Black Badger

I went up to the second floor of the cabin.

Kairos and Igor were already there. Igor had a hand resting on the sword at his waist. Yoow was still sitting on the bed with his handcuffs on, and the moment I came up he threw a glance at me.

Resentment rippled in his black eyes.

There seemed to be other emotions mixed in as well.

I gave a bitter smile and sat down on the chair my subordinates had probably provided.

“Yoow.”

Yoow just stared straight through me.

“You said you wanted to talk.”

He was the tactician the Emperor had cherished.

The one who managed to meet the standards of that impossibly picky man until the end of the world. Chancellor Jacques never liked Yoow, but he acknowledged his talent. “An unbearable brat, but his skill is real,” was the Chancellor’s verdict.

People of high rank disliked Yoow’s sharp edges.

I never expected that the same sharpness they hated would one day turn toward me.

Yoow glared at me, then slowly opened his mouth.

“How did you come back alive?”

“I don’t know either.”

The memory of intense pain... it can’t be a false memory.

“Everything after that is cut off. You won’t accept that, but I’m sorry.”

“...You’re this desperate because of the dimensional transfer array, aren’t you.”

“Most likely. Though I also sincerely hope you’ll change your mind.”

“Once the seed of a transfer array has entered a Core, you can’t completely stop one from forming.”

Yoow muttered in a low, eerie voice.

“Just like how you can’t wipe out every Creature that poured onto Earth.”

Not good news.

But it would still help if we understood the signs — conditions that make a transfer array impossible, or conditions that make it occur more frequently.

Yet Yoow said no more about the transfer array. Instead he hunched his back and laced his fingers together.

The tactician’s black eyes held a darkness that seemed to show no light.

Those eyes flickered once.

“When a person believes they’re right, they often end up doing the cruelest things.”

A painfully accurate blow.

“They already collapsed one of the Cores.”

“Hold on. The story is jumping too fast.”

“The humans who sided with the Titans formed an organization with a long history. They’re cautious enough not to be noticed by the Elders. The Elders still believe we were the ones who opened the portals. They don’t know every mage capable of dimensional transfer died.”

Ah.

So that’s how they’ve stayed hidden from the Elders all this time.

I never told humans very much. I hadn’t told them about intuition until the war had already begun. I never mentioned that emotions could transfer.

Of course an information imbalance would lead to problems.

It was getting complicated, so let me frame it like this:

During the war, the portals had been opened by humans. Those humans still exist. And through them, information is leaking to Kyle.

But how?

“Most likely by persuading a Badger or regular staff member working at HQ to pass information along.”

My eyes widened.

That was a thunderbolt.

“They persuaded a Badger?”

“Why would that be impossible?”

The tactician answered cynically.

“Did you only work as Commander for a day or two? There are always people with ulterior motives. Your order had traitors. Kyle’s order had traitors.”

That was true.

I gave a bitter smile. Old stories. Yet when I trace my memories, those events feel like they happened only a few years ago — back when Kyle and I served as Commanders of our knight orders under the imperial banner.

The reasons people turned traitor were varied. Sometimes complicated, sometimes simple. Sometimes predictable, and sometimes utterly senseless.

The important thing was this: no matter how hard I tried, I could never see into everyone’s hearts. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Even with our intuition, we often detected defectors too late.

How much harder would it be for humans?

Even if Personnel Director Ju is a genius at reading people... there were far too many Badgers.

I lowered my eyelids and exhaled.

“You don’t know which Badger was persuaded, right.”

“The previous one seems to have been killed by our own kin.”

So they erased the evidence.

“This time the Badger appears to have deserted.”

“What?”

“Not sure if he was caught.”

Yoow murmured in a tone mocking the incompetence of HQ’s deserter-capture teams.

“His name is Doug Clark.”

The same man who triggered the alarm earlier.

“If they haven’t caught him, tell them to take him alive. A corpse is nothing but a bundle of nutrients.”

I’d have to contact them as soon as this conversation ended.

A pair of faces I’d forgotten—or tried to forget—rose in my mind. Sylvia and Leonard. Sociopaths like Yun. Those two normally handled land-reclamation missions outside the Core, but when a Badger deserted, they were the ones who hunted deserters down.

They were frighteningly talented at human hunting.

I remembered them as extremely competent.

The alarm had gone off quite a while ago, so Clark was probably already dead in their hands.

“Commander.”

I had pulled out my phone to check the old deserter alert when Yoow muttered.

I lifted my head sharply.

“What?”

“Prove two things to me.”

Igor snorted.

The knight who had been quietly listening with folded arms spoke irritably.

“He doesn’t have to prove anything to you.”

