Elanes finished speaking in her refined voice.

Reaper swallowed.

‘...So that’s the situation he’s in.’

No one knew better than the fighters of Grimreaper how packed Tregava’s schedule was.

After all, they were the ones whose contracts Tregava snatched away every single time.

Still, something felt strange.

‘But even so... shouldn’t their big operations have more or less wrapped up by now?’

That was why the silence over the past few days had seemed to him like nothing more than a sign that they were lying low somewhere, taking a break.

But it turned out they had been besieging a massive magic stone that appeared along the Empire’s border?

And a neighboring nation had offered a very generous payment for it?

Reaper frowned involuntarily.

‘Even if it’s that Tesetan... with a schedule like that, his body won’t hold.’

At the same time, a strange knot twisted in his stomach.

‘If you keep pissing me off like this, I won’t leave you a single magic stone to eat.’

He remembered the words Tesetan had said to him in Pearlcity.

‘So it was true after all, damn you.’

Reaper shuddered and muttered,

“...Unlucky bastard.”

Elanes, standing beside him, laughed.

She looked at Reaper with a mischievous gaze and said,

“But he’s still handsome, isn’t he? The moment I see his face, even the anger boiling inside me seems to melt away.”

Reaper stared at Elanes in silence. Then he turned his head toward the Weapon Pavilion.

After learning the whole situation, the heaviness inside him only grew.

“Then how are we supposed to break the subspace?”

To save Berugon, they needed to shatter the surface of the subspace from the outside.

But Krazar’s subspace could not be reached from the outside.

It was concealed by a power beyond what a human could overcome, and there were very few ways to lift that concealment.

‘Right now there is really only one possible method.’

Using “that eye” of Tesetan Veronio.

“Well... for now, you and I will have to try doing something together.”

Elanes said this at that moment.

Reaper frowned and looked at her as if irritated.

“What do you mean together? Until we break the surface of the subspace, we can’t even save Berugon. And for that we need that bastard Tesetan, don’t you understand?”

“I understand. Tesetan has to use his ‘eye’ to make the surface visible so we can do anything at all.”

“If you understand that, then why the hell were you from the beginning—”

Reaper cut himself off.

He sighed and shook his head.

What was the point of arguing?

Even if he kept talking to Elanes, it certainly would not make him feel any better.

“Do you have a plan or not.”

He muttered quietly, and Elanes smirked.

“A plan? If you mean a plan to save Berugon, then of course not.”

“What?”

“But if you mean another plan, then yes.”

Elanes stepped closer to Reaper.

“If I told you it’s a plan to make Tregava swallow some water, and for you to reclaim first place in the rankings, would you understand?”

Reaper froze.

Elanes stood beside him, beaming with a wide smile.

“Well? Sounds tempting, doesn’t it?”

It was absurd.

And yet the words were so seductive that he swallowed unconsciously.

All the resentment he had accumulated from constantly losing to Tregava surfaced in Reaper’s mind one after another.

Grimreaper.

The mercenary squad that still held second place in the rankings.

Yet recently they managed to seize at most three or four major contracts per quarter.

‘And it’s all because of Tregava.’

Because of that insane monster, that name alone made his chest tighten.

That damned Tesetan Veronio.

“First you take your men and head to the Weapon Pavilion.”

As if reading Reaper’s thoughts, Elanes continued cheerfully.

“And after that you already know what to do. We’ll hang around there and pretend we’re doing everything we can.”

“Pretend?”

“Yes. So that even if we fail to save the master blacksmith, we can say we did everything possible.”

Reaper’s eyes narrowed, and Elanes shrugged.

“Think about it, Reaper. I even canceled my day off today just to come here. Aren’t you the same?”

“... ”

“Besides, you’re not one of those who often receives state commissions from the Association. Yet whenever a muster order comes, you still run around like some servant.”

Reaper’s eyebrow twitched.

Every word Elanes said was true.

Scream of Silvar, which she commanded, somehow received permission for state commissions from the Association quite often.

But Grimreaper did not.

‘Constantly pushed aside, pressured, ignored. Even though we’re ranked higher.’

Yet once a muster order arrived, refusing became awkward.

Like a jester forced day after day to play along with the mood of those in power.

And you receive nothing for [N O V E L I G H T] it.

Just as Elanes said.

Like a servant.

Like a dog.

Reaper clenched his fist, and Elanes added,

“But that’s not even the main point.”

“Then what is.”

“The main point is that the harder we work here, the more like trash Tesetan Veronio will look compared to us.”

Elanes lowered her voice and chuckled softly.

“They’ll start having real problems then. Just imagine if the master blacksmith actually dies. The Church will raise an uproar immediately. They’ll ask how they are supposed to arm their knights now. And what happens next?”

Reaper swallowed.

What would happen next was obvious.

The Church would start pressuring the imperial court.

The Holy Knights were responsible for the safety of the Empire’s subjects. Could the imperial court really ignore that?

And that was not all.

“They’ll start saying the long standing alliance between the imperial court and the Church is collapsing. That the gods will be angered and the power of the Holy Knights will weaken. They’ll start spouting all kinds of nonsense.”

And then all the emperor’s anger, accumulated through all these events...

“Will fall on that bastard Tesetan and on Tregava.”

Elanes nodded.

“Exactly. They say this is the age of free mercenaries now. That any mercenary can live however they want without fearing anyone.”

That might be partly true.

At least compared to the days when mercenaries were despised.

Or the times when they openly clashed with the Holy Knights.

But still...

“If things were really like that, we wouldn’t be running around like this right now, would we?”

Elanes smirked.

“Even if life has become a little easier, we’re still hunting dogs for the powerful. So...”

Her eyes flashed coldly.

“It’s time Tesetan learns that power is a frightening thing.”

“... ”

“Why do you think we kept serving the Association all this time even while hating it? Why we tried so hard to please the imperial court and the Church, scattering flattery and bribes everywhere. It’s about time he learned that.”

Silence hung between them.

Elanes whispered the final words softly.

“Well? Interested?”

Reaper, still staring toward the Weapon Pavilion, pressed his lips tightly together.

“...Yes. I need to survive first.”

Soon the two of them headed toward the Weapon Pavilion.

Meanwhile, inside the subspace.

“...Sniff.”

Tie wiped the runny nose under her nose with her sleeve.

If Bale had seen it, she would have grimaced in disgust and called it filthy. If Basto had seen it, he would have rushed over immediately with a handkerchief.

But the problem was that...

there was no one around Tie.

“King of the Dead... appear before me at once, King of the Dead...”

Ah, right.

There was one person after all.

Berugon wandered beneath the dim glow of a streetlamp like a zombie.

Tie carefully stepped down from the footrest onto the floor.

When she looked outside, her mood grew even gloomier.

‘The master blacksmith and that red mist chasing him are still the same...’

It felt like several hours had passed already, yet both were still pursuing Tie.

Tie sighed and suddenly looked around.

Darkness. The lights were turned off everywhere.

In one corner stood small children’s chairs neatly arranged, with a box of toys beside them. On the wall hung a board covered with praise stickers.

A gloomy voice escaped her lips.

“I... came back to kindergarten...”

The place where Tie was now was the Hanbit Kindergarten.

A few minutes earlier, while wandering down the street, she had accidentally entered the building of a social welfare center.