Arthur Nightingale.
Even with his near-total absence from social dia, his na was practically legend—thanks, in no small part, to the three princesses and the noble girl who constantly surrounded him. He was a walking enigma, soone who thrived in the spaces between public spectacle and total obscurity. A shadow that occasionally stepped into the light, only to retreat again before anyone could truly make sense of what they'd seen.
Of course, I knew him.
More than that, I rembered him.
He had tried to recruit into Ouroboros once, offering a deal that had been too good, sothing that had stuck in my mind long after I refused. His eyes that day—penetrating, calculating, as if dissecting my very essence—had haunted my dreams for weeks afterward.
At the ti, I hadn't understood why he was interested in .
But now…
Did he know?
The thought chilled to my core, ice spreading through my veins. Had he known this would happen? Had he sohow seen what even I hadn't known about myself? Had he been planning this mont all along, like a chess master positioning pieces twenty moves ahead?
I pushed the thought away, my hands trembling slightly. That was impossible. No one could have predicted sothing like this.
Not even him.
Right?
"You know," Millia spoke, her voice even, controlled, but there was a tightness in her throat now, a barely perceptible quiver that betrayed her rising panic. "Her family will die."
The words hung in the air between us, heavy and poisonous.
Arthur's blade pressed a fraction deeper against her skin, drawing a thin, crimson line that trickled down her throat. The steel glead under the harsh lights, hungry. He could kill her in an instant—a simple flick of his wrist, and her life would end.
My heart hamred against my ribs, the sound thundering in my ears.
No—
"Save my family!" The words ripped out of , raw and desperate, clawing their way up my throat like a wounded animal. My eyes burned with unshed tears, my voice cracking under the weight of my fear.
Arthur sighed, shaking his head like a teacher unimpressed with a student's lack of faith. The gesture was so casual, so at odds with the life-or-death stakes surrounding us, that it sent a jolt of cold fury through .
"Did you really think I wouldn't account for sothing like that?" His voice was calm, but there was an edge to it—a quiet certainty that sent a cold shiver down my spine, like fingers of ice tracing my vertebrae one by one.
"Look closely, Reika," he said, his gaze never leaving mine, compelling to obey.
My gaze snapped to the hologram, my breath caught in my throat, my pulse a deafening roar in my ears.
The image flickered, static dancing across its surface like lightning through storm clouds.
And then—
A flash of light erupted across the screen, so bright it seared my retinas, forcing to blink away the afterimages.
The scene shifted, the transition jarring.
Arthur appeared.
Not here, but there.
In the place where my family was being held, their faces drawn with fear, bodies rigid with tension.
And he was freeing them, his movents swift and precise, cutting through restraints as if they were made of paper.
But... that didn't make sense.
Because he was also here, standing before , blade pressed against Millia's throat, her life balanced on the edge of his sword.
I turned, my breath catching in my throat, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin. "How?" The word was barely more than a whisper, dragged from my lips by confusion and dawning hope.
Arthur t my gaze, his expression amused, almost pitying, as if I were a child struggling to grasp a simple concept. "The hologram is showing a recorded video, after all."
Silence descended, heavy and suffocating.
Then—
"Impossible."
Millia's voice cracked, splintering like glass, her entire body going rigid, tendons standing out in stark relief against her skin. "There is no way a kid like you could have found the hiding place, recorded a video, and replaced it without us knowing! That's just—not possible!" Her words tumbled out, frantic, desperate, the last protests of soone watching their carefully constructed world crumble around them.
Arthur tilted his head slightly, like he was considering her words, a predator toying with its prey. Then he smiled, a slow, terrible thing that never reached his eyes.
"Of course," he said, each syllable dripping with condescension, "for soone like you, it isn't."
Millia opened her mouth—
And never finished.
Because her head wasn't attached to her body anymore.
I barely even saw the movent, just a silver blur, too fast for my eyes to track.
One mont, Arthur was standing there, blade at her throat, his posture relaxed, almost bored.
The next—
Her head was gone.
A clean cut. A perfect execution. No hesitation, no wasted motion.
Blood erupted in a crimson fountain, arcing through the air in a grueso spray before splattering against the pristine walls with a sickening wetness. Her body swayed for half a second, a macabre dance, before collapsing with a dull thud that seed to reverberate through my bones.
