Chapter 151

Cracking the Egg

The Arken Empire’s Emergency Response Council.

It was an organization convened during times of crisis to address grave matters that threatened the very foundation of the Empire.

The council consisted of five chief commissioners and conducted postmortems to determine how an incident had unfolded and who bore responsibility for it.

The capital of the Arken Empire had remained peaceful and suffered no damage.

That was because the advancing monsters had been wiped out in a single stroke.

As a result, many people likely regarded the incident as little more than a minor disturbance.

The truth, however, was that an entire legion had been annihilated.

Alexander had attempted to send reinforcements, but those seeking to evade responsibility had only made the situation worse.

Alexander had made those who used illness as an excuse to avoid deployment genuinely ill.

On the charge of causing a plague within the Empire, he had beheaded not only the individuals involved but their entire families, then had their bodies cremated on the spot.

No, I suppose they did not remain ill for very long.

In any case, Alexander had been driven into a corner.

The disaster had not resulted from a fierce battle or an overwhelming difference in military strength.

It had clearly been caused by a blunder born of ignorance.

There was no avoiding blame or responsibility for it.

Ferda had been summoned as a witness regarding the incident.

“Crown Prince Alexander has been backed into a corner.”

Isabella said this, and Ferda responded reflexively.

“Probably not.”

Isabella tilted her head.

The hearing was clearly meant to hold Alexander accountable, so what did Ferda mean?

“What are you saying?”

“There is a high probability that this is a trap meant for me.”

“A trap for you, Regent?”

Ferda explained their likely intentions.

“At first, they will discuss Alexander. They will ask how the incident occurred and make it appear as though the meeting is proceeding toward determining fault.”

“And then?”

“Then someone will suddenly argue that the responsibility lies elsewhere. Who do you think is close enough to be blamed?”

“The incompetent operations staff would be…”

Isabella’s eyes moved toward Ferda.

“You, Regent.”

“That is probably how it will unfold.”

This sort of thing happened frequently whenever responsibility had to be assigned to a high-ranking official.

And since the person involved was the Crown Prince, there was little room for doubt.

Ferda had experienced such situations several times before.

At first, the discussion would seem to proceed smoothly.

Then someone would begin suggesting that the true culprit lay elsewhere, before subtly turning toward Ferda and asking whether he might be responsible.

Initially, Ferda had responded rationally.

But as the atmosphere in the meeting hall grew more heated, they had attempted to place all responsibility upon him.

And what had happened then?

I took the head of the man who tried to frame me.

The room had fallen silent immediately.

At the time, Ferda had recently subdued the Imperial Court Mage, so he had possessed enough influence to act recklessly.

Aside from the man who had screamed accusations at him, no one had been willing to risk their own neck by continuing the confrontation.

It would be convenient if I could kill them like I did back then.

There was such a simple method of resolving the matter, yet he could not use it.

Ferda found that regrettable.

Isabella considered his words repeatedly.

“Admittedly, even I am astonished by how absurdly fast the territory has developed. Even so, you are the Regent of a Princeps Territory and the mate of a Red Dragon. Would they truly dare act so shamelessly?”

“Even if they do not intend it from the beginning, the discussion will probably flow in that direction.”

The Empire knew that Valdrova was easy to exploit.

It had used that fact to throw a title at her, dump a worthless fiancé upon her as an excuse, and treat her like a guard dog.

Now that Ferda was turning that wasteland into a treasure, the Empire could not help but resent him.

The Arken Empire desired strong central authority and could not tolerate the growth of its provinces.

“And the answer becomes obvious when you look here.”

“Ah.”

Ferda pointed to the list of those summoned to the emergency council.

One name was written there.

Erdes Roton, President of the Cerdes Magic Association.

The head of the continent’s greatest magical organization had become involved in an imperial matter.

After seeing the name, Isabella nodded in understanding.

“To think Lady Erdes would involve herself in such a troublesome proceeding.”

“Indeed.”

One might have wondered what right she had to interfere, but she was the one who had wiped out the monsters advancing upon the Empire.

Erdes Roton, a seventh-circle archmage, had summoned a meteor shower from the sky and annihilated an army of twenty thousand monsters.

That was more than enough to earn her the right to speak.

She may not wield absolute influence, but no one will dare ignore her.

Ferda knew that Erdes had joined the council with the intention of ruining him.

He could not remain idle.

I need a countermeasure.

And what would that require?

Information and strategy.

Information was a weapon, while strategy was the martial art used to wield it.

The two were mutually dependent, and when properly balanced, they could produce dramatic results.

Do we have anyone capable of handling this well?

“…You seem to dislike the idea greatly.”

Mori was a slave sage who possessed the Universal Archive.

