On the way to the treasury, Navellun kept exclaiming in admiration, his face flushed with excitement. Most of it was praise for the Secretary.

“Is he not remarkable? To remain so resolute when his beloved son has been abducted by those villains!”

“Indeed.”

“He never once mentioned his son to you. He asked you to recover this land—in other words, he clearly specified the ‘operational objective’ you spoke of, did he not? To forsake his son for his people. Truly an example to us all... egalitarianism incarnate!”

“... Indeed.”

Ivan nodded without much reaction. Meanwhile, he had his own thoughts. Well, to a ‘human’ who wasn't steeped in egalitarianism, the Secretary's words had been decidedly ambiguous.

The Secretary's request had been simple.

[“Return the other half of these mountains to us.”]

It was highly political rhetoric, worded so that the dwarves would hear, ‘Dispose of Aviditas's remaining followers and end the war.’

Perhaps because they were directly involved, the dwarves treated ‘Aviditas's remaining followers’ and ‘the dwarven rebels’ as one and the same. But the situation was more complicated than that.

The dwarven rebels were indeed puppets in the necromancers' hands, but eliminating those necromancers wouldn't make the rebels suddenly evaporate.

The rift between the two sides was already too deep for reconciliation to be considered. Signing a surrender document would be no different from signing away their lives and asking to be led to the execution ground.

The Secretary knew that. Killing Aviditas wouldn't restore half the mountains to him, nor could Ivan dispose of all the remaining dwarven rebels.

His role was limited to that of a strike team or a rescue team. All-out warfare was not his specialty.

‘The Secretary hasn't given up on his son.’

And so Ivan reached the following conclusion.

He had acted so that his people would see him as a great leader sternly issuing orders, sacrificing his son for his nation.

It must have been a desperate expedient. With half his people turning their backs on him, his leadership might already have come into question. A powerful, charismatic leader needed the resolve to sacrifice even his own child.

Then there was his request for human assistance. That, too, was a political risk. Once the civil war ended, it would be hard to shake the image of a dictator who had clung to a sworn enemy to massacre his own people.

He therefore couldn't directly ask for his son's rescue.

‘Return the other half of these mountains.’

The Secretary had implied that the entire mountain range belonged to him. Beneath the hollow pretense of egalitarianism, this great dictator was certain of his dominion, which far exceeded any feudal authority.

But at the same time—

‘Return the other half.’

He was also a father acknowledging his son as half of himself.

If he had intended to order the assassination of Aviditas's remaining followers and abandon his son, he would have worded it more efficiently.

‘And he's even arranged a safeguard.’

On its face, stripped of some of its political implications, that rhetoric looked like an order to assassinate Aviditas's remaining followers. That was certainly how the official request would read.

Thus, if Ivan rescued his son and abandoned the strike on the enemy leadership, he would use that as grounds to seek the upper hand in diplomatic dealings with Krasilof.

The reinforcements' misjudgment would have created a military predicament.

Yet prioritizing the assassination of the leadership would create another problem. The original request made to Krasilof through official channels had been to rescue the Secretary's son.

‘If stopping the war had been his aim from the start, he'd have requested assistance from the northern military.’

If Krasilof's reinforcements resolved everything, the dwarves would be left as nothing more or less than a vassal state. He must have felt obliged to secure his people's independence, even through a maneuver like this.

An exceedingly troublesome, seasoned politician.

“Enrique.”

“Yes?”

“Eek!”

Navellun stared in horror as Enrique suddenly dropped from the ceiling. She had secretly infiltrated this heavily secured passage between the Secretary's palace and the treasury and lain in wait.

Before Navellun could react, Ivan looked at her and spoke.

“How much did you hear?”

“Everything.”

“Do you understand the situation?”

“Yes.”

“I'll leave it to you.”

With the wisdom of an elder who had lived for over two hundred years, she grasped the entire situation through that brief exchange.

As a partner he had worked alongside for years, she was a reassuring ally indeed.

‘The Secretary wants both the necromancers assassinated and his son rescued.’

‘Those two objectives cannot be achieved simultaneously under the circumstances.’

‘Unless both are achieved, the Secretary will try to gain the upper hand in formal diplomacy with Krasilof.’

In short, the man had arranged matters so that he would profit from every possible outcome of this civil war except defeat.

Then they would have to get one over on him.

Being worked like servants by these moles only to have their pay docked as well was hardly a worthwhile bargain.

Ivan's statement that the two objectives could not be achieved simultaneously hadn't been wrong.

He had merely left the subject, ‘I,’ unspoken.

And he wasn't alone here. He had the teacher who had personally taught him every tactic he knew, the partner who had fought alongside him throughout the war, the veteran who had handled reconnaissance and tactical support from the rear of the Hero's Party.

Ivan alone could take the place of a single Extermination Unit strike team.

And with Enrique alongside him, their current strength was no less than that of the strike force that had assassinated a Seven Dragon General back then.

Once the dwarves learned that, their diplomats would have to learn something beyond rhetoric: ‘manners.’