I couldn't breathe. My lungs refused to work, frozen in horror.
I had seen people die before, but not like this. Not with such ease, such casual, terrifying efficiency. It was like watching soone swat a fly—a minor nuisance dealt with and forgotten in the sa heartbeat.
Arthur simply exhaled, flicking the blood off his sword with a practiced twist of his wrist, droplets flying through the air like rubies before spattering on the floor. His expression hadn't changed, as if he had just finished an inconvenient chore rather than ending a human life.
He looked at , his gaze boring into mine, stripping away defenses I didn't know I had.
And he smiled, the curve of his lips a promise and a threat all at once.
Arthur reached into his pocket and pulled out a small communication device.
"Did you get them to safety?" he asked.
A voice crackled through. "Yes. The family is secure at the safehouse. Jin is with them now."
Arthur nodded, satisfied.
He slipped the device back into his pocket and turned to Reika, who was staring at him with a mixture of horror and confusion.
"How did you—" she began.
"The cult has patterns," Arthur explained. "Once I identified you as their target, I knew they'd try to control you through your family. So I had Jin track their movents the mont they arrived in Redmond three days ago. The cult's operatives were following them from the instant they stepped into the city."
He gestured to the room around them. "This confrontation was inevitable. They always use the sa playbook—threaten what you love, break your will, bend you to their purpose." His eyes hardened. "I simply ensured I was one step ahead."
He turned his gaze back to her, his expression softening slightly. "I'll offer it again. Will you join my guild, Ouroboros?"
I exhaled sharply, the air hissing between my teeth. My limbs still ached, my body still felt like it had been dragged through hell, every nerve ending screaming in protest, and now this? This impossible choice, this mont that would define everything that ca after?
"If I don't," I asked, staring at him, searching for any hint of deception, any crack in his perfect façade, "will I die here?"
Arthur scratched the side of his cheek, looking almost—almost—sheepish, the gesture so incongruously normal that it sent another wave of dissonance crashing through . "You still don't trust ?"
I scowled, my nails digging into my palms hard enough to leave crescent-shaped indentations in the flesh.
He sighed, nodding as if my reaction was perfectly expected, perfectly catalogued in his ntal playbook. "I suppose that's normal." Then, without missing a beat, he knelt before , his movents fluid, graceful, like a dancer performing a well-rehearsed routine.
"I promise that no matter the response I get from Reika Solienne, I shall not harm her, her family mbers, nor any of her friends or loved ones as an act of revenge for refusing to join my guild, Ouroboros. I, Arthur Nightingale, vow this on my very mana."
I stiffened, a jolt running through as the implications sank in, as the weight of his words pressed down on .
"You're making a mana oath?" I muttered, disbelief coloring every syllable.
He nodded, his expression solemn, but sothing flickered in his eyes—sothing I couldn't quite na, couldn't quite grasp.
Mana oaths weren't things people threw around lightly. The mont those words were spoken and ant, the mana itself beca a binding force, an unbreakable chain. Breaking an oath like that didn't just an losing magic—it ant death, a true death, the kind that couldn't be bargained with, couldn't be escaped. It was final in a way few things in our world were.
I turned my gaze downward, unable to et his eyes any longer. My fists clenched, nails biting deeper, the pain a welco distraction from the chaos of my thoughts.
"Why?" I asked, voice quiet, barely audible over the pounding of my heart. "Because I'm a weapon you need? Because you think this will convince ?"
Arthur shrugged, the casual gesture at odds with the gravity of the mont. "Maybe. Maybe not." His voice was calm, but there was sothing else beneath it. Sothing raw, sothing wounded. "But I know what it ans to drown, Reika. I know what it feels like to be powerless. To not be able to fight back against sothing larger than yourself."
I looked up at him, searching his face for any sign of deceit, any hint that this was just another manipulation, another layer of his endless sches.
And he looked back, his gaze steady, unflinching.
"You want revenge, don't you?" he said, the words slipping out like a challenge, like a blade sliding between ribs to find the heart.
"You want to kill the Bishop."
"You want to burn the cult behind all of this to the ground."
"You want power, don't you? Power so great that the world itself bows before you."
My breath hitched, the air catching in my throat as his words found purchase in the darkest corners of my soul, in the places I had hidden even from myself.
Arthur leaned forward slightly, eyes gleaming in the dim light. "Then I will give it to you."
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