If You'd Borrow My Blade

The sitting room.

I fixed my eyes on the man seated across from me.

Luke Kedrik.

The second son of House Kedrik — the family whose eldest had been making advances on Princess Miriel.

Quite the handsome face. Twenty-one, maybe twenty-two?

“Hello, I’m Luke Kedrik. Are you Rigen Librata?”

“That’s right. What brings you here?”

“Ah, where to begin……”

Luke flashed an easy, approachable smile.

“You’ve heard the rumors going around, haven’t you? My brother, Jade Kedrik — throwing parties every few days and inviting Princess Miriel each time.”

“……”

“I was hoping you might help put a stop to it.”

I regarded him with undisguised skepticism.

Of course I was already planning to take Kedrik’s eldest apart. First I’d make his life physically unpleasant, then subject him to a thorough review of his character and qualifications, and ultimately hand down a final verdict of: rejected.

But why was this man’s younger brother bringing that request to me?

Luke drummed his fingers on the table and continued.

“The timing couldn’t be worse, could it? An unprecedented terrorist attack on the Imperial Railway — everyone’s on edge — and here’s someone throwing lavish parties left and right. It looks bad from every angle.”

“What if Jade does end up marrying Miriel? House Kedrik’s future would open right up.”

“Oh, that’s not happening. Even as his younger brother, I can see Princess Miriel can’t stand him. If I were a woman, I’d be appalled by my brother too.”

“Setting that aside — why bring this to us specifically?”

“Princess Lisera happens to be staying here, doesn’t she?”

Luke smiled warmly.

“I was hoping you’d both attend one of the parties and help resolve the situation. If the Fourth Princess herself came and had a word, surely my brother would think twice.”

“That’s a bit vague, don’t you think?”

“Worth trying. Every time my brother makes a fool of himself, the family’s finances suffer. Others have tried to talk sense into him — myself included — but nothing’s worked. That’s why I’m seeking help from outside.”

I thought it over briefly.

“If House Kedrik itself wants this resolved, then I’ll see to it. But the method is mine to choose. A duel ought to do the job — I’ll crack your brother’s skull open for him.”

Luke looked mildly surprised.

“That won’t be easy. My brother has already received his house’s Magic Inheritance. He’s formidable.”

“I’ll handle the outcome — you focus on the aftermath.”

I put the direct question to him.

“If your brother gets publicly humiliated, it’ll be a significant blow to your family’s standing. You’re truly fine with that?”

“I’m not particularly bothered. If he gets broken, it’s his head that breaks, not mine.”

“……”

What exactly is going on here?

At my suspicious look, Luke broke into a laugh.

“Don’t look at me like that. Truth be told, I rather admire you, Rigen Librata.”

“……”

“The reputation you’ve built — outpacing your elder siblings, Roderic and Kalbina, to put House Librata at the forefront. That’s what I want for myself too. Which means if my brother loses to you — that’s an opportunity for me.”

Luke smiled pleasantly.

A man looking to capitalize on his own brother’s fall.

I extended my hand.

“Then let’s get on with it.”

“Pardon? That was rather sudden——”

“You’re asking me to do you a favor. I can’t exactly do that for free, can I?”

Luke shrugged.

“I’ll give you whatever information Librata needs. The bomb used in the railway terrorism — my brother has a connection to it.”

“……”

My expression went flat.

Luke continued with a smile.

“You know he’s been throwing parties nonstop, right? All to win the princess’s favor. Naturally he bleeds money every time. But he told me himself — an investment of his paid off big, so he can manage.”

“And that’s not the truth?”

“No. I had a quiet look into my brother’s affairs myself.”

“……”

So from the very start, he’d been digging for leverage on his own brother.

Luke confided it cheerfully.

“This so-called investment of his — I believe what actually happened is that he helped siphon explosives out of the Imperial Military and sold them to someone. Someone who put them to use.”

A transaction with the Empire Liberation Army.

Luke added,

“My brother attended the military academy and served a brief stint in the Imperial Military. I understand he kept quite a few connections from that time.”

“Then where’s your evidence?”

“I have my suspicions. Right after the railway terrorism, I casually probed him — and he went visibly pale. If he’s not an idiot, he’s probably only now grasped exactly what he’s done.”

Luke said it lightly.

“His name hasn’t come up in the Imperial Military’s internal investigation yet. But if it does, it stops being a personal problem — it becomes House Kedrik’s problem. That’s something I need to prevent.”

“You can’t clean it up from the inside, so you’ve come to borrow outside help.”

Luke nodded.

