Chapter 23

Three hours earlier.

Parieri’s old district was nothing like the new district.

Unlike the orderly, respectable streets of the new city, the old district’s roads were narrow, its streets cluttered with propaganda posters and advertisements, and beneath the walls lay addicts sprawled across the ground, so haggard it was impossible to tell whether they were alive or dead.

Although a curfew banning civilian movement had already taken effect, suspicious figures still lurked in the darkness.

Gennadi walked through those streets without hesitation.

Most people avoided walking there alone.

Not him.

If anything, it felt far more comfortable and familiar than the broad avenues of the new district he’d walked through earlier that day.

He preferred the darkness.

He preferred darkness to light, and cold to warmth.

“…”

Other than heading toward his destination, he thought about nothing.

Just keep moving forward without thinking.

That was something he excelled at.

At the dead end of the alley he entered without a moment’s hesitation stood an old, weathered black cast-iron door.

Gennadi pounded on it with his fist.

A moment later, a single eye and a mouth popped out of the door.

The mouth immediately started yelling at him.

“Hey, Mr. Werewolf! How many times do I have to tell you? It hurts when you pound on me like that! Even mimics can feel pain!”

“…Sorry.”

The mimic’s pupil shook as if struck by an earthquake.

Apparently, it hadn’t expected him to apologize so readily.

“R-Right… Glad you understand. Anyway, it’s been so long since you stopped by that I figured you’d been transferred to the southern front.”

“There’s nothing left for me to do there.”

“True enough. Operation Velor Decapitation was a massive success. Hard to believe that was already three years ago.”

The mimic chuckled.

Gennadi let out a long breath through his nose.

Haa…

His apology had barely left his mouth before irritation returned.

During the “Operation Velor Decapitation” the mimic spoke of so cheerfully, Gennadi had lost five of his men.

His expression suddenly hardened.

“Open the door.”

“I thought you were finally learning some manners. Guess not. Your manners are still terrible.”

“Open it.”

He had no intention of wasting any more time reminiscing with a mimic.

Without another word, the sergeant pulled a pistol from his coat and shoved the barrel straight into the mimic’s mouth.

“Aaagh! I-I god id!”

The door flew open almost immediately.

Violence really was faster than persuasion.

Ignoring the stream of Pharosian curses the mimic hurled after him, Sergeant Gennadi Vilev stepped through the doorway into the darkness beyond.

The interior was dim and thick with acrid smoke.

As he pushed through the haze, the bar came into view.

Behind the counter stood a bartender with the face of a mountain goat.

Strange-looking patrons occupied every corner of the room—a man wrapped from head to toe in bandages, a woman with slit-shaped pupils, and others just as bizarre.

Even those who appeared perfectly human gave off an unsettling air.

Perhaps that was only natural.

This was an unlicensed bar open exclusively to Wildmen.

The moment Gennadi stepped inside, every eye in the room briefly turned toward him.

Among those gazes, he quickly found the person he was looking for.

“Tocqueville.”

A pale man seated in the corner gracefully waved at him.

Like Gennadi, he wore an Estan military uniform.

The resemblance ended there.

If Gennadi’s uniform was practical combat gear, the other man’s looked more like a perfectly tailored suit.

His silver-gray hair was neatly styled in a sharp two-eight part, and he wore expensive-looking calfskin gloves.

‘Still dresses like a dandy.’

That was Gennadi’s simple conclusion.

As if reading his thoughts, Tocqueville flashed a teasing smile.

“Hey there, handsome.”

“…How long are you going to keep calling me that?”

Replying flatly, Gennadi took the seat beside him.

Without even looking at the bartender, he slid a bill across the counter.

“One beer.”

“How boring. You come all the way here just to order a beer?”

“What else do you order at a bar besides alcohol?”

“Something stronger…”

“I didn’t come here to get drunk.”

Apparently used to Gennadi’s cold attitude, Tocqueville merely shrugged.

“Right. You came for an information exchange. Think of it as an inter-unit coordination meeting between the Silver Fang Unit and the Fenrir Detachment.”

He chuckled.

Sharp fangs glinted between his lips.

They were far longer and sharper than Gennadi’s—fangs that looked capable of cutting flesh with the slightest touch.

That alone made one thing unmistakably clear.

The man was a vampire.

Tocqueville tapped the bar with a pale finger.

