began to shake, and a familiar presence came drifting in.
"......Ruby—is it?"
Thinking it might be reinforcements, the startled Hanryang had just barely eased his head back out of the earth when—
"In the end, you disappoint me."
"Ah...... C-Captain——"
"Therefore, this is punishment."
Those abyss-deep eyes were the last thing he saw.
Crack.
Hanryang's vision flooded black.
Thud. The giant, his neck broken, collapsed to the ground, and the noise of it rose—and in the wake of that noise, silence poured in over the whole of the surroundings.
The fear that came flooding in with the silence was what the assailant had truly intended.
Fear in the target(s) has been detected.
Mastermind (Ex) activates.
A dense killing intent burst forth all at once, and the faces of the Emperor and her knights went white. Confirming it, the assailant drew out a green ring and fitted it onto the giant's finger.
"Even so. There ought to be a chance to make amends."
Click.
Silence returned.
The night market, still bright. The knights still guarding the Emperor. And around those knights, the flesh dolls.
Before they had ever come to escort the Emperor, those knights had swept battlefields—and now, without meaning to, they understood.
Move, and you die.
The rank of A they had been so proud of. The famed swords and artifacts they had thought special. The additional escorts shadowing them in secret. Before the assailants who had appeared in black, masked, all of it was useless.
The Emperor felt it too: an ill omen that had come right up to her face.
He looked as though S-rank itself stood just before him—so how did that one kill him with nothing but a gesture? Have the Ten Strongest betrayed the Empire? No. No. Those things are far beyond the Ten......
Her thoughts snarled all at once, and she watched them while pretending, on the surface, that nothing was wrong.
Krrrrrk!
The broken neck found its place again, and the man who had been seated gestured back over his shoulder.
"Persona. Take him and return."
"Yes, Captain."
Not a shred of hesitation in the answer, nor in the movement. The smallest of the assailants had no sooner shouldered the giant than they vanished into the night.
Two assailants remained.
"Captain. What do you intend to do?"
One, apparently a woman, a longsword belted at her side—and the man tapping his thigh with his right hand.
Tap. Tap-tap.
Then it stopped.
......A swallow.
As the man slowly rose, the Emperor and her knights swallowed. Depending on the decision that man made, their last breath would be decided.
Tap. Tap-tap.
In the silence that had grown familiar, the man who had been weighing it again answered, briefly.
"Yeah. That's what I'd like to know."
For the Sake of the Worst
Give the Emperor of Babylonia, Reyna Babylonia (S+), a good, satisfying scratch beneath the skin.
◆ CONDITIONS
1. Mention Black Wolf.
2. Receive a special-grade wanted decree as a gift.
3. Kill the escort knights. (0/3)
◆ REWARD
The love of Lactea Babylonia (S+).
◆ ON FAILURE OR REFUSAL
The death of Lactea Babylonia (S+).
Seriously. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?