The Padlock Choker
The battle against the undying army was over.
Following the Ganes Guild, the Tarados Regular Army had joined Simon's side as well. The soldiers swung their weapons at the undead regenerating before their very eyes, doing everything they could to keep them from rising again.
And Simon—the only one among them capable of truly destroying the creatures—walked among them, finishing the job with the Sword of Ruin. Not a single undead soldier stirred again.
“We make camp here!”
“Move fast before nightfall! Double time!”
Darkness was closing in. Tarados nights were notorious for their bitter cold, so with Simon mediating, the two forces pitched their camp together.
Even in the middle of all this, Serne was eyeing a full-blown clash between her bandit horde and the regular soldiers under Lorraine's command—until Simon talked her out of it.
Clang! Clang!
While the girls sat down to rest, Kajan went about hammering with practiced ease, a nail held between his teeth. A large military tent was taking shape, piece by piece.
'Harder than it looks.'
Simon was helping Kajan.
The task was simple enough in theory—wrap the ropes tethered to the tent around iron stakes and fix them in place—but there was more to consider than he'd expected. The tent had to be pulled taut with even balance, and he had to avoid sandy patches, seeking out firm ground instead.
“Been keeping well, Simon?”
Just then, a black-haired girl approached him.
“Ah, Lorraine!”
“Want a hand?”
“No, no, I can manage on my own.”
She nodded and crouched down beside him to watch.
Somehow, having someone observing him made Simon nervous. His hammering grew all the more careful.
Thud— thud—
“That was a shock,” Simon said between hammer swings. “You showing up leading the lord's soldiers—and Serne arriving with the Ganes Guild.”
Lorraine smiled faintly.
“A lot happened.”
She told him she'd come to this Mission Assessment to thwart Serne's schemes, same as ever.
When she learned that Serne was headed for Tarados, Simon's destination, she had petitioned the school to prepare an additional teleport circle bound for Tarados.
But the day before the assessment, contact with the henchman dispatched to Tarados abruptly went silent.
Lorraine grasped how grave the situation was and crossed over to Tarados ahead of Simon.
What awaited her there were the soldiers sent by The Society. They had tried to seize her even after seeing the Kizen uniform she wore.
“So that's why there was no teleport circle to Tarados.”
“That's right.”
“How utterly infuriating~ Honestly.”
Serne was walking toward the pair, arms crossed.
“My, my. And here you were, planning to follow me all the way to a place like this?”
To evade Lorraine's pursuit, Serne had accepted a commission in an entirely different region, then crossed into Tarados through the Ivory Tower's own teleport circle.
Lorraine's eyes flared.
“Of course I follow. The Ivory Tower doesn't get to have everything its way.”
Meeting that burning crimson gaze head-on, Serne smirked.
“So docile at school—tame as a beast with its limbs bound. But step outside and the true fangs come out, hm?”
She was pointing at the padlock choker around Lorraine's neck.
The padlock was open.
“So—”
Lorraine's voice dropped, cold and edged with killing intent.
“Think carefully before you take a single step. Make one suspicious move out here, and I'll strike first.”
“Oh my~ how frightening.”
“Enough of your squabbling.”
Kajan popped out from behind the military tent, hammer still in hand.
We can't just sit around twiddling our thumbs. I want to lay out a concrete plan for what comes next.
Kajan promptly summoned the relevant parties to his tent.
The coachman, who had served them faithfully as a guide, and Lisa, the client's younger sister.
General Amin, commander of the Tarados Regular Army.
And even Karac, the bandit captain who led the Ganes Guild and had appointed himself Serne's right hand.
“I am Amin.”
General Amin began the briefing as their representative.
“The ground we occupy now is the entrance to The Society's secret base. Every prisoner captured across Tarados is sent to this place.”
Simon straightened in his seat.
“……And what happens to them once they're taken inside?”
“I have only ever seen the 'door' standing open from a distance. I cannot say what becomes of those who are dragged through it.”
“Excuse me~ skip all that.”
Serne brushed back the hair at her ear.
“Just tell us how one gets into this secret base of yours.”
The girl carried an air that made approach feel forbidden by nature, and General Amin addressed her with impeccable formality.
