The Shadow of the Splendid City
As light grows more intense, so too does the shadow deepen. Behind the splendid city, the back alleys were unbearably dark.
Even the guards did not patrol there. That was the back alley.
Milo had been called the meanest of the mean even among those alleys.
When his gut was pierced through with a skewer of a sword, it was Milo who had grinned and bitten into his opponent's throat.
But this time, he couldn't smile.
Mother of god, what kind of fists are those.
The man's fists felt like being bludgeoned with stone. Milo was a man who had never let out so much as a groan no matter what wounds he'd suffered — and yet even he had screamed.
Those fists rained down on his body without a moment's rest.
But something was strange. Normally, a beating like this would have knocked him unconscious. Instead, Milo's mind only grew clearer and clearer.
Why—
Then he saw it: a light steeped into the man's fists.
Holy power. The man was wrapping his fists in holy power.
Why holy power, on fists?
Only then did Milo realize — his body bore not a single wound.
The man was beating him and healing him at the same time. And the reason was simple.
So he can beat me forever.
Just then, his eyes met the man's.
The man's gaze was dry to the point of cruelty.
Like a blacksmith hammering iron, there wasn't a trace of emotion in it.
"Arf! Arf!"
Milo had no choice but to bark for his life.
Not bad.
I gave a small nod as I looked down at Milo.
Milo was fairly decent. His durability was exceptional, his reactions quick. Above all, he was stubbornly tenacious.
It made me wonder why a man like this was working as a guard at all.
Just then, our eyes met.
Even after all that beating, there was still life in Milo's eyes. He kept his head lowered, biding his time, watching for an opening.
I pretended not to notice and asked.
"Milo. Explain Unit 42 to me."
"Unit 42 is a support unit."
Even after the beating, his answers were curt. The man had real backbone.
"A support unit?"
"Yeah. We don't have assigned duties of our own. We move when other units request backup."
"So, errand boys."
"Errand—? You—."
A flicker of killing intent passed through Milo's eyes, but he didn't lunge at me right away.
A support unit. Good.
Being dispatched wherever backup was needed meant I could choose from a wide variety of duty locations. Exactly what I needed.
Did my Luck stat get involved or something?
Things were going so smoothly that I couldn't help the suspicion.
"Who's the squad leader?"
The names of individual guards were meaningless to me — I wouldn't know them even if I heard them — so I asked lightly.
But Milo's answer was anything but light.
"The squad leader is Evelyn, sir."
"Hold on. Evelyn?"
"That's right."
Milo answered with a crooked look.
A Republic executive. Evelyn.
The Empire, master of the continent, had its share of dangerous enemies. They were collectively known as the Ten Enemies of the Empire.
And the Republic ranked first among those ten.
The Republic preached equality and nothing else. At a glance, that sounded noble enough — the problem was the madman at the head of it, the Chancellor.
The Chancellor was obsessed with equality. So obsessed that, for the sake of true equality, he would not hesitate to set the entire continent ablaze.
The Republic under such a man stopped at nothing when it went to work. Once it bared its teeth, it never let go. Genuinely mad dogs.
Evelyn was one thread of that Republic's web. And not just any thread — a thick one, a woman who had once detonated the entirety of Elysium Academy.
And that Evelyn was the squad leader—
This is flowing along nicely.
I tapped the pommel of my sword idly.
"And the vice-leader?"
"The vice-leader is—."
Milo paused for a moment.
I paid it no particular mind. Evelyn had already come up; how much more impressive could it get?
"The vice-leader is Hanswel."
Hanswel? Somewhere, that name felt familiar.
I had definitely heard it before, somewhere—
Then a memory flashed through my mind.
The Principal's half-brother.
The Principal was descended from the Kerietan family, one of the six great houses called the Pillars of the Empire.
Officially, the Principal was an only child — but Hanswel was, in truth, his half-brother.
There was one reason I remembered this fact. Because Hanswel's death was what drove the Principal berserk, turning him into a calamity.
The Principal's rampage could not be stopped on any route. It was a forced event, no matter what.
And that Principal's panic button, Hanswel, was the vice-leader—
Dangerous.
With Hanswel around, the Principal's gaze would inevitably follow. That made things considerably prickly and hazardous.
But at the same time — an opportunity.
If I use Hanswel, maybe I can stop the Principal's rampage.
It was a route I had never attempted before. I hadn't even known Hanswel was a guard in the first place. A new possibility, unlocked only by joining the guard.
I have to make use of it.
Just then, someone knocked on the storage room door.
"Milo."
At the calm voice, Milo jolted violently.
"N-ngh! It's Hanswel!"
Milo screamed as if a demon had materialized.
The door had clearly been locked, yet the locking mechanism crumbled without a sound and the door swung open. And then a cleanly handsome man appeared.
Hair combed back without a single strand out of place, clothing perfectly pressed, sharp glasses on top of it all. His fastidious nature was written all over his appearance.
"Milo. Why are you here?"
"V-vice-leader, sir—."
At the sight of Hanswel, Milo flinched and lowered his eyes.
"I distinctly told you to bring the new hire straight to me."
"Well, you see—."
"You weren't doing something absurd again — 'senior education,' or some such nonsense? You of all people know best how short-handed Unit 42 is, Milo."
"That's why—."
"Come to think of it, you didn't do your morning shift properly today either. I warned you to be careful with the entrance ceremony coming the day after tomorrow. And why did you disappear before the end of your shift yesterday?"
"The work was finished, so it was only five minutes—."
