However, unlike the red-haired man who looked pleased, the masked man was calm.
No—rather, he seemed displeased about something.
“Now, now, why the reaction? After all, you’re finally close to achieving your goal.”
There was a faint mockery in the way he spoke and acted.
“That’s your goal.”
The masked man threw something he took out from inside his cloak.
The red-haired man reached out and effortlessly caught it.
“Are you sure? You’re really giving this to me?”
As he recognized the item, the sneer on his face deepened.
In his hand was a black orb densely engraved with spells and runes.
“I have no choice. For now, I can’t move personally.”
“Heh. Don’t worry. Once my goal is achieved, yours will be that much easier to accomplish.”
The red-haired man glanced once more at the orb, then tucked it carefully into his coat as if it were a precious treasure.
“Shall I head to Deshlang now?”
“No.”
The masked man pulled out a map and laid it on the table.
“Just because you go doesn’t guarantee you’ll find Baglos. Even though most of the informants and assassins in Deshlang are directly or indirectly under our guild’s influence, many of them still revere Baglos, the strongest assassin.”
For a brief moment, the red-haired man’s expression hardened—just for an instant—but the masked man noticed it. Still, he continued speaking as if he hadn’t.
“He could get the information he needs and be gone before you even arrive.”
He pointed to a location on the map.
“So instead of you going to find him, you should make it so he comes to you.”
“Oh? And why there of all places?”
“To prepare for the worst. We don’t have time to craft elaborate false intel or spread it to all our sources and assassins. If we really want to lure him in, we’ll need to reveal some degree of truth. And if we’re going to do that, it’s safer to sever the connection preemptively. That spot… it’s the cleanest place to draw the line.”
“You really are thorough as ever. But if that’s how you see it, does that mean you’ll cut me off as well?”
Though the red-haired man was still smiling, the room’s atmosphere suddenly shifted.
A strange mix of hostility and bloodlust began to creep across the floor, as if it were about to devour the masked man.
At that moment, the masked man stood up, and his sword cleaved the table in two.
With a loud crash, the table split and fell to the floor—and with it, the heavy aura of malice in the room also vanished.
“Don’t even think of playing games with me. The only reason I keep you around is because I can cut you down at any time.”
He took a stance as if ready to strike again, his blade faintly glowing with a white energy.
Yet, despite the threat, the red-haired man’s twisted smile only deepened, as if genuinely delighted by the display.
It was not confidence or reason—it was madness.
“Yes, yes. Understood. But I don’t really care. As long as I achieve my goal, the rest doesn’t matter—whether the guild falls or the flames of war engulf the land again.”
Turning away, the red-haired man placed his hand on one side of the wall.
At that moment, a hidden magic circle glowed blue across the surface.
It was a high-level teleportation circle that only allowed passage for a specific person at a specific coordinate.
“But once this job is done, do remember—I won’t tolerate that kind of attitude anymore.”
With those parting words, he disappeared from the room, leaving the masked man alone.
Then, suddenly, a young woman’s voice came from somewhere.
“Will you really be alright?”
The masked man sheathed his sword and pulled a crystal orb from his coat.
It was a communication crystal—and the voice had come from it.
“He can’t be trusted. He has no loyalty, no higher cause.”
Her voice was clear and beautiful, but her rigid, formal tone suggested she was a soldier or knight.
“I know. What he seeks is nothing more than his own twisted desire.”
“Then why rely on someone like him…?”
“That’s exactly why. He cares for nothing but what he wants. So long as we feed that twisted desire, he’ll follow orders, no matter the consequences. Among the fundamentally untrustworthy assassins, he’s actually the easiest to handle.”
A rational person changes their behavior based on changing circumstances.
But one driven by madness remains unchanged regardless of what shifts around them.
“And besides, he’s proven useful, hasn’t he? Not even flinching when ordered to attack the Deceiver of Summons, one of the Hero’s companions. He’s perfect as a disposable pawn.”
“But his madness could be dangerous.”
“Is it about the crystal I gave him?”
She remained silent.
It was the silence of someone loyal, unwilling to question her master.
“Don’t worry. That’s the reason I’ve kept that crazy old man alive. As long as he lives, we can always make more of those black crystals. The only variable is how effective they’ll be.”
“What if he lied to us?”
“You still doubt him?”
“He’s a monster. He murdered dozens of innocent children—and if his own claims are true, hundreds more. He might be lying just to save his own skin.”
