A Rope Dropped from Heaven
After letting the silence stretch for quite a while, Count Stadler finally managed an awkward smile.
"……I'm afraid I don't quite follow. What do you mean, our situations are similar?"
"Well, I'd assumed a man of your standing would have some idea already. You do know who I am, after all."
Who was Arendt, exactly?
Count Stadler knew perfectly well.
The troublemaking apprentice knight of the 3rd Imperial Knights Order. But that didn't seem to be the answer Arendt was looking for right now.
Beneath the formal dress attire he'd gone to the trouble of putting on, a silver bracelet caught the moonlight and glittered.
Count Stadler bit his lip without realizing it.
"Do you truly believe I picked a fight with Marquis Grig for no reason at all?"
"I beg your pardon?"
Frankly, it had been rather entertaining, but that wasn't the conversation for this moment.
Instead, there was one particular name that would sell beautifully as leverage at exactly this juncture.
Arendt crossed his arms and dropped his gaze downward.
"A long tail is a tail that gets caught. His Highness the Crown Prince already suspects Marquis Grig, doesn't he?"
"Then—then this whole commotion today, don't tell me…… it was on His Highness's orders?"
To the Count, who stammered the question out in open horror, Arendt gave a small nod.
The Count's face went white as though all the blood had drained from his head. For a long moment his lips merely flapped, until at last he forced out a single word.
"Wh-why would you tell me that?"
"You extended your help to me first, so I thought it only fair to return the favor with this much advice."
It was exactly the kind of remark that, had Arthur been present, would have earned Arendt a solid smack and a since when do YOU care about fairness?
"Besides, you still seemed to have room for redemption, Count."
"Redemption…… you say?"
"Count, it's best not to do things you'll regret."
Another long silence followed.
Arendt waited patiently, entirely at his leisure.
The next line is probably going to be that one.
"And how would you know what I might regret, Sir Arendt?"
Predictable as clockwork.
The voice trembled slightly, and yet even through that tremor, the stubbornness beneath it came through perfectly.
Arendt lifted his eyes and met Count Stadler's gaze directly.
"Because I've done similar things myself. You don't go grabbing suspicious people's hands with your own, not carelessly."
Count Stadler could only stare at him, dumbfounded.
A few seconds later, his already pale face turned white as a blank sheet of paper.
Only now did it truly sink in that Arendt really did know everything.
Arendt tilted his head and continued.
"Did they make you a sweet offer, perhaps? Something like promising to support your research—the kind that's banned in the Imperial Capital?"
He didn't need an answer to know.
The Count's expression, on the verge of collapsing at any second, was speaking for him.
"Count, aren't you rather bad at managing your expressions? And this is the face of a man planning to do something wicked?"
"Sir Arendt, please, just let me explain—!"
"Relax. I have absolutely no intention of reporting you or anything of the sort."
Arendt tossed the words out casually, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Count Stadler was utterly dumbstruck.
Arendt held his tongue for a while, giving the man room to collect his thoughts.
The night sky was beautiful.
The not-yet-full moon asserted its presence unmistakably among the stars, like the brightest jewel of them all.
Beneath the distant lilt of festive music and the steady murmur of conversation, Count Stadler dragged a trembling hand down his face.
"……I never became deeply entangled with them. I merely accepted a few research commissions."
"Hearing you say that, it seems you have at least a rough idea of who they are."
At the affirmation that had slipped out so readily, Arendt asked, entirely without ceremony.
And Count Stadler slowly nodded.
"Yes. Though not in detail. As you say, I only suspected. I did know, after all, that there was a certain group the imperial household kept under close watch."
Perhaps his chest had grown too tight—the Count heaved an enormous sigh.
Is it all right to keep talking?
He hesitated briefly, then bowed his head.
He had realized there was no longer any point in hiding it.
"Their existence truly surfaced after your trial, Sir Arendt…… but that note that first reached His Highness the Crown Prince—I took part in the research effort to trace its sender."
"Ah. I see."
That much he hadn't known.
Count Stadler's account continued.
"The trace ended in failure, of course. And then…… shortly after your release, that is."
The Count dropped his gaze.
Arendt waited in silence for what would come next.
"I received a proposal from Marquis Grig. He said he knew a wealthy financier who was looking for someone willing to conduct research anonymously."
That was hardly an unusual arrangement.
Though he worked with the Imperial Mage Corps, Count Stadler was not himself a court-appointed mage, and he often took on private commissions to fund his research.
"I thought nothing of it, so I accepted. But the first commission I received then…… its contents were beyond anything I could have imagined."
Now came the heart of it.
A strange light gathered in Arendt's eyes.
"It was a mana sample of a kind I had never seen before. The commission itself was simple—analyze it. There were no special instructions whatsoever, but……"
Having come that far, Count Stadler swallowed dryly.
"How could a researcher fail to be fascinated by something he's never laid eyes on? I threw myself at it day and night. And in the end, I produced a result that satisfied both the client and myself."
"What did the research show?"
When Arendt voiced his curiosity, the Count's lips moved wordlessly for a moment.
As though he could hardly bring himself to say it aloud.
"……It was the mana of two entirely different species, fused together. It's impossible—an absurdity. And after that, I was consumed. Who on earth sent that sample? By what means? It drove me half-mad wondering."
At the tortured, halting voice, Arendt's expression stiffened slightly.
The ghoul research had already been underway even before Count Stadler joined it.
"Whether it was misfortune or luck, Marquis Grig then handed over a second sample."
Count Stadler pressed on, as though spilling a confession before an altar.