“I’ll get straight to the point. Sorry, but I still haven’t found the information you’re after.”

“What about anything else? Got something useful?”

“…Sorry. Not really. If I’d known you were going to call me out of nowhere like this, I would’ve dug a little deeper…”

A disappointing answer.

Gennadi frowned.

If there was nothing, he could’ve just said so from the start.

The whole trip had been a waste of time.

“…I’m leaving.”

As Gennadi immediately started to rise, Tocqueville’s eyes widened.

“Whoa, seriously? You’re leaving the moment you got here?”

“You said you had nothing useful.”

“Oh, come on. Sit down for a minute. Is that how you’re going to treat a friend you haven’t seen in ages?”

“Since when were we friends?”

“Since at least ten years ago. Who do you think saved your life back when you were still a snot-nosed rookie?”

Gennadi squeezed his eyes shut and let out a weary sigh.

“I was the one who saved you.”

Even though he said that, Gennadi ended up sitting back down. Looking satisfied, Tocqueville lightly punched Gennadi’s solid upper arm with his fist.

“My werewolf friend, don’t be so impatient. Just knowing the whereabouts of three of the Empire’s Four Knights is already an impressive achievement.”

The Four Knights.

The title given to the four mages who stood at the very pinnacle of the Barbaros Imperial Army.

Each rode a wyvern of a different color—blue, red, white, or black—and were infamous for spearheading the Empire’s campaigns.

Gennadi and the Fenrir Detachment had been tracking their movements.

More specifically, they were hunting the newly appointed Red Knight.

It was no easy task.

Even in peacetime, the Knights concealed their identities behind masks and went to great lengths to avoid revealing themselves. On top of that, they traveled by wyvern, appearing one moment in the east and the next in the west, impossible to pin down.

For Esta, it was an extremely troublesome situation.

A single Knight could shift the tide of a battle and overturn an entire front.

The wyverns they rode could provoke, rally, and strengthen other wyverns. If even one Knight led a wyvern cavalry assault, the Estan Army would be devastated.

Each Knight’s magical ability also existed on an entirely different level from that of ordinary mages.

Which was only natural.

Unlike the Republic of Esta, where talented mages were generally content to become lords of Magic Towers, the dream of young mages in the Empire was to become a Knight—or at the very least, an outstanding military officer.

The starting point of their military power was fundamentally different.

Under those circumstances, Esta’s only strategic advantage against the Barbaros Empire was its Wildmen special forces.

Using the unique capabilities of units like Silver Fang and the Fenrir Detachment, Esta continuously monitored and tracked the movements of the Four Knights.

And the strategy had proven remarkably effective.

Thanks to the Wildmen’s inhuman tracking abilities, Esta had already identified the identities, locations, and even personalities of three of the Four Knights.

Only one problem remained.

The Red Knight.

Three years ago, someone new had inherited the position of Red Knight after it had remained vacant for over a decade.

The problem was that they knew nothing beyond that.

No one knew who the Red Knight was, what tactics they used, or even which front they were stationed on.

For Esta, it was an extremely unsettling situation.

Imagine knowing there’s a bomb hidden somewhere in your house…

A bomb that could explode without warning.

Tocqueville’s cheerful laugh snapped Gennadi out of his thoughts.

“By the way, I heard you accomplished something big at Kran Trench. Word is that the Second Lieutenant mage there sent Headquarters a long letter praising you to the skies.”

The corner of Gennadi’s mouth stiffened for a brief moment.

But only for a moment.

“…It was nothing.”

“It caused quite a stir at Headquarters, you know. A mage praising a Wildman? People couldn’t stop talking about it.”

“Instead of collecting pointless gossip, Headquarters should be figuring out where that Red Knight bastard is.”

“Pointless gossip? That’s a heartwarming story. Anyway… judging by how suddenly you took leave, I guess the rumors were true. Praised by a mage… our Gennadi’s really moving up in the world.”

His beer arrived at just the right moment.

With an expression that suggested he was drinking only because he had to, Gennadi took a swallow.

Tocqueville continued pressing him.

“I heard that Second Lieutenant mage comes from a pretty prestigious family. Is that true?”

“I don’t know.”

“At least tell me the name. Anfante? Taragor? Don’t tell me you don’t even know? If we’re lucky—”

“I said I don’t know.”