The Vault That Was Never Empty
Even in the dead of night, the Imperial Capital never truly went dark. It was a city where everyone hurried, where fires burned late into the small hours. And among all the places that held back the darkness longest, the answer was always the same: the East Vault, operated by the East Merchant Guild.
There was a running joke that every treasure in the empire ended up there eventually, and the East Vault worked day and night to live up to it. While the rest of the world rested, its lights never went out. The daytime staff greeted nobles and magnates with practiced, gracious smiles, and when night fell, the posted guards swept their eyes across every shadow, holding a vigil so ironclad that the clients' precious assets might as well have slept under the stars themselves.
With the moon and stars overhead and the Vault anchoring the heart of the city, the East Vault had quietly become the very symbol of the empire's wealth. The marble floor of the client lobby was polished smooth as freshly frozen ice, and the thick carpet laid over it was, by any measure, the finest money could buy. Paintings by the most expensive artist in the empire hung in pride of place upon the walls, and the chandeliers dangling from the ceiling were so studded with gemstones that they blazed like captured daylight.
The receptionists stood at their posts in immaculate uniforms bearing the East Vault's insignia, even on a night when visitors were all but nonexistent. Their posture was flawless, without a hair's width of slack. Lining the space at precise intervals, the mercenaries glared with eyes gone fierce and blue, devoted wholly to their duty.
As always, everything was perfect. There was not a single flaw to be found in the East Vault's reputation.
This night, too, was perfectly still. The neighboring shops had long since closed, and not even a mouse stirred inside the Vault.
Then—
Thud. Whump.
A single dull noise from outside shattered the silence.
"...Hm? What was that?"
"Probably just the wind."
When one employee reacted sharply, the one beside him shrugged off the question without looking up. The conversation died there, and silence settled in again.
How many minutes passed after that?
Thud. Whump.
Once more came the sound of something—someone—toppling over.
Beyond the windows there was nothing but deep darkness; nothing at all was visible. One of the employees asked again, his voice unsteady this time.
"Are you sure that's really the wind?"
"Well..."
Even the other employee couldn't summon any conviction now, and could only mumble something vague. The eyes of the staff and the mercenaries drifted, one by one, toward the door. A heavy, expectant stillness hung in the air—the peculiar, syrupy quiet of the late hours, the kind that forced even the dullest man to sharpen his every sense.
And right at that moment—
BOOOOM!
The door burst open with a deafening crash.
"Wh-what the—?!"
"Don't make a fuss. If you want to live, keep your mouths shut. Scream, and you die."
A grim, wintry voice drifted out of thin air. At the same instant, a band of intruders who had certainly not been there a heartbeat ago materialized out of nothing.
"Wh-what the hell!"
The mercenaries instinctively seized their swords—but it was already too late. The enemies' blades were already resting against the backs of their necks.
"Invisibility Scrolls..."
Someone grasped the situation faster than anyone could blink, and breathed the words like a groan. These were not items an ordinary bandit could easily come by. And for every single one of these intruders to be equipped with a scroll of that caliber meant they were on an entirely different plane from the common riffraff that passed for thieves. The faces of those who had parsed the situation in an instant went rigid as stone.
The interior was subdued in the blink of an eye.
The man who appeared to be their leader gave the order.
"Open the vault and bring out every treasure inside. Try anything clever, and I won't be merciful."
The employees' faces drained white. The mercenaries were all pinned in place, their movements sealed. Anyone could see that a single step would earn them a blade straight through the throat.
"Drop your weapons."
Gritting their teeth, the mercenaries released their grips. With a metallic clatter, every weapon fell to the floor, and the intruders gathered them up with brisk efficiency. Then they herded the mercenaries and employees against one wall, hands raised, arranged in a single line.
At that point, the employees all began glancing furtively at one man among them. The leader needed no effort to guess that this was the highest-ranking staff member present.
"You. Over there."
"..."
The young employee's face hardened. He hesitated only a moment before striding forward.
"I'm the one in charge here."
"Good. You've got some spine, at least. Then guide us into the vault itself. Defy me, and these people die."
"...Then free the others, and I will."
The employee said this with his cap pulled low over his eyes. The leader let a sneer escape from behind his mask.
"You think this is a situation where negotiation works?"
"..."
