Episode 30 - Bizeth's Gambit 2

Kaftin returned from his journey and went straight back to the inn where Conquere was staying.

Wanted posters bearing his face were plastered everywhere along the way — but the new black robe pulled up over his head had kept him from being recognized.

"Here."
"......?"
"These are what I used when I was learning."

He pressed the textbooks his master had used to teach him into Conquere's hands, then finally pulled the hood back and settled onto the edge of the bed.

The wanted posters alone had told him roughly what to expect.
With Veilslayer dead, the remaining Gang Lords had their guard wound to the extreme.

Naturally, they had jacked up the bounty to draw in everyone from mercenaries to bounty hunters — flooding the streets with people looking for him.

The plan was obvious: swarm him with outside forces who had nothing to do with their own organization, wear him down, and then step in for the finishing blow themselves.

Kaftin snorted — then let the amusement fade.
Laughable as a strategy. But undeniably inconvenient.

His transformation ability was built for slaughtering large numbers of enemies in a short window.
There was a time limit. There were risks after the form released.

If he kept getting drawn into skirmishes through their bounty network, it was only a matter of time before those weaknesses were fully exposed — and the Gang Lords landed something fatal.

"What to do..."

Moving alone the way he had been was now too dangerous.
And yet bringing subordinates or allies on board was not something he welcomed.

Anyone weaker than himself was a shackle on the battlefield of life — nothing more than an unnecessary drag. That had always been his view.

And now he was supposed to gather a group around himself?
The thought alone drew a reflexive sneer.

"This is getting complicated... maybe I should start looking into strengthening the transformation forms..."

He was mulling it over, staring toward the window, when Conquere tugged at his sleeve from beside him.

"......?"
"......!"

She held up the whip he had given her — and smiled.

"......"
"......!"

He understood exactly what she was trying to say. He shook his head in silence regardless.
She was still too young for his battlefield.

Under normal circumstances he would have preferred to find her a proper adoptive home — but a good placement for a half-blood girl was hardly something that grew on trees.

The truth was that he was only looking after her because he had no other option, and he was fully aware that he was not, by any measure, a suitable guardian for a young girl.

The fragments of his memories alone told him enough about the kind of upbringing he had survived — and that knowledge made his teeth grind harder.

He needed to deal with the Four Gang Lords as quickly as possible, then find wherever the half-bloods were said to live and see her placed somewhere she could be properly adopted.
He didn't want her walking the same road he had walked. Not her.

"...No helping it."

He scratched his head for a moment longer, then clicked his tongue and pushed himself to his feet.

Whether he liked it or not, this had come to a point where he needed people to work with. Subordinates, allies — something.
And not just anyone. Ruthless ones. Merciless ones. The kind who didn't discriminate.

"Conquere. Come to think of it — Whispermere hasn't come today?"
"......"

The girl shook her head, and Kaftin's expression tightened.
Whispermere, who had made a point of tracking his every move — absent, of all times, now?

She would have known he was back in the district the moment he arrived. Her network was that good.
And yet she hadn't appeared. Which meant —

"...There may be trouble coming."

He made a mental note to change lodgings as soon as possible, and went to check the window locks as a precaution.

Then he moved to check around the door — and opened it.

"Oh."
"......!"

A waiter was standing in the corridor, carrying a tray with a teapot and cups.
Directly in front of Kaftin's room.

"...What's this?"
"Th-that is..."
"......"

The waiter — who had been briefed by Whispermere on exactly how to handle Kaftin, multiple times — was sweating as he held out the tray.

"Lady Whispermere said she won't be able to come today, and asked me to deliver this on her behalf..."
"......!"

Kaftin gave a short nod, took the tray from the waiter's hands, and sent him on his way.

Whatever was happening, the fact that she'd had time to leave a message meant at least nothing immediately catastrophic had occurred.

Marginally reassured, he set the tray on the tea table and poured a cup for Conquere.

"Here."
"......!"

He left the girl to sip at it contentedly and reached for the teapot himself — and stopped.
There was a folded piece of paper tucked beneath it. His eyebrow moved.

"Same as ever."

He set the cup down, picked up the paper, and opened it.

[We have Whispermere. If you want her back, come to the time and place written below. Fail to comply, and she dies.]

"......!!"

He had anticipated something like this from the moment Whispermere began cooperating with him — but he hadn't expected it to come now, at this particular moment.

And there was something else striking him harder than the content of the note itself.
They had taken Whispermere — not Conquere, who would have been a far more valuable hostage.

"...That foolish woman..."

She could have handed Conquere over and walked away unharmed.

Whether she had valued the trust she'd built with him, or whether she had felt something for Conquere — an unfortunate half-blood girl — he didn't know.
But she had shielded Conquere, at the cost of herself.

