The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Defend the Dungeon

Hands on her hips, Rena looked away. ”Has he not come?”

”So you really came here to find him.”

”Well, I heard he was in Grassmere, but then they said he had gone to Erast. So, here I am.”

Seeing Rena’s faint blush, Rubia broke into a bright smile deep enough to reveal hidden dimples. ”Don’t worry. If you’ve come here, that means he already knows. You’ll probably meet him soon enough on the road to the capital.”

”Truly?”

”I promise.”

”Who exactly is Rena here to meet?”

Could she be planning a secret rendezvous with the imperial ghosts? Or perhaps a magnate of the Merchant Guild? No figure she could be seeking came easily to mind. And I myself had come from Grassmere to Erast. Was someone tracking me instead? A cold unease crept over me.

Rubia, exasperated, let out a long sigh. ”Who else would it be... Don’t tell me you don’t know?”

”I don’t.”

At my answer, Rubia rubbed her temple as though dizzy. ”Of course she came because she wants to meet you, Mr. Skeleton!”

”Is that so...?”

In this life, we had met only once. I couldn’t see why Rena would go out of her way to seek me. It had likely been the Affection carried over from clearing the earlier scenario. Even so, guilt gnawed at me.

Rubia carefully read through the reports Rena had brought, signed the final section, and handed them back. ”Well read.”

There were two other signature boxes at the bottom, already filled. One by someone else, and one by the lord of Grassmere.

”See you again, soon-to-be lord.”

Leaving only that short farewell, Rena departed.

”You really ought to follow her and meet her.”

”...”

Rubia sighed lightly. ”Either way, thank you. I’m surrounded by so many good people now. Especially her. I’d like to become close.”

She bit her lip slightly as she watched Rena’s retreating back.

”Alright... For now, I’ll go. I’ll see you later,” I said.

I followed at once. Unlike her sudden intrusion into the office, Rena now moved at a leisurely pace. Past Erast’s gates, her steps grew even slower. Her path led north, toward the capital. I debated when to reveal myself when she suddenly stepped aside on the road, turning as if to look straight at me. Not even an hour later, on the northern highway out of Erast, I showed myself.

I kept some distance, approaching slowly so as not to startle her. ”Rena.”

She wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Rather, she stared at me with a playful smile, as if she’d known from the beginning.

”Heh. Finally decided to show yourself.”

”You were looking for me?”

Rena loosened her violet cloak and nodded. ”Of course. You’re the one who drove me to run without sleep for three months.”

”You must’ve been busy, then. And that cloak, what is it?”

I had noticed it earlier: the patterns of thorns and serpents unsettled me.

With only one corner of her mouth lifting, Rena smirked. ”There were plenty of rats in the guild who needed killing. I claimed quite a few trophies. This one is the finest.”

She meant that, thanks to my tip about Biblio’s infiltrators, the guild had purged them thoroughly.

”Want to try it on?”

Rena draped the cloak around me. However, it only worked on those beneath a certain level, and offered me no concealment at all. Not that I had any thought of stealing it. I slipped the cloak from my shoulders and gently returned it to her. She stiffened instantly. Nerves? Had I done something wrong?

I shifted the subject. ”You must have been busy. For the guild to go so far as to aid Rubia... thank you.”

Rena blinked vacantly for a moment, then shook her head.

”Huh? Oh... it was a promise. Even without that, I would’ve done at least this much.” She shrugged. ”Anyway, look at this first.”

Swish.

She handed me the reports Rubia had signed and returned. ”Plenty’s missing in those copies. Want me to tell you here, or shall we make it pleasant and walk?”

”Let’s walk.”

Already knowing the contents by heart, Rena began to explain in order, step by step, as we strolled side by side. ”The hound is busy chasing a snake right now.”

”The marquis?”

”Yes. He’s a mad dog off its leash. He’s uncontrollable, but the Empire’s in much the same position, so it balances out.”

”The Empire too?”

Walking at my side, Rena nodded. ”He has too many knights who owe him personal loyalty, and there’s no pretext to restrain him.”

”Because he’s the hero who recovered the diamond?” I quoted from the report.

Rena chuckled and waved a hand. ”That was a fake.”

”A fake?”

”It wasn’t in the report, but we made one. With headquarters’ support, we used Embermere’s techniques to craft it. Even the glow is identical. The real one is still with the marquis. Now the dog has wings.”

It was a shocking revelation. Leandro’s weakness had always been the perfect ambush by the unseen commander of the ghosts. If that could be blocked, then his only vulnerabilities were Isabelle, captain of the imperial guards, and Miyu. Neither was a true hindrance to the marquis’s power. To say the dog had grown wings was an understatement.

Rena went on to explain that she had investigated the Path of Freedom spreading beneath the capital. Just as I’d warned, she’d discovered that it was connected to the imperial archives, and arranged for T&T to take proper measures. They were also checking other areas to ensure no other hidden passages linked to the archives. None of this was in the reports. It was information that could never be allowed outside.

”With Erast, Grassmere, Yublam... the Merchant Guild, and us together, we may have enough leverage to stop a war.”

”And lastly... there’s Gith-Za-Rai.”

”Gith... Za... Rai?”

