Chapter 45

“Ugh, you damn cats…”

All they had done was burden his heart with useless knowledge. Isaac gave each of them another light rap on the head, then forced his heavy body upright. He needed to go home and rest. He should never have come out tonight in the first place.

“Ah.”

Isaac stopped just as he was about to leave. After checking the deserted alley, he lifted one foot and ran a hand over the newly repaired sole of his shoe. He pulled out a folded piece of paper that had been tucked beneath the heel, then resumed walking as though nothing had happened while unfolding it.

This was the real reason he had come all the way here tonight.

The date and location of the Roverni faction’s next meeting were—

“…Oh.”

Isaac pulled to a halt.

He stared at the scrap of paper for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw gradually bunching as his expression tightened into a grimace.

*** In his youth, his mother had frequently berated him with the same tired refrain: How can you be so slow and absentminded? He had long since accepted that he possessed a slightly vacant streak, yet he had never considered himself truly foolish.

If anything, the various hardships of his life had cultivated a resourcefulness that far exceeded the average person.

Others had occasionally remarked upon it, too.

Whenever he accepted a contract, he instinctively sniffed out a trick or a shortcut to see the task through to completion. If he failed, he possessed the rare talent of making it look as though he had achieved a resounding success. And if success appeared mathematically impossible from the outset, he simply walked away from the assignment.

The same logic governed him tonight.

THUD

As he reached the periphery of the abandoned factory, where dozens of derelict warehouses stood in skeletal rows, a mental map of his intended path unfurled naturally in his mind. It was deep into the night. The grounds were consumed by pitch-black shadow, devoid of any artificial light or the slightest trace of human presence. If someone were lying in wait, where would they choose to position themselves? Which angles would those positions fail to cover? At what moment, and along which route, could I move with the greatest security? The answers arrived with unsettling ease.

He navigated the terrain with the cold assumption that someone else was likely mirroring his process. See? I am not bad at this.

Even so—

「*How can this boy be so slow and vacant? *」

「*There is no saving him. None at all. *」

「Oh, our poor Muddlehead. What are we to do with this innocent little fool?」

The three shadows, scurrying with rhythmic intensity around his feet, filled his ears with their incessant, mocking chatter. Now that he scrutinized their movements, however, he realized that even their route was uncannily well chosen to remain obscured from sight.

“Why are you three here?”

「Then why are you here?」

“I’m—”

Isaac’s mouth parted, then snapped shut. There had been no logical reason for him to come here, either. He faltered, glancing away as he heard the distinct sound of the cats clicking their tongues in disappointment.

He had handed the note to the prince the day after the full moon.

The prince had scanned the paper without a flicker of visible reaction, as if he were merely reviewing data he already possessed. He had, in all likelihood, learned the same details from his broker the previous night.

The Roverni faction’s next meeting was scheduled for this abandoned site, with the timeline set for the eve of the new moon.

The implications of both the location and the hour were painfully transparent.

An empty, forgotten site.

The night before the new moon.

Roverni was baiting a trap for their mysterious attacker. And despite the sheer, blunt nature of the invitation, he clearly believed the quarry would take the bait.

One more fact seemed equally obvious: a magician would be present. Perhaps, though the odds remained slight, even a witch.

The night before the new moon was saturated with magic. On the night of the new moon itself, witches brimmed with raw, chaotic vitality and roamed with impunity, but their capricious nature made them unlikely to perform work according to another person’s design. On the preceding night, however, they retained significantly higher reservoirs of magic while remaining far more tractable. Magicians, whose internal states were likewise tethered to these shifts in magical currents, were also at their peak potency.

Could the chosen date be a mere coincidence? No. And given the gravity of the circumstances, Roverni would not settle for an ordinary hedge-wizard. This time, he intended to resolve the matter permanently.

“…”

Kaiyan had returned the paper without a word. He simply resumed his reading. He issued no new instructions, nor did he offer Isaac any guidance on how to proceed. Isaac had lingered for a time, waiting in case the prince had further insight to offer, but as he moved to withdraw, Kaiyan finally spoke.

“Your colleagues were meeting at that tavern yesterday, I take it.”

“Ah, yes.” Caught completely off guard, Isaac answered before blurting out, “Do you always meet your broker there, Lord Kaiyan?”

“No. We do not arrange our meetings in advance. Whenever I step out of the castle, he tracks me down, and we enter whatever establishment happens to be nearby.”

Isaac felt a moment of confusion, but clarity followed quickly. A skilled information broker could easily track Kaiyan the moment he left the palace grounds. Avoiding prearranged times and locations was likely a necessary precaution.

