The Polar Night Dagger (4)
Ziel slipped backstage, melting into the shadows without making a sound.
No one noticed his presence. Once he was clear of surveillance magitech like the Eye of Askal, the environment became his domain. As a former assassin—the legendary shadow known throughout the underworld as Phantom—any patch of darkness was more than enough for him to conceal himself completely.
"Is something happening out there?"
"They're saying the lights went out and came back on."
"This is why mana stone chandeliers are a pain. Whenever the central core acts up, it always does this."
"What can you do? With so many lordly mages running around, you'd think someone would fix it."
Ziel logged another clue into his thoughts. There were an unusually high number of mages present here. True mages were exceedingly rare across the Empire. The only organizations capable of assembling this many were the Magic Tower, the Arcane School, and perhaps a faction with an unusually heavy concentration of spellcasters.
Excluding those seated in the audience, Ziel had confirmed eight mages backstage so far. It was a formidable headcount. Furthermore, one of the men conversing inside the adjoining room was also a mage, given the distinct tang of mana laced through his breathing.
Four inside, Ziel assessed. Gauging their combat strength, there was one Great Knight, two combatants below that grade, and one mage. A formidable strike team. Under ordinary circumstances, an assassin would have lured them out one by one to eliminate them in detail. But Ziel had no need for standard procedures.
Good thing I kept one.
He reached into his coat and produced Praise Card Mark I—the early prototype designed to release a dense concentration of sleeping gas.
Rrrrip.
Ziel tore the card and hurled it through the doorway. Thick, fast-acting sleeping vapor billowed through the chamber in an instant.
"What the—"
Before the men inside could register the ambush, Ziel surged from the shadows.
Thud, crack!
With their vision cloaked by the gas, all four men took precision strikes to the carotid arteries and collapsed into unconsciousness before they could even draw their weapons. Ziel stood calmly amidst the haze. To them, even without the gas obscuring their sight, he would have appeared as nothing more than a passing blur. Striking four targets simultaneously did not slow his movement in the slightest. Nor did the vapor affect him; ruthless conditioning during his years in the Organization had long since rendered him immune to common paralytics and sleeping agents.
No Eyes of Askal or surveillance devices in here.
Having secured the room, Ziel turned his gaze toward the back wall. There, stacked in neat wooden crates, rested a massive hoard of equipment bearing the insignia of Black Sky.
Quite a substantial stockpile. Did this leak from another branch?
When the Imperial subjugation forces eradicated Black Sky, all of its regional branches had been targeted in coordinated strikes. Yet during the chaos, equipment from certain strongholds had clearly slipped through the cracks.
The Western Branch.
Inspecting the markings and fabrication styles, Ziel confirmed they had originated from the syndicate's western arm. There were roughly forty distinct varieties of equipment, numbering in the hundreds. It was safe to assume more than half of the Western Branch's entire reserve had been siphoned off.
Ziel selected a few essential items to pocket, then set a sequence of incendiary traps without the slightest hesitation. The moment the mechanism was triggered, every trace of Black Sky gear—and everything else in this subterranean vault—would burn to cinders.
Now, let's see what else they have.
Turning away from the crates, Ziel searched the unconscious men. He found little of interest until he reached into the coat of the squad's leader and pulled out a folded slip of parchment.
District 20.
The drainage vaults beneath the estate of House Keus.
As expected of a black market syndicate, they chose only the most secluded, subterranean venues. Yet the name "House Keus" immediately triggered a memory from the intelligence reports Amos Kundel had shared regarding House Siren.
This venue is the cellar beneath House Ospelt's vineyard annex.
House Ospelt. House Keus. Both noble lineages shared a single, defining characteristic: they were staunch vassals sworn to a single high noble house.
An excessive deployment of mages, who represented top-tier strategic assets. The presence of black-market Eyes of Askal, which were nearly impossible for ordinary nobles to procure. The trail led to an unmistakable conclusion.
"So it is that family."
The evidence aligned. Kundel, Rihardt, and the third pillar of the Empire's high nobility—the house unrivaled in arcane mastery, boasting an endless lineage of high mages and commanding overwhelming influence across the arcane world.
"House Siren is pulling the strings."
