After somehow beating down the black sorcerers, Philip treated the squad members with the emergency supplies he'd brought along. Meanwhile, as Hilda and Calton rummaged through the lab...
I was gathering the black sorcerers' corpses in one place when Karen quietly approached and asked,
"Wouldn't it have been better to keep at least one alive, Young Lord... Patriarch?"
"Karen, Karen. Just call me comfortably. I even like hearing 'Young Lord'."
"No, that won't do. You've already officially become the head of House Zahav, one of only three grand dukes in the empire. We have to use the proper titles."
"Tch. I just feel like things have gotten a bit formal, and it's a shame."
"...If it's an order, I'll obey."
"No, I wouldn't make a command over something like this. You're right, Karen. I don't really know much about these things anyway."
Was it because I'd formally completed the succession ceremony and become the patriarch? She was being strangely compliant.
As I nodded to myself inwardly, Karen tapped the pile of black sorcerer corpses with her toe and asked,
"By the way, it's a bit of a shame. If you'd kept even one alive, we might've been able to squeeze some information out of him..."
"My goodness, Karen. You can do torture too, with that soft face of yours?"
I stretched her cheeks from both sides, and the ever-obedient Karen replied in a flat tone while lighting my cigarette for me.
"It's not me who does it. It's Grandfather."
"Ah, got it. Well, don't be too upset. Even if we'd kept all three alive and interrogated them, we probably wouldn't have gotten any reliable information."
"Is that so? Grandfather's skills are quite impressive, though..."
"Not sure if that's praise, but Aaron does have the image of someone who'd excel at torturing people."
"If it's on the patriarch's orders, it would be the highest praise for House Kesef."
"Uh... That sounds fun in its own way, but the premise is wrong from the start when it comes to black sorcerers."
"Pardon? What do you...?"
"Seeing you don't know, this must be your first time dealing with black sorcerers, Karen."
I shrugged and pointed to the corpse of the leader, whose head seemed relatively intact.
"You saw it at the end, right? How his speech suddenly turned all theatrical. That's typical for high-ranking black sorcerers—their speech gets all erratic like that."
"Yes. I heard it's a side effect of accepting the Tragedy God's divine power."
"Huh? That's why...?"
Though I'd caught plenty of black sorcerers so far, I'd never really wondered why, so this was news to me.
I filed it away in my mind for now and continued,
"Anyway, whether it's because of the Tragedy God or they're just lunatics, the point is their minds are as erratic as their speech."
"Then..."
"Yeah. Even if you try to extract info, they just spout nonsense. Or if you somehow get something out of them, it's usually lies or a trap. Some even pretend to spill info to lure you to their side."
So there's no reason to talk to black sorcerers. And even if you do, no need to listen.
"It's much better to kill them first and gather info from corpses or labs like this. That's why we're searching around instead of bolting right away."
"...Something that's been bothering me since earlier."
"Hm?"
As I rummaged through the piled-up corpses and answered casually, Karen spoke up cautiously.
"Have you dealt with black sorcerers before this? You handled it so skillfully, and it seemed like they recognized you..."
"Ah... Did I not mention?"
I scratched my head and shoved aside one corpse with nothing on it.
"Actually, there was a black sorcerer branch in Calypso Territory too."
"Well, yeah. Calypso would have one."
"But, well... They were annoying? Kept clashing? Yeah. Anyway, I smashed it."
"???"
Karen blinked, as if she couldn't process what she'd heard.
Well, I had phrased it confusingly. But it couldn't be helped—I knew that.
To explain in detail, I'd have to reveal that as a child, I'd been sold to the black sorcerer organization as an experimental subject.
That I wasn't actually a Zahav bastard, but a fake... That could get out. And even if not, those memories are my deepest scar.
Even now, seeing black sorcerers triggers panic attacks. Talking about my childhood to others feels repulsive.
Exposing your weaknesses in Calypso was as good as suicide.
As I searched another black sorcerer corpse, Karen, who had just been blinking, slowly spoke up.
"Come to think of it... You did build your own group in Calypso too. 'Lord of the Bottom'—don't tell me that was..."
"Hm? It wasn't anything grand enough to call an organization, but yeah, I had some friends I lived with."
More like an orphan crew, I suppose.
In Calypso, where major criminals flooded in nonstop from the continent and even more people died, orphans were the lowest of the vulnerable.
That's why they banded together for survival, and around the time I escaped the black sorcerer group, I naturally joined an orphan crew.
The entry requirement for orphan crews was having no parents or being abandoned by them.
Then, as time passed and we all grew up too old to call kids...
Some joined crime syndicates, some became mercenaries... Some formed new groups with like-minded friends.
That was my case. We worked hard together, even bought a house...
But once we had the house, the guys I'd been tight with since childhood started fighting each other.
I tried mediating, but the moment I showed up, they'd shut up, making it impossible.
