Black Badger

Kyle announced the move.

Preparations didn’t take long. In truth, everyone was already ready to depart at any moment. The swordsmen had sharpened and polished their blades to a gleam, and the archers had stocked up plenty of arrows.

Even so, Kyle made them do one last check. For a while, the compound held nothing but the sounds of preparation.

The sound of oil being rubbed over hands and bodies. The sound of rummaging through pockets. The sound of pulling rope. The sound of cloth knocking against cloth. Low, murmuring voices. Footsteps running back and forth in a bustle.

Listening to that string of sounds, Kyle felt a complicated mix of emotions.

Not something so intense it would swallow him whole, and not something so bleak it would drag him under.

If anything, what he felt was closer to relief.

So it’s finally in sight. The end.

“Nabarate?”

“About the same as yesterday.”

Seshi reported.

Kyle didn’t answer, only nodded.

It was enough that she could manage her body to some extent. Kyle didn’t wish for things to be any better. He didn’t expect it.

We’ll leave in thirty minutes.

“Kyle!”

He was doing a final check on his own sword when a familiar voice rang out.

A thunder-colt of a presence came sprinting toward him at full ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) tilt.

“Let me go out too!”

Kyle didn’t snort.

Instead, with bright yellow eyes, he stared down at Mou, who had stopped at his side.

“I gave you a different assignment.”

“That’s nothing compared to how much help I’ll be on the battlefield.”

The young handler insisted fiercely.

“You know it. I proved it! Meierbold said it too—Nabarate too—that I’m good enough to be put up front!”

It wasn’t wrong.

Because he had grown up alongside Kairos, Kyle knew what talent in handling looked like.

That was why he recognized right away that Mou had been born gripping that talent in his fist. There was a reason Kairos had spared him and sent him back. Mou was capable enough to remind Kyle of the Fire Dragon Lord from when he was young. If Mou joined, the flow of the battlefield would change for sure.

And Kyle wasn’t the type to coddle adolescents. Among those born in the Empire, there were few who overprotected children the way modern humans did. Kyle had started hunting with adults the moment he could ride a horse. Mou had already been able to ride three years ago.

So it wasn’t as if Mou was making a completely absurd demand.

But Kyle had never once, not for a single moment, considered letting Mou participate.

Valdez and Seshi were the same, and even Meierbold—who had dragged Mou into Center Core in the first place—shared that opinion.

Mou wept, bitter with grief at the betrayal of the adults he had trusted.

It wouldn’t change anything.

“You need to think about your mother.”

“Kyle!”

“Sure, you’re a handling genius you see once every few hundred years. But that doesn’t mean you’re better than the Fire Dragon Lord.”

Kyle’s voice was cold.

Mou’s face crumpled, wounded.

The child who had been staring up at Kyle blankly dropped his head, looking like he might burst into tears at any second.

Kyle didn’t pat his head. He didn’t put a hand on his shoulder.

“We leave in thirty minutes. If you have nothing to do, go help with the preparations.”

Mou only stared hard at his own feet.

Kyle gave the motionless child one glance, then walked toward the person calling him.

He hadn’t been cold to Mou in particular. He had simply conveyed his decision—just as he would convey his decisions to the knights under his command.

It was time to depart for real.

As he walked, Kyle thought about what was about to happen.

If we head to Center Core, I’ll face Hildebert again.

He took in the compound—this place he would see for the last time—slowly, engraving it into his eyes.

A view where the blue horizon met the sky. When dawn began to bleed out, the clouds above were often painted in rose hues. In the crisp air, there was no fine dust mixed in. On clear nights, if you lifted your head, you could see so many stars it felt like they might pour down.

A space he had stayed in briefly after waking from a long sleep.

Beautiful, here and there.

But meaningless.

In an extended life, Hildebert and he had circled and circled, uselessly.

Now he meant to end it.

It was time.

***

“Hilde.”

