Murky Water Catches Fish
He had said it was over, but in truth, it wasn't quite the end.
The moment the knights returned, the Imperial Palace erupted into chaos. It was only to be expected—the jewel had been whispered about as cursed long before it ever came up for auction. Now a full-blown melee had broken out at the auction house itself, and a mansion had been left nearly half-ruined. Attention was bound to gather like moths to a flame.
Judging from the traces unearthed in the torn-up garden, the golem had apparently been hidden away in advance using a Subspace Magic Scroll, with the intent to ambush and slaughter everyone once the crowd had assembled and the bidding begun.
In the end, the incident was officially concluded as the work of rebels holding a grudge against the imperial family and the head of the Neumann Merchant Guild. An apprentice knight friendly with Neumann had happened to receive an invitation, and the three commanders of the Imperial Knight Orders, having just caught wind of the threatening letter, had attended the auction half in jest—and ended up averting disaster.
Roughly speaking, that was how the story wrapped up. It followed the scenario Arendt had scripted to the letter.
On one front, the aftermath was still being cleaned up; on another, a post-incident court meeting had been scheduled. And amid the breathless whirl of it all, a small preliminary forum convened before the main proceedings.
"You're looking almost presentable, for once."
Cantares needled him with a smirk. Between the slightly parted collar of his shirt, bandages wound snugly around his torso were just visible, and his handsome face was plastered with adhesive strips. Arendt, for his part, simply shrugged with shameless ease.
"Handsome as ever, aren't I? I know it well."
"A pity they couldn't wrap a bandage around that mouth of yours."
"If they had, you'd never have heard the full account of the incident."
At Kendrick's heartfelt sigh, Diana added a remark that sounded genuinely regretful. Laios, having apparently given up on correcting his junior's lack of manners long ago, simply drank his tea in silence.
The occupants of the small meeting room were the three knight commanders, Cantares, and Arendt with Zereon—that was all. Having handed Arendt a steaming cup of tea last of all, Zereon took his place behind the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince opened the conversation.
"So... what in the world did you do?"
"What did I do?"
"What did you do? Everything, start to finish, you brat. You went so far as to forge that threatening letter just to drag the commanders to the auction—and then the creature from the mine pops out of nowhere."
Cantares, utterly exasperated by Arendt's shameless muttering, growled fiercely even as he kept smiling.
"I hear it was still relatively intact right up until it reached where the people were. Then it suddenly vomited blood and collapsed. There are witnesses in the dozens, you know. How do you plan to talk your way out of that one?"
"Tch."
"None of that tongue-clicking, either."
At this point there was no gap to slip through. He couldn't very well stitch shut every witness's mouth. And there was still his bargain with Laios to consider.
"I tried to use the artifact and completely overturned my insides. Reaping what I sowed, really."
Arendt summarized it simply.
"The Uncooling Heart. If it was a genuine artifact, I assumed they'd come to reclaim it."
With a small lie mixed in, of course.
"And if someone did come, I judged it most likely to be that creature from the mine. Losing the Garden was a colossal blunder on their part—it was obvious they'd try to make up for it."
That much, he had already told Arthur.
"It also occurred to me that the enemy might be carrying an artifact of his own. As I understand it, they have a few more of a similar nature in their hands."
Arms crossed, Arendt leaned back deep into his chair.
"Of those artifacts, the one best suited for combat was deployed in this incident. Its name is Eye of the Ruler. It grants the power to dominate and command people and golems at will."
"I see. So that's why Baron Cromwell..."
Kendrick murmured under his breath. Arendt gave a light nod and continued.
"So I asked Lord Neumann and Count Stadler to prepare something capable of countering it. I requested that the guildmaster hand them out at the mansion entrance—and it seems Baron Cromwell had already been thoroughly taken in by the artifact."
"The brooches they handed out at the door in place of entry passes?"
This time it was Diana who asked.
"Yes, those. The ornament set into each one was made from byproducts of the magic crystal mine. Count Stadler crafted them personally."
"And why does that matter?"
"Artifacts operate by directly interfering with mana."
Arendt replied simply.
"Moreover, the one he held controlled the mana harbored by humans, golems, and ghouls... so I thought it just might block an attack once or twice."
A finger clad in Frost-Tinged Touch popped up with a little snap and pointed at Arendt himself.
"Compared to ordinary people, I and everyone here are basically walking masses of mana, aren't we?"
"That's... not entirely wrong."
The description was a bit odd, but Cantares nodded along anyway.
"Ordinary people, though, are nothing like us—so for them, the mana contained in the mine's byproducts was more than sufficient."
In other words, the brooches had served as shields.
"Handing out the magic crystals in advance was for the same reason. A mere accessory or two would never have been enough to conceal a knight's mana."
It was the same principle as a small person hiding behind a modest screen while a large man needed a bigger, sturdier shield.
"Veterans at the level of the commanders or Senior Knight Richt could have managed without them, but the other three could not. Exposed to the artifact bare-skinned, they would have been in genuine danger."
Kendrick nodded vaguely.
"So it needed to dominate the body, but the mana deflected instead and tore him apart from within. Did you lure him toward the crowd from the start, knowing it would come to that?"
"Once he was blinded by rage and wielding the artifact without weighing anything, it was bound to happen."
Against a handful, perhaps not—but he had unleashed the artifact on a crowd of people all at once and taken the full recoil straight back. Even Vincent could not have walked away unscathed.
Arendt shrugged.
