At the innermost depths of the Holy See in Cain, the imperial capital.
Even the sound of the door closing did not linger long.
Here, the heat outside and all signs of people were completely shut away.
The silence that flowed through this place was not “emptiness,”
but felt like a blank space someone had deliberately left behind.
A space where neither the prayers from outside
nor the hymns could reach.
A high ceiling and heavy stone walls,
and though there was ample light, shadows pooled deeply within it.
Here, there were no unnecessary decorations,
nor lengthy greetings.
The report had already begun.
“This is the extent of the confirmed information.”
An apostle spoke briefly.
Several records and simple diagrams lay on the table.
The gazes sweeping over them held no hesitation.
“It’s clear. The object needed for the plan.”
Someone nodded.
Another apostle agreed without a word.
There were no questions in this place.
No doubts, no debates.
The report was closer to confirmation, and confirmation was nothing more than procedure.
That procedure did not exist to persuade anyone.
Records existed to be left behind,
and the records left behind became orders once again.
Here, the conclusion came first,
and the report was merely the process of turning that conclusion into “sentences.”
“Recovery is only a matter of time, then.”
A calm voice echoed through the space.
No one refuted those words.
The sacred relic was not a dangerous object.
At least, that was how it was perceived in this place.
“The dispatched personnel?”
“Holy Knight Adel Hartmann.”
The moment the name was mentioned,
several gazes paused briefly before settling again.
“Rigid, but reliable.”
“He does not question orders, nor does he delay in assessing the situation.”
“He will complete the mission under any conditions.”
The evaluations were brief, and everyone had arrived at the same conclusion.
With that one name, no further explanation was necessary.
“A priest is accompanying him as well.”
“If it’s a priest, what kind of Mirkin does he have?”
“He can read residual reactions and pinpoint a direction.”
One apostle added,
“A fragment of dragon bone we happened to secure proved useful.”
“It reacts with that object, and is sufficient for indicating its location.”
For a moment, someone laughed quietly.
“Even useless things have their moments of use.”
There was neither wariness nor fear mixed into the laughter.
It was merely a light reaction that organized the situation.
The apostles had already reached their conclusion.
With this combination, there would be no issue with the recovery.
“There will be no variables, then.”
When someone said that,
no one denied it.
Those words were not optimism, but habit.
They did not regard “variables” as incidents.
Variables were merely delayed report items, things to be dealt with on-site as always.
And so in this room, it was not failure,
but the very attitude of imagining failure, that was treated as taboo.
The meeting did not drag on.
There was no reason to waste time
confirming again what had already been decided.
The object would be recovered.
The plan would be carried out.
Failure was not considered.
There was no one in this place who doubted that outcome.
—
In the forest, where the sun had yet to set.
Adel was on the move.
For him, traveling had always been a time to organize his thoughts.
And now was no different.
The fact that the Silver Moon Order had intervened had already been confirmed.
That in itself was not a problem.
They often meddled in the affairs of the Empire.
Adel had never actually faced them in person.
He had only gauged their existence through occasional reports.
They were a group that moved where the Empire’s gaze did not reach,
and were skilled at complicating situations.
However, “complicated” and “threatening” were not the same thing.
Adel was someone who clearly distinguished between the two.
The White Wolf and White Weasel who often appeared in the reports.
He had no intention of calling them threats either.
They were merely beings who required caution.
The Silver Moon Order could delay the plan, but they could not destroy it.
That judgment remained unchanged.
However—
there was one variable that had not been in the plan.
The black-haired girl.
As Adel recalled that existence, he unconsciously arrived at the same conclusion.
She was not an object of anger.
Nor an object of hatred.
She was not an enemy.
She was merely an exception that had intruded upon a recovery process that should have been sacred.
An impurity whose intentions and purpose were unknown.
The reason Adel felt discomfort was because that exception had worked.
If the same situation repeated itself?
If the same variable intervened again next time?
Adel did not classify that possibility as coincidence or mistake.
