Footsteps echoed along the walls of the underground waterway. Ivan idly surveyed terrain that had become thoroughly familiar by now and asked,

"Can we finish this during the break?"

"What?"

"I asked whether this mission can be completed in roughly a month and a half."

Ivan sighed at Enrique's puzzled tilt of the head. Connections from her days in the Hero's Party might have gotten her the job, but she was nonetheless a regular professor in the Knight Department. Yet she had abruptly vanished during the semester, ostensibly on a mission, and remained missing well into the break. Anyone who wasn't a former member of the Hero's Party would naturally have been dismissed.

Such conduct showed no sense of professional duty whatsoever. Ivan was the university's gardener, and therefore obliged to report for work during the semester. A university gardener even drew a salary, after all.

"If you mean the distance, that's no problem. If you mean the mission itself, that depends on us."

"The distance matters more. Reaching the Sky Mountains... reaching Andgrund on foot would take a full month."

"On foot, yes, but three or four days should be enough."

Only three or four days to Andgrund, the dwarves' mountain range at the far end of the northern front? Did that mean she had chartered an aerial battleship? Ivan frowned at Enrique. She gave a sly little chuckle. Being a sensible man, he refused to indulge the antics of an old woman approaching two hundred.

"You're no fun. It's strange, my pupil. I'm always teaching you never to lose your composure or sense of humor, so how did my finest pupil turn out like this?"

"I learned well."

"You certainly learned to land a jab. Fine."

Grumbling, she rounded a bend in the waterway. Ivan immediately frowned. He could hear people ahead. Five or so? There was machinery running, too, accompanied by a smell that had no business being down here: oil and gunpowder. The distinctive smell of the military.

"And now, the big reveal!"

Enrique spread her hands with a broad smile. Beyond the bend, armed soldiers guarded a certain "door." A formidable iron door stood there, utterly out of place underground. Had he not come with Enrique, he might have thought a dungeon had opened up.

"A door."

"This is where those dwarves broke in last time. It was just a fissure then, but we couldn't leave it that way, could we? Who knows what might come through next? So we made a few improvements."

Enrique waved at the soldiers as they snapped off salutes.

"May we go in?"

Instead of answering, they silently opened the door. Judging by their discipline, were they from the northern military? Frowning, Ivan stepped through the opening—and stopped dead.

CLACK. PSSSSHHH...

CLANK, CLANK, CLANK.

"Ta-da! A dwarven armored mine cart!"

"Are you out of your mind? You connected a dwarven railway from Prizhenkaya to Andgrund?"

"Oh, come now. What's the fuss over something this minor? If things go well, it'll be our trade route. If not, it'll be our invasion route."

Enrique smiled, her eyes gleaming ominously. A low, grumbling voice came from atop the cart.

"Might you spare a thought for the dwarf within earshot?"

"Ah, I should introduce him, too. That fellow is Tirvil Ailvari! Say hello."

"You're the 'reinforcements'? Shadow Blade made quite a fuss about fetching you. Said you were essential to a mission like this."

A dwarf poked his head through the cart's window and peered down at Ivan with narrowed little eyes. After studying his face for a long while, the dwarf tilted his head and asked,

"Why does it look as though you've come alone?"

"I'm enough."

"... I admire your confidence, but do you understand that our nation's fate is at stake? Were it not for Shadow Blade's reputation, we would take this as an insult."

"An insult."

Ivan gave a faint smile and climbed aboard. The structure had the austere simplicity characteristic of dwarven machinery. They understood the aesthetics of steel, and privately, he was rather fond of their equipment. He sat inside the cart and turned toward the dwarf.

The dwarf snorted and began working the controls. Soon the cart started moving, its rumble reverberating throughout the tunnel.

Watching the tunnel race past, Ivan mulled it over. An insult. At least the dwarves had no need to feel any further insult from him. He had already filled that book back then until there was no room left for another page.

To look back once more: the United Kingdoms troops who encountered dwarven sabotage units most frequently in the field, and fought them most fiercely, had always been the Extermination Unit. And the strike team that consistently achieved the finest combat record within the Extermination Unit had been Team Seven, led by Ivan.

So the dwarves ought to feel proud instead. Now, in this postwar age, the most effective means of fighting dwarves was on its way to assist them in their civil war.

