Become My Comrade
"…Let's put this down and talk."
Celis's face was blank.
Her concealment had been exposed so utterly, so pathetically, and yet not a single trace of surprise crossed her features.
"Did you expect to get caught?"
"No."
"Then why aren't you surprised?"
"I am surprised."
Her tone said otherwise — completely, absolutely not surprised.
She tilted her head.
"By the way, why are you talking down to me?"
It was an observation that not even the Emperor himself, nor the First Prince, had ever dared to make.
Caric's response was simple.
"If it bugs you, talk down to me too."
"It doesn't bug me. So — are you going to put me down?"
Caric released his grip on the back of Celis's neck.
She smoothed out her clothes as she spoke.
"So that thing earlier — telling me there was no need to be careful. That meant you'd already figured out what these people were."
At some point, everyone in the bar had turned to look at Caric.
It was a chilling sight, if anything was.
Every single one of them was Celis's shadow.
Which meant there had never been any need to watch his mouth — nothing could have leaked out from the beginning anyway.
"How did you know? Even the Sword Saint's disciple couldn't tell."
Caric offered his answer freely.
"I closed my eyes and focused."
Celis blinked.
"That's it?"
"What else would there be?"
"A wild beast's instinct? Interesting."
Celis studied Caric with those violet eyes of hers.
"People with senses that sharp usually develop mana or aura. Without any formal training, even. But you're the opposite."
The corner of her mouth lifted, ever so slightly.
"Your mana is abnormally low. How does that even happen?"
"Are you always this chatty, or is today special?"
Even as he asked, Caric already knew the answer.
He had the original story's notes to thank for that.
Celis had never shown the slightest interest in anything that didn't concern her. She deployed her shadows to gather and sell information, and that was all. She almost never revealed her true self to anyone.
The fact that she was talking this much? Caric considered it a good sign.
"Let's just talk business."
"I am talking business. Caric, the man who bit off and devoured a tentacle leg in front of the First Prince."
"That's a rumor."
"Really? What a shame."
Celis said it with perfect indifference.
"If it were true, I might have accepted a long-term commission from you."
Which, read the other way, meant that under almost any other circumstances, she would refuse long-term work.
"I get the feeling you're reluctant to be hired by us."
"Yep."
"Is it really okay to discriminate against clients like that? I brought the token and everything."
"If you want to hire not me but a 'fool,' then I'll gladly take your long-term commission."
A fool.
It was a strange choice of words, but Caric caught the gist of it.
"So this 'fool' would be a lot like you, except hopelessly incompetent when it matters — making sure he never has to take responsibility for anything?"
"You understood perfectly."
Exactly the development Caric had anticipated.
The timing was the problem.
"You don't want to be on the First Prince's bad side. Fair enough — he may be a mess, but he's still the frontrunner for the next throne."
"No. It's less about the man and more about the situation. What I mean is, right now there's no reason for me to get entangled with him."
Celis's position was crystal clear.
She had no desire to wade deeper into the swamp of political warfare.
What do I do here?
Pushing for a long-term contract with nothing but the token in hand was the worst option. The middle option was to settle for short-term commissions for now and build the relationship over time.
But Caric intended to take the best option.
"Then let me persuade you."
"Persuade me?"
"I'll start with something you need to hear more than anything else right now."
Caric continued.
"Keep going the way you are, and you'll be dead within half a year at most."
Celis didn't so much as blink.
"Really? Killed by whom?"
"The First Prince. More precisely — by a Death Cultist."
Only when she heard those words did the faintest crease appear between Celis's brows, and it vanished almost instantly.
She began tapping lightly on the table beside her.
"I don't believe the First Prince is a Death Cultist. His background is far too clean. The Minister of the Interior, sure — but only him."
"Wrong. You do believe the First Prince is a Death Cultist. And regardless of who it is, you're going to be attacked by one."
"On what grounds?"
"The box you have."
"What about it?"
"You've got one that can't be opened by aura or mana, don't you?"
According to the notes on the original story, it was something Celis's master had been clutching with her dying breath.
The crucial clue that would reveal who had killed her.
Celis's eyes narrowed.
"How on earth do you know that…?"
"An information broker asking me for information. How about that."
"Fine. I won't ask about your sources. So what is that box?"
"An object of great importance to the Death Cult. Important enough that they'd go through considerable lengths to take it back."
"Really? Well, if you're telling the truth, then yes — if I'd been attacked without knowing, it could have gone very badly."
"I can prove it."
Caric said it simply.
"Because I happen to possess the wisdom to open that box."
"Wisdom?"
Celis looked Caric over once more, this time with fresh eyes.
He looked exactly like a war god who'd stepped straight out of some ancient myth.
Well, it wasn't exactly rare for a war god to turn out to be surprisingly cunning.
"Then this is simple. Prove what you just said — right now."
A black box shot out from among Celis's shadows.
"Let's see if there really is a Death Cult treasure inside. If you're telling the truth, I'll owe you one."
"Music to my ears. But not here."
Caric gave the floor a light stomp.
"Take us somewhere like a basement. Put up a barrier or whatever you use — make sure the surroundings don't get damaged."
"Understood, for now."
Celis seemed to have decided to simply observe first and judge later.
She walked, unhurried and natural, toward a closed door in the corner. The shadow bartender moved on its own to open it for her.
Caric followed behind her, thinking it was like some kind of puppet show.
Meanwhile, as Celis walked ahead, a considerable curiosity had taken root in her mind.
How exactly does he plan to open the box?
The box's protection worked in two stages.
Its outer surface absorbed any mana or aura below a certain threshold. And if someone foolishly used powerful mana or aura anyway?
The self-destruct mechanism on the inner surface would trigger. The moment it detected the surge, the box would detonate.