The circumstances pointed directly to them. While not an absolute, ironclad certainty, assassins were creatures who charted their next moves on the slimmest threads of probability. Yet Ziel still needed to understand their objective. Why were they stockpiling and leaking Black Sky's remnants through underworld auctions?
To confirm his hypothesis, Ziel pulled aside the robes of the unconscious mage. Beneath the collar, branded deeply into the flesh of the upper chest, was the undeniable proof.
Siren's Engraving.
Just as martial artists possessed breathing techniques, mages were bound by their Engravings. The arcane crest etched into this man's skin was the proprietary sigil House Siren branded into its subordinate spellcasters—a mark Ziel had encountered several times during past assassination contracts.
House Siren is running this entire black market network.
From the attempt on Deleb Kundel's life at the start of the semester to the schemes surrounding the exchange tournament, House Siren had repeatedly clashed with Ziel's students, and Ziel had dismantled every single one of their plots. Now their paths had crossed once again.
Ziel did not hesitate. He grasped the unconscious mage, woke him with a sharp pulse of mana, and spoke from directly behind his neck.
"If you fail to answer, I will gouge out your engraving."
The mage stiffened in sheer terror. To a spellcaster, nothing was more horrifying than the destruction of their Engraving. Cosmetic damage could be healed, but if the blade dug deep enough to shatter the mana core anchored beneath the sigil, their ability to cast magic would be extinguished forever.
"Do you belong to House Siren?" Ziel asked.
The mage nodded frantically.
"Did these goods originate from Siren?"
Another desperate nod. That much merely corroborated what Ziel already knew. His next question was the critical one.
"Was House Siren involved in the destruction of Black Sky?"
Ziel had no interest in vengeance; he despised the Organization from the depths of his being. Even so, he needed to know the truth.
"I-I only heard rumors... that they were," the mage stammered.
"And this equipment?"
"I was told... they were siphoned off during the syndicate's collapse."
House Siren was fabulously wealthy. Ziel factored that reality into his next deduction.
"What is Siren's objective?"
"I... I truly do not know that much..."
He was telling the truth. Ziel shifted his angle of inquiry.
"Are they building an assassination syndicate?"
The mage fell silent, but his pulse spiked violently against his throat. A jarring irregularity that instantly confirmed Ziel's suspicion.
"Answer, or your engraving disappears. Is House Siren... attempting to create an assassination order under their private control?"
"...What?"
House Siren stood as one of the three great noble pillars of the Empire. Where Kundel and Rihardt rooted their power in the martial traditions of swordsmanship, Siren built its dominance entirely upon magic. Mages constituted a formidable faction within imperial politics, and Siren produced more high-tier spellcasters than any other lineage. Yet despite their arcane supremacy, they had remained perpetually locked in third place for centuries.
So that is why, Ziel concluded, drawing upon the distinct traces lingering upon the mage before him.
"You smell of treated leather and chemical reagents."
The mage's pulse thudded harder. Operatives in an assassination guild underwent specialized conditioning to mask their natural scent. For an entire year, their bodies were soaked in proprietary chemical compounds, and they were forced to wear hides steeped in the same pungent mixtures. Ziel knew that smell intimately; it was a stench one could never forget.
"Your hands bear calluses—the kind formed from handling daggers and wire cord," Ziel continued smoothly. Such marks were practically nonexistent on mages, who rarely engaged in physical labor beyond basic conditioning runs. "And there is the scent of poison. Sunburst blossom, isn't it?"
The mage's heart hammered against his ribs like a war drum. It was as good as an outright confession.
How... how does he know all of this?
Because he was Ziel. With the Breathing of the Polar Night attuning his senses to every ambient shift, no trace—no matter how faint—could escape him. The mage felt an overwhelming urge to pass out again. Every deduction was flawless. House Siren was indeed forging an assassination unit, taking operatives recruited from collapsed underworld syndicates and pairing them with trained battle mages to create an unprecedented hybrid force.
The cold steel of Ziel's dagger pressed slightly deeper against the base of the mage's neck.
"Answer me. Why are they building an assassination order?"
"I-I-I am just a low-ranking grunt! I swear, I don't know the master plan!"
His terror was genuine; he was truly ignorant of the grand design.
