The Commander had been confined to his quarters by Lute.
Perhaps out of concern that he might flee or destroy evidence.
Valkyries from the Eye of Odin stood guard at the entrance with razor-sharp eyes.
Most likely until they could properly verify the Core's records.
They would stand there without letting so much as a single ant through.
Early evening on the day the Commander was placed under confinement.
Like a wife fretting over a husband who'd been thrown in a holding cell, I approached the Valkyrie blocking the entrance with an anxious expression.
"Excuse me, could I at least see his face for a moment? There must be some kind of misunderstanding. I'll try to talk some sense into the Commander…!"
"I'm sorry. My orders are not to let anyone through."
"Just a few words…."
"…I'm sorry."
The Valkyrie blocking my path shook her head as if to say there was nothing she could do.
I stamped my feet, bit my lip, and let my shoulders droop.
*There's nothing I can do here.*
It was a natural performance that anyone watching would have believed.
Right. I'd made enough of a scene.
The Commander, on the other side of that wall, had probably heard it too.
Having accomplished my purpose, I walked away from the quarters with a face on the verge of tears.
*Hehehe…. Good. The plan is going smoothly. Next comes the wall….*
I was walking with deliberate listlessness to maintain the emotional thread.
That's when heavy, angry footsteps came stomping up behind me.
*Who on earth walks down a corridor making that much noise.*
Just as that thought crossed my mind, someone grabbed my wrist hard.
"Miss Leila! Just a moment… I'd like to have a word with you, I would."
"Yu— Yubina?"
Surprisingly, the one who'd stopped me was none other than Yubina.
There was a coldness to her that made it hard to find any trace of her usual sloppiness.
She gripped my wrist hard enough to hurt as she fixed me with a steady stare.
"What is it you want to talk about…?"
"…."
"…Okay. I understand. Shall we find somewhere quieter?"
I read from Yubina's expression that she wanted to move somewhere else.
Perhaps she had something to say that she couldn't risk anyone overhearing.
I had a rough idea of what she wanted to talk about.
*I figured she'd come to me like this sooner or later.*
I had the layout of this facility memorized down to the last corridor.
I smiled inwardly and led her somewhere.
*Perfect. This spot….*
I glanced around without making it obvious.
At first glance, it looked like a deserted corner where no one came.
But this was a spot where the Commander's quarters were cleverly obscured from view.
If a window happened to be open, voices would carry just fine from here.
I positioned my body to keep Yubina's gaze from drifting in that direction.
Then I turned to face her, suggesting we talk here.
Only then did she release the wrist she'd been holding.
Perhaps the difference in physical density between a Tanker and a Dealer.
A faint red mark had been left on my wrist.
"So then, what did you want to talk about?"
"Why… why do you go that far for him?"
"What do you mean by that…."
"The Commander… no, that man isn't a good person, he isn't. No. He might even be someone who's committed a serious crime — a dangerous person, he is! So why do you…."
To Yubina, the Commander must have been nothing short of a disappointment.
He had said things to her that were humiliating beyond bearing.
He had shown a pathetic side of himself when faced with Erosion Species.
And on top of all that, he was now under suspicion of a terrible crime.
He was someone impossible to like — a repulsive existence, in her eyes.
By contrast, I had spent the past few days building a decent rapport with her.
I had complimented her ridiculous young-lady speech pattern.
I had trained alongside her and shown off overwhelming skill.
We had fought Erosion Species shoulder to shoulder.
She probably thought of me as something like an admirable senior she could look up to.
And yet here I was, devoted to a Commander she found repulsive.
She wanted to set me straight before I went any further down the wrong path.
*Right. I guided her into thinking exactly that. Well, naturally.*
*If this were a school… it would be like a junior watching a respected senior from the same club fall completely under the spell of some delinquent and go off the rails. Of course she'd be worried. That's not strange at all.*
Honestly, I didn't feel bad about it.
If anything, I found Yubina rather endearing.
If I let this emotion fester a little longer, it would make for a wonderful source of entertainment.
After I became someone even more worthy of her admiration.
If I then went and fell spectacularly for the Commander she despised….
What kind of expression would she make? I was genuinely looking forward to it.
*…Yubina has quite the potential to be tormented, doesn't she.*
Of course, right now I had no time to spare on her.