"That one, too, was magic of a nature I'd never encountered…… and it differed somewhat from the first as well. Yes. The commissions simply kept coming, one after another like that."
Throughout the research, Marquis Grig had remained persistently deferential, almost obsequious.
And the reason for it, Count Stadler only learned after accepting the fifth commission.
"The client was pleased with my results, they said, and wished to make our collaboration official—to proceed with the research together in earnest. Only then did I learn the name of that group."
The Count's breathing gradually quickened.
He drew in a great shuddering breath, then chewed the name out as though vomiting it up.
"Broken Heart's Sword. That's what they called themselves."
Just as expected.
The light in Arendt's eyes went cold.
Unable to contain his own emotions, the Count buried his face in both hands.
"Honestly, I knew it was dangerous. I sensed it the instant I received the first sample. I knew this research crossed a forbidden line."
Arendt simply regarded him with flat, expressionless eyes.
"So I asked for time to think it over. And then today, they said they would introduce me to the others working alongside them…… that if I spoke with these people, my resolve would become firmer."
The researcher's shoulders began to tremble finely.
"Ah—but now that things have come to this, I'm beyond saving. My life as a researcher is finished as well, isn't it?"
For the Count, it had been a truly lethal trap.
The bait they dangled had hooked Count Stadler ever more deeply, until the addiction was complete.
Drawn toward an unknown world he could not comprehend, he had known the danger all along—yet in the end, he'd reached the point where he could no longer pull his hand away.
And what tormented Count Stadler now, churning in his gut, was not guilt alone.
His misconduct had been exposed to an imperial knight, and his connection to Marquis Grig had been severed—which meant he would never set foot in that unknown world again. The despair of that was just as crushing.
He's on the verge of losing his mind.
The words of a fool who walks the final act of a tragedy straight into his own ruin.
In truth, that was exactly how Count Stadler met his end in The Blue Knight of the Sacred Sword.
Arendt let out a long sigh.
"It's not over."
At the indifferent voice, Count Stadler's head snapped up.
"I beg your pardon?"
"It's not over. You haven't accepted their proposal yet, have you? Then you're fine."
"But……"
The eyes behind his solitary spectacle had turned bloodshot.
Arendt tilted his head at the teary gaze fixed on him.
"What? So what, you'll just go join the rebels instead? If that's the plan, do me the courtesy of saying so in advance. I'll need to report it to His Highness the Crown Prince. You'll probably find yourself before the very same judges I did."
"N-no, wait, Sir Arendt!"
"Or you could simply run off and live in seclusion. That much I'd turn a blind eye to, seeing as you helped me. But I imagine the higher-ups would tear the entire empire apart combing every inch of it until they found you."
Count Stadler's face grew even more ashen.
Terrified out of his wits, the Count abruptly seized Arendt by the shoulders.
"Help me, Sir Arendt! You know what to do in situations like this, don't you?"
"Not 'situations like this'—you should have run straight to His Majesty from the very beginning and told him a suspicious group was dabbling in forbidden research."
Count Stadler shouted as though he might devour him, but Arendt's response remained icily detached.
"Curiosity blinded you. The responsibility for that, you'll have to shoulder yourself."
The fury gradually drained from Count Stadler's agitated eyes.
Swish. His skin-and-bones hand released Arendt and dropped limply to his side.
"……You're right. It's all my fault. Clinging to a young knight and carrying on like this—what a pathetic spectacle."
"But I never said there was no way out. I told you from the beginning, didn't I? You still have room for redemption, Count."
At those words, Count Stadler's head shot up.
Arendt stepped forward—one deliberate stride toward him.
And then, with force behind every syllable, he declared:
"You fight back, Count."
The Count's pupils dilated wide.
If fate brought ruin, then you simply bent fate out of shape.
"You've come far too close to those people, Count. Close enough that they might swallow you whole in a single bite."
And all that took was a few added lines of dialogue—entirely within the realm of the possible.
"But that also means it's possible to drive a blade straight into the back of their necks instead."
The eyes of Count Stadler, who had been staring at Arendt in a dazed stupor, began to grow moist all over again.
"Take up the sword, Count. And place yourself under the safest roof there is, and protect yourself. If you fight, you don't have to give up anything at all."
It was by no means a loud voice. But beneath the brilliantly lit night sky, every word Arendt carved into the air carried a force that pierced straight through the heart.
"We know almost nothing about the enemy. So we desperately need someone who can dig into their techniques, their capabilities. And right now, there is no one on this earth who can fill that role but you, Count."
With the faintest curl of his lips, Arendt raised both arms lightly.
Pure white moonlight poured down over him like stage lighting on an opening night.
"The research you produce will undoubtedly be second to none. What you choose to use it for—that is what will decide your future."
The young man, merged utterly with the moonlight, seemed to command the very space around him.
And to the Count, he was the only hope left—a single rope dropped down from heaven itself.
Count Stadler, who had been unable to tear his eyes away as though spellbound, felt his face slowly crumple.
Thud.
The Count collapsed to his knees right where he stood.
Kneeling before a mere apprentice knight—and he didn't care in the slightest.
The tears welling up in his eyes spilled over, streaming down his cheeks.
"……I'll fight. I'll do it!"
He cried it out in a cracked, overwrought voice, nodding again and again.
A satisfied smile spread slowly across Arendt's lips.
Good. Just as planned.
The lunatic streak buried beneath that composed face wasn't going anywhere—but if he was going to be a madman anyway, then a hundred times out of a hundred, it was better to go beautifully mad in a direction that was actually useful.
From somewhere in the distance, the sound of Count Stadler sniffling and sobbing drifted faintly through the air, like background music to the scene.