Ravian entered the inner structure of the fortress.

The interior split left and right along the length of the wall, and oil lamps hung on the walls, spaced a single meter apart, leaving the corridors without a single dark spot.

The moment they entered, the door they had come through was shut behind them, and one of the guards from inside the fortress itself came to receive them.

"Come, this way," the guard said without engaging in any small talk, and neither Michael Horen nor any of the group’s members commented on it.

But the most surprised one here was Ravian. Even now, he still had not found a single way to slip out from under the cart and get away from this group, and the state of the fortress inside was not nearly as chaotic as he had expected.

Everyone was remarkably calm, even though the commander overseeing the front had just left without any warning.

’Did I miscalculate?’ Ravian thought with a frown, hanging beneath the cart as it was led toward the storehouses the group had mentioned earlier.

"Word reached us that the fort commander has moved," the guard said suddenly, catching Ravian’s attention. He wanted to know how they could be this calm instead of organizing their ranks or taking any precautions against whatever might have caused that movement.

"Yes," Michael Horen replied.

"The company commander left suddenly, without any warning, heading toward the deep forest," Michael said. No expression of worry showed on his face, but the tremor in his voice was explanation enough.

"Is it an attack? The Twilight Empire? The orcs?" the guard said, a hint of unease showing on him.

"We don’t know. It just happened, without any warning. Even the faction leaders haven’t come out with any clear announcement, at least not yet," Michael Horen said, shaking his head.

"And what about you?" Michael then turned his gaze back to the guard.

"Unfortunately, we have no information either. What happens outside stays outside unless the fort commander announces something, or people like you come here. Otherwise, we remain without any information," the guard said, shaking his head in turn.

’The fort commander? Someone other than Master? It seems these guards are completely cut off from the outside world as long as they’re inside this building,’ Ravian guessed.

’But something’s wrong here. Shouldn’t there be guards up on the wall keeping watch too? How does no information reach them through those men? Unless...’

’The ones above are completely isolated from the ones inside!’ Ravian’s eyes widened at the realization.

It might seem like a simple thing upon first realizing it, but in truth, it was a catastrophe for Ravian.

The only reason Ravian had gambled on entering this place was the state of confusion that followed Karius’s departure from the camp, but after getting inside, Ravian had learned two lethal pieces of information.

The first was that the commander of the outer front and the company commander, Karius, was not someone with full authority over the fortress. Or rather, his authority was not the highest within it. There was a fort commander.

Which meant that for the people inside the fortress, their own commander was still present, meaning someone was still in control of them, keeping everything in order. That was the first problem, and the first piece of information.

As for the second, it was what he had just deduced: the guards below were isolated from the guards above. And what about the group he had been observing a little while ago in his spirit form?

That group had been standing watch in one of the towers on the wall, completely cut off from the place he was in right now.

Which meant that Ravian had, quite simply—

’Walked into a quiet hornets’ nest on my own two feet,’ Ravian thought, a chill beginning to creep through his body.

’Damn it, Ravian. You know you’re really cooked when you feel cold with this new body.’ A self-mocking smile traced itself across Ravian’s lips.

’I underestimated them. This damned empire has a security system that’s absurdly sophisticated for people still at the dawn of the steam age who haven’t even discovered gunpowder yet.’ Ravian closed his eyes in self-reproach.

’Wait!’ Ravian suddenly remembered something else.

’It’s still only sunset right now?!’

That, too, might seem simple at first glance, but...

Entering the forest, the plan to trap the three orcs—two of the Tenth Rank and one of the Ninth Rank—then his miraculous survival, absorbing the two corpses, going through a reconstruction process that made Ravian feel as if his soul were being dragged out of his body, and then sneaking into this cursed place.

All of that had been...

After midnight.

And what time was it now, again?

’Sunset.’

’We’re still at sunset, in the Creator’s name?!’ Ravian nearly tore at his hair like a madman in that moment.

If he was caught now, in this absurdly fortified place that had just become countless times harder after he discovered its true nature, he would have to do all of it over again.

All of that accursed torment, all over again.

’No!’ Ravian rejected the very idea before it could even finish forming.

’I will not repeat that nonsense and lose one of my three precious lives,’ Ravian decided, and the crimson glow flashed in his eyes once more.

But this time, Ravian seemed... in control of it?

...

Somewhere along that long corridor inside the fortress.

There was a room with a finely polished wooden door, its handle golden in color.

Behind that door stood a desk made of fine mahogany, stacked with bundles of papers and pieces of parchment inscribed with maps of a specific forest, drawn with meticulous precision.

And before the desk sat a wooden rocking chair, also made of mahogany, but upholstered with beautiful yellow fabric. On the back of that chair was the emblem of the three five-pointed stars that Ravian had seen before in the central building of the camp, the emblem representing the Viera Empire.

But the most striking thing in that room was not the desk, or the chair, or the maps hanging on the wall and strewn across the desk. What most distinguished that room was the thirty-something man sitting with one leg crossed over the other atop the desk, holding a lit match in one hand while a thick cigarette sat fixed between two fingers of the other, which he lit with the match.

Fwoo.

The man lit the cigarette in his mouth, the match still in his hand, and blew smoke into the air. Then, with a snap of his fingers—

Swoosh!

An immense yet quiet flame burst from his hand and erased the match completely, without leaving a single trace behind.

"Now where did you run off to so suddenly, Karius Dmitri?" said the blue-haired, blue-eyed man of thirty-something appearance, dusting off his hands even though there was not a speck of dust on them.

But there was one—and only one—thing in the room that remained unmentioned.

It was a rectangular piece of wood placed elegantly upon the desk, and written on it were two small, separate phrases, yet they carried a weight that could not be ignored.

Commander of the Tenth Battalion...

Thorvin Valhalla.