“It’s fine, Igor. Let him speak.”

I wanted to hear it.

“What do you want?”

Yoow’s eyes were half-open as he looked at me.

The sight reminded me of a large black cat. Tall, lean frame. Pale skin. Black eyes that held no light. His black hair fell to his collarbones, casting a shadow across his pale face.

The tactician favored by the Emperor.

And my capable tactician.

“Unlock the Easter Egg in From A.”

Ah.

“And show me the letters they wrote.”

“...Alright.”

I cleared my throat.

“And?”

“Prove that even though you gave everything you had, you still couldn’t surpass Kyle and died.”

“Hey!”

Deltei shouted.

“Enough!”

The Saint lunged to rip out Yoow’s hair.

“Just get lost! Disappear! Don’t you dare say things like that in front of Hilde!”

“Del, calm down.”

“You can’t say that to a hero who came back alive from a war!”

When I gave the slightest gesture, Kairos smoothly grabbed Deltei, but even while trapped in the Summoner’s strong arms, she kept trying to claw at Yoow.

“How can you demand something like that from Hilde? How?! Who do you think you are? Huh? You wouldn’t last five minutes standing in front of Kyle or Hilde before your head got chopped off!”

Yoow didn’t spare Deltei a single glance.

“You used to wait for Hilde more than anyone! Pathetic bastard!”

“Igor, hold back.”

Igor’s eyes rolled sharply.

Even he couldn’t hold back anymore; he had the blade of his sword pressed to Yoow’s neck, the steel glinting beneath the tactician’s jaw.

Even so, Yoow didn’t blink once. He only waited for my answer.

Every time this happened, Kairos was the only one who remained calm.

Probably because he had no expectations left for Yoow.

“Fine, alright.”

I gave another bitter smile.

I ignored Deltei shouting, “Hilde! You don’t have to do that!” and Igor frowning with clear protest.

“But how am I supposed to prove that?”

“You must have used absorption, right?”

Yoow murmured darkly.

“If both of you used absorption at full strength, the surroundings would have been completely destroyed.”

“Ah. Right. You mean I should find that location. Good idea.”

Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner.

Unless it was buried under mages’ fog or a building had been constructed on top, I should be able to locate the battlefield where Kyle and I fought. This world had something very interesting called satellites. That kind of mark would definitely show up on satellite photos.

And going there might trigger something in my memory.

Scars burned into the earth — as if everything had been scorched to ash.

Traces of a battle where the Children of the World Tree fought with everything they had.

“If you fought Kyle without using absorption, then you didn’t give everything.”

“Oh! Listen to him! Let me go, Summoner! Aren’t you angry hearing this?!”

“I did use absorption.”

Deltei was still thrashing, but I answered calmly beside her.

“He’s not someone you can fight without using it. And it wasn’t a situation where I could have avoided it either. But what exactly are you afraid of, Yoow? Are you scared that maybe, out of sentiment, I didn’t use absorption when fighting Kyle?”

A flash of something like fear crossed Yoow’s eyes.

I didn’t think I’d hit the mark.

But he was afraid of something. I watched him, trying to find the source of that fear, but found no answer. All I could confirm was that our conversation ended here.

This much was enough for now, so I wouldn’t push him. Personnel Director Ju would arrive tomorrow, so I needed to pace myself wisely.

Report first.

After thanking the three kin, I walked outside the cabin to make contact.

***

Once the report was made in haste, I ate dinner at Kairos’s house.

Originally, we’d planned to eat on the cabin’s first floor, but plans had shifted. Yoow wouldn’t run anymore. He would have to hear my answer.

Of course, a broken mind could explode in any direction.

But Deltei had shoved a sleeping pill down his throat in her fury, so things would be fine for a while. Kairos had also asked Milk to watch him, and his house was close enough that if Yoow tried to escape, they could sprint out and catch him.

More importantly, there were things we needed to say somewhere Yoow couldn’t hear.

“He’s afraid you might have chosen death on purpose.”

A space completely unlike the cabin.

We sat around a modern, ash-gray table, eating the sandwiches and panini we’d ordered in.

“It looked like he suspected you were trying to run away—whether by dying or disappearing into another dimension.”

“Idiot.”

Igor growled into his Americano at Kairos’s analysis.

“For a tactician, he sure can’t read people.”

“Even if Hilde had done that, why does he get to interrogate him?!”

Deltei shouted, unable to contain her anger.

“Who the hell does he think he is?! Whether Hilde ran from Kyle or not—what business is it of his? He’s completely out of his mind!”

“Alright, alright, calm down, all of you.”

I soothed the furious Deltei and Igor.