“I also heard that House Librata helped resolve the railway terrorism alongside Prince Orca. You’d naturally have an interest in tracing where that bomb came from.”

“So the deal is this: I take care of your brother, and in exchange you pull together everything you know about the bomb and hand it over. That’s what you’re proposing?”

“Yes. I’ll track down every last thing connected to the money my brother received for that transaction and hand it all over as well. Dirty money like that would only give the Imperial Military something to grab him by.”

This man smiles like a saint and operates like a snake.

He came here to use me to dispose of his own brother at arm’s length — and he’s doing it with perfect pleasantness.

Luke said,

“Oh, there’s one condition. If you do it, do it at the party venue. When I send the invitation, come with just Princess Lisera — just the two of you. On the off chance you lose to my brother, I’ll need a way to explain myself.”

“Agreed. Let’s put it in writing.”

“……This sort of arrangement usually isn’t the kind of thing you document.”

Luke looked uneasy.

Putting his request to have his brother disposed of down on paper was understandably awkward.

But I kept my expression neutral.

“House Kedrik sits at ninth among the twelve houses. We’re twelfth. A verbal promise alone leaves us exposed.”

“Mmm.”

“We’re the ones taking on risk here. If you won’t commit to paper, I’ll have to reconsider.”

I pressed hard. Luke finally relented.

“If you insist, we’ll put it in writing. But this contract must not be opened for at least one year. Please make that a special clause.”

“Consider it done.”

I drafted the contract in short order.

The terms: I duel Kedrik’s eldest, and in exchange Luke delivers all documentation related to the bomb.

Luke read it over with a relaxed air.

“Feel free to bring in a dark elf notary if you’d like added security.”

“We’ll save that for next time.”

Both signed. Contract exchanged.

Business concluded, Luke rose from his seat.

I rose as well to see him out — and in the process, deliberately knocked my knee against the corner of the table.

Thwack!

The table lurched. The fork in front of me flew directly toward Luke’s face.

It was the wrong angle for a natural tumble — I’d added a nudge of telekinesis to the throw.

Snap.

Luke caught the fork out of the air with one hand.

“My, that was dangerous.”

“Clumsy of me.”

Luke set the fork down with a smile.

“I’ll be in touch within the next three days, then.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

I stayed at the table in thought, not moving until I was certain Luke had left the estate.

“Right, then.”

I reached for the bell on the table and rang it.

Amelia stepped in.

“More tea, Young Master Rigen?”

“No, I’m fine. Tell Heinkel I need to see him urgently.”

“Of course.”

A short while later, Heinkel came into the sitting room.

He had the look of a man who’d been waiting nearby.

I laid out Luke Kedrik’s proposal in full.

Heinkel gave a slow nod.

“In my estimation, this is a good opportunity. Forgive me for saying so, but Librata and Kedrik are in very different political positions. If we resolve this through a duel and receive their internal support on top of it, things should start moving smoothly.”

“It’s too clean. Which is exactly why the crack only showed at the very end.”

“Pardon?”

Heinkel looked puzzled. I picked up the fork from the table and tossed it at him.

Heinkel startled and jerked his head back to dodge it.

“See — even you dodged.”

“My apologies. I’ll take the hit next time.”

“That’s not the point. Dodging or blocking with your hands is the normal reaction. That’s what anyone does.”

But Luke had caught it.

Heinkel frowned thoughtfully.

“……I’m sorry to nitpick, but I could catch it too if I tried.”

“It’s not a question of ability — it’s a question of mindset. A negotiation just wrapped up, both parties stood to take their leave, the atmosphere was cordial. In a moment like that, your guard isn’t up.”

I laid it out plainly.

“When someone sits down at a negotiating table, the natural thing is to relax once your objective is achieved. But Luke Kedrik kept his guard up all the way to the end — smiling the whole time, never once letting me in.”

“……You’re right. But couldn’t he simply be a jumpy person by nature? He did come here to negotiate having his own brother handled, after all.”

“A man jumpy enough for that wouldn’t draft a contract.”

I held the contract up and gave it a small wave. Heinkel’s face tightened.

“……That doesn’t add up. Using someone else to dispose of your brother is the sort of thing you’d want no paper trail on. It could become a political liability later.”

“Exactly. Luke never intended to sign anything in the first place. He only did because I backed him into a corner. And there’s a special clause tacked on — albeit one he asked for himself.”

I summed it up.

“I don’t know what Luke is really after. But a man who’d put a knife in his own brother’s back can certainly put one in mine. I’ll treat betrayal as a live possibility and proceed accordingly.”

“Then…… wouldn’t it have been wiser to take more time and think this through before agreeing?”