Because she lacked the ability to think independently, she was more of a weapon than a strategist.

Besides, her abilities are poorly suited to the present situation.

Mori presented objective information based on data.

Her argument that Olivia deserved forty-five percent of the credit had failed to persuade anyone, so this was not a situation in which that kind of logic would matter.

Ferda needed people who could continuously monitor developments through their information networks and extract useful intelligence with flexibility.

He knew an organization that excelled at precisely that.

The Black Bandana.

Every time Ferda had employed them, they had proven their skill.

Not once had they failed to live up to their reputation.

The problem was—

Their fee.

The price of the Black Bandana’s intelligence varied according to scale and difficulty.

Because of their exceptional skill, the cost rose exponentially as the scope of a request increased.

This affair concerned nearly the entire Empire and required delving into its deepest inner workings.

They might demand an amount so enormous that selling one nation would not be enough to save another.

If I make a careless proposal, I may only reveal how desperate I am.

Even when standing at the edge of a cliff, he had to remain proud until the very end.

That was the kind of battle Ferda had to fight.

“What about simply refusing to attend?”

Luri, who had been listening, handed him some tea and offered the suggestion.

It was one of the possibilities Ferda had already considered.

He could insist that he was too busy and decline to attend.

If the person they intended to interrogate was absent, then even if they named him, he might be able to delay matters.

“As this is a postwar hearing and you played such a major role, it would be difficult to avoid attending by claiming to be occupied with state affairs.”

“And if I lose the opportunity to defend myself, they will only tear into me more viciously.”

If someone sank their teeth into your flesh and you did not bark, then you were no different from a piece of meat.

To survive, you had to bark.

More than that, you had to bite back and assert yourself so forcefully that they would never dare touch you again.

At that moment, someone knocked on the open door.

“Regent, may I come in?”

It was Zed’s voice.

“What is it?”

“Well… Bucktooth says she wants to see you.”

“Bucktooth?”

“Garnet. The head of the Black Bandana.”

Now that Ferda thought about it, Zed had called her Bucktooth when they first met.

The nickname had probably come from her crooked teeth, sharp fangs, and dark complexion.

Still, the timing was remarkably convenient.

She had appeared just as he was thinking about how much he needed her organization.

In any case, this was a good beginning.

He needed them, but there was a world of difference between them coming to him first and Ferda summoning them himself.

“Tell her to come in.”

Ferda prepared to receive his guest.

***

With Ferda’s permission, Garnet entered the room.

“I greet the Regent and the Administrator. Please accept my sincere congratulations on your overwhelming victory in the recent subjugation campaign.”

Garnet bowed politely.

Because Zed had called her Bucktooth, Ferda found his eyes drawn to her crooked teeth.

“Have you come to discuss the postmortem?”

Ferda went straight to the point.

“Yes.”

“Then you must also know that I am the prey.”

“Of course.”

For the greatest intelligence organization on the continent, learning that much would have been trivial.

“So, have you come to squeeze more money out of me?”

“It is true that our organization charges according to the scale and depth of the information requested. However, the purpose of this visit has little to do with business.”

As Garnet spoke, she took out a book and placed it on the table.

“Would you please take a look at this?”

Ferda picked it up and opened it.

The moment he saw the first page, he had to concentrate on suppressing his shock.

The pages were faded and yellowed in places, but their contents were unmistakably clear.

Isabella, who was examining the document beside him, stared at Garnet in surprise.

“Aren’t these the personal records of the Black Bandana’s highest-ranking executives?”

The book contained far more than their names and faces.

It detailed the identities they were assuming, where they were operating, their complete histories, and even clues that could be used to track them down.

Garnet had exposed all of it.

Calling it reckless would not have been enough.

It was sheer madness.

There was no need to ask whether the information was true or false.

Garnet said,

“With this, we have crossed the first stage.”

“What stage?”

“Cracking the Egg.”

Secrecy was the shell that protected a secret organization.

Garnet had forcibly shattered that protective shell and exposed what lay within to the outside world.

Now that its contents had been revealed, there was no turning back.

“To put it simply, the Black Bandana is beginning the process of dissolution.”

By abandoning secrecy, it would lose its neutrality.

And once its neutrality disappeared, the Black Bandana would lose the very reason for its existence.

“Beginning today, we will reorganize ourselves as the intelligence division of the Far East—the Princeps Territory of Valdrova—and swear our loyalty to it.”

Her declaration left Ferda bewildered.

A glance at Isabella revealed that she seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Why were these people doing something like this?

“That is an extraordinarily reckless thing to do.”

Ferda tossed the document back onto the table.

“What will you do if I refuse? What crime have the people listed here committed that they should die for it?”

