"As expected, they're following us."
Lucian curled the corner of his lips as he looked at Godfrey's group chasing after them from afar.
"I expected it, but I didn't think they'd try an assassination from the very first day. They must've been pretty impatient."
"What should we do? If you wish, I'll deal with them immediately."
Felicia, her eyes sharp, gripped the sword at her waist. She looked ready to charge out and sweep them away the moment an order was given.
"Not here. Even if we deal with them, we need to lure them further inside first. That way, disposing of the bodies will be much easier."
"True. It's better to mark them as missing than to make excuses with corpses lying around."
Hugo nodded as if in agreement and slipped a hand into his coat.
A moment later, Hugo was holding flints equal to their number.
"Alright, take one each. You've all worked hard enduring the cold so far. As for how to use them—"
"You said to hold it in your hand and focus your magic into it, right? I remember, so there's no need to explain."
Lucian recalled his conversation with Glen and began circulating his magic.
Soon, red rune letters surfaced on the flint, and it began to vibrate faintly.
At the same time, the cold that had been seeping through every inch of their skin vanished, and they felt warmth spread through their bodies.
"Nice. As expected of something made personally by one of Duke Blasker's disciples."
Rolling the warming stone—which looked like an ordinary flint—in his hand, Lucian lifted the corner of his mouth.
From the start, it had been a magic tool meticulously disguised, allowing it to slip past the inspection of belongings without issue.
Feeling the warmth spread through him, Lucian once again turned his gaze toward Godfrey.
You guys probably never intended to take the Hundred-Day Hunt seriously from the beginning—but neither did I.
When the enemy openly cheats, should one really volunteer to be noble and accept a loss?
Unless it's for the sake of some grand justification or public approval, that's nothing more than self-indulgence.
Cheating should naturally be answered with cheating of the same kind.
"Everyone, your boots working properly?"
"Perfectly. My feet don't sink into the snow at all—it feels like walking on flat ground."
"Good. Then let's move."
No sooner were the words spoken than Lucian's group began nimbly crossing the snow-covered mountains.
Despite being terrain where feet should have sunk deep into the snow, their movements were astonishingly light.
Watching Godfrey grow farther and farther away, Lucian let out a quiet chuckle.
Let's say… five days for now.
***
"…Just why the hell are they that fast!?"
Godfrey ground his teeth, his eyes bloodshot and red.
It had already been more than three days since Lucian began deftly evading him at every turn.
By any reasonable standard, the speed was completely unbelievable.
"How the hell does a guy who's probably never even had his foot sink into snow manage to traverse a snow-covered mountain like that!?"
Regions with unusual climates demanded that much more care.
How to endure the cold, how to cross snow-laden ground with ease, how to preserve body heat while sleeping—there were countless hardships one had to experience firsthand unless they were native to the area.
Naturally, Godfrey had assumed Lucian's group, made up entirely of outsiders, would be caught before long.
Instead, the distance keeps widening. At this rate, we'll collapse before we ever catch them. Damn it!
"Young Master… is it really all right to keep chasing them like this?"
One of his close aides cautiously spoke up to the teeth-grinding Godfrey.
At the unexpectedly timid remark, Godfrey snapped his eyes toward him.
"Do you even understand what you're saying right now? We came here to kill him, and you're suggesting we tuck our tails and run?"
"You know it as well as I do, Young Master. This kind of speed is impossible under normal circumstances. They clearly came prepared with something."
At the seasoned observation, Godfrey shut his mouth.
Anyone who wasn't a fool would have realized it by now.
That Lucian's group was pulling ahead by using some kind of foul play.
Just as Godfrey had never intended to approach the Hundred-Day Hunt in good faith from the beginning, Lucian had never planned to fight fair either.
"If it's just to gain an advantage in the Hundred-Day Hunt, that's one thing. But if they came here with the same intentions as us, then in the worst-case scenario—"
"Enough."
Godfrey cut off his aide mid-sentence and continued in a low, sunken voice.