"Is that so? You do not need to explain," Ziel replied in an even tone. "I recently learned a concept called 'deduction' from a book."
"...Excuse me?"
"House Siren is perpetually ranked below Kundel and Rihardt. Correct?"
"Y-Yes... that is true..."
"They have made numerous attempts to surpass them, yet failed each time. Correct?"
"...Correct."
"Therefore, when Black Sky collapsed and its assets were compromised, they seized the equipment and resorted to the extreme measure of creating an assassination order to overcome the other two families. Am I correct?"
"Y-Yes... that is correct."
The mage's mind spun. If you knew all that, why did you even ask me?
"Did I 'deduce' it accurately?" Ziel inquired.
Though the mage could not see behind him, Ziel's eyes were shining with quiet satisfaction. Logical deduction was a natural human thought process, but for Ziel—who was gradually rebuilding a sense of self after years as an emotionless tool—this was his very first time consciously applying the concept he had studied in educational texts.
"Yes... your deduction was brilliant, sir..." the mage stammered frantically, nodding with every ounce of enthusiasm he could muster to stay alive.
"Good. However, there is one detail I failed to deduce, which you must supply," Ziel said. "Why establish an illegal assassination order now? If the Imperial family discovers it, House Siren will face severe repercussions."
Ziel wondered briefly if Siren enjoyed covert protection from the Imperial Court, but the mage quickly disabused him of that notion.
"I-I don't know all the details, but... there is a fierce succession struggle between the eldest and second sons of House Siren. Word has it that whichever heir achieves the family's long-standing ambition will inherit the title of Patriarch..."
"I see."
A means to an end. So they went so far as to build an assassination order just to settle an inheritance dispute.
"A-And! House Siren has already rounded up several surviving operatives from Black Sky!"
The moment those words left the mage's mouth, a chilling aura swept through the room.
"Is that so..."
The murmur was soft, yet the killing intent radiating from behind was so suffocating that the mage nearly lost control of his bladder. His legs turned to jelly despite being pinned to the floor.
"Continue."
"Th-Their primary objective was to capture Phantom, but he vanished without a trace..."
The murderous aura vanished instantly, replaced by a calm, matter-of-fact voice.
"They will never find him in this lifetime."
"Pardon?"
Ziel had gathered all the information he required. Reaching into the crate of Black Sky supplies he had set aside, he extracted a phial of memory-erasing draught and forced it between the mage's lips.
"Swallow."
"Mmph!"
The mage collapsed into deep unconsciousness. When he awoke, every trace of this conversation would be wiped clean from his mind.
"An assassination order, is it?" Ziel muttered quietly.
Operating under his civilian cover identity, the fate of other underworld assassins was none of his concern. However, House Siren had repeatedly threatened his students. First Deleb, and in the future, perhaps Celia. If they succeeded in fielding an entire syndicate of covert killers, those assassins might eventually infiltrate Edelbein Academy itself.
Ziel felt no attachment to Black Sky. Though the Organization had shaped him into the weapon he was today, he held neither gratitude nor fond nostalgia for it. Camaraderie? On his past missions, Ziel had never bothered to learn the names or faces of the operatives assigned to support him, nor had he ever engaged in idle conversation. His sole priority upon coming here had been to retrieve any relics that might compromise his civilian identity.
Now that House Siren was confirmed to be behind this, leaving them unmolested was out of the question.
If left alone, they will continue to endanger the students. It is best to deliver a decisive blow.
The primary purpose of running this black market was undoubtedly to raise covert funds for their shadow operations. Ziel had already rigged the crates of Black Sky equipment to ignite, but there was one more asset to secure.
The vault.
Scanning the perimeter, Ziel spotted a reinforced iron safe embedded in the masonry—a staple fixture of any illicit auction house.
Click.
He bypassed the locking mechanism with practiced ease. Unfortunately, there were no written ledgers or documents detailing the creation of the assassination squad. What he did find, however, was a mountain of Dikelen silver coins.
It was a massive reserve of untraceable underworld currency—the very lifeblood fueling Siren's covert projects. Alongside the silver sat a velvet-lined casket containing a peculiar object radiating dense magical energy.
An artifact? Or perhaps a rare magi-engineering component meant for the next auction tier?