I had my hands full just dealing with the problem the Commander posed.
I smiled at her with a look of vague exhaustion.
"Thank you for worrying about me. But the Commander really isn't that bad a person. I'm sure everyone's misunderstanding something, but…."
"Ugh…. E— even after seeing this, you still think that?!"
Yubina hurriedly pulled a terminal from her pocket.
She tapped at the screen frantically and held it out to me.
On the screen were photographs of several signed documents.
Their contents were orders for reinforcing the wall and requisitioning anti-Erosion Species equipment.
Movements that looked like preparations for an imminent war.
I stared at the contents and murmured with wide eyes.
"This is…."
"It seems he was quite frightened of the Erosion Species after all. After that last wall survey, he apparently left behind these pointless orders, he did!"
Yubina frowned, clearly exasperated.
The budget was already hemorrhaging into all the wrong places.
Her reaction said it all — what an absurd waste of resources.
But I felt the exact opposite.
*He was doing this behind my back.*
*So that's why he deliberately got himself injured.* A quiet laugh slipped out inside me.
*How thorough.*
Was calling in the Inspector not enough to put his mind at ease?
Well — in an unprepared state, you'd only get swept up in the chaos along with everyone else.
It seemed he had already laid plans to reinforce the wall in advance.
The reason he'd kept it from me was probably….
To make it look like his own unilateral decision, entirely.
Yubina must have thought I was in shock.
She spoke sharply, as if trying to snap me back to my senses.
"That man is a coward like this, he is! So please…."
"No."
"Huh?"
"The Commander isn't that kind of person. There must be something — something we're all missing."
"Miss Leila…."
"I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding too…. Please don't hate him too much."
I took Yubina's hand in mine and spoke in a gentle voice.
It was pure, baseless blind faith — not a shred of logic or evidence behind it.
I acted like someone whose eyes had been covered by something.
Yubina flinched, her shoulders trembling.
Some murky emotion flickered through her eyes for just a moment.
In the end, she seemed to lose the words she'd been meaning to say, and her head drooped.
"I'll… be going now, I will…."
Yubina turned away listlessly and left.
Perhaps she no longer wanted to talk with me.
Maybe she was disappointed in me for defending the Commander.
Even so, now was not the time to cater to her feelings.
I glanced quietly in the direction of the Commander's quarters.
Then I silently calculated the odds of his plan succeeding.
*The probability of success is… fairly high. If he's already had the wall reinforced, it would actually be harder for it to fail.*
Even if it failed by some chance, there was no changing the Commander's mind.
He would only keep refining his current plan endlessly.
And if it succeeded, it would be game over — a straight path to the bad ending.
It was nothing short of a desperate crisis.
*If I weren't here, that is. Good grief, what am I supposed to do about the Commander….*
Then, out of nowhere, a story about a famous gambling den came to mind.
The method for making a novice cough up every last coin they had.
It was simple — give them the hope that they could win.
No one touches a game where they can only lose.
It's only when a person believes they can win, that they're willing to put everything they have on the table.
So the Commander was no different.
Right now, he had no reason to reach for the gamble.
That was probably because I had pushed him too hard, too fast.
To bring him back to the table after he'd stepped away….
I would need to give him hope.
*I may need to let go of a little… greed.*
I looked up quietly at the sky.
A deep darkness had settled beneath the faint moonlight.
It was exactly the right time to do something wicked.
*
The top of the high wall encircling the city was always quiet.
Well — it rose dozens of meters above the ground, after all.
And as a proper military installation, civilians had no access.
My appearance on top of that wall, facing the wind, was nothing like my usual self.
Instead of the uniform I normally wore — a flowing white dress.
A wide-brimmed hat, and sunglasses shielding my eyes.
Sunglasses in the dead of night.
Under ordinary circumstances, you'd barely be able to see a thing.
But my eyes were nothing like a normal human's — I could see everything around me with perfect clarity.
"Good. That'll do."
I peered over the outer face of the wall.
The section that had been freshly reinforced was now a complete wreck.
Naturally, the culprit was me.
A wicked little scheme to reduce all that effort to nothing.
*The time is… already this late.*
I checked the time, then without a moment's hesitation, threw myself off the wall into the city below.
One hand held my hat in place; the other pressed my skirt down.