"And who said you could leave five minutes early? Milo, you're chronically late as it is. Yesterday, one hour and two minutes. Today, forty-six."
Hanswel unloaded his nagging without drawing a single breath. Even listening from the side made me dizzy. Milo's face grew steadily paler.
Then Hanswel's gaze turned to me. Hawk-like, sharp eyes — the same eyes as the Principal's.
"The new hire, then. Grave, I presume."
"Yes, that's right."
"I am Hanswel, vice-leader of Unit 42. I'm busy, so we'll talk as we go."
Before I could answer, Hanswel turned and strode out of the storage room. He seemed to be in quite a hurry by nature.
Just then, Milo crept up beside me and asked carefully.
"The... the senior education, sir?"
Milo asked, stealing a glance at Hanswel.
The Principal doted on Hanswel to an extraordinary degree. He merely hid it for appearances' sake — when Hanswel died, the Principal's eyes rolled back and he massacred the students.
And I was supposed to punch a man like that?
It was a truly horrifying prospect.
Ignoring Milo's doleful, pleading look, I followed Hanswel out.
Hanswel headed straight for Guard Headquarters.
Guard Headquarters looked like a European police station. Around it, guards in uniform bustled about busily.
Each floor housed a different unit's office, and Unit 42's was on the very top floor, in the very corner.
Hanswel took something from a cabinet and handed it to me.
It was the guard baton that the guards in the game had always carried.
"Our Academy, on rare occasions, produces traps known as Rifts. A Rift is a trap whose cause we have not yet identified. If a professor falls into one by mistake, it's dangerous enough to kill them."
At the mention of Rifts, Hanswel's eyes grew heavy.
"Rifts are normally handled by the professors. The problem is that a Rift's attribute cannot be determined until someone goes inside. Only once the attribute is known can we formulate a plan for dealing with it and assemble a dispatch team. Identifying that attribute is our job."
Hanswel held the guard baton out to me.
"When the elite guards discover a Rift, they enter it first, before any student is caught up in it. Then, once they've identified the Rift's attribute, they send a signal and wait for rescue."
Content I knew well. In the game, it had been the guards who reported Rift appearances, after all.
At the same time, a question occurred to me.
"If someone enters a Rift, doesn't the chance of rescue drop considerably?"
"Eight times out of ten, they die."
Hanswel delivered the brutal fact in a perfectly level voice.
"If you're afraid, quit now."
I wasn't particularly afraid. Rifts were, after all, one of the reasons I'd chosen the guard in the first place.
"I'm rather brave, you see."
I took the guard baton without hesitation.
At that, Hanswel's expression softened ever so slightly. Then it hardened again at once.
"Look at the lower end. You'll find four buttons."
Just as Hanswel said, the lower end of the baton bore four buttons, each marked with a sword, a staff, a skull, and a holy relic.
"If the Rift's attribute is that of a knight, press the sword button. A mage, the staff. A black mage, the skull. A priest, the holy relic. If the attributes are mixed, press them together at the same time."
"Very intuitive."
"That's so it can be used even in an emergency. Of course, you'll almost never actually face a Rift. More often than not, you'll patrol all day and never see a single one."
Hanswel added in his calm voice. I gave a light nod.
"Now, put this on for the time being. Since this wasn't a scheduled hire, your official uniform will take quite a while to come."
Hanswel handed me a guard uniform from the cabinet. It showed signs of having been worn by someone before.
"Yes, sir."
I took the uniform and went into the back of the changing room.
True to Elysium Academy, the fabric of the guard uniform was quite fine.
The problem was its appearance. I say it again — no matter how many times I looked at it, the guard uniform was embarrassingly lame.
Is it designed to lure the enemy into a false sense of security?
Clicking my tongue, I changed clothes and shoved the guard baton into my belt.
Of course, I had no intention of ever needing to use it myself.
But I'll be the one to collect.
Rifts were traps of vicious difficulty — but the clear rewards were just as certain.
I had no intention of yielding them to anyone.
When I came out after changing, unfamiliar faces were sitting around a table. They had to be the members of Unit 42.
And yet — their faces were familiar.
For a single ordinary guard's face to be familiar was a very big problem.
"Oh my. A new recruit?"
A black-haired beauty with a spider-like air smiled sweetly. Her guard uniform had been altered so aggressively that it barely covered her, leaving her navel bare. An outie, at that.
"This is Scarlet."
Hanswel introduced the woman with a gesture.
The Saintess of the Outer God. Scarlet.
The Scarlet I remembered was a hideous monster covered in hundreds of tentacles.
Scarlet was a major villain who appeared in the late game. So — Evelyn, then Hanswel, and now Scarlet too?
Even Scarlet wasn't the end of it. The long-haired man smoking a cigarette beside her also looked familiar.
"This is Ludrik."
The Spear Ghost. Ludrik.
The Spear Ghost Ludrik appeared bundled together with Scarlet, and his martial power had been terrifyingly strong. Strong enough to take down a Sword Master single-handedly.
My gaze slid to the corner of the room, where a massive figure sat in silence. That man was familiar too.
"And this is Volcan."
The Barbarian. Volcan.
Volcan was a villain from the early game. A vicious man who wore a student's intestines around his neck like a necklace.
"The new recruit — Grave."
At Hanswel's introduction, every gaze in the room turned to me at once.
The squad leader, a Republic executive. The vice-leader, the Principal's panic button. And the squad members — the Saintess of the Outer God, the Spear Ghost, and the Barbarian—
"Pleased to meet you all."
I meant it.
Truly — I was delighted.