They would have to remember that the [Venomous Spider] and [Shadow Blade] always lurked at the far end of the railway connecting Prizhenkaya to Andgrund.

“Which will my pupil take? The rescue?”

“No.”

“Yes, I thought as much. All right. I'll handle the rescue, you handle the assassination. Let's do that.”

“See you in the operations room.”

“Yes, enjoy your shopping.”

Enrique laughed and melted back into the darkness.

Ignoring the horrified Navellun as he walked on, Ivan reflected quietly.

Enrique would rescue the Secretary's son, while he would clean out Aviditas's remaining followers.

That division of labor was nothing less than Enrique yielding him his time for revenge.

“I'll be there soon. It won't be long. Please, wait just a little longer.”

Whispering to the necromancers lurking somewhere at the end of the tunnels, Ivan walked on.

* * *

Andgrund meant [World] in the ancient dwarven runic tongue. The name spoke of dwarven arrogance, but also of the abundance beneath the earth.

There was no particular need to venture outside. Every mineral, every resource, every place to live could be found down here.

Beneath the Sky Mountains—the enormous wall stretching across the continent's north—lay another vast [World] in its own right.

Here, the dwarves had waged war for as long as their history stretched. Sometimes against the demons of the north, sometimes against native subterranean creatures, occasionally against outside invaders, and finally, against other dwarven clans.

That meant one thing. Just as humanity's territory was small compared to the world, the dwarven population was plainly inadequate for the breadth of their [World].

In other words, gaps in troop coverage were inevitable in the great caverns and dark underground expanses on the fringes of dwarven civilization.

KRRZZT... BZZT...!

“Again? Damn it.”

The soldier on duty at Outpost 17's Tunnel 6 wire relay station, which handled communications with three nearby outposts, grumbled and set down the receiver.

The solid ground and ore veins rich in mana meant that all communication had to be carried by couriers or mana-conducting wires. (Sadly, the dwarves' height ruled out couriers. Short legs made for slow walking.)

No matter how finely engineered, communication wires broke at the slightest provocation. Simply stepping on one with the heel of a military boot could easily take out an entire line.

So the static from the receiver was merely one of those everyday problems.

“Hello, can you hear me? This is the relay station, relay station. Tunnel 5, respond.”

KRRZZT... KZZT.

“Tunnel 5's dead too?”

Yawning widely, the dwarf scratched roughly at his beard and grumbled.

There had been no tension on the recently stagnant front, and those ‘corpse fuckers’ in the rear had shut themselves away in little rooms to prepare something. At this outpost far from the front, the war hadn't felt real in the slightest.

It was just another routine watch. Like every watch, it consisted of dozing, writing hourly duty reports, secretly chewing jerky, and making check-in calls.

But reports were supposed to come in from one tunnel post after another at ten-minute intervals, and there hadn't been a single response for thirty minutes.

“Hello, Tunnel 4? Can you hear me?”

KRRZZT...

“... Tunnel 9. Can you hear me? Respond. Relay station, this is the relay station.”

KRRZZT. BZZT...

By now, unease was beginning to rise. This degree of radio silence couldn't be caused by a single severed wire.

Only then did the word ‘war’ begin to whisper in the dwarf's mind. This might be a peripheral outpost far from the front, but he was still a rebel.

Every rebel in the world was bound to be paranoid. Capture would inevitably mean being dragged to the execution ground. The moment the danger of war occurred to him, the duty soldier began frantically pressing the relay's buttons.

“Tunnel 1, Tunnel 2... Tunnel 11!! Outpost 16, respond. Outpost 15! Outpost 19!!”

KRRZZT, BZZT, ZZT...

“Northwestern Command, this is Outpost 15, Outpost 15 relay station. Respond!”

BZZT. ZZT.

This was no longer a matter of one or two faulty wires. It was impossible for all the wires running through so many tunnels to be severed simultaneously by coincidence.

Someone had done this deliberately. But could dwarves carry out such an operation this far behind the lines? That would have been impossible even during the war, when they still had the [Earthweb Excavator].

The duty soldier scratched anxiously at his beard, his little eyes scanning his surroundings.

He swallowed.

Five tunnels branched out from the relay station. One led to the rear command headquarters, so he darted his gaze haphazardly between the four forward tunnels, gulping.

How long until his relief arrived? Damn it, when he got back, he would insist on having two soldiers on watch. However far behind the lines they were, however short of men the front might be, wasn't this going too far?

THOOM.

Just then, a heavy reverberation came from far down a tunnel. The duty soldier squeaked and hastily raised his pistol.

THOOM!

“Hhk!!”

The white mana lamps dotted along the tunnel went out with a thump. That was the direction of Outpost 14... The duty soldier licked his dry lips and aimed his pistol with trembling hands.

Again.

THOOM!!

The lights went out in the tunnel directly opposite.

THOOM!!

In another tunnel, and another.

At last, darkness settled over all four tunnels leading to the forward outposts.

Panicking, the duty soldier snatched up the relay receiver and began jabbing the buttons wildly.

