The Witch and the Beast
"Your evidence?"
The first to gather his wits was none other than Laios.
Arendt, who had downed a recovery potion in one gulp, raised his gloved hand for all to see.
"They recognized this. Even knew its exact name."
"Hmm…."
"If it's true, then it goes some way toward explaining why they made you their target in the first place."
As Laios let out a complicated groan, Richt spoke up.
"At this point in time, it would simply look like settling a grudge for being beaten black and blue at the gambling den."
"That's exactly what we assumed, yes."
It was entirely possible that their true objective had been to dispose of Arendt and recover the artifact all along.
"Well, you've racked up quite a list by now. You've smacked a few people in the back of the head, nice and openly, too."
"Stop talking like it's someone else's problem."
Arendt's breezy remark earned a vicious snap from Arthur.
From the East Vault affair to the magic stone mine, smuggling out the artifact known as The Uncooling Heart, and even killing Vincent with his own hands—though the Imperial Knight Order had formally stepped in for all of it, most of those matters had passed directly through Arendt's hands.
It was a strange thing.
The very man who had been driven to the brink of execution for betraying the Knight Order was now, for that same reason, being hunted by their enemies.
Laios's face hardened.
"We'll need to bolster the defenses."
"Well, we did come away with something pretty decent, though."
"Decent? Don't tell me you mean that werewolf."
When Arendt tilted his head and said it as if it were nothing, Arthur frowned.
"Capturing him was all well and good, but… do you really think that beast will talk? Word is he's a loyal hound who never once refuses whatever dirty work that woman orders."
"Who knows? People are full of surprises."
The answer that came back was as slippery as ever.
This time, it was Laios who asked.
"Anything bothering you? Any hunches?"
"A little? Eh, time will tell. Either way, whoever put a scratch on this precious face of mine is going to pay for it."
"…."
Something faintly unhinged glimmered in those gleaming golden eyes.
He means it. He absolutely means it.
Not one of the three had the slightest desire to probe what he suspected, or what exactly he meant by "time will tell."
Granted, no one who had ever crossed that man had come out the better for it. Not the Evil God Cult and their lackeys, not the magnates who clutched countless businesses in their palms, not even the power brokers capable of shaking the Imperial Palace to its foundations.
Even the Crown Prince himself ended up clutching his forehead every single time he got tangled in that silver tongue of his.
"Haah…."
Arthur and Richt let out deep sighs, neither bothering to go first, and Laios pressed a hand to his forehead as his stomach began to churn.
Half-dead, blood pouring out of him, his mana drained to nothing and his face white as a sheet—and yet the man still babbled on like that. In a way, it was almost admirable.
"…Go get some sleep, for now."
Laios said his piece, but all three of them shared the same unspoken thought: will that man actually sleep quietly?
Warren's eyes opened to a bone-deep chill.
The first thing to enter his bleary vision was a brazier sitting directly in front of him. Presumably it had been brought so their hard-won prisoner wouldn't freeze to death.
His tightly bound body did not so much as twitch. Whoever had prepared this must have judged that ordinary restraints made for humans wouldn't hold him, because his limbs were chained to the chair in layer upon layer of iron.
"Knocked out for half a day straight after taking a beating from a mere apprentice knight. So much for the mighty werewolf."
Just then, a jeering voice drifted over from right in front of him.
Warren jerked his head up—and his eyes met those of the silver-haired knight seated in a chair just beyond the bars.
The knight, too, bore the marks of the battle still, wrapped in bandages from head to toe. His badly injured arm in particular was bound tightly to keep it from moving at all.
Only then did reality slowly come back to him.
He had been ordered by Rebecca to kill that young apprentice knight—and he had failed, spectacularly.
"…Why didn't you kill me?"
"After going to all the trouble of catching you? I'm not about to let you go that easily. We have things to talk about, don't we, mister wolf."
Arendt leaned back comfortably in his chair and spoke coldly.
"If you came here without the Commander's leave, then I'm not exactly swimming in free time either. So let's not waste it—get straight to the point."
"…."
Warren, who had kept his mouth firmly shut, soon burst into a self-mocking laugh.
"So it was a trap after all. You provoked me into chasing you as you fled, then lured me straight to where your comrades were waiting. And that strange thing as well… an artifact that suppresses mana, was it?"
Warren remembered with painful clarity the helplessness he'd felt the moment that light had erupted—the instant his transformation had been torn away, leaving him nothing but a beast.
"If you're going to catch a wolf, that much preparation is only reasonable. Losing an arm is a small price to pay."
A dry chuckle burst out of Arendt.
Warren's eyes—far closer to a wolf's than a man's—remained perfectly still as they took in that apprentice knight, every last detail.
"I'll admit I lost. So get it over with. Kill me. Keeping me alive will get you nothing. Torture will be useless."
"You think any of that is for your benefit? Playing the noble now, after a lifetime spent guarding the house like a watchdog, eating whatever meat your master tossed you? Spare me."
Clang!
Warren's body lurched violently, the chains slamming into one another.
A savage growl reverberated through the underground prison, but Arendt didn't so much as flinch.