Igor watched Hildebert’s face harden, stiff as stone.

It was because the people who hadn’t even known he was here came spilling out of the building in a rush to face him. People who had set down their swords long ago.

Those who hadn’t received eternal life had either already passed on, or couldn’t come out because of age. But most of those who had received eternal life ran out the moment they got word from the Saint.

And as many as two-thirds of them even showed their hurt toward Hildebert.

They knew their skills had rusted, sure, but how could he not even ask for their opinion first?

They didn’t go so far as to blame him—but those who were genuinely hurt stopped in front of Hildebert.

For a moment, Hildebert looked at them as if he’d lost his voice.

“What’s with your face?”

It was his subordinates who broke the silence.

“Did you meet Kyle before coming here or something?”

“Yeah. Last time we saw you on TV, your face was fine.”

“He did it himself.”

Igor explained evenly.

Hildebert neither denied it nor added anything. He still looked as if he couldn’t speak.

The man who had strolled across a battlefield full of corpses, fire, and wreckage had no one trailing behind him.

He should have had people with him—including Lin. It looked like he’d dropped his companions off somewhere along the way.

Hildebert, who had walked alone through a battlefield where ash drifted down, stared at the subordinates who were helpfully concluding, all on their own, Ah, so that’s the disguise you put on.

“Casualties?”

It was what he threw out instead of a greeting, after a brief pause.

“Those who are injured, step forward.”

“Dead.”

Yoow, standing beside Igor, opened his mouth in a heavy voice.

Igor’s insides turned heavy too.

He knew everyone had come prepared to die.

Even so.

“Valinen, Mesclin, Estes.”

People he’d occasionally shared drinks with were gone.

All of them had blended into the modern world well. Hearing the familiar names, Hildebert’s brow creased faintly.

He didn’t show much emotion, but Igor could tell he was in pain.

“And last—Georges.”

“Georges?”

Hildebert’s voice came out hoarse.

“Why was he here?”

“He volunteered to join.”

Yoow said in a bleak voice.

“I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Hildebert didn’t get angry.

He didn’t shout, You should’ve stopped him!, and he didn’t rage at them for contacting these people and letting them learn the location.

He didn’t shed tears. He didn’t tremble.

He only lowered his eyelids, gloomily.

His golden gaze dropped.

“He could’ve at least shown his face before he left.”

Hildebert muttered as if to himself.

“Did he not want to give me even the chance to face him?”

At the pain lying under that quiet voice, Igor’s brow pinched.

But the moment Igor took a step toward the commander—

Something exploded above their heads.

BOOOOM!

Debris rained down.

Rose, who had been forcibly left on the rooftop, reported through the comm.

[The drones are up again. Five in total.]

“Hilde.”

“Injured, step forward.”

Igor had never seen Hildebert lose his reason in battle, swept away by emotion.

Even when he cried without a sound, he still did what had to be done.

This time wouldn’t be any different.

With a single swing, the knight scattered the falling debris into dust, then issued a heavy order.

“We move out.”

The injured stepped forward slowly.

With an unease he couldn’t name, Igor watched Hildebert use transference to heal them.

He’d thought it before, for a long time now—Hildebert never looked comfortable with transference itself, with the absorption that came with it.

There had to be some reason people called him a degenerate, an unfilial bastard.

But Igor also knew this wasn’t the time to dig into that.

When the treatment was done, Hildebert ordered those who remained to head to the estate.

He said he would look at the faces of the ones who had died in battle once, before he went.

“I’ll follow soon.”

After saying that, Hildebert disappeared into the building without looking back.

***

Ska seriously considered running a deserter-capture squad privately.

That was how fast things were getting worse. An incompetent supreme decision-maker was lethal to an organization.

And the situation wasn’t good to begin with.

Someone who only thought of himself was never going to look around at what was happening. The new superior Colton had planted was trying hard to swing his own power around, taking advantage of the moment when the Elders were consumed by their power struggle.

