The Lure is Set
But in stark contrast to the red-haired man who was clearly enjoying himself, the masked man remained perfectly calm. If anything, he looked displeased.
“Now, now. Why the long face? We finally have a chance to achieve our goal.”
His tone and voice carried a faint trace of mockery.
“That’s your goal.”
The masked man pulled something from his robes and tossed it over. The red-haired man reached out and caught it with ease.
“Are you sure about this? Handing it over to me?”
Once he recognized the object in his hand, his smirk deepened. Resting in his palm was a black orb etched with dense runes and incantations.
“I have no choice. I can’t make a move myself right now.”
“Haha. Don’t worry. Once my objective is complete, yours will become that much easier to accomplish.”
The man examined the black orb once more before carefully tucking it away inside his robes.
“Shall I head to Deshlan now, then?”
“No.”
The masked man spread a map across the table.
“There’s no guarantee you’ll find Bagloros even if you go there. Most of the informants and assassins in Deshlan are under our guild’s direct or indirect control, but many of them still revere Bagloros as the world’s strongest assassin.”
For a brief moment, the red-haired man’s expression hardened before smoothing over again. The masked man seemed to notice, but continued without pause.
“They might gather the information we need and leave before you even arrive.”
He pointed to a location on the map.
“So instead of you going to them, we’ll make them come to us.”
“Oh? And why that place in particular?”
“It’s a precaution. We don’t have time to fabricate elaborate false information, nor enough time to spread it to every informant and assassin. If we want to draw him out for certain, we’ll have to reveal some truth. And if we’re doing that anyway, it’s safer to sever the connection cleanly beforehand. That spot is the perfect line to cut.”
“As thorough as ever. But according to that logic, you’re saying I’m also someone you intend to cut loose?”
The red-haired man was still smiling, yet the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. A strange mix of hostility and killing intent slithered across the floor, swelling as if to swallow the masked man whole.
In that very moment, the masked man rose to his feet. His sword cleaved the table in half. The two splintered halves crashed to the floor with a deafening noise, and with them, the hostility and killing intent vanished.
“Don’t play games with me. The only reason I keep you around is because I can discard you whenever I please.”
He raised his sword again, a faint white aura flickering along the blade. Yet even under the threat, the red-haired man’s unsettling smile never faded. If anything, it grew wider, filled not with confidence or reason, but with madness.
“Yes, yes. Understood. It doesn’t matter anyway. I won’t fail, and as long as I achieve my own goal, nothing else concerns me. Whether the guild collapses or the flames of war engulf the land once more.”
The red-haired man turned and placed his hand against the wall. A hidden magic circle flared to life in blue light. It was a high-level teleportation array that only allowed specific individuals to pass when they stood at precise coordinates.
“But after this mission succeeds, remember that I won’t tolerate that attitude any longer.”
With those final words, he vanished from the room, leaving only the masked man behind. Suddenly, a young woman’s voice echoed through the air.
“Are you certain this is wise?”
The masked man sheathed his sword and retrieved a communication crystal from his robes. The woman’s voice came from within it.
“He is not someone who can be trusted. He has neither cause nor loyalty.”
Her voice was clear and beautiful, yet her stiff, formal manner of speech reminded one of a soldier or knight.
“I know. All he pursues is his own desire. And even that desire is slightly twisted.”
“Then why keep such a man…?”
“Precisely because of that. He cares for nothing except what he wants. So as long as we satisfy that twisted desire, he will follow orders regardless of everything else. Among fundamentally untrustworthy assassins, he is ironically one of the easier ones to handle.”
A rational person changes their attitude and actions according to shifting circumstances. But someone steeped in madness does not alter their behavior even when the situation or surroundings change.
“Besides, he has his uses, doesn’t he? He showed no hesitation when ordered to attack the Deception Summoner, one of the Hero’s companions. He’s perfectly suited to be used and discarded.”
“But his madness could still prove dangerous.”
“Because of the crystal I gave him?”
She offered no reply. It was an act of loyalty, refusing to question her master’s judgment.
“Don’t worry. That’s exactly why I’ve kept that mad old man alive. As long as he’s around, we can produce as many black crystals as we need. The real issue is their effectiveness.”
“What if the old man was lying?”
“You still doubt him?”
“He is a terrible man. He killed dozens of innocent children, and by his own account, hundreds more. He may simply be lying to save his own skin.”