Whatever it was, Ziel detected no tracking spells or hazardous wards upon it. Without hesitation, he swept both the silver coins and the casket into his spatial storage pouch.
This should deal adequate damage to their finances.
The remaining stock would be reduced to ash, and their operational funds were gone. There was nothing left to salvage. Checking the unconscious guards, Ziel estimated they would awaken within five minutes. When they did, they would have to run for their lives if they wished to avoid burning alive.
His reconnaissance complete, Ziel drew the Polar Night Dagger once more.
"...Sold! The lot goes to bidder thirty-four! Congratulations. Moving immediately to the next item—"
Out in the main auditorium, the auction was still proceeding at full throttle. Ziel circulated the Breathing of the Polar Night, channeling it through the dagger's hilt.
"A-Again?"
"What is wrong with the lighting tonight?"
Under cover of the sudden pitch-black darkness, Ziel slipped back into his seat in the gallery and reclaimed the Monument of Illusions. A light press on the switch at the base of the dagger restored the ambient light. Naturally, the illusion of him sitting quietly in his seat remained seamless, and not a single soul noticed that he had ever left.
"Prepare yourself, Gilbert."
"Sir?"
Gilbert jumped in surprise. Ziel had been sitting completely motionless beside him this entire time, only to suddenly issue an operational command.
Wait, he didn't even go anywhere, did he? Gilbert wondered, bewildered. Ziel had explicitly said they would move after he returned from his errand, yet he had never appeared to leave his chair.
Right at that moment, whispers broke out across the hall.
"What's that smell?"
"Smells like... something burning..."
Despite the strict ban on unauthorized conversation, the attendees could no longer contain themselves. An acrid, choking stench began drifting through the vents. The auctioneer paused, glancing nervously toward the wings of the stage.
"S-Smoke! Look, behind the stage curtains!"
Billowing plumes of black smoke began pouring from the backstage corridor—an unmistakable omen of catastrophe.
"Is that a fire?"
"Fire! That's a real fire!"
Panic rippled across the auditorium like wildfire. Yet amidst the rising hysteria, two individuals remained completely composed: Ziel, and Personnel Director Rocus.
"All attendees, proceed immediately to the emergency exits! The auction is officially terminated!" the organizers shouted desperately over the din. Real flames were already licking through the backstage partitions.
The auditorium dissolved into utter chaos as nobles and underworld merchants shoved past one another toward the corridors. Ziel and Gilbert blended effortlessly into the fleeing crowd, slipping out of the subterranean facility with quiet efficiency.
A mere accident? No, the lights cut out twice... Does that mean the Boss did this?! Gilbert's thoughts raced as he kept pace. He had no idea why Ziel had visited the black market in the first place, assuming he simply harbored a passing curiosity for Black Sky relics. Don't tell me... If he couldn't take them all, he decided to destroy them?! Of course! Denying resources to rival factions before they can fall into the wrong hands! The Boss truly intends to build the supreme syndicate!
Gilbert nodded to himself, piling another layer of profound admiration upon his ever-expanding misunderstanding.
The emergency tunnel led the attendees out toward the far perimeter of the vineyard, emerging not far from the annex where they had originally entered.
"Ugh, that stench!"
"What an absolute disaster! The entire auction was ruined!"
"Do you know how much silver I paid just to secure an entry token?!"
Frustrated complaints echoed across the clearing. The dashed expectations left everyone thoroughly disgruntled—none more so than Professor Marchen, who stomped her feet in bitter fury.
"This was finally my chance to acquire a genuine relic of Phantom!"
The diehard Phantom fanatic had no idea that the mythical figure she idolized was standing a mere ten paces away, adjusting the collar of his civilian coat.
Gilbert leaned in and whispered discreetly, "Boss, we should withdraw. Lingering here might drag us into unnecessary complications. Oh, shall I look into the location of their next auction?"
Right at that moment—
BOOM!
A muffled detonation shook the earth, followed by a towering pillar of flame that erupted into the night sky from the vineyard annex.
"M-Merciful heavens!"
"What in the world was that?!"
Ziel watched the explosion briefly, then turned on his heel to depart, giving Gilbert a flat, deadpan reply.
"No. We have no further business with the black market."
And soon enough, none of the other locations would, either.