"You don't have to open your mouth. You can't go back to that side anyway, so you'll be living here for a long, long time. Chained by the neck, eating rotten meat someone else scrapes together for you."
"Shut your mouth!"
Groan.
The chains, barely withstanding his strength, let out a precarious shriek.
Had he not been so weakened, had he not been bound in so many layers of iron, he would surely have torn through the bars then and there and ripped out Arendt's throat.
Arendt studied those murderous eyes in silence for a moment—then broke into a smirk.
"Want to get out from under Rebecca's thumb?"
The instant those words left his mouth, Warren stopped moving.
"What did you say?"
"Not a flicker of reaction when I insulted Rebecca—but the moment her name left your lips, you flew at me in a rage. Threw your weapon aside and everything."
"…."
Warren blinked blankly, the situation entirely forgotten. Locking eyes with the dumbfounded werewolf, Arendt continued slowly.
"It looked to me like you fear your own name being spoken more than you fear your master's honor being sullied."
"…You truly are out of your mind."
His mouth opening and closing a few times, Warren muttered in a daze.
Even with the artifact and that bracelet in his possession, the situation had clearly been unfavorable for Arendt until the other knights arrived. In a moment where he could have died at any second, he had provoked his enemy and studied his reactions. "Calm" didn't begin to cover it.
"Recognizing my artifact means you're clearly connected to those Evil God Cult bastards… but you don't seem particularly fond of your master, either—never mind any god."
Tilting his head slightly, Arendt remarked offhandedly,
"Let me guess. Being blackmailed, are we?"
Warren's brow twitched.
Paying him no mind, Arendt rocked his chair back and forth and carried on leisurely.
"You played the loyal cur in someone else's house beautifully, and yet the moment a human gets his hands on you, you throw your life away at the drop of a hat—'just kill me,' you say. A loyal hound if ever there was one."
The young man's voice, thick with mockery, hummed through the underground prison.
"Even if you want to die as one, I have no intention of granting you that modest little wish. I hold a grudge a long, long time."
Those golden eyes, which had been drifting aimlessly through the air, rolled back and fixed on Warren once more.
"If you beg for death, then the answer is to keep the noose around your neck until the very end and make you watch your own miserable ending. That's what I'll do to you."
A face utterly devoid of expression—not even a fragment of feeling showing—turned toward Warren.
"So consider this your last chance. If you have a goal, you shouldn't be picky about the means. That's precisely why I'm standing here now, running my mouth at length in front of you."
"…."
"I'm off. Think it over before the formal interrogation."
With that, Arendt rose to his feet and limped out of the cell.
Thud.
The heavy door boomed shut, the sound echoing hollowly through the dark.
Left alone, Warren blinked slowly.
The brazier crackled and gave off its warmth, but the chill in his bones remained. Whether it was the aftereffect of Frost-Tinged Touch or the work of that young pup's tongue, there was no telling.
"…I can't die?"
The distant murmur scattered into empty air. Realizing the faint tremor in his own voice, Warren bit down on his lip.
He had called it an offer, no doubt about it—but this was blackmail, plain and simple.
Far nastier than anything Rebecca had ever held over him.
He had done anything and everything under her orders until now. Never once balked at the dirtiest of jobs, never cared how much blood soaked both his hands.
For all those long years, he had played the devoted lover to the very best of his ability. Even Rebecca herself had never once doubted his loyalty….
And I saw through it all? By some whelp who'd crossed swords with me exactly once?
It was so absurd he couldn't even find the words.
The way the man had spoken his name from their very first meeting, and now this—there was no guessing how much he actually knew.
"A goal…."
Never choosing between means and methods to reach it—that was exactly how he had always lived. He had thrown away even his pride as a werewolf to survive.
So then what was he doing now, in this state?
Creak.
His chained fist clenched tight.
At length, a long, wolfish howl rang out through the darkness.
He had barely taken a few steps from the closed door when the sound of a beast howling at the top of its lungs came from behind him.
"Did I scratch too deep?"
From that reaction, he'd clearly struck the beast's reverse scale dead-on.
Honestly, he had thrown it out on a half-gamble. Until he had come face to face with the man in that alley, Arendt himself had assumed Warren was nothing more than Rebecca's loyal hound.
That was how The Blue Knight of the Sacred Sword had depicted him, after all.
The werewolf Warren had moved at Rebecca's every whim right up until the moment Laios cut him down—and in the end… he had given up even his own life for her.
But a half-baked performance shows through anywhere. In Arendt's eyes, the man had looked less like anyone's devoted hound and more like a beast seething with rage.
The novel's version being far from the whole truth had already been proven beyond doubt by his own past experiences. If he could just drag that hidden side into the light, the range of roles available to him on the stages to come would widen considerably.
Getting refused would be a shame, but handled well, this was a chance to acquire a dependable non-human meat shield, so to speak.
It would be a waste to let the man die a dog's death like this.
Granted, there were still plenty of mountains left to climb before that.
"Ugh, damn it. This really hurts, I swear."
Still, he'd gotten a solid slap to the cheek for his trouble.
He had dragged his battered, aching body all the way down here on his own initiative, after all. Surely something would come of it.
Arendt turned without a backward glance and headed for the barracks.