* * *

“Hmm, maybe he just locked it because Van was being annoying?”

“Shut up, fairy. Commander wouldn’t do that. Something must have happened to him.”

“Ahaha! Do you think you’ll never be rejected by darling?! Where did you get that confidence?”

“……Shut up if you don’t want to die.”

At this point, Van and Lydon were arguing in front of Cadel’s locked door. After taking a moment to cool off, Van returned to check on Cadel and suddenly realized something was amiss with the locked door. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer and he couldn’t hear anyone inside.

There was no sign of a fight, no smell of blood, but there was something odd about it, and Van couldn’t leave it alone. Then Lydon, who had come looking for Cadel, joined him.

“So why don’t we just break down the door?”

“That’s the only way.”

Van was more concerned about his commander’s safety than what would happen next. After waiting this long ー only about 10 minutes, actually ー but not getting a response, he couldn’t just leave it at that.

Van, who was determined to break down the door, steps back to slam himself into it. The moment Lydon watched the scene with interest.

“If the door doesn’t open, don’t you usually use the key first?”

Garuel appeared without a sound and stood in front of Van.

“Your voices were so loud I could hear them all the way to my room. I’ve got the master key. We’ll try to break down the door if the key won’t open it, because as Sir Lydon said, he might have locked it simply because he didn’t want to be disturbed.”

With a small smile, Garuel waved the key, and Van relaxed his stance. He still firmly believed it was impossible, but he was willing to try, just in case.

Without delay, Garuel stuck the key in the hole and turned.

Rattle. Rattle.

Instead of the clear sound of an unlock, the sound of a key jamming in a loose hole echoed down the hallway, and after several attempts, the same thing happened. The door wasn’t locked in the first place.

“Get out of the way, I’m going to break it.”

Van, now more serious than before, shoved Garuel away from the door. But just as he was about to slam the door.

Rattle.

The door, which had been closed the entire time, opened to reveal an unharmed Cadel, who sighed as he looked around at his subordinates gathered at his door.

“I knew it would be like this. It just worked out well. Everyone comes in.”

Something must have happened, but the presence of the man behind Cadel was too much to ask.

As the subordinates stood transfixed by the presence of the stranger in their commander’s room, Lydon was the first to speak.

“Huh! Darling, are you taking a concubine again?”

“You don’t have to check your comrades’ faces?”

“Yeah. Not yet.”

“Right. You said you could still recognize them by their energy, so let’s ask for forgiveness when we need it.”

Cadel stood in front of him, protecting Yozen from his subordinates. He even held Yozen’s hand, caressing it and looking at him as if he were a delicate wife, and the subordinates’ faces hardened in real time at the uncharacteristic caution.

“Umm, Knight Commander. I’m already starting to resent my new comrade, who I haven’t even been formally introduced to yet, and I’m wondering why we didn’t have these benefits when I joined…….”

Garuel was the first to speak, followed by Van, who was grinding his teeth, and Lydon, who was not hiding his growing irritation.

“Commander, is this guy the bastard who met you before me?”

“He’s so dreary to look at. Just breathing the same air with him makes me depressed. Darling, what’s the point of having that walking nightmare of a man around? It’s offensive. Come on, get over here.”

Despite their blatant jealousy, Cadel didn’t let go of Yozen’s hand. In fact, he went so far as to ask for their understanding.

Cadel’s change in attitude was largely due to the fact that Yozen was ‘truly blind’. Of course, it was quite shocking that losing his eyesight was his own choice, but Cadel thought there must be a good reason.

And whatever the reason, the habitual kindness that the commander had to care about the convenience of his subordinates also played a role. Shouldn’t he be responsible for bringing a blind man into the battlefield?

“As everyone may have guessed, this friend here is the Shadow Envoy. His real name is Yozen Vardikta. Say hello.”

“Well, it’s a bad first impression, but I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while. I’m Garuel Monzasi. Officially, my body has even been buried, but as you can see, I’m alive and well.”

“……That man is really the Shadow Envoy?”

“Shadow…… What?”

Despite the mixed reactions and introductions, Yozen could only smile. He knew that the men in front of him were his new comrades, the ones he’d be working with, but he had never had a comrade in his life. How should he react to them? It was a question he was still trying to figure out.

In the meantime, it was up to Cadel to handle the barrage of questions.

“Yes, he’s that ‘Shadow Envoy’. From now on, he will work together with us as a member of the Scarlet Scales Knight Order, but I will minimize his appearances to the public as much as possible. We don’t want Yozen’s identity to be discovered. I’m only going to inform the Knight Order that assassins exist, so please be careful what you say.”