“Either way I was always going to take this deal. Which means it’s more useful to let the other side think I’m reckless.”

And beyond the strategy — I wanted to help Miriel as quickly as possible.

I let that thought sit for a moment, then spoke.

“Why hasn’t Princess Miriel been turning down Kedrik’s invitations?”

“Well……”

“Her standing means she has to maintain some degree of goodwill with the twelve houses, yes — but this has gone beyond that. And if Lisera’s account is right, she should actually be keeping her distance.”

Enough so that rumors of marriage were already circulating.

And my fifth wife — Miriel’s mother, the Fifth Empress — was not the sort of woman to stand by and watch this unfold.

If even the empress couldn’t move freely……

“Someone has leverage over her.”

“Pardon?”

Heinkel looked startled.

I kept it brief.

“You bring me information the moment I need it. You don’t know everything — but your transmission speed is extraordinary. That’s the heart of the dark elves’ intelligence network.”

“……”

“But I’ve never asked you how it’s possible.”

Heinkel went very still.

He’d already pledged his loyalty and staked his life on it — but this was an entirely different matter.

I shook my head.

“You don’t have to say it. I’m not asking.”

I already knew.

In the Millennial Empire, each race had its own unique capability.

Humans: Magic Inheritance.

Elves: spirit magic.

Dark elves: information transmission.

And celestials: the craft of healing medicines.

How celestials produced their medicines had always been a closely guarded secret.

But a hundred years had passed since the empire’s founding. In that time, humans and the seven other races had lived in close proximity, rubbed shoulders daily, shared tables and battlefields.

It would not be strange if certain secrets had begun to leak.

Heinkel hesitated before speaking.

“My lord — I’m afraid I have to report that gathering intelligence on House Kedrik is no longer possible.”

“The Queen of Assassins shut it down?”

“……Yes. Per Division Chief Orca, all incoming intelligence from within the capital has been suspended.”

“If I think back — you helped bury my involvement in the Crocell affair, and Orca did the same during the railway terrorism. But the Queen of Assassins is not a fool.”

Orca’s intelligence network was, at its root, an operation that played out on the palm of the Queen of Assassins’ hand.

A woman who had spent centuries doing nothing but collecting information — she would know perfectly well that Orca had been deliberately omitting things from his reports.

Heinkel’s voice turned somber.

“……Yes. Prince Orca must have been in genuine danger during the railway terrorism. And the Queen would have known that from the start.”

Which was why she had dispatched Lang Ei one step too late.

But I had already resolved the situation before she could arrive.

“Beyond that, the Queen’s whereabouts have also become unverifiable.”

“Hasn’t that always been the case?”

The leader of the dark elves. The Queen of Assassins.

She moved through an ocean of intelligence and had no shortage of enemies. It was natural that her location was difficult to trace.

Heinkel shook his head.

“According to Division Chief Orca — normally, contact with her has always been possible. A failsafe for when she needed emergency support, in case she was ever ambushed and couldn’t issue orders.”

Hearing it spelled out, he was right.

If she came under attack, she’d need someone to call on.

In my time, the Queen of Assassins had shared her location and situation with me personally, and me alone.

“On the other hand……”

She had always insisted on knowing where I was and what I was doing — whether or not I happened to be with another woman.

The outside world called her a cold and pitiless creature. But when it was just the two of us——

I shook the thought loose.

“So the dark elf intelligence network is no longer available. And even what comes through Orca has to be treated as suspect.”

“……I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It is what it is. For this operation, we use the Railway Military Police’s intelligence network instead. I’ll need to stop by there anyway.”

I’d need backup for what was coming. And the Military Police was the perfect place for that.

But Heinkel’s expression stayed dark.

He was an intelligence agent — he understood better than anyone what losing access to information meant.

I gave him a deliberate smile.

“Relax. If anything, this was always coming.”

“My lord?”

Time to keep his chin up.

I rested my hand on the table and nodded.

“I’ve been moving in the shadows all this time — knocking people around while letting you, Heinkel, and Orca keep my name out of it. But that’s over now. We’re heading into a public venue — a party — and when I take down Kedrik there, the world finds out who I am.”

“Then……”

“Right. No more hiding what I can do.”

The Queen of Assassins had probably already started taking notice of me.

I said it calmly.

“They’re getting ready on their side. So I finish my own preparations and go meet them head-on.”

Pick up the sword from the Railway Military Police. Get the forces in position.

Then step into a party with every eye watching — and finish off one of the twelve houses in front of the entire room.

Whoever sets the terms, whoever decides how far this goes — that’s me.

The blade’s handle is in my hand.