It was simply that preparation, that countermeasures, had been insufficient.
That was something that commonly occurred during missions.
He calculated.
This mission must be brought to an end.
There would be no interruption, no postponement.
The recovery must be completed,
and the result must be clear.
To Adel, this mission was not important “because caution was required.”
It was important simply because, as always, it absolutely had to succeed.
He raised his head and looked at the priest traveling with him.
“The direction?”
The priest took a moment to sharpen his senses before answering.
“It is being maintained.”
“Margin of error?”
“I can feel one, but it poses no issue for the tracking.”
Adel nodded.
There was no problem.
But that was not enough.
What he wanted was not “possibility.”
Not probability, but results.
When the mission ended, the only thing that should remain was a single line: recovery complete.
Any other margin had to be removed, even from the report.
He was already arriving at a conclusion.
Adel bent the fingers inside his glove once.
This mission must not end like this.
Adel withdrew his gaze.
From the priest, and from the faint wavering he sensed in the tracking.
This mission required conditions that would not allow failure.
Adel already knew what those conditions were.
If the Silver Moon Order was moving,
a simple recovery operation would not be enough.
From the moment they intervened,
this mission had ceased to be the kind of matter that could end quietly.
Without slowing his pace, Adel organized his judgment.
The most realistic option was the Arcu Republic.
The Empire had already stationed part of its knight order there.
Even if it was not an official request for cooperation, there were more than enough channels to make contact.
If circumstances did not permit, mobilizing Arcu’s guards was also possible.
The single fact that the Silver Moon Order was involved was justification enough to move troops.
Because Arcu, too, knew well what sort of group they were.
Adel held not the slightest hesitation in this judgment.
In the face of recovering a sacred relic, there was no such thing as excessive measures.
He lifted his head and confirmed their direction once more.
They were heading toward Arcu.
Outwardly, he appeared composed.
His steps, his breathing, his orders—none of them wavered.
Yet within him, one sensation remained.
Displeasure toward the variable that had obstructed the plan.
More precisely,
the awareness that there had been a variable he could not control with his own power.
That emotion did not spread into anger.
Rather, it acted to make his conviction even firmer.
Adel believed.
The sacred relic would surely be recovered.
Justice would be carried out.
And—
in that process, failure would not exist.
The priest was holding his tongue.
When Adel was in front of him, he did not make reports beyond what was necessary.
He did not repeat information already conveyed,
nor did he bring up anything that demanded judgment.
Because there was no need.
He was not originally someone called upon for missions like this.
His Mirkin was not special.
It could neither find nor seize a target.
It merely
read reactions of the same origin.
Even among priests, it had long been treated as a useless ability.
And so he had been on the frontier.
Without ever being entrusted with key missions or rites,
he had merely carried out his priestly duties in the place assigned to him.
The reason he was here now, too,
was closer to the result of necessity than the result of choice.
The tracking was being maintained.
The direction was clear, and the wavering was within the detectable range.
The priest could feel that.
Mirkin did not lie.
The fact that the reaction continued was real,
and there was no error in that fact itself.
The problem lay in maintaining that reaction.
The greater the distance became,
the more the reaction demanded.
Not only the consumption of spiritual power,
but mental fatigue also slowly accumulated.
It was a different kind of fatigue from eyelids growing heavy.
Rather than his thoughts slowing down, it became difficult to maintain the “angle” of his thoughts.
If his concentration wavered even slightly, the outline of the reaction blurred,
and he had to seize hold of that blur again.
The priest did not take this as anxiety.
This degree of burden was within the expected range.
He already knew that when things once called useless abilities became necessary,
such a price always followed.
He raised his head.
Looking at Adel’s back ahead of him, he calculated once more.
He could still endure.
It would be enough until the mission ended.
There was not the slightest hesitation in that judgment.
Because the priest knew as well.
The reason he had been chosen for this mission,
and the fact that this recovery would not fail.
All that remained now was time.