“And yet, you went so far as to order me to pretend to be a black magician?”

“You can’t fight while hiding your presence like Yozen. And although demonic energy can be imitated with dark mana, Yozen’s dark energy is a completely different kind of power. It’s hard to gloss over.”

“I don’t care, darling. Let go of his hand for goodness sake.”

“Oh, and Yozen is blind. Please be considerate.”

“Don’t you think you’re being overprotective, Commander? I understand that he has been doing a good job of assassinating people with those eyes so far. Why don’t you cut out unnecessary consideration on your part?”

At Van’s unabashedly hostile comment, Yozen’s head turned. His gaze was vague as he reattached the bandage he had taken off, but Van could tell he was staring at him. His lips curled into a wry smile, and soon enough, Yozen’s voice came out.

“Well. I think I need it now.”

“……What?”

“This necessary consideration.”

To tell the truth, the hand-holding was a completely unnecessary consideration. Despite his blindness, Yozen was dividing everything in the world into memories of the time when he could see, the outlines of objects, and the energy of each individual. Even if he couldn’t see the details or colors, he could picture the shapes. And their locations and shapes remain in Yozen’s memory, creating one giant world.

A shadowy world filled with only what he wanted and needed, and only he, Yozen, could control and populate it.

Because of this, he was able to avoid tripping over something even while blindfolded, and he was able to find people he wanted, and even kill people without being discovered. The whole world was in the palm of his hand, so there was no need to hold someone else’s hand just to avoid falling across the room. This was truly a useless consideration.

But Yozen didn’t bother to correct that fact. He didn’t stop Cadel from berating Van for it.

“I’m not going to tell you to take care of Yozen. I’ll take care of everything, so don’t make it awkward for someone who’s just joined.”

“Com, Commander…….”

Van was surprised that Cadel had sided with Yozen instead of him, and Garuel was surprised that the infamous ‘Shadow Envoy’ was bound to Cadel more gently than he’d expected. Lydon, perhaps remembering an old nightmare from the past, was visibly shaken by the sight of Van being chastised, though that didn’t mean his antipathy for Yozen had gone away.

After the introduction of the new comrade, filled with a mixture of dull emotions such as shock, anger, and jealousy, Cadel, who got the room and handed the key to Yozen, hurriedly crossed the hallway.

The place he headed to was Lumen’s room. With Lumen clearly in recovery, Garuel no longer stayed by his side. Cadel entered the quiet room and sat down next to his bed.

‘I’m already awake anyway. I’ll wait until he wakes up.’

His body was heavy and stiff from fatigue, but his mind was already alert from the suddenness of the battle. If he lay down, he’d toss and turn for a while, and if he overslept, he might not be there when Lumen woke up.

The idea of a comatose subordinate waking up and not being able to see his commander’s face because he was sprawled out sleeping was pathetic.

‘When Lumen wakes up, I’ll give him a few days to recuperate, and then we’ll leave for Yingmar in a few days. I’ll be busy retrieving the Heart of Vita for the main quest.”

It was painful to know that they had to go fight the next demon as soon as Lumen recovered, but if Cadel kept delaying the quest like this, there could have been a setback in the story.

The story must go on, no matter what. Even if despair awaited at the end, it was inevitable, for it was the fate of not only Cadel Lytos, but of Shin Yeohwan as well.

‘It’s unfair that I can’t confirm my sincerity until the very end, but I can’t just whine.’

What was his complete heart and will? It was important to distinguish between his and Cadel Lytos’, but more importantly, to lead his subordinates to the end of the story as best he could without losing any of them. He might doubt his own love, but he couldn’t lose his desire to win. To march to victory with his comrades. That was the only will he had now.

‘I also recruited my last comrade. Now I just have to do well.’

He needed to lead them well and unite them to bring out the best in them. Up until this point, their small numbers had forced him, the commander, to go all in. If he was fighting in the center of the battlefield as the core warrior of the Knight Order, he was doing a great job, but he wasn’t doing a great job as a commander. It was hard to see the big picture.

So from now on, he was going to take a step back and lead his subordinates and get the best out of them. So that no one would have to sacrifice anymore, so that they could be each other’s spear and shield.

‘Because that’s what I was good at.’

Steeling himself, Cadel contemplated the battle ahead.

And around that time. Lumen’s soul, a faint flicker of life, slowly opened its eyes.