The Extermination Unit was coming. From those days to this, Ivan Petrovich had been an extermination "unit" all by himself.

* * *

What was the advantage of a vampire and an Extermination Unit agent traveling together? They didn't need to set aside time for meals. (Wrong.)

Ivan could replace his meals with nutrition bars, and Enrique with blood bags. Even without transfusion bags, as long as there were enough nutrition bars, Ivan could help replenish her blood supply, too.

"Where's Lucia?"

"A hostage."

Enrique answered as though it were nothing. Ivan nodded calmly as well. True, they would need a hostage.

An agent from the Hero's Party—and from Krasilof, which had waged the fiercest fighting—had left to fetch reinforcements from her homeland. The dwarves had to consider the possibility that those reinforcements would turn into an occupation force and attack the moment they arrived. Of course they would take a hostage.

Ivan considered it without concern. A hostage in the heart of enemy territory: an excellent position for gathering intelligence. Just what one would expect of Enrique's pupil. It would make for good training.

"She's getting some training out of it, too."

Understanding his look, Enrique smiled in confirmation. Before they were comrades, they had been teacher and pupil; before the Hero's Party, they had been partners carrying out operations in the same field. Moreover, she was a vampire who had worked among people as a spy for over two hundred years. Whenever she displayed the wisdom of age, a thought would strike him.

Why on earth did elves never grow up, no matter how old they got? Ivan thought of Veolgrin and Edel, then shook his head.

CLANK, CLANK.

The cart hurtled along the tracks at a tremendous speed, one that put human railways to shame. Its open roof let the wind whip everything inside into disarray, but the two of them could regard wind of this strength as a spring breeze across a field.

When conversation lapsed again, Ivan gazed at the tracks and sank into thought. Mana lamps dotted the line. Using the distance between them, the length of the cart passing that distance, and the time it took, he worked backward to calculate their speed, then accounted for how long they had traveled at that speed. Like any trained agent, he always counted time by the second, allowing him to estimate the time back in Prizhenkaya.

Whenever the tracks changed direction, he unfolded a map of the northern front in his mind and retraced their route: the positions of northern military garrisons, supply lines if these tracks were used as an invasion route, the personnel composition needed to attack Andgrund's underground territory. He passed the time with such unnecessary thoughts.

On the third day after leaving Prizhenkaya, the cart finally reached the terminus of Andgrund's underground railway.

* * *

"Shadow Blade has arrived?"

"Yes, comrade! Comrade Tirvil has just stopped at the Grand Junction!"

"Let's go at once. Just how impressive are these reinforcements she went to fetch at such a critical time...!"

Navellun Volfrondil, head of the Organizational Secretariat within the Secretariat of Andgrund's State Affairs Commission, strode ahead, grumbling.

Dwarves flocked around him. Members of the State Affairs Commission's Political Bureau, Secretariat, and Policy Bureau—virtually everyone who was not currently deployed in the campaign had gathered. That was how important this was. Such was the weight of employing Enrique, "Shadow Blade," as a mercenary.

The Hero's Party's rogue. An assassin. One of the six who had slain the Demon King. Since the Demon King's death had been the single most important reason for the demons' defeat, those six had effectively ended the last war.

And now, in its aftermath, they scraped by on the frontier, careful not to offend the United Kingdoms. If word that they had invited the Hero's Party to end their civil war reached demon society, the dwarves were finished. What if other demon warlords invaded their war-ravaged mountains? Could they have any future then?

Even the State Affairs Commission had been fiercely divided over the matter.

"But even if the cup is poisoned, we have no choice but to drink."

Navellun muttered through gritted teeth. The general secretary's son had been abducted. Worse still, apostles of the Seven Dragon Generals were personally pulling strings behind the civil war.

If they lost, they had no future whatsoever. It was obvious the dwarves would become puppets of the necromancers—those corpse scavengers—and be sent into unwinnable battles forever.

If death awaited them either way, shouldn't they at least make the choice that offered their people some benefit? Better to live as a human vassal state than die as a necromancer's minions.

Krasilof could never conquer the entire territory of the Dwarven Underground Republic. Its national strength surely did not extend that far. Thus, even if they established diplomatic relations from a somewhat disadvantaged position, this option offered a better chance of survival.