“Then yesterday truly was a coincidence…”

The words escaped Isaac’s lips, almost as a private confession. At that precise moment, his eyes met the prince’s. Kaiyan’s irises were a blue so profound they appeared almost black. It was in that gaze that Isaac realized the man regarded him with deep-seated suspicion. Suspicion about what?

Anything.

Everything.

Ever since the tournament, they had crossed paths too frequently under circumstances that invited intense scrutiny. Isaac could not explain himself, and there was no guarantee Kaiyan would believe him if he tried. So, he had withdrawn in silence.

The prince had said nothing further and his behavior had not changed, but the unease had remained, lodged beneath Isaac’s skin like grit.

「*And yet you still came here? *」

「*No one summoned him, but look at him, coming all on his own. Yes. That is our Muddlehead. *」

「There is a reason we call him Muddlehead.」

The three creatures continued their chattering. Isaac detested every word of it, but lacking a retort, he maintained a sulky silence.

Until today, Kaiyan had never referenced the meeting again. Isaac had assumed that because they shared knowledge of this clandestine operation, the prince might eventually delegate a task. Yet Kaiyan never commanded his presence, never requested assistance, and offered no hint regarding his true intentions.

Isaac had briefly wondered if Kaiyan had simply forgotten that tonight was the appointed date. In that scenario, Isaac should have naturally feigned ignorance and stayed home. He should have been relieved to have been left out of the fray. Instead, he had come anyway.

“The new moon is to blame,” Isaac whispered with a heavy sigh, looking up at the lightless sky. “It stirs up my blood for no reason.”

The darkness of the new moon ignited his instincts. For the past two days, the atmosphere at Blue Shadow Palace had been suffocatingly heavy. Today, the eve of the new moon, even the act of breathing seemed to have ceased in the halls; nobody moved without a pressing, life-or-death reason. The prince had not left his chambers.

Isaac, conversely, had labored through the entire day and now stood wide awake at midnight, devoid of any fatigue. Yet, his heart felt leaden. The note had explicitly named tonight. The location was here, tucked away among the deserted warehouses of this ruined factory. What if he forgot? What if he feels too ill and does not come? He never said anything to me, so perhaps he never intended to come at all.

Even while nursing these doubts, Isaac had come.

Yes. I am an idiot. I am the idiot.

“More importantly… which of these warehouses is it?”

The note had specified only a warehouse in the Alaila District.

Isaac gazed down the long stretch of road, flanked by rows of decaying buildings. The abandoned factory grounds hung in a state of absolute, oppressive stillness. With demolition scheduled for the following month, the workforce had vacated the premises ages ago. Now, only the skeletal husks of warehouses remained, their structures weathered and crumbling under the vast, desolate reach of the night sky. Yet, the gnawing unease in Isaac’s gut had nothing to do with the decay. It was the total absence of human presence that chilled him.

He could not sense a single soul.

Even the most elite professionals could not maintain silence this absolute; it felt as though Isaac stood as the only living entity in the entire complex. The sensation was profoundly, inexplicably sinister.

CLICK

Without a whisper of warning, a light flared to life inside a distant warehouse. There had been no mechanical whine, no precursor of movement—the structure simply blazed into existence. Isaac’s shoulders surged upward in a sharp, involuntary flinch. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, rhythmic warning that something had gone horribly wrong.

At that precise moment, as if responding to a silent cue, a figure drifted from the shadows of an alleyway. The prince approached with the casual, languid gait of a man on an afternoon stroll.

Isaac instinctively took a step forward before freezing in his tracks. For a heartbeat, he weighed the merits of retreating into the shadows, only to dismiss the notion as futile. Concealing himself from Kaiyan was an impossible feat. Besides, if the prince intended to move with such brazen visibility, hiding felt like a hollow gesture.

“…”

Kaiyan caught sight of Isaac and arched a single, elegant eyebrow. That brief recognition was all he offered. Without pausing to query Isaac’s presence, he continued his unhurried trek toward the warehouse.

Isaac watched him pass, clicked his tongue in frustration, and fell into step behind him.

So, he had come.

Isaac had expected as much, though if Kaiyan truly intended to visit this place, he might have at least extended an invitation. Why risk coming alone? This place is hardly a destination for leisure. A prickle of disappointment stung Isaac, though he quickly suppressed it; what right did he have to feel slighted when their relationship was hardly the sort to command such considerations? He exhaled a sharp, inward breath. Regardless, he had no room for such sentimental indulgences tonight.

「I do not like the atmosphere」, 「perhaps we should play elsewhere」. 「Let us go home, Muddlehead.」