I figured since I was the only guy, there must be conflicts they couldn't tell me about...
Then one big fight trashed our shared house. That's when it hit me.
Why being the lone guy in a female-dominated workplace is hell! Why the youngest son raised among sisters freaks out around women...!
In the end, we split up to live separately, and when Aaron and Karen showed up, I followed them out of Calypso to now.
Having heard my story—skipping what to skip, hiding what to hide—Karen sighed.
"Haa. That's what you call an 'organization'? At least the other black sorcerers thought so. I see. So they tried to check your new group and got smashed instead."
"No? We just killed them on sight because they were in the way."
"..."
Karen clamped her mouth shut.
It was true, but... Honestly, I also hoped it'd plant an image of me as a ferocious battle maniac.
It seemed to work—Karen looked confused. Her expression was blank, but her pupils trembled.
As I inwardly cheered, Karen finally regained her composure and looked at me.
"Then... what does 'End of the Silent Ones' mean?"
"That's nothing much. The black sorcerers got scared and sicced an assassin guild on me."
"No way...?"
"Yeah. So I smashed the assassin guild too."
"..."
"Agh. Nothing here either."
I grumbled and tossed aside the last corpse. Strikeout here.
For some reason, Karen was frozen blankly, so I waved my hand in front of her face, but no reaction.
Hm. Opportunity.
Cheeks already played with plenty—pass. Instead, I slipped my hand between her armpits.
I lifted her up with a swing, speaking in the tone of playing with a child.
"Up high~ Up high~"
"..."
Even she couldn't ignore this. The stoic Karen's face started flushing red.
"Wh-what are you doing, Patriarch? Put me down. My height may be short, but I'm not that young!"
"Nah, don't wanna."
"Eek...!"
Karen thrashed wildly. But with her body fully hoisted, what could she do?
After struggling for a while, she finally went limp.
Her expression unchanged, unmoving. But as I chuckled at her eyes full of quiet resentment,
Hilda called out from behind in a slightly excited tone, perhaps having found something while searching the lab.
"Look here, Patriarch! It might need translating, but I found some documents that look important... Patriarch? And Miss Karen?"
Hilda's voice lost strength midway. She rubbed her eyes, unable to comprehend what she saw, so I finally set Karen down.
But even with feet on the ground, she stayed frozen... No, she squatted down, covering her face with both hands.
I passed the trembling Karen in shame and took the bundle of papers from the dazed Hilda, who just smacked her lips.
Maybe because it wasn't Calypso, they used an encryption system I didn't know.
In other words, important enough to encrypt.
"Good job, Hilda. We've grabbed what to grab and saved who to save—let's head back."
"Pardon? Ah, yes. Um... What about Miss Karen...?"
"She'll recover soon enough."
I shrugged and started retracing our steps out.
As everyone glanced at Karen and followed while avoiding her,
Her grim voice came from behind.
"...Come to think of it, there's a ton of piled-up work from the succession ceremony prep."
"What? No, Jevella sis said she'd handle that!"
"Hmph! I'm just following protocol."
Karen got petty.
...Well, because of me.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A bright windowsill bathed in sunlight. But without time to even glance at the outside view, a chubby middle-aged man working busily shuddered.
"Merchant Lord? Is something wrong?"
"Haha. No, nothing. I just want to rest a bit—could you step out?"
"Pardon? Ah, yes."
His secretary left the office with a bewildered expression. Confirming it, the middle-aged man's affable face instantly hardened coldly.
"The dungeon entry team got wiped out."
He muttered and closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his eyelids unfolded his comrade's path to death.
A blond youth with brown skin. The memory cut off at Enoch grinning ferociously and swinging his fist.
A memory transfer activated only through death.
Pondering its meaning deeply, the merchant lord... no, the black sorcerer disguised as one, sighed ruefully.
"So he's finally slipped out of Calypso. And that outfit... Zahav? Hah. I see. So that's how it was."
The black sorcerer nodded and sipped his tea with trembling hands.
"Well, the one who crushed our hometown wouldn't be ordinary. Even if karma chokes me, there's a line. Now I get it. They said recently a Zahav bastard became patriarch."
Even black sorcerers who knew Enoch was an experimental subject mistook his utterly Zahav-like demeanor.
Assuming not just any orphan, but one Zahav had brought in as a bastard to use as an experiment.
That dormant blood had awakened during the process.
...Of course, a mistake—but the alchemist who could correct it had long died by Enoch's hand.
"Yet even the sun has weaknesses. No flame burns eternally, and no light escapes convergence into darkness forever."
Suppressing past trauma with effort, the black sorcerer curled his lips.
"My enemy. Now that I know your true nature, I can forge the dagger to pierce your heart."
Black sorcerers scattered across the empire shared the same memory and began covert cooperation.
To forge a weapon solely for killing Zahav.
...Yes. A weapon useless against anyone but Zahav.