Breaking it with physical force is impossible too. It's made of an alloy that would shatter most steel tools.
Wisdom… wisdom, he says.
What is he planning to do?
Her gaze drifted, almost of its own accord, to the axe at Caric's side.
She'd recognized it from the very first glance.
The relic axe of the Northern Grand Duke.
If that's what he's pinning his hopes on, I'm going to be so disappointed.
That axe's impact-amplifying effect was, in the end, powered by mana. The instant it touched the box, the self-destruct mechanism would activate.
While she was deep in thought, the two of them descended a long flight of stairs and arrived at the basement.
Celis waved her hand like an orchestra conductor.
Shaaah!
A surge of black shadow rose up, swept the room clean, and cleared an open space — then transformed itself into a hemispherical barrier.
Celis placed the black box at the center of the barrier and stepped back.
"All right. Everything's ready."
She turned to Caric.
"How much do you know about the box?"
"As much as there is to know. Including the fact that it detonates when it reacts to strong mana or aura."
"Then I'll leave it to you. Anything else you need?"
"No."
Caric strode toward the box, unhurried.
Then he opened his mouth.
"Woo."
Woo?
"WAAAAAAAAAH!"
BOOOOOM!
A thunderous crack split the air and a shockwave poured out in every direction. The shadow barrier shook violently, frenzied — Celis layering more and more of her shadows onto it just to hold it together.
She felt self-reproach and a sting of betrayal all at once.
You claimed to know about the self-destruct mechanism? You really were just trusting that axe? The box would have blown itself up ages ago.
That barbarian would have to pay for destroying a vital clue—
"Huh?"
But when the dust settled, what stood revealed was nothing like her expectations.
The box hadn't exploded.
Only its edges were slightly dented.
Only then did Celis notice that Caric was holding the axe upside down.
Like a pestle.
He hadn't struck the box with the blade at all — he'd been hammering it with the butt end of the haft.
But swung like that, the relic axe's effect shouldn't even activate—
"Then that just now…"
He'd brought it down with nothing but raw, unadulterated strength?
"That was a 0.5-sincerity strike."
Caric said.
"Hm. So 0.5 isn't enough, apparently."
"Hold on."
Celis was flustered.
"Don't tell me you're planning to open it by force?"
"What's the problem?"
"You said you'd use wisdom."
"Wisdom is my wife's name."
Caric held up the axe.
"This guy. And when it comes to situations like this, thinking isn't what you need. Unless your body happens to be weak, that is."
Celis was left speechless.
Caric went on.
"I'm the kind of man who locks his own storage room so it can only be opened by force. What did you expect?"
"Something a little more… refined?"
"I'll strike with great refinement. All that takes is two things. Sufficient strength. And a sturdy axe sturdy enough to endure it. What else is there?"
"Well… when you put it that way."
After all, why had the box been considered impossible to open by physical force in the first place?
First, without mana or aura, no one could generate enough raw strength. Second, metal capable of withstanding that kind of force without carrying any mana-infused properties was vanishingly rare.
Caric had solved both problems with pure muscle and a solid one-piece relic axe.
Celis understood everything, and yet she understood nothing at all.
"This really is… not what I expected."
Confusion seeped into her deadpan face.
Caric answered as if he'd heard it a thousand times before.
"That's fair. I am a man of unpredictable strength."
He raised the axe once more.
"Just keep that barrier nice and solid."
What followed was a repetition of the first attempt.
BOOOOM!
BOOOM!
BOOM!
Caric hammered down with the axe's haft, and the box crumpled and cracked a little at a time.
And no — he wasn't just mindlessly smashing it to pieces.
As he'd said: refined. With almost obsessive precision, he struck only the corners along the box's seams.
To keep the contents from being damaged.
BOOM!
And along with the box, something else of Celis's was shattering and falling away.
Her common sense.
Why on earth did I…
Did I really spend months delicately controlling my mana, teasing out the structure of those protections? Is this seriously how it opens?
With a faint sense of self-loathing, she held on to her rational skepticism to the very end and simply waited.
And then the result came.
KRA-KOOM!
Caric had genuinely smashed the box open.
And in the same instant—
WHUMP! WHUMP!
A wave of mind-corrupting energy began to seep out.
A demon's heart.
"Danger!"
This time, Celis was certain the crisis had truly arrived.
Dizziness washing over her, she shouted.
"Get back! If you stay close, it'll consume your mind!"
But Caric's actions shattered common sense yet again.
Far from retreating, he reached into the box with his bare hands and pulled out the demon's heart.
The mind-corrupting waves registered with him as little more than background music.
Heart clutched in both hands, his face perfectly casual, Caric—
KREEEAK.
—twisted it in opposite directions, wringing it out like a wet rag.
His monstrous forearms swelled to their absolute limit.
"KEEEEIEEECK!"
The demon's heart could bear it no longer and began to shriek.
Caric, of course, paid it no mind whatsoever.
"You've quite the talent for instruments, don't you?"
He kept playing until no sound would come from the heart at all.
"KEEK! KEEECK! KEECK!"
Celis stared at the spectacle with wild, disbelieving eyes.
In her time she had met, observed, and analyzed every conceivable type of person.
But a human being like Caric — this was genuinely the first.
"K-K-E-E-E…"
Before long, the demon's heart truly was a wrung-out husk.
No matter how hard you squeezed it now, almost nothing would come out.
Caric sighed in what sounded like disappointment.
"Already broken? Compared to the Minister of the Interior's, its fighting spirit is lacking."
He tossed the heart carelessly into his subspace as if he were bored with it now, then strode over to Celis.
She flinched, and without meaning to, took a step back.
"I'd say that's more than enough proof of my claim. So let me say it once more."
Caric brought forth an offer no one could refuse — sweet as a lover's call.
"You. Become my comrade."