Episode
The private room of 「Lilac Vita」.
The eting continued in silence. Every now and then, only the clink of cutlery and Leutern’s voice filled the room.
“How is the wiretap status?”
Outside that room, however, everything was in motion. A far fiercer power struggle was unfolding than anything inside the restaurant.
“......Audio pickup is still unstable.”
In the building across from the restaurant, agents from the Imperial Palace direct agency were drenched in cold sweat as they frantically worked their surveillance equipnt.
“Do not stop.”
The director of the direct agency placed a hand on their shoulders. People as sensitive as they were to shifts in palace power needed to understand, as precisely as possible, where the private conversation might be heading.
“Every word matters. Squeeze it out.”
And they were not the only ones trying to catch even a fragnt of that talk.
The Central Intelligence Bureau of the Western Prozen Republic, the secret police of the Eastern Lobrus Union, the intelligence office of the Itelik Kingdom, the spy bureau of Bolska, even Kanillan’s intelligence service, now reeling from economic collapse, had all deployed their best equipnt and spycraft.
Today, 「Lilac Vita」 had beco an invisible battleground for spies from across the world.
“The mana shielding density is too high. The signal keeps bouncing.”
An agent from Prozen’s central intelligence frowned.
“Record whatever you can, even fragnts.”
Words leaked out irregularly between ripples of mana. If those bits could be pieced together into sentences, and even a faint hint of true intent could be traced, that alone would be an enormous result.
That was how important the two n beyond that sealed room were, Grossman and Leutern, true heavyweights......
......
Grossman felt like his ears were about to bleed. Kents beside him looked half exhausted too.
Leutern II just kept yapping nonstop.
“So I said, hey, what are you doing over there? And then.”
He looked exactly like the loudmouth he was famous for being, but Grossman could no longer dismiss or handwave his behavior like before.
He had already been fooled once by those feather-light moves.
“You should have seen his face, hah...... Ah. I still see it before I go to sleep, seriously.”
Still, he really did seem like an idiot. Even now, it was hard to tell whether this was an act or part of his real personality.
So this bastard had that many faces.
“Ah, and do you know that guy from before? Zipperman. His na cracked
up. How do you even get two pers in there......”
“Leutern.”
Without warning, Grossman set down his knife and cut him off.
“What do you think about Maximilian Ebenholtz?”
“Ah. Max?”
He called Maximilian Max. In the Imperial Palace, only a handful could shorten that knight’s na so casually.
“Max is a really good friend.”
“Do you not think his businesses are too large for him to be just a good friend?”
“Well, all of it is for the Empire anyway, right?”
Leutern II drank his wine calmly. Grossman sensed a strange haze in Leutern’s attitude, this complete lack of caution toward Maximilian.
Did this man see even Maximilian as a blade he could swing at will?
Or was he relaxed because Maximilian was still, in the end, Sebestian’s son?
“But you know, the knights were just fine as they were.”
Leutern’s voice suddenly settled into a quieter tone.
“I do not get why they keep trying to change things. The palace gets noisy because of it too...... Wouldn’t it be better if everyone just stayed put?”
He was just venting irritation, about making a seat for Kents, about all the uproar over hearings and whatever else.
“Every ti that stuff happens, too many outsiders flood the palace.”
“......”
Still, that phrase, stay put, pierced Grossman’s ear like a blade.
“Oh right. Hey, Kents. You saw that guy too, did you not? The one they said was a palace cleaner.”
But Leutern quickly restarted his chatter. His mouth was an engine, and the ssy red wine in front of him was fuel.
“Just by looking, that guy was clearly a subspecies, so I was like, how is he in here? Then I told them to investigate, and sure enough......”
......
“......He talks too much.”
One direct agency agent blurted out in confusion. He had been trying to process the words coming through the wiretap and had hit a dead end.
“What do you an? Let
see.”
The director held out a hand and took the paper.
[staying put. they. that guy. clearly. subspecies. so I thought. sure.enough. and then. ah. but. that was. haha. kyakya. no. really. it was quitean awful experience. still, it worked out. hahaha. ah and. what was it. therewas another similar thing. wait, hold on. give
a second.. . let
think. ah, do not say it! I am thinking. kyahaha......]