“Yes. First, the time at which the base can be entered is estimated to be midnight. All prisoners are moved at night and arrive at these ruins precisely at midnight. Not once has the timing ever deviated—and on occasions when the prisoner count was too large, some were turned away and brought in at midnight the following day.”
This much they had already heard from Lorraine.
Which was precisely why they had pitched camp at the ruins and were holding out until midnight.
“Then what's the method for opening the door at midnight?”
In answer to Kajan's question, Amin drew a key from his coat and held it up.
“A key taken from the Lord. At the stroke of midnight, the moment space begins to warp at the ruins, insert this key, and the door leading to the secret base should open.”
“Ooh, that key! Our old boss had one just like it.”
It was the bandit captain Karac who raised his hand this time. Then he caught sight of Serne and hurriedly corrected himself.
“Old boss, that is! I serve our Queen now, of course!”
“My, what a loyal man you are~”
Serne laughed airily. Lorraine's gaze turned toward her.
“What did you do to the Black Wolf, Ganes?”
“What did I do~?”
Serne gave an airy shrug.
“The brute dared point a weapon at me, and he resisted my control far too stubbornly—so in a fit of temper, I made a proper mess of him. Last I saw, he was bleeding all over, blubbering his eyes out as he fled~ I'd wager he's dead by now.”
“Behold our Queen! No one on this continent but our Queen could have overwhelmed Captain Ganes so utterly!”
Simon, listening to all this, let out an awkward laugh. So that was how she'd taken over the Ganes Guild—she'd simply crushed them by force.
“And how did you come to bring the lord's soldiers?”
This time it was Serne who turned the question on Lorraine. She answered with a sigh.
“Finding you and Simon came first, yes—but Tarados was in far too dire a state to simply look away. I went to hear the Lord's explanation, and handled other matters while I was at it.”
Just as expected.
As the one fated to succeed Nephthys, she felt a heavy sense of responsibility for the Tarados crisis as well.
“The Lord has been arrested and locked in the underground dungeon.”
In truth, the Lord's reputation among Tarados's own soldiers was the worst imaginable—and no wonder. He had cast his men as villains in the eyes of the people while withholding their pay on one flimsy excuse after another.
Amin's popularity towered far above the Lord's. When word spread that the Lord had been thrown in a dungeon and Amin had staged a coup, nearly all the soldiers sided with the general.
Every regular soldier they had brought with them now was loyal to Amin, not the Lord.
“Back to business. This is a rough map of the secret base's interior—it was kept in the Lord's safe.”
Amin laid the map on the table. Kajan craned his neck to study it.
“Far too sensitive a document for an outsider to be carrying.”
“The Lord had been inducted as a member of The Society. Providing them such vast manpower, he must have been a figure of considerable importance to them.”
Simon clapped his hands together.
“Good. Then we rest until midnight, and when the time comes, we open the spatial door with the key and move in.”
Simon turned his head toward Lisa, whose face was tight with anxiety.
“Don't worry, Lisa. I will get your brother back. I promise.”
“Okay!”
She nodded hard. At that moment, the necklace hanging around Simon's neck swayed.
'I know, Karl.'
Simon looked around at the other students.
“Everyone will help, right?”
Kajan nodded.
Already settled. I'm your escort, and I've agreed to cooperate in whatever comes.
Lorraine chimed in as well.
“As students of Kizen, we can't pretend not to see Tarados's tragedy. I'll help with everything I have.”
Then Serne said with a sweet smile,
“I pass~”
'Huh?'
She spread open her palm.
“That is, unless you pay a price befitting the service?”
“……You.”
Serne was a formidable power in her own right, to say nothing of being someone who had no need to hide the strength of a Legion Commander. Her help was essential.
Simon heaved a long sigh and raised his head.
“What do you want?”
“Same as always, of course—you'll have to stamp my coupon.”
Serne winked and held up three fingers.
“Shall we say three for this one?”
“…….”
Honestly, he'd tried not to care about her whole coupon business at first, but she kept advertising it so relentlessly that not caring had stopped being an option.
What on earth was the wish she was saving all ten for, that she'd go this far? It was starting to feel a little unsettling, even.
“Three is way too steep. One.”
“Three.”
“One.”
“Three.”
“One.”
The gap refused to close.
Then Serne batted her lashes adorably and clutched Simon's arm.
“How about three, with a cozy little date with me thrown in on top?”