The city's night skyline rushed up to meet me through the vicious wind.
Falling dozens of meters without a rope was dangerous even for a Valkyrie.
But I scraped along the wall to bleed off speed and landed lightly on the ground under my own power.
*It should be somewhere around here….*
I straightened out my dress where it had gotten slightly rumpled from the fall.
Then I walked without hesitation into the dark alleyway.
Along the way, I bumped shoulders with a woman staggering along, drunk.
"Hic…. I'm sorry…."
"It's fine. Oh — this way is a dead end. You'd be better off turning back."
"Ohhhh… is that so? Thank you…."
I turned the thoroughly inebriated woman around and sent her back the way she came.
Then I walked on at a leisurely pace in the direction she'd been heading.
The gap between the buildings was narrow, dark, and damp —
the kind of atmosphere where a ghost might leap out at any moment.
I walked on for a while.
Flicker, flicker. A nearby streetlamp swayed unsteadily.
Then the light illuminating the dark alley went out, and in an instant, darkness fell over everything like a blindfold over my eyes.
*Here it comes.*
I removed the sunglasses that had been covering my eyes.
Then I brought one hand up to my throat.
Crackle.
With the sensation of current running through my body, the world seemed to slow to a crawl.
And from within the shadows, sharp teeth lunged out in an instant, aimed straight for my throat.
"So this is how you hunt?"
I stepped back with an unhurried movement — exactly far enough to stay out of danger.
The Erosion Species that had burst from the shadows snapped at empty air.
The creature's identity was, of course, Midir.
*This thing was feeding on civilians even before it killed Morka.*
One fact the Commander had yet to notice.
That Morka was not Midir's first kill.
The cause behind the disappearances of civilians within the city.
I had already memorized the victims and the timing from the previous loop.
Finding Midir based on that information was no difficult task.
Right now, it was still two days before Morka would be attacked.
Why had I come to find it at such an early point?
Because — I needed to ruin the Commander's perfect plan.
*If a swarm of Erosion Species appears ahead of schedule, he'll start second-guessing whether his own judgment is correct.*
That would surely create a crack in his resolve.
Of course, this might mean unexpected casualties.
But that was… well, I hadn't killed them directly.
I decided not to feel any particular pang of conscience about that.
If anything, I was saving civilians who were fated to die anyway.
By my reckoning, I deserved to be praised for it. Indeed.
"…Ngh."
While I was briefly lost in thought.
Midir reset its stance and lunged at me again.
It tried to bite, swiped with its claws, stabbed with its tail.
Under normal circumstances, it would have taken full concentration to dodge at that speed.
But perhaps because I was using thought acceleration.
Right now, its movements looked terribly slow.
I was already familiar with its speed and patterns on top of that.
I evaded every attack without breaking a sweat.
"…Krrk."
Had it finally realized I was no ordinary prey?
Midir crouched low and let out a small, wary sound, watching me.
It had picked me because I looked like easy, unguarded prey.
But now it seemed to have decided to fight in earnest.
*Let's finish this quickly. No need to drag it out.*
The surroundings were darkness without even moonlight to pierce it.
In other words, this was unmistakably Midir's domain.
There was no predicting where it might spring from next.
But there was no need to worry.
At my current thinking speed, seeing it and reacting in time was no problem at all.
I held my palm out toward Midir's face as it lunged from behind.
"Shock Thunder."
The technique I had used the first time I fought this creature.
Short range, but a bolt of lightning that scorched a wide area.
Pale blue lightning split apart in small arcs and burned the skin grotesquely.
"Kiiiieeek!"
Midir shrieked and writhed in agony.
It had always been terribly weak to pain and suffering, this one.
It rolled across the ground a few times, then fled frantically back into the shadows.
After Midir's presence had vanished entirely.
I crouched down right where I stood and pinched my nose shut.
Trance had ended, and the recoil was already rising.
"A nosebleed is a bit unsightly…. Coughing up blood would be more aesthetically pleasing."
A heave.
It felt like a piece of my lifespan had been carved away.
Effective, certainly. But still not a technique I could use casually.
I wiped the blood away roughly, then forced my hunched body upright.
*So then… only one thing left.*
Would the Commander take the bait?
With a heart full of anxious anticipation, I made my way back to the quarters, each step a little lighter than the last.