“Then this mission will reveal whether he spoke the truth. Either way, it makes no difference. At worst, we’ll be delayed, but the plan itself remains unaffected.”
The woman said nothing more in response to her master’s confident words. Yet the masked man could still sense her unease. He spoke again, his tone shifting into something almost playful.
“Think of it this way, Anette. If this mission fails, it’ll finally give you the perfect opportunity to deal with those two people you dislike so much.”
* * *
“……?”
I had been deep in sleep when my body suddenly felt weightless, only to crash back down with a heavy impact that jolted through every limb.
“Wh-what?!”
My eyes flew open, but I couldn’t see anything yet. Reflexively, I pressed my hands against the floor and felt cold, smooth stone instead of the soft bedding I expected.
Adrenaline cleared the last traces of sleep from my mind. I knew exactly what this meant. The embedded barrier had activated.
I scrambled to my feet and gathered mana. Cold sweat ran down my spine. An attack? Had they already found my location?
At my gesture, runes materialized in the air. I hadn’t wanted to destroy the room, but there was no choice. With the barrier active, normal spells wouldn’t work. Not that my magic would have been enough to handle an assassin anyway.
“……?”
But I couldn’t complete the summoning. Even though my eyes clearly saw the runes, my mind refused to process the situation, as if the gears in my head had simply stopped turning.
The light from the runes banished the darkness. Yet there was no panicked assassin who had failed their strike, nor any killing intent radiating from an intruder.
“…Bagloros?”
It took me a long moment to speak. Standing beside the bed, quietly watching me, was Bagloros. I couldn’t make sense of the situation. I glanced around, wondering if he had already dealt with any assassins, but the room was empty. So why had the barrier activated?
“I’ve placed all the markers. Now we just have to wait.”
His words didn’t immediately register, but I understood that things were proceeding smoothly. Not that I particularly wanted to know the details. The floating runes faded, and instead I conjured a sphere of light above my palm to illuminate the room.
“R-right. I didn’t think you’d find this place so easily.”
Only then did I realize I was still wearing nothing but a bathrobe. I had only meant to lie down for a moment before getting dressed, but apparently I had fallen asleep.
“Yeah. You always said you wanted to stay at a nice inn.”
…True. I had mentioned it a few times during our last journey. But not often enough to be called “always,” and I had never really complained about camping either. The words left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.
“…By the way, Bagloros, do you know why the barrier went off?”
Could it have been a malfunction? Even if I had made a calculation error, I shouldn’t have messed up the activation conditions.
“I triggered it.”
“……?”
When I failed to understand, Bagloros demonstrated.
“Like this.”
He struck the barrier with a hand moving so fast it was nearly invisible. A large crack spread across its surface following the path of his strike.
“I-I see.”
As always, it was astonishing. The barrier wasn’t at maximum strength, but even so, he had cracked it that easily without putting in real effort.
“But why would you do that?”
“To wake you up.”
…Come to think of it, Bagloros had never once come to wake me during our travels. There had been one time when Rowell asked him to wake Orcan, and afterward Orcan had come running, pale as a sheet, begging us never to send Bagloros again.
“So that’s how it went last time too.”
Someone like me who slept inside a barrier might be fine, but if an ordinary person sleeping unprotected suddenly received an attack like that, they would have seen the afterlife for a split second whether they dodged or blocked it.
“You could’ve just called my name.”
“This is faster.”
Yeah. It had certainly woken me up instantly. The tension drained from my body, and my legs felt weak. I sat back down on the bed and looked up at him.
“…So you woke me just to tell me that?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Dinner.”
Once again, his voice was that of a deep-voiced middle-aged man, and his appearance had changed from yesterday. If it had been yesterday’s form, there might have been some cuteness to it, but now there was none.
“Right. There’s a dining hall downstairs. Wait while I change.”
“Okay.”
I took off the robe and put on the clothes I had set aside. The outer layer didn’t need washing, but the underclothes I had been wearing for days didn’t feel particularly fresh.
While I changed, Bagloros transformed in the corner. I heard the unsettling sound of bones shifting, and by the time I finished dressing, a young boy stood in his place. His clothes were somewhat wrinkled from being stored, but otherwise he looked like an ordinary child one might see anywhere.
“Let’s go down, then.”