A stream of aningless laughter and pointless chatter. It sounded like drunken rambling, but the speaker was Leutern. There was no way it was ordinary nonsense.
“......No way.”
The director scanned the page up and down in thought, then his face went cold.
“He already knows.”
“Excuse ?”
“About the wiretap.”
Inside and outside 「Lilac Vita」, a mana shielding field had been set up, so cutting-edge audio-capture devices would not work. That was why the direct agency used an analog thod, a listening device that detected microscopic vibrations from glass or wall surfaces and extracted voices from them.
“He even figured out what kind of equipnt we would use......”
If so, had Leutern grasped that principle too, and was he deliberately feeding aningless noise data into their tap?
Otherwise, he would never talk this pointlessly for two full hours.
“......He is not easy.”
The direct agency served the Emperor, but at the sa ti, it was a group that pursued its own independent power and status.
“Director, please give us instructions.”
Once your understanding of a person changed, you could not judge him carelessly like before. You should not. You had to assign logic to every action, stay guarded, and respond accordingly.
“There is no choice.”
Just as Grossman had co to guard himself against Leutern, the agency had also tried to read Leutern’s true intent.
The director quietly set down the equipnt and gave the order.
“Pull out for now. Retreat before they get on our trail......”
* * *
That sa day, as Leutern II’s standing rose high both inside and outside the palace, dark night fell.
A shopping block on the Empire’s outskirts.
[No Subspecies Allowed!]
Inside a shop with that sign, Mason Industries private troops gathered in secret.
A kind of command post. A control tower for recovering the forr test subject, 「Outcast」.
“......”
Yet on the rooftop of the opposite building, where darkness lay thick, a woman watched them.
Schatz Heizen.
─Thump.
A heavy gust dropped behind her. Schatz instantly discharged current.
Pazzzzt──!
Sparks scorched through concrete and surged forward, then died against soone’s arm.
Schatz’s eyes snapped toward it. A giant monster, Falkenrat, stood there without moving.
“You have grown stronger.”
A voice mixed with machine noise. A greeting that sounded almost familiar.
Of course they knew each other. The agent who had subdued Schatz when she went berserk in the past was Falkenrat.
“You have beco even more of a monster.”
Schatz shot back coldly. A crooked smile spread across Falkenrat’s half face.
“Quite so ti has passed since then...... But are you planning to interfere with our work again this ti? By staging protests, perhaps?”
Pazzzzt!
Dark red mana flowed from his chanical arm. Schatz asured his strength on instinct.
Falkenrat was still strong. A killing weapon that had grown as much as she had. She could not guarantee victory. If they fought, one of them would certainly die.
But.
“My order is surveillance.”
Revenge was not her top priority yet. Her orders were only to watch Mason Industries’ movents. She needed to keep her reason cold.
If she trusted and waited, the right chance would co one day, without fail.
“Hmm......”
Falkenrat looked at her as if she were interesting and let out a dry laugh.
“Looks like you found a master.”
He tapped his chanical arm as he continued.
“But soon, you will understand too. What we, and your father, were trying to invent.”
At that mont, Schatz’s eyes twisted sharply. Her father had always been her sorest spot.
“Why that look? This great beginning was Arthur. Arthur Heizen. Your father was the one who made
like this too.”
“......That is why my father tried to stop all of it.”
“Hmph. Because he was weak. He threw himself into Mason for money and fa, then once his belly was full, he beca afraid of the future his invention would create.”
Falkenrat sneered, his red prosthetic eye flashing. Schatz’s pupils narrowed like a beast’s.
“......Shut your mouth.”
“Power. Overwhelming power changes everything in the end. Just like how you beca Maximilian’s dog.”
Kuh kuh kuh. His machine-laced snicker echoed over the rooftop.
“Soon...... when the Mana Engine is complete......”
Falkenrat spoke the words Mana Engine with a face soaked in ecstasy.
Schatz already knew now.
While working in the Gennen branch office, she had looked back on the past bit by bit and kept investigating.
What her father had tried to invent at Mason Industries.
“In front of that temptation of power, even Maximilian will have no choice but to waver.”
An infinite power source that replaced the human heart, the Mana Engine.
“He cannot help wavering. It is the technology that can permanently wipe out the filthy subspecies he hates so much from this continent.”