“Someone answer! Emergency! It's an emergency!! Requesting reinforcements!!! I need reinforcements!!”

The terrified dwarf's screams rang through the relay station. Only static-laced silence answered.

As the relay station's single dim mana lamp barely held back the darkness before his face, a click came over the line.

“Can you hear me? Can you hear me!! Oh, ancestors. Damn it. Comrade!! This is the relay station. Outpost 17 relay station! Requesting reinforcements!!”

“Your location?”

“Damn it, what do you mean, location! Does Outpost 17 have two relay stations? It's in Tunnel 6, Outpost 17!! Hurry! This is an emergency!!”

“Understood.”

The line went dead with a click.

Only then did the duty soldier feel his senses return as if by magic. With relief, his terror-saturated brain began avidly taking in oxygen again.

As he panted, his brain finally began to function rationally, and he barely managed to form a thought.

‘Wait. Who... was that?’

He had been pressing buttons so wildly that he couldn't tell which outpost had replied. And whichever outpost it was, no one would ignore communication protocol and get straight to the point.

Even if someone did, they would never ask where the relay station was.

And even if, by some remote chance, they really didn't know its location... they would never end the call like that.

‘Who was that? Who was that...! Who?’

Those ‘egalitarian’ bastards? O-or demons who had broken through the outer gate in this sector? Or... or...

‘Never stand alone at the end of a dark tunnel.’

An old saying flashed through his mind.

‘For the Venomous Spider is coming.’

A whisper from years ago, now reduced to superstition.

The celebrations the dwarves had held once everyone behind it was dead had done much to dilute the terror of that old superstition. Now it was merely a nursery rhyme used to frighten children.

Yet every dwarf who remembered those days, every veteran of the war, still sometimes recalled that saying with a fit of terror.

STEP, STEP, STEP.

Footsteps sounded from the end of the tunnel.

The dwarf jerked his gun up and fired toward them.

BANG, BANG! PING...

Casings clattered across the ground. Bullets struck somewhere in the tunnel and ricocheted. And between those sounds—

STEP, STEP, STEP.

The footsteps did not stop.

“Identify yourself! I-identify! Identify yourseeeelf!!”

BANG!! BANG! CLACK, CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

Even as the firing pin struck the empty chamber in vain, he couldn't bring himself to reload. He merely kept aiming down the tunnel with shaking hands.

A rhythmic sound rang in the ears of the trembling, weeping dwarf.

Steady as a heartbeat, slow and quiet as a cord tightening around his throat.

STEP, STEP, STEP.

* * *

“Relay this to Enrique. Northern Gate 5 successfully infiltrated.”

“Yes, Senior! Northern Gate 5 successfully infiltrated!!”

“Quietly.”

“Yes, Senior!!”

“Quiet.”

“Yeees... Senior!!”

Ivan glanced at Lucia's mischievous smile and sighed quietly.

She grinned, then squeezed her eyes shut.

Mana flickered for an instant, and red veins bulged across her snow-white skin.

Vampire signaling: a vital signal transmitted through the progenitor's bloodline.

It couldn't carry complex conversations, but brief signals could be sent within a certain distance regardless of terrain. A tap, tap, tap against the heart was possible.

As Morse code had proved after its invention in the early nineteenth century, discrete pulses made an excellent language for communication. Enrique hadn't run an intelligence organization for nothing.

And Lucia, Enrique's direct disciple, half-vampire and half-human, had succeeded in absorbing nearly all her secret arts. Naturally, she could use a technique of this level far better than other vampires.

The problem, if anything, was her personality. To Ivan, it was like seeing Enrique two hundred years younger.

That was to say, someone had taken the years away from an elder who had aged like a child. In short, she was simply childish.

‘Still, this should be a good learning experience.’

Among the heirs to the Hero's Party, she was at least one who had received direct instruction from a member of the former party. That made her the most capable of the new Hero's Party. So much so that practical experience was all she lacked.

A good agent never pursued only one objective in a single operation. The aim was always to exceed the objective, and Ivan, too, held that lesson close to his heart.

So on this operation as well, as befitted someone who had graduated with excellent grades from the developed educational system of the twenty-first century, he intended to discipline a young student as an educator.

Lucia only needed to serve as his communications operator from a distance. He could personally provide her practical instruction.

“The reply?”

“‘Understood. Continue the operation.’ That's the reply!”

“Acknowledged. Let's move.”

“Yes, Senior!!”

“Quietly.”

“Yeees... Senior!!!”

Was she doing that on purpose? He turned to look, and her expression confirmed that she was.

Having grown up in an era with student rights ordinances, Ivan did not use violence to discipline students.

But he did want to hit her once. His hand went reflexively to his waist, then quietly withdrew from the axe handle. He sighed instead.

Whenever the thought occurred to him that this was an uncivilized, premodern society, so surely uncivilized teaching methods were permissible...

He strove to suppress it, reminding himself that he must preserve his dignity as a representative of Earth's civilized world.

This was day two of Andgrund's ‘Feint East, Strike West’ operation, immediately after the first target location had been secured.