“If so, then this mission will reveal that lie. Either way, it doesn’t matter. At worst, it’ll cause a slight delay. It won’t affect the plan.”
The woman said no more, but the man could still sense her unease.
He shifted to a more playful tone.
“Then think of it this way, Anette—if this mission fails, you’ll finally have the perfect excuse to get rid of those two you hate so much.”
“…?”
Suddenly, while deep in sleep, I felt my body lift into the air—then a moment later, a jolt of impact slammed through me.
“W-what?!”
My eyes were open, but I still couldn’t see anything.
When I instinctively reached out, my fingers didn’t touch the softness of a bed—but instead a hard, smooth surface.
And with that, my sleep was broken, and my senses returned.
I knew this feeling well.
This was what it felt like when a wearable barrier was activated.
I hurriedly sat up, drawing up my mana.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
An ambush?
Could they really have figured out my location this quickly?
At my gesture, sigils floated in the air.
I didn’t want to destroy the room, but I had no choice.
With a wearable-type barrier activated, I couldn’t use regular spells.
Not that I was even sure my spells could handle the intruding assassin anyway.
But I couldn’t complete the summoning.
I could clearly see it with my eyes, yet it felt like the gears in my mind had stopped turning—I couldn’t comprehend the situation in front of me.
The light emitted from the sigils erased the darkness in the room.
But there was no panicked or bloodthirsty assassin who had failed their ambush.
“…Baglos?”
It took me a while before I could open my mouth.
What stood before me was Baglos.
He was standing at the head of the bed, silently staring at me.
I couldn’t understand what was going on.
I turned my head, wondering if maybe Baglos had taken care of the assassins—but there wasn’t a single fallen body in the room.
Then why had the barrier activated?
“I marked everything. Now we just have to wait.”
I didn’t fully understand what he meant at first, but I could tell that things were going well.
Not that I particularly wanted to know.
The sigils floating in the air vanished, and I conjured a sphere of light in my palm to illuminate the room.
“R-right. I didn’t expect you to know I was staying here, but you found me well.”
Now that I thought about it, I was still only wearing a bathrobe.
I must have fallen asleep thinking I’d just lie down briefly before getting dressed.
“Yeah. You always said you liked staying at nice inns.”
…Right.
I did say that a few times on our last trip.
But not often enough to say ‘always’, and I never really complained about sleeping outdoors either.
His words left a slight bitter taste in my mouth.
“…But Baglos, do you know why the barrier activated?”
Could it have been a malfunction?
I might have made a calculation error, but I was sure there was no mistake in the activation timing or the method.
“I activated it.”
“…What?”
As I stood there confused, Baglos demonstrated.
“Like this.”
He swiftly struck the barrier with a barely visible movement, and a large crack formed along the surface where he touched it.
“O-oh, I see.”
As always, it was truly awe-inspiring.
Even though it wasn’t the strongest barrier and he probably wasn’t even serious, he managed to crack it that easily.
“But why did you do that?”
“To wake you up.”
…Now that I thought about it, Baglos had never come to wake me during our travels.
Just once, at Lowell’s request, he went to wake Orcan—and then Orcan had come back pale and begged never to be asked to do it again.
“I guess that’s how you did it then too.”
I always slept with a barrier, so it wasn’t too bad.
But if someone had attacked like that while I was sleeping unprotected, whether they dodged it or blocked it, they’d probably have seen death flash before their eyes.
“You could’ve just called out to me.”
“This is faster.”
Fair point.
It definitely woke me up in one shot.
As the tension drained, my legs gave out a little.
I sat back down on the bed and looked up at Baglos.
“…So, did you wake me just to tell me that?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Dinner.”
Once again, his voice was that of a deep, mature man, and his appearance was different from yesterday.
Yesterday he had a bit of a cute aura, but now there was nothing like that.
“Right. There’s a restaurant downstairs. I’ll change, so wait a bit.”
“Okay.”
I took off the robe and put on the clothes I had taken off earlier.
The outer garments didn’t need washing anyway, but the inner layers had been worn for a few days, so they didn’t feel great.
While I was changing, Baglos also shifted his form in the corner of the room.
I heard the rather grotesque sound of bones reshaping, and by the time I was fully dressed, a young boy stood where he had been.
Aside from his slightly wrinkled clothes from being stored in someone’s arms, he looked like any other normal boy.
“Alright, let’s go down.”