The employee's eyes swept the room once more. The other staff were on the verge of tears. There was no chance of the subdued mercenaries shoving the enemies aside and fighting back either. At last, the employee heaved a long, deep sigh.
"Follow me."
At the leader's nod, his subordinates moved. Five masked men immediately closed around the employee. The leader issued another order.
"Everyone else—haul everything inside out here."
"..."
The employee gave a stiff nod, turned, and walked into the interior. The leader clicked his tongue, short and sharp.
"Too easy."
"Still, we shouldn't let our guard down."
"I know."
This was the cornerstone of a great undertaking. Until it was finished, nothing was finished—and so letting themselves grow careless and botching the whole affair was out of the question. With a detached gaze, he slowly scanned the terrified captives.
"Don't take it too personally. We're going to use all this to build a better world. There's no meaning in stuffing a rotten noble's storehouse with gold and jewels anyway."
And besides...
His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.
That thing is here too.
Once he had that in his grasp, there would be nothing left in this world capable of stopping them.
At that very moment, a voice called out from inside.
"Could a few more of you come back here? We don't have enough hands!"
"What?"
The leader's brow furrowed. But only for a moment—then he flicked a glance at the remaining men, and a few of the sharper ones immediately headed inside. It was a gamble, carrying so many bodies along, but it seemed to have been the right call. The mercenary count had exceeded their projections, and the level of armament had been respectable too.
If we hadn't pressed in with sheer numbers, we'd never have subdued this place so easily.
Then—
KUUUUNG!
The noise from within grated on his nerves. His face twisted violently as he shouted.
"What's going on in there!"
"You'll have to come see for yourself! Something's gone wrong! We need more men!"
The reply came straight from inside. The same voice that had begged for reinforcements earlier. Irritation boiled over in the leader.
"You worthless idiots. You can't even manage to move a few valuables!"
"S-sorry, sir!"
The frantic voice rang out again. Something had clearly gone wrong. Out of options, he gestured to the remaining men, and several stepped forward.
"You lot—keep watch on these people here."
"Yes, sir!"
A resounding answer came back. Unthinkingly, he counted the number of subordinates holding the lobby. Roughly half of the men they'd brought were still here—about even with the mercenaries huddled against the wall. He gave a satisfied nod and started toward the vault interior, where his useless subordinates were waiting.
There was nothing to worry about. These were men that elite mercenaries could never hope to stand against—and besides, those mercenaries had all been disarmed. His calculations were flawless.
Except for exactly one thing he had failed to predict.
What if the men he was currently holding at swordpoint weren't 'elite mercenaries' at all?
The leader and his band of men filed past the reception desk and into the depths. The instant their figures vanished completely from view, the mercenaries who had been hanging their heads low broke into wide grins.
"Huh?"
Those who had let their attention slip for a moment caught on a beat too late. By the time they turned their heads toward the hostages, solidly ripened fists were already driving into masked faces.
"What... in the..."
His busily pumping legs seized up, stiff as boards. What they had witnessed the moment they stepped into the vault interior was their own comrades sprawled across the floor. Cut down in a single stroke, they lay scattered along the corridors here and there, unable even to groan.
The leader's gaze drifted, entirely of its own accord, toward the far end of the hall. A silver-haired young man in employee's uniform waved at him, slow and lazy.
"Hey there, boss. You're late."
Swinging from his hand was the very cap that had been pulled low over his eyes moments ago. The leader let out an utterly witless sound.
"What...?"
"You came running the moment I called. I'm touched, truly."
Flanking the young man, knights in the uniforms of an imperial Knight Order glared with ferocious eyes. Their number was enough to fill the entire corridor leading into the vault from wall to wall. The leader, still slack-jawed, finally grasped what had happened. A grinding sound escaped from between his teeth.
"You little bastard—!"
The employee who had first guided his men inside. The subordinate's voice calling him deeper. It had all been the same person. Just then, screams began erupting from the entrance.
Thud! CRACK!
The sound of someone getting beaten half to death was simply a bonus. The leader's already contorted face went paler and paler.
"GAAAH! These aren't mercenaries at all!"
"Damn it, it's a trap!"
His underlings raged and thrashed outside. Standing beside Arendt, Laios barked a sharp command.
"Subdue the enemies!"