“I want to assign tasks. Will you hear me out?”

I told them what Byung Yeong-baek had revealed.

All three were shocked without reserve. Even Kairos, who almost never reacted, widened his eyes. A small, strange satisfaction welled up in me—having managed to surprise that shameless Summoner.

But I quickly set aside the feeling and gave the instructions.

I wanted Igor and Kairos to receive Personnel Director Ju.

I wanted Deltei to get power of attorney from Yoow and head to the private bank. She had to retrieve From A from the vault.

After solving the Easter Egg in From A, we would dig through satellite images to locate the battlefield where Kyle and I had fought during the First War.

Once I laid out the order of tasks, Deltei and Igor nodded.

Only Kairos sat with a puzzled expression.

I blinked back at those orange eyes, puzzled in return.

“What? Is there something you don’t understand?”

The Summoner closed his eyes and opened them again.

“Actually, yes. Why are you trying to find the battlefield using satellite images?”

“Huh? That part doesn’t make sense? No special reason. It just seemed like the most realistic and convenient way.”

“You could just look for the Phantom Wraith.”

I reacted a beat late to a word I hadn’t heard in a very long time.

Deltei and Igor also froze for a beat before turning toward the Summoner.

“That came to Earth too?!”

“It’s on Earth?”

“Please tell me that’s a lie.”

Deltei panicked, Igor narrowed his eyes, and I added my hollow voice on top of theirs.

“High-rank Creatures were bad enough with the Usurper. The Usurper alone was overwhelming—so a Phantom Wraith? Even finding it is a problem. No, I don’t want to find it. I refuse to believe it crossed over to Earth.”

“Unfortunately it did, Captain. Back when the First War broke out.”

“Wouldn’t it have died in the chaos of war?”

“Sorry, but I don’t think so. I still sense it from time to time.”

Deltei suddenly burst into laughter.

She leaned back laughing, then tapped Kairos’s arm when she noticed he didn’t understand the reason for her laughter.

“What are you talking about! It’s not a person—how would you sense a Creature’s presence that clearly?! And there’s no way it’s inside a Core!”

“Oh. You can’t sense it normally. But sometimes it wakes in the ruins and lifts its head. Then its presence flickers faintly before fading again. Phantom Wraiths love the places the Children of the World Tree have passed, so it’s probably coiled up sleeping in the area where you and Kyle fought.”

“...You’re not bluffing, are you?”

Igor’s voice dropped as he stared at Kairos.

Kairos met his gaze and grinned.

“No. My intuition is unusually sensitive.”

Damn it.

I should’ve been glad to have such a gifted subordinate, but I couldn’t enjoy it at all.

My gaze drifted away from the impressed Deltei and the grateful Summoner.

Of all people, the one to whom I’d impulsively transferred emotion had to be the one with freakishly sharp intuition...

Heat crawled into my ears.

I lowered my head, pretending to check my phone.

“Anyway. Let’s postpone the battlefield search until after solving the Easter Egg. I’m going to the Commander’s house for a bit. Don’t wait for me—go do your parts.”

I declared it abruptly and fled Kairos’s house, leaving the startled kin behind.

All to keep them from noticing my burning ears.

***

Yehyeon arrived earlier than expected.

“Let’s go to the study.”

He loosened his tie and spoke in a businesslike tone.

“Tell me everything.”

And I did.

After finishing, I sat in the guest chair and waited. He would need time to think. While he remained motionless in the study packed wall-to-wall with books, I watched his face, waiting for him to reach a conclusion.

A cool space heavy with the scent of paper.

After a long time, Yehyeon slowly lifted his head.

“Hilde.”

“Yes.”

“No... first, there’s something I want to ask on a personal [N O V E L I G H T] level.”

I nodded.

“Ask anything.”

Yehyeon hesitated.

When I didn’t push him, the child slowly stood up.

He stepped out from behind the desk and closed the study door. There was no reason to—no one else was home. And thanks to Yun’s obsessive security measures, this house couldn’t be wiretapped.

He must have closed it out of pointless anxiety.

What are you trying to ask that made you—

I rose from the chair and approached to read his face, but Yehyeon suddenly shot out his question.

“If we assume you had won your final battle with Kyle...”

I stopped beside the child standing before the oil painting.

Yehyeon never took his eyes off the artwork.

“And when you left the final choice to Kyle...”

He couldn’t even look at me.

“So if the last surviving kin—the last one you would have to kill—if Kyle demanded your death... what would you do?”

Ah.

No answer came.

So I stayed silent until the child snapped his head toward me.

Those large, gentle eyes pulled me in.

Eyes unbearably wounded.