Nothing but Regrets
The young knight, having achieved every one of his objectives, grabbed a bottle of liquor on the way and returned to his room.
Afterwards, Rebecca's office once more.
"Lady Rebecca, the Imperial Knights are on the move."
It was her subordinate's voice that pulled Rebecca out of her reverie and back onto solid ground. Only then did she lift her head. Stationing watchers near the Imperial Palace, it seemed, had not been a wasted effort after all.
"How many?"
"Commander Laios de Winfried and two other knights."
Her subordinate reported, standing rigidly at attention. Just three.
"Warren, were you followed?"
"...I can't promise you weren't."
Warren murmured the reply, keeping quietly to his place by the wall.
"But for someone to trail you, Warren..."
"It's possible. That's the Imperial Knights for you. They're not men to underestimate."
Warren cut the subordinate's careful question off flat. Rebecca, idly toying with the ends of her hair as she weighed the matter, threw out her next question.
"Are they headed this way?"
"Yes. Going by their pace, they should reach us within two or three days."
"Sweep the surrounding area. There may be a loose thread of the Knight Order lurking nearby."
"Yes, understood."
Once the bowing subordinate withdrew, Rebecca let herself slump back against her chair with a soft exhale.
"My apologies."
"It couldn't be helped."
Rebecca answered Warren's short apology flatly and sank back into thought.
"Truly absurd."
That young knight had burrowed his way in among the mercenaries in the blink of an eye, and in the end he had dug out the name Cernion.
He did it because he wanted to — that was the excuse, perhaps, but Rebecca put no stock in such childish reasoning.
And yet...
I can't read him at all.
She was fairly confident in her ability to size people up, but with that young man alone, she hadn't the faintest idea what went on behind those eyes. Was it courage? Or nothing more than boyish recklessness dressed up as daring? Even that much was impossible to distinguish.
Suppose he had intended to pry loose information. It would only mean something if he could carry it back to the palace alive.
Does he actually believe he'll walk out of this place breathing?
Laios de Winfried, charging the main stronghold in person. Only three at present, the commander included — but that alone was threat enough. The strength of the 3rd Knight Order's commander was already the stuff of legend.
Worse, it had been confirmed that both the Frost-Tinged Touch and the Shadow of the Strong were in their hands.
And with the stronghold's location exposed, it was a foregone conclusion that the entire Imperial Knight Order would march on this place sooner or later. To stop that, she had to cut it off at the root.
Somehow, Laios had to die here.
Handling him alone would be... difficult.
But if she requested aid from the cult, the delightful toy that had just tumbled into her palm would be snatched away again.
Arendt von Eckhart was one of the persons of interest the cult had recently designated. Judged by infamy alone, his name might rank even higher than Commander Laios's.
After a brief moment of inner conflict, Rebecca reached her decision before long.
"...A pity."
"What is?"
"I'd like to indulge my greed, but I haven't the confidence to clean up if it goes wrong."
The unknown stirred her curiosity — but something that refused, time and again, to be understood was simply a danger. Arendt von Eckhart was the latter.
With a short sigh, Rebecca rose slowly from her seat.
Warren asked, puzzled. "Where are you going?"
"To request support. And I should have a word with that unmanageable young knight while I'm at it."
Warren offered no comment, simply rising from his place to follow. Rebecca gave his shoulders a light tap and slipped out of the office a step ahead of him. Warren followed in silence, gliding after her like a shadow.
At the unannounced visitor, Arendt — half-buried in the sofa — raised his head. "What?"
"I hear your comrades are coming this way. That must be welcome news?"
Even to the blunt opening, Arendt merely tilted his head with perfect nonchalance. "You think so?"
"Isn't it something to be glad about? Only three, your commander included, or so I'm told."
A faint crack ran across Arendt's face. "...Three, you say?"
"That's right. Coming to rescue you, by the look of it?"
As if humming a little tune, Rebecca dropped onto the sofa beside him. Arendt leaned back a degree, putting distance between them.
"Even with the commander in the mix, three won't be enough to win. Wouldn't you agree?"
"..."
Rebecca's lips curled into a sly smile. "How touching. The palace appears to have thrown you away, but at least your commander seems prepared to throw his life on the scales for you."
After a brief pause, Arendt raked his fingers through his hair in visible irritation. "...Haah. Well, that tracks. The man couldn't calculate his way out of a paper bag. He's obviously hurled himself into the fire again, never mind the odds."
"Even Warren would struggle against Commander Laios, wouldn't you say? That's why I've requested reinforcements from the cult."
Rebecca continued as she settled comfortably into the sofa. "And graciously, someone from the cult itself has agreed to come in person. Someone who has mourned Vincent's passing and spent this whole time waiting for the chance."
"The one who killed that bastard wasn't the commander — it was me. So wouldn't he be coming for my neck?"
"Word of your capture reached him alive and intact, so very likely, yes. Which is precisely why I want to make one thing clear right now."
Rebecca smiled sweetly at his irritated grumbling. "There is exactly one way left for you to survive. Cling to me."
The very words he had once tossed at Warren came back to him, verbatim and unaltered.
For the first time, a crack showed in that perennially indifferent face. Arendt held his silence for a moment, then subtly furrowed his brow. "...Does your god actually save your life if you cling to him?"
Not quite as much as she'd hoped for — but it was the first meaningful response he'd given her.
"And if he did?"
"Then... I'd kneel. To you, or to that fraud of a god, whichever came first. Sorry in advance, Commander."
Arendt broke off for a beat, then let the corner of his mouth curl up. "I don't make a hobby of dying alongside other people. I intend to survive, even if it's on my own."
It was a conclusion stripped of all anguish and soul-searching — almost offensively matter-of-fact.