......Izenheim.
Maximilian hated Izenheim to an extre, almost pathological degree. Even Schatz could not tell where that vicious killing intent ca from.
“Schatz Heizen. That knight will choose to stand with us, not with a re dog like you. In the end, he will look at the sa place we do.”
Schatz clenched both fists.
She was about to refute him, then suddenly paused.
She looked back at how much she truly knew about Maximilian.
I knew he carried hatred, disgust, and rage, yet I did not know their depth or cause......
“You are still wavering.”
“......”
Schatz forced up the corner of her mouth.
“What if I still had my father’s original designs and data? That is why you kept
alive instead of killing .”
She provoked Falkenrat like that, but he only scratched under his nose and sneered.
“We do not need that garbage anymore. A far more advanced and perfect true success body than your father’s research records is close by.”
Falkenrat bent his knees.
Bwoooooong─!
A heavy vibration. His huge body leaped into the air. Without a sound, he vanished into the darkness.
Schatz stared quietly at where he had been, then took out the terminal from inside her coat.
* * *
I received an update from Schatz on the surveillance status of 「Mason Industries」. At the sa ti, I checked the date on the calendar on my desk.
Elje’s kidnapping. The clash between Mason Industries and Outcast. I had read it all in a comic before my regression.
So I had been planning to get ready soon anyway.
“......”
Schatz was standing right in front of .
She did not step back. She just looked up at
in silence.
“What?”
“Two-person team. What do you think?”
At her question, I gave a small laugh.
“A knight’s rule is solo action. Also, Schatz, you are a bad matchup against Falkenrat.”
Falkenrat was already a machine-fused body that had gone beyond half-human. He was one of the rare natural enemies who could precisely track Schatz’s electromagnetic movent through thermal vision and wave tracking in his chanical eye.
Schatz’s strength was speed. Her weakness was durability.
“Will you be all right, Sir Knight? From what I saw, Falkenrat is definitely strong.”
Schatz asked in a voice that rarely carried concern.
“......No need to worry. I am his natural enemy instead.”
The more foreign matter mixed into mana, the more impure it beca. Falkenrat was no different. He mixed human blood, mana stone, and machinery, then forced amplification of mana vibrations through that impurity to create destructive power.
My mana was different. Ebenholtz removed those vibrations instead. It refined mana to the limit and operated with unwavering consistency through Flawlessness.
So flawlessness beat filth.
“Yes. Understood.”
Schatz stepped back quietly, and I submitted a [Leave Pass] to the Order.
......
I arrived at my vacation spot.
The location was a luxury mansion I had prepared in advance in the western Empire, an optimal base only a few blocks from Mason Industries headquarters.
“Let us see......”
In front of a mirror, I changed into a Mason Industries researcher uniform. I hung a fake ID around my neck and changed my hair and iris colors.
Since I was taking a researcher identity, I added a mask on top of the dentures.
─Ding
An alarm rang on the Mason Industries employee terminal I had acquired beforehand. It ant work start ti was near.
[ AM 4:45 ]
Their start ti was earlier than the Sentinel Order’s.
I left the mansion. On the first floor, a researcher dressed almost exactly like
ca out at almost the sa ti.
I followed behind him as he walked, yawning. He did not seem interested in
at all.
Step. Step.
Dawn was breaking. Quite a lot of people in the west were walking along the road to 「Mason Industries」. Researchers, laborers, cleaners, and executives in cars all passed by .
「Mason Industries」
That high-rise building ahead, a true skyscraper, ca into view. The tallest in the western Empire.
Step. Step.
At the entrance, where everyone’s footsteps gathered and echoed, I scanned my ID at the gate under tight security.
[ Verified: Gert Vines, Research Building B Researcher ]
I entered the company calmly. Destination, Research Building B. I kept following the male researcher walking in front of .
Step. Step.
As I kept walking, I steeled myself again.
No carelessness. No underestimating Mason or Hector. For now, this was one of the greatest companies on the continent, favored by the Emperor himself.
Ding─
I stopped in front of the elevator. Researchers in white coats crowded in within monts, and I entered with them.
Wiiiiiiing-
Mixed among them, I smiled.
One line suddenly ca back to .
──An imperial knight is everywhere and nowhere.
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