"Granted, I didn't expect him to smash through the floor. He made straight for where the people were gathered, so I figured things were going well and merely gave him a gentle push along."
In that split-second glimpse of Vincent's frantic scramble, the man must have been certain his own judgment was sound. Never knowing it was the express road straight down into the abyss of hell.
Diana, who had been piecing the whole sequence of events together in chronological order, let out a voice half strangled with disbelief.
"Terrifying creature..."
"I was merely rather fortunate. It's nothing at all."
Arendt brushed it off flatly, as if it truly were nothing. A quiet barrage of reproachful glares rained down on him.
"Why do you all look at me like that?"
"Enough, enough. That aside..."
Kendrick waved a weary hand, then narrowed his eyes.
"I couldn't help noticing you're carrying something quite entertaining yourself. Care to show it off a bit...?"
"Absolutely not. You'll never see it."
Arendt whisked his hands behind his back with startling speed. Kendrick smacked his lips in disappointment but withdrew without protest.
"Fair enough. So it's a secret, then."
"For something he's supposedly keeping hidden, he seems to be waving it about in every direction."
"No sense in possessing something and never using it. I looked quite likely to die at the time, you know."
To Cantares's teasing addendum came only a short grumble in reply. Diana stifled a laugh.
"Sir Benjamin and Sir Helen never caught on, so you can rest easy. The body's already been dealt with, too."
"I did so want a look at the face beneath that pervert mask. A shame, really."
Even as he answered so, Arendt felt a brief, quiet wave of relief inside.
Laios had performed an initial autopsy, after which Vincent's corpse had been transported to the Imperial Palace and examined a second time. Through all of that, the scars left by Frost-Tinged Touch would have been laid bare without a doubt.
That Kendrick and Diana had noticed the existence of Arendt's artifact was only natural.
And what if they'd raised an objection?
Something along the lines of: dangerous artifacts cannot be entrusted to a mere apprentice knight. But whether it had been nothing more than an idle worry, they showed no sign whatsoever of attempting it.
What dragged his drifting mind back to reality was the sound of Cantares's voice.
"Enough. Now that we know the whole story, we move on."
Having sulked briefly, Cantares changed the subject.
"The nobles who attended the auction are pelting us with protests. They want to know the identity of the enemy who appeared out of nowhere. I think this is our opportunity—what say you, gentlemen?"
"An opportunity..."
Kendrick echoed his words, nodding slowly.
"That they have made an enemy of the Empire must now be carved into everyone's minds."
"I share that view. Moreover, nearly every scheme they've plotted until now was thwarted by that one's hand."
Diana answered in kind. Her gaze flicked briefly toward Arendt, then dropped away.
"I consider the timing opportune. Our allies' morale won't falter, and this incident will sharpen everyone's vigilance."
"And you, Commander Laios?"
"...I have no objection to what these two have said. The enemy's movements grow bolder by the day, so we must respond in kind."
Laios opened his mouth slowly, as if weighing every word for the sake of caution.
"Marquis Grig and his faction have been more or less cleaned up, but to root out any spies who may yet remain, I judge it right to open up a portion of the information currently sealed under classification."
Until now, only a fraction of the Imperial Knight Orders and Cantares himself had stepped forward directly to face the enemy. Indeed, most of the incidents had, in effect, been won by Arendt alone—sprinting this way and that, occasionally even executing a flying somersault for good measure.
Whatever anyone said, it was not a desirable state of affairs. The time had come to call on the cooperation of others.
Cantares nodded with clear satisfaction.
"If that's the thinking of the commanders as well... good. Then this court meeting is the crux of it all. Who knows—it may even be your chance to shake off that undeserved stain on your name."
"Stain? Ah..."
Arendt, who had been vaguely parroting the Crown Prince, let out a short belated sound of realization.
"There are still plenty of dusty old fossils who don't look kindly on you. Quite a number who've yet to withdraw their suspicion."
"I suspect the unfavorable way people regard Sir Arendt is not due to suspicion alone, though."
"..."
"Really, we ought to start by doing something about that temper of his, shouldn't we?"
A brief silence followed Diana's painfully accurate observation.
After a moment, Cantares cleared his throat several times for no particular reason.
"In any case, that's not what matters. From here on, the tide turns. The palace will start seething from the inside, most likely. There may be conflicts large and small. No—there most certainly will be. So..."
The Crown Prince's voice sank low, gravely serious—only for someone to go right ahead and dump cold water over the whole gathering mood.
"So you want us to brace ourselves, do you? Why do you insist on ladling such weight onto a remark that amounts to nothing?"
"..."
It was, of course, the insolence incarnate known as the apprentice knight.
Cantares pressed a palm to his forehead with an audible smack.
"I don't expect much from those who've spent their lives buried in paperwork. It'll be like poking a hornet's nest. People will blame us, and plenty will come storming to pick a fight with me personally. Too frightened to say a word to the commanders or to my face, after all."
Arendt, paying him no mind whatsoever, shrugged again.
"But you know how it is—fish are never caught in water that's too clear. You have to wade barefoot into a pristine stream and churn it to mud."
A smile with a distinctly nasty edge crept over his habitual air of indifference.
"Let them all think I'm just splashing about, catching fish while I play."
How the situation would unfold from here remained uncertain. But one thing, at least, was absolutely certain.
Diana had not been wrong about a single thing she'd said earlier.
Unless something was done about that temper of his first, the day the Imperial Palace finally knew quiet would never come.
Not ever.