And from it, Rebecca could be certain of one thing.
This brat was, without question, not something she could handle.
"The party is three, your commander included?"
"That's what the report says."
"Then it'll be Arthur Norbert and Licht von Crisanta. Those two."
"Hmm. What manner of men are they?"
To the question asked with no real expectation of an answer, Arendt shot back without a breath's hesitation.
"One is a puppy so desperate to play loyal war dog that he can't even manage an errand properly. The other is a stuffed-shirt fossil so hopelessly rigid that he genuinely believes he's the tactician."
"Pfft—cough, cough!"
"And the commander is an absurd idealist and an inflexible stickler for principle whose favorite hobby is digging holes in empty air."
Warren, who had been pointedly pretending not to listen, choked on a dry cough. Rebecca, likewise caught off guard and blinking at the unexpected answer with the situation momentarily forgotten, soon burst into laughter of pure incredulity.
"Any regrets, where your comrades are concerned?"
"Nothing but regret, from beginning to end."
Shrugging, Arendt sank back deep into his chair.
"I can't deal with a mob of strays. Sort out only the strong ones and have them ready. The rest would be nothing but dead weight."
Sensing the subtle shift in his tone, Rebecca frowned slightly. At some point, those golden eyes had locked directly onto hers.
In a voice pitched lower and colder, Arendt laid out each word with deliberate clarity.
"They're hopelessly naive men, but their swordsmanship is nothing to sneer at. Isolate those two first and deal with them separately. It'll be far cleaner that way."
It was a voice that compelled focus regardless of who was listening — and eyes to match.
Rebecca found herself staring back at him, half-hypnotized.
"Even if the other two fall behind, the commander won't spare it a thought. He'll smash straight through to wherever I am in a single push. That's the moment we aim for."
Even Warren, still feigning indifference, had no choice but to turn his head and give the boy his full attention.
"You said there would be support, didn't you? If they're cult personnel, they're presumably artifact users. If that person and the werewolf converge on him at the same time, even Commander Laios won't hold out long."
"..."
Even while laying out a method for dispatching his own comrades, Arendt remained utterly composed. It hadn't the flavor of a calculated scheme, nor did he show the slightest intent to muddy Rebecca's thinking with idle theater.
Which made it all the more absurd.
"Don't you have... any sense of propriety at all?"
"I hear that a lot. Especially from Senior Arthur."
Arendt gave a shrug.
Rebecca held his gaze for a long, cool moment — then broke into a short, involuntary laugh. Ever since meeting this brat, she had been doing that rather a lot.
"Fine. I understand, for now."
Rising to her feet, she spun on her heel without so much as a parting word. Warren, moving to follow her out of habit, startled and whipped around at the hand that had suddenly seized his sleeve.
"Throw it outside the walls when no one's watching. Together with the one I gave you earlier."
With lightning-quick fingers, Arendt pressed something into his palm.
Before Warren could get a word out, he was shoved out of the room as if propelled, and the door slammed shut behind him.
He stared blankly down at his hand. There, clasped together with the first, lay one more white cube — identical in every way to what Arendt had handed him before.
Having driven their horses hard since before dawn, the knights slipped into an inn unnoticed, like thieves in the night, only when the sun had fully swallowed itself and night had grown deep.
"Welcome, honored gue—huh?"
"Shh. We'd like to stay just a single night. If there are no other guests at present, might we have the whole building to ourselves?"
Laios pressed a fat fistful of money into the bewildered innkeeper's hand.
The innkeeper stared for a long moment, eyes darting between the three men in Imperial Knight Order uniforms and the money pouch dropped into his palm, then nodded hastily.
After dumping their gear carelessly in a corner, Laios, Arthur, Licht, and Ryder gathered in the largest room and took out the communication crystal ball.
The crystal soon drank in a bright glow, and a familiar voice poured out of it.
"Commander, are you unharmed?"
"I am. Did you retrieve the goods?"
"Yes, Commander. We weren't detected, as far as we can tell."
It was Glenn, who had traveled in company with Warren and Arendt.
His mission had been to recover the video recording stones and deliver their contents to the commander.
"I've reviewed everything. I'll relay it to you now."
Glenn began describing the fortress's interior layout — information pieced together from what Warren had captured on the recording stones as he prowled the place from end to end. Arthur transcribed it all with painstaking care, and after several passes, a credible floor plan took shape on the table before them.
"Four entrances and one rear gate... where does the rear gate lead?"
"We couldn't see that far. It appeared there were sections even that werewolf was unable to approach."
Having answered Licht's question, Glenn hesitated briefly before broaching the real subject.
"Also... the second recording stone contains the conversation Arendt had with that woman. It's just..."
As Glenn's voice trailed off through the crystal, the party fell silent, their expressions souring.
They could all roughly guess what he was leaving unsaid.
"...I'll hear it for myself."
"Understood, Commander."
At Laios's word, Glenn activated the recording stone.
Moments later, a young woman's honeyed, seductive voice came flowing through the crystal.
"Even with the commander included, three won't be enough to win. Wouldn't you agree?"
That was where it began. Arendt and Rebecca had carried on a conversation balanced on a knife's edge.
Despite themselves, the knights found their bodies going taut with tension.
But it didn't last long.
"One is a puppy so desperate to play loyal war dog that he can't even manage an errand properly. And the other is a stuffed-shirt fossil so hopelessly rigid that he genuinely believes he's the tactician."
"Pfft—cough, cough!"
"And the commander is an absurd idealist and an inflexible stickler for principle whose favorite hobby is digging holes in empty air."
"..."
"..."
"..."
The faces of the knights, who had been listening with rapt attention, rotted by slow degrees.