“That is precisely what Cracking the Egg means. Once an egg has been broken, if what emerges is an immature chick, then it simply dies. The Black Bandana’s teams will have no choice but to disband and scatter.”

Garnet spoke of that immature chick as though it were someone else.

They were the greatest secret intelligence organization in existence, with a network spread across the entire continent.

Their disappearance would be no different from an entire nation vanishing.

She must have deliberately chosen this order.

Had Garnet first said that she was offering the records as proof of loyalty, Ferda would have been far more suspicious.

As things stood, he could only conclude that they were fully prepared for the consequences.

“Are you saying that after dissolving the Black Bandana, you want me to accept all of you as my vassals?”

“No. We will be loyal to you, but if we desired cumbersome titles and positions, we would never have gone this far.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Do you know of shadow knights?”

“I know them well.”

They were knights who went beyond chivalry in order to preserve it.

Unlike conventional knights, who became the public face of honorable wars and duels, shadow knights operated from the darkness, carrying out assassinations and acts of sabotage.

And every knight denied their existence.

Most despised the contradiction of attaching the name knight to such people despite knowing what they did.

The remaining minority understood and respected their necessity, yet still had no choice but to deny them.

Ferda belonged to that minority.

The honor of knights and the brilliance of crowns existed only because others silently protected them from behind.

“The stronger the light, the darker the shadow it casts. Beneath absolute power, filthy and dishonorable schemes move without end. That is the purpose of those who serve in the shadows.”

“You want to become the shadow arm of the Princeps Territory of Valdrova?”

“Yes.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

More precisely, Ferda could not understand it.

They would receive no honor.

They would possess no visible authority.

And if their trail was ever discovered, they would have to be severed without hesitation.

It was a duty too harsh to endure through a simple sense of responsibility alone.

If Garnet truly felt such responsibility, she needed to explain why.

“This is the calling of my family.”

Garnet continued.

“The founder of the Black Bandana was Mendel Bandana, the first Director of Intelligence of the Arken Empire. I came here to carry on his will.”

Suspecting that this might be true, Ferda sent a telepathic message to Mori.

Even information recorded only in paper documents, no matter how secret, could not escape her Universal Archive.

—The name Mendel Bandana appears in records dating from before the founding of the Arken Empire. After that point, he is not recorded in any form.

He had truly existed.

And the fact that he had failed to leave his name upon even a single page of history meant that he had willingly accepted the filth of his work without seeking honor.

Ferda’s question then shifted to the next point.

“What was his will?”

Mendel Bandana had performed dirty work for the sake of the Arken Empire.

Ferda, meanwhile, wished for the present Empire to collapse.

Would that not render the work of Garnet’s ancestor meaningless?

“The founding ideal of the Arken Empire was to create a land for humanity. My ancestor warned that this purpose might one day become distorted and instructed his descendants to correct it if that happened.”

The slogan attached to the present Empire was the arrogant declaration:

There is no land we cannot conquer.

“In accordance with our ancestor’s warning, the Empire began changing with each passing generation. We advised it repeatedly and showed it the will of the people, but we failed to set it right.”

The Empire had grown ever stronger and more arrogant.

Had it not ultimately reached the point of treating a dragon like a dog?

“So you intend to take revenge upon an Empire that refused to listen?”

“This is not revenge. It is assistance.”

Garnet answered without hesitation.

“If stagnant water has rotted inside a jar and hardened to the point that no opening can be made to drain it, then the correct course is to break the jar.”

One thing was now certain.

Her objective aligned with Ferda’s.

He considered the matter again.

He could feel himself becoming more inclined to accept than before.

But she is an information broker.

An information broker whose organization had sworn never to sell a lie.

They had maintained their reputation by allowing no excuses whatsoever.

That was precisely what Ferda feared most.

What if he stood beside them, trusting only the towering reputation they had built, and that foundation collapsed beneath him?

Would Ferda be able to maintain his reason once that chain of events began?

He asked one final question.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because you will have no other choice.”

Garnet spoke firmly.

“The Empire will use this incident as justification to begin interfering directly in the Far East. That interference may halt its progress. You have endured everything thus far, but you will not be able to continue doing so forever.”

Building a nation was like stacking a tower of stones.

The higher it rose, the more difficult the work became.

Yet it could collapse in a single instant.

Evil spread easily.

Good was difficult to preserve.

“And if you fail to withstand it, then we will die alongside you.”

The neutral secret organization had abandoned its neutrality and exposed its secrets.

Ferda could now use that knowledge as leverage against them.

By revealing their own weakness, they had bound their fate to his and promised to prove their worth through their abilities.

For that purpose, Garnet had boldly shattered the egg.

“Then tell me.”

Ferda looked at her.

“What kind of place must I prepare for those who will serve in the shadows?”