Until this moment, she had been nothing more to him than a useful intermediary and a double agent.
That assessment changed, in this instant, to something else entirely — someone he could not afford to lose.

"...Damn it."

The time and place were specified — which meant, obviously, a trap.
And whether showing up would actually save Whispermere was another question.

No. She was more likely already dead.
That was how it usually went. That was the reality of situations like this.
Kaftin's mind processed it without sentiment and arrived at the same conclusion it always did — assume she's gone.

In that case, there was exactly one thing left to do.

"...This city..."
"......?"
"I'm going to reduce it to blood and scraps of meat — every last bit of it...!"
"......!!"

Conquere quietly set her teacup down and swallowed — and didn't notice that Kaftin's pupils had already begun to glow red.

*

Starting the next day, something strange began happening on the outskirts of Pink Rose Street.
Someone had been moving through the outer edges of the district, coating everything with a large quantity of thick, viscous liquid.

Gabelth sensed immediately that something was wrong. He sent his people to fetch an alchemist and have the substance examined.

"Damn it... too many strange things happening lately. Please, just let this be something ordinary for once...!"
"Boss—!"
"Oh! You're back! What did they find?!"
"Yes sir! We have the report!"
"Well?! What was it?!"
"It's a mixture of pine resin, oil, and several other compounds, apparently."

Gabelth's brow furrowed.
He had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"Damn it! Plain terms!"
"Ah — yes sir! The alchemist said that if it's set alight, it produces a burst of yellow-green flame with toxic fumes — and it won't go out for approximately four hours."
"......?!"

Fire.
Ringing the outer edge of the district.
Who in the world had thought of something like this.

"Hold on — you, go somewhere for me."
"Sir?"
"Get over to the Phantom Fang Lord's people and find out if that liquid was put down on his orders! Now!"
"Ah — yes sir! Right away!"

Watching his subordinate dash off, Gabelth felt his mouth go dry with a premonition he didn't want confirmed.

He waited, hoping the man would come back with good news.

The next day.
That hope collapsed entirely.

"You're serious...? Not the Phantom Fang Lord's orders?"
"...No sir. Apparently it wasn't part of any plan they had."
"...Damn it. Then is this... that bastard's doing...?"

Kaftin's face surfaced in his mind.

Between the intelligence Whispermere had brought in and everything he'd done so far, Gabelth knew well enough that the man was not operating by any normal logic — he was, in the plainest sense of the word, insane.

Not just ordinarily insane either. The kind who could turn into a monster. The kind that made you want to tear your hair out.

If this was his doing, his intention was clear.

"The lunatic... he's going to turn this entire district — every person in it — into ground meat...!"
"W-what?!"
"Hey! Round up everyone who isn't busy!"
"What? Why suddenly—?"
"Use your head! That liquid spread around the district — if we don't clean it up, whoever put it there is going to set it on fire!"
"But why would we be the ones to clean it... couldn't we pass the information to the City Guard and—"
"The City Guard?"

Gabelth clapped his hands together at his subordinate's muttering.
He was glad he'd kept that one around.
Academy dropout or not, there were moments where the so-called education actually came in handy.

"You're a god damn genius!"
"Eh?! Ah — th-thank you sir."
"Get to the City Guard station and tell them everything! Now!"
"Understood!"

His subordinate sprinted off toward the City Guard station.
But he never got to deliver the message.

Because that morning — the City Guard station was already burning.
Burning with the same yellow-green flames the alchemist had described. The color of hellfire.

"Wh-what is this—?!"
"Help us... please... w-wa—!"

In the station's front yard, City Guard members who had been doused in the liquid and set alight were writhing, crawling, dying.

"Aaaaaaah—!"

He nearly wet himself from sheer shock and horror — but clenched his jaw and somehow held it together, forcing himself to look carefully around.

He needed to understand what had done this.

He spotted it — a pile of old drums stacked in the corner of the yard, burning.
Given the trail of flame connecting them, someone had filled those drums with the mixture, spread it in every direction, and lit it.

Beside the drums, the cart that must have hauled them was also burning.

"Wh-what kind of maniac would—!"

He wanted to go inside and see, but the entire four-story building was already engulfed.

The heat and the toxic smoke drove him stumbling backward — and then a window shattered, and the City Guard captain — newly appointed, by all accounts — came screaming out of it, engulfed in flames, and fell.

"Ah—! The Captain?!"

The body hit the ground with a dull thud and lay still and burning, clearly dead on impact.

And his subordinate, glancing up at the broken window without thinking — finally lost control of his bladder entirely.

Something was looking down at him from the window.
Black eyes, with red light pulsing at their center. Fixed precisely on him.

Kaftin.

—To be continued—