Nor could Krasilof publicize its dealings with the dwarves internationally. Why share the many concessions the dwarves would grant it with other countries for no reason?

The State Affairs Commission had therefore made the most rational choice available: accept unfavorable terms for diplomatic relations in exchange for Shadow Blade Enrique and an infusion of elite Krasilof troops. Rescue the secretary's son and end the civil war.

Navellun resolved to think of nothing else. Everything was for the Party and the people. If they perished now, the lofty ideals of egalitarianism would be crushed between the corpse scavengers' withered fingers.

"Long live Comrade Secretary! Reporting my return!"

"Yes, well done. Where is Shadow Blade?"

"Disembarking over there."

Navellun frowned at Enrique, who was waving from the Grand Junction's terminal station. He strode over and looked around. No matter where he looked, there was nothing resembling elite Krasilof troops. There were only two humans here. It wasn't as though humans could hide among dwarves.

"Why are there no reinforcements? Does Krasilof take this situation lightly? Are you so foolish you don't realize that if we fall, Aviditas's lackeys will follow these tracks straight into your country and burn it?"

"Whoa, calm down, dwarf."

"How dare you address me that way!"

"Calm down and listen. Look around. Does it look like I came alone?"

"You brought a servant! What, vampire, did you need a concubine to service you at night?!"

His beard trembling, Navellun pointed at the man beside her. The fellow had a reasonably fierce gaze and a fairly respectable beard; for a human, he seemed to have some sense of style. But what good was that in war?

Enrique burst into snickering laughter at his words.

"A kept man, Ivan. Not an undercover man... a kept man! Hah, heh...!"

"These people are serious."

"I know! That's what makes it so funny...! They were so desperate to get me, and now I bring you, and all they can say is 'concubine'...! Heh, hah!"

Enrique spread her hands toward Navellun, whose face was red enough to burst.

"Let me introduce him. This is Ivan Petrovich. You know him, don't you? Think carefully. The Woodsman, the Executioner, 'Little' Ivan. What else was there? My pupil, what other nicknames did you have?"

"A name the dwarves would know..."

Ivan considered briefly. Rather than a title humans used, one of their derogatory names for him would serve better. Fortunately, he didn't have to strain his memory. Navellun dropped his staff and stumbled backward.

Silence fell for a moment. An eerie quiet settled over the dwarves who had been angrily poised to rush at them just moments earlier: audible swallowing, breaths grown shallow, faces turned pale. Amid it all, Navellun whispered as though lamenting,

"Ivan... the Venomous Spider?"

Like all intelligence organizations, the Extermination Unit was little known to the outside world. Its missions and operations were not shared with ordinary army corps or civilians. Whatever fierce struggles had taken place, whatever hardships and tragedies had overflowed there, "humans" had little means of knowing. They simply regarded it as an untrustworthy, suspect branch of service.

But, again like all intelligence organizations, the Extermination Unit was better known to its enemies than its allies. Particularly to the dwarves. And particularly when it came to Major Ivan Petrovich.

"I heard... you were... dead."

The relief the dwarves had felt when news of Ivan's death and the Extermination Unit's purge spread through their society was not easily put into words. Even now, one of the songs used to frighten young dwarves went, "Left alone at the end of a deep mine tunnel, the Venomous Spider comes for you."

And so, caught in that vague dread, Navellun murmured,

"Was it true, then...? That the Venomous Spider can assassinate even death...?"

"What on earth...?"

Ivan frowned. (Enrique laughed until she could barely breathe.)

* * *

Word spread far and wide across Andgrund that the being who had "assassinated" Aviditas was on their side this time. Its citizens found themselves feeling a strange sense of transgression: anticipation of revenge against the dwarven rebels and necromancers, those bastards who deserved to be torn limb from limb, mingled with the guilt of having summoned the Demon King with their own hands.

Ivan successfully entered Andgrund without anyone questioning or obstructing him.

* * *

"My pupil is more popular than I am! Is it because your beards look alike?"

"Enrique. You could die."

"So fucking scary!! That's the Venomous Spider for you! Don't stay alone at the end of the mine~ The Venomous Spider comes to fiiind you~."

Cackling, Enrique sang the bizarre nursery rhyme and clapped Ivan on the back.