“Ghk! My Queen, how could you…!”
Bandit captain Karac glared at Simon with eyes burning green with jealousy.
Blissfully ignoring him, Simon pressed on with the negotiation.
“Well then, by that logic I should be knocking the price down, shouldn't I.”
“Whaaat, you're terrible!”
“Two, then—your time included.”
“Done and done!”
Only then did Serne seem satisfied, extending her hand, and Simon took it, sealing the deal with a shake.
Time slipped by, and the world around them dimmed.
Serne, willful to the core, wrapped herself in a blanket with perfect serenity and closed her eyes, while Kajan pored over the map of the secret base, analyzing it in fine detail.
And Lorraine stepped out to prepare dinner.
“I'll make something simple. Best to eat whatever we can before a big fight.”
As she rose with a bucket in hand, Simon stood up to follow.
“Ah—I'll help.”
In the fading light, the two of them walked off together to fetch groundwater said to flow near the ruins.
There were no cooking facilities to speak of, so everyone was expected to fend for their own meals. Fortunately, Simon had a cooking set in his subspace, and they planned to make a simple vegetable soup.
“…….”
Carrying the empty bucket, Simon stole a glance at Lorraine.
Her steps today were light. Every now and then she almost skipped, just a little.
Her expression looked somehow unburdened.
It was certainly nothing like the face she wore at school.
“What are you always staring at?”
Lorraine asked playfully. Simon flinched and quickly turned his head away.
“No, it's just…….”
“This, you mean? Does it bother you?”
She gave the padlock choker a little shake. Simon nodded slightly.
Truthfully, he'd wanted to ask about it ever since he first noticed—but lately a shadow had always hung over Lorraine's expression, and since it might be a family matter involving Nephthys, he had held his tongue.
“Over the break, my mother said this to me.”
Lorraine toyed with the padlock. Her long lashes lowered.
“'Compared to Simon, compared to your other classmates—how much have you grown in your first year at Kizen?'”
“…….”
“I really had nothing to say to that.”
Lorraine was, in and of herself, already a complete necromancer.
Her crimson power, which acted upon her summons, made a skeleton strong enough to fell ten skeletons single-handedly when infused into it, and made a skeleton horse faster than any such steed in existence.
But the stronger the power, the deeper the dependence on it became—and that was the problem.
Simon scratched his head, at a loss.
“……She compared you to me? I feel kind of bad now.”
“What is there to feel bad about? And the second example she gave was Senior Phantasos. He forged a single curse, nothing else—no special ability—and became the strongest in Kizen. Listening to examples like those, I couldn't help thinking it: I truly haven't grown at all since my first year.”
Simon nodded along silently, letting her talk.
“It's true I lost my motivation for first-year studies.”
A night breeze stirred, setting her black hair swaying.
“Nothing they taught at school was stronger than my power. So instead of learning, I threw myself into the academy's administration, trying to prove my ability as a manager to the adults. But I'd left out the one thing that mattered—being a student, which is what I actually am.”
Before they knew it, they had reached the place where the groundwater flowed. When she set the bucket down in a dug-out hollow, water began slowly filling it.
The two of them sat down to wait.
“So she imposed restrictions on me.”
She drew her knees up to her chest.
“Do not interfere with the school's administration until graduation. That's my mother's order.”
“……So that's why you couldn't step forward and stop the third-years' hazing.”
“Right. I hold no authority at all anymore. And secondly—”
She closed the padlock at the end of her choker, then raised jet-black over her open palm.
Not a trace of crimson could be felt in it—only jet-black as pure and deep as her hair, rippling softly.
“Seal my ability within the school.”
“…….”
“Every class, every exam, every practical assessment from here on must be handled with a necromancer's own power, no ability allowed. The only times I may use it are when I fight with the Archbold name on the line, or when I do my duty of stopping Serne.”
Simon spoke up.
“It's not really my place to say, but isn't that a bit excessive? You've always mixed your ability into your jet-black to cast your spells. If that's suddenly cut off…”
“Yes, you're right. At Kizen, I might well be a below-average necromancer.”
She folded the palm that had raised the jet-black and clenched it into a tight fist.
“But after living that way for a day or two… Simon.”
Then she looked at him and smiled brightly.
“I started to admire you.”
Simon pointed at himself, bewildered.
“Me?”