At that signal, the knights drew their blades in unison and charged at the masked men. The intruders, snapping back to their senses, met the assault in kind. The leader howled in fury.
"The Emperor's dogs, using such filthy tricks! Kill them all! Cut our way through!"
"Die!"
Chaos erupted in an instant. And Arendt watched the spectacle from beside Laios, arms crossed, completely at his leisure.
"So simple."
"..."
Laios's gaze turned to him. The enemies were being steadily, methodically subdued. It was only natural—the number of ambushed knights and their individual skill both overwhelmingly favored the imperial side. The enemy was respectable in size and considerable in strength, to be sure, but not nearly enough to handle this many knights and walk away whole.
Arendt, who had been watching the two factions slug it out with placid disinterest, lifted his head, having noticed Laios looking his way.
"Is there something on my face, Commander?"
"...If things go on like this, we'll subdue them all without a single casualty on our side."
"Looks that way."
Arendt answered with a shrug and a smirk. That was a good thing. Though the method itself had been... well, a little problematic.
"I understand the need to avoid drawing their suspicion. But dragging civilians into it was dangerous."
"So what? They weren't going to die. It's their own property they're protecting. And besides, if the vault had really been robbed outright, those people wouldn't have survived to see the morning anyway."
"..."
"And if we can't even protect a few cooperating civilians, shouldn't you be stripped of your knighthood, Commander? That much, I'm sure our seniors will handle gracefully on their own."
At Arendt's shameless addendum, Laios let out a groan of quiet suffering. He found himself recalling what the enemy leader had shouted earlier—the Emperor's dogs, using such filthy tricks. Compared to armed robbers, he supposed it could hardly be filthier. But on the matter of pettiness? That much he couldn't quite bring himself to deny.
It was a strategy built on a single fact: the vault's interior was even larger than its lobby. Put simply, the plan was elegant—turn the entire vault into one great trap and bag every last intruder in a single sweep. The mercenaries had all been swapped out for knights. But the employees, with the sole exception of Arendt, were the real thing.
The reason was simple.
"Playing a mercenary is one thing. But if you seniors tried to pass yourselves off as employees, we'd be caught red-handed for certain. Unless, of course, you're confident you can tremble and cower in terror in front of thieves... In which case, well, I wouldn't stop you."
It wasn't wrong, so they had no choice but to accept it. In the first place, the operation—any operation—couldn't even begin unless the enemies walked into the vault without a shred of doubt.
Laios's face stiffened slightly as he recalled the arguments Arendt had laid out before the knights. Which means, put the other way... the person who had so effortlessly split a sizable enemy force between the lobby and the vault was Arendt himself.
Just how far beyond reasonable is this man's shamelessness?
Laios cast his mind back to what Arendt had said at the operation briefing.
"Voices shouting in panic are hard to tell apart at a distance. Tricking them will be easy enough."
Even so—had that really been possible? Wearing a cap while playing at being an employee, then leading the enemies this way with a perfectly convincing shout of alarm—the man had looked as though he kept a wardrobe of faces and changed them at will.
Inside the vault, total pandemonium reigned. The knights who had played at mercenaries and hurled their swords to the floor were now hammering away at the enemies bare-knuckled. In their wake, the once-gleaming interior was being wrecked piece by piece. Statuettes toppled and shattered; the carpet was trampled into ruin.
CRASH!
A masked man, hurled bodily into the wall by a knight, crushed a glasswork ornament to splinters on impact. This was the East Vault, after all, where every item was the finest available—so the damage estimate alone would surely run to a sum not counted in ones and twos.
Officially, our side is the one that ought to be compensating for this, at least in part.
It was damage inflicted in the course of the suppression, after all. Laios's gaze toward Arendt grew distinctly sour. Seen in profile as he watched his seniors subdue the robbers, the young man's expression was blank, unreadable, thinking who-knew-what.
A serpent, this one.
Laios turned his head toward the far end of the vault. From there, untouched by the fallout of the battle, Kendrick and Diana—who had come to observe the operation—were regarding him with expressions of pure incredulity. And then there was one more. A dignified, handsome man of middle years was hiding himself behind the two commanders, craning his neck past their shoulders and staring at Arendt with a face brimming over with open admiration—as though beholding the hero of the age itself.
He was none other than the manager of the East Vault.