The name jolted me awake. The infamous necromancer who had implanted Essence Absorption within me. At our very first meeting, I had spilled even the tale of her assassination attempt on the emperor. In so short a time, Rena had made progress against her? No wonder she looked exhausted, a dark shadow of fatigue beneath her eyes.

I tensed up. ”What about Gith-Za-Rai?”

”She hasn’t yet appeared at the place you mentioned, the site of the assassination. We’re still searching for her location. Headquarters even mobilized Ember itself. But the Red Flake are such mystics... it’s slow going.”

”Not even places like Daliac yield information?”

Rena gave a wry grin and a wink. ”Ah, I forgot to mention. Daliac is under Red Flake jurisdiction.”

A chill ran down my spine. If I had ignored Isaac’s warning and poked around Daliac for information, I’d have earned another death from Lumen Valdorf or the Starlight Blue Fox. It was sheer luck that I had passed through quietly.

”So they would never give up information about Gith-Za-Rai.”

”More than that. Even asking in an auction house would have made you Red Flake’s target.”

I recalled the words of Naneow and Rena in Daliac.

”It’s hard to say here. We’ve signed treaties not to leak information.”

”They all wander around in disguise, so gathering profiles is near impossible...”

Then, I remembered one figure in particular. The auction house broker. He had instantly seen I wasn’t human, that the barrier didn’t affect me. At our second meeting, he mocked me with hints that T&T was searching for me. At the third, he saw through my concealed stealth with ease and diverted the eyes of Daliac’s watchers.

If he was part of the assassin order... No, it would be stranger if he weren’t Red Flake.

”We’re still working behind the scenes, but they won’t trust us easily.”

So, even Rena had yet to make solid contact with the Red Flake. Should I have told her about the Sun of Lindbrum? But that was surely a personal cipher for Gith-Za-Rai, and who knew how that necromancer’d react if I spoke it aloud.

I realized how little I truly knew about Red Flake. I had met three of them, fought beside two at death’s door, and still knew nothing. The mystery of their true nature only deepened. Still, Rena was doing far more than I had imagined.

”What about this? The Necron’s activity collapsing everywhere so suddenly?”

Could that be thanks to me? I had destroyed three of their bases, after all.

Hope flickered in me, but Rena giggled. ”Oh, that? Our faithful hound gnawed them apart everywhere. Maybe he was just bored with life. He’s been more effective than expected.”

”Leandro... the marquis?”

Rena glanced at me, laughing softly as she nodded. ”Necron’s central authority has fallen apart. Forget command, they’re scrambling just to shut down their main operations.”

Strange, then, that no pursuit had come after I had leveled three of their strongholds.

Rena pulled a pendant from her cloak. ”Ah, I almost forgot. Take this.”

I looked between the altered trinket, the new chain, the added ornaments, and her. It had been a long time.

[Rena’s Pendant]

”We’ll see each other again, right? Last time I was too shaken to hand this over. But show this at headquarters and...”

I already knew its use. The pendant had once been the pivotal branching point in Rena’s scenario of Affection. Now it had become a practical tool, aiding skill proficiency and T&T operations.

I hesitated, then accepted it. At once, messages burst into view, noisy and familiar. The most striking was...

[Once per week, you will make a Correct Decision with high probability.]

”Show this whenever you come to the capital,” Rena said, leaving those words behind.

Thus, she vanished beyond the northern bend, slipping away so quietly it was as if she had never been there. Only the pendant in my hand proved she had.

***

The cold wind swept away the warmth of the sun, and another breeze cooled even that. Leaving Rena to the north, I walked south. My next destination was Yublam. Rubia’s plan troubled me, but she had asked me to trust her. If I attended the Grassmere lordship ceremony in person, nothing would go wrong.

First, though, there was someone near Yublam I needed to speak to the orphanage director, who had begged me to save an oppressed demi-human tribe. Truthfully, more than that, Kirk’s men had spoken of Asphode. That name gnawed at me.

Asphode is still alive?

My blade work hadn’t been lacking. There was no chance he survived. Unless his corpse had been devoured by insects. Had a new model already emerged? Just to devour the likes of him?

The unease was thick. I had to confirm it. The future was already changing.

***

When the stone walls sank into darkness, torches lit one by one along the towers and battlements.

Fwah!

I leapt cleanly over the closed gate. Yublam’s walls were easy to scale now; they hadn’t grown any taller since last time. Yet as I landed, a strange tension filled me. Something had changed.

I studied the patrol guards closely, torchlight flickering in their hands. Nothing obvious. Their numbers weren’t greater, and their skill wasn’t higher. Some faces I even recognized. At last, I understood the unease.

The guards of Yublam were tense. They weren’t idling away the hours or prowling to pick fights with passersby, but were truly guarding the city. That had never happened before, not in a Yublam rotting with opium and crime.

Ssuk!

Then, from the opposite gate, something darted toward the inner city. Its swift, fluid movements seemed to leap through the patches of torchlit darkness. Instinctively, I gave chase. Its speed was unlike anything I had felt in Yublam before. Perhaps the future had shifted because of the slaughter I had wrought.

Sprint.

I unleashed the skill to its limit, closing the gap little by little, but I couldn’t relax. I still had no idea what I was pursuing. Vaulting above the maze-like alleys, I rose high...

Flash!

Something caught the moonlight and gleamed.