He brought up the idea of pushing through personnel changes immediately.

So....

“Go with Ju to Core Five.”

“With the Personnel Director?”

Ricardo’s brows lifted.

“Why the Personnel Director?”

“With Yehyeon too.”

The green-eyed man’s body twitched slightly.

Jonathan only blinked.

Ska had called his peers over while they were in the situation room monitoring the small Core situation that had sprung up inside Center Core. He pretended not to notice their reactions.

Instead, swallowing down the urge to put a cigarette in his mouth indoors, he said,

“The new commander is trying to replace the Personnel Director.”

“What?”

“What did you just say?”

Ricardo and Jonathan flinched in shock.

But Ska didn’t add any explanation and kept talking.

“And he’s trying to shove you two—who are close to me—off into a different Core.”

“Well, that part’s not surprising~....”

“There are things in Core Five I need you to look into.”

Since the new Supreme Commander was moving in a hurry, Ska planned to move just as quickly and do what he needed to do.

Before the personnel orders came down, he had to handle the necessary things.

“I’ll send you through a portal. The ones going are Yehyeon, Ju, you two—and William Walker might join later.”

“Why Walker again....”

Ricardo asked, but Ska waved his hand sharply instead of answering.

Then he said, firm and final,

“It’s urgent.”

A knock sounded. The aide got up and opened the door.

The Personnel Director walked in smiling brightly, and unlike usual, there was a gun strapped at his waist.

“Hi.”

The Personnel Director smiled like a daisy.

***

He should’ve just been out fishing.

After vomiting his guts out in the corner of the building, I looked down at the bodies Yoow and Igor had laid out neatly in one place.

One knight who had served under me, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time. One archer and one mercenary.

And one of Rei’s personal cooks.

All four were people I had never even imagined I would face here.

The last one especially.

“Didn’t you say we’d see each other after you got back from that fishing tour or whatever it was?”

I murmured, staring down at the cook whose head was missing a part of it.

“If you leave like this, how am I supposed to face Okazaki later?”

Truthfully, I hadn’t planned on seeing Georges in person.

He wouldn’t want to see me—the one who killed Rei. And I’d thought being busy with a fishing trip was his way of refusing, gently.

So I’d just been happy looking at his profile photo, where he looked content.

And now he’d crawled all the way out here like this, like an idiot....

Bzzzz.

Beside his body, gone cold, a phone vibrated.

I bent down and picked up the phone, soaked in blood.

[C District Branch Manager]

The caller ID flashed on the screen.

I stared at it for a moment, ended the call, then turned the phone off and slipped it into my pocket.

Then I turned my gaze to the ones lying beside him.

“And you. You’re you too.”

People I’d fought with in the First War.

I already knew where they’d been and what they’d been doing lately. I even had their contact information.

But I hadn’t called them.

I knew I’d been a little greedy. But I’d thought—am I not allowed to be greedy, just a little, now? I’d thought that if I fed the Elders’ pawns into the grinder, I might seize the advantage even without your help.

“I should’ve stopped pretending I didn’t know and gone to find you—at least eaten a meal together—if I knew you’d come like this.”

Even knowing they would be genuinely hurt and pride-stung, I had deliberately not contacted them.

My mistake.

I was afraid of losing people, and I was stubborn because I feared that even if they didn’t truly want to, they would still come out of duty the moment they received my call.

“And yet... thank you for coming anyway.”

I wiped at my eyes with a hand—eyes that had clearly been bound by my kin.

“Rest.”

I consecrated them with tears.

After reciting a quiet elegy, I straightened.

I didn’t want to recite any more elegies.

So now I had to go.

Drawing my sword, I said,

“Rose.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The subordinate who had been waiting for me obediently on the stairs approached.

I looked at the subordinate who waited in silence for my order, then said,

“Let’s go.”

Rose nodded, then moved at once to stick close behind me.