"So what are you suggesting we do? Give up like this and compete with them over the spoils?"
"Don't be an idiot. This is the last chance to settle everything quietly. If we let him go now, we'll be forced into a real war!"
For Calyx, nothing could be worse than a war breaking out.
It would be one thing if the enemy were empty-handed, but they had already received ample support from the Imperial Family.
On top of that, clans with old grudges against Calyx—and every opportunist backing the bastard's legitimacy—would flock to their side.
Even if Calyx were to win, it would cost an enormous amount of time and resources, and the family's standing would inevitably decline compared to before the war.
"If I spare my own hide and end up dragging the family into hardship, that's putting the cart before the horse. Sometimes, you have to step forward even if it means taking risks. Enough chatter—think of a way to keep tracking him!"
At Godfrey's resolute words, the aides all bowed their heads in unison.
But no matter how hard they wracked their brains, there was no way to catch up to the enemy.
It was obvious Lucian's group was using some kind of foul play—what could they possibly do with nothing but their own bodies?
Two more days passed without them closing the distance, and exhaustion steadily wore down the group.
"Y–Young Master! They've stopped! The distance is closing!"
At the shout, Godfrey's party snapped their eyes open.
The ones who had kept moving nonstop—aside from hunting, eating, and sleeping—had suddenly come to a halt?
"Move, now! We have to catch them before it's too late!"
"Yes!"
The moment Godfrey's order rang out, the aides surged forward.
They were all far too exhausted to sense the suspicion behind this sudden change in behavior.
"Such a hothead. Look at him charging in with his eyes all red."
Lucian said this as he chewed and swallowed the last piece of rabbit meat.
After suffering through five days like that, they didn't seem to suspect a trap in the slightest.
Raymond, who had finished his meal earlier, spoke with a hint of laughter in his voice.
"They probably think they're the hunters and we're the prey. Or maybe they figure that even if it's a trap, it's too late to turn back, so they might as well crash straight into it."
"Works out nicely for us. I was getting sick of rabbit meat anyway."
"You don't like rabbit?"
"I don't dislike it, but I've eaten so much I'm tired of it. It's about time we changed the menu, don't you think?"
It wasn't because he liked rabbit that they'd been eating it for five straight days.
It was simply the most common, the easiest to hunt, and the most convenient to clean up.
No matter how fast they could move, if they dawdled, they'd be caught easily—so what else could they afford to hunt besides rabbits?
"Let's catch something different today. If we poke around a bit, we should come across a bear or two."
"You son of a bitch! I finally get to see that ugly mug of yours again!"
No sooner had Lucian finished speaking than Godfrey's curse rang out.
Godfrey had closed to within several dozen paces and was glaring at Lucian with bloodshot eyes.
"What kind of trick did you pull? How did you shake us off?"
"So now you're dropping all pretense and speaking familiarly. And before His Grace the Duke, no less—what atrocious manners."
"His Grace the Duke, my ass. Who would ever acknowledge a title you got by sucking up to the Emperor? And you even pretend to follow northern traditions while secretly sneaking in every contraband you can. Don't you have any shame at all?"
….
Lucian stared at Godfrey, momentarily at a loss for words.
The guy who had come to assassinate him was lecturing him about shame over using a single dirty trick.
"What a lunatic. An assassin asking me if I'm ashamed."
"The less shame someone has, the better they are at conveniently leaving out their own faults."
"Must've learned it from his father."
As Lucian's group each tossed out a remark, Godfrey's face flushed red.
But just before his fury could explode—
A sinister sound rolled down from the sky.
Rumble—
"What's that?"
Almost reflexively, Lucian looked up.
At some point, an enormous mass of dark clouds had formed overhead—clouds that hadn't been there just moments ago.
Worse still, they were growing larger by the second.
"This is…!"
"Khh, it's over."
KRA-BOOM!
A brilliant flash burst from within the storm clouds.
It was the telltale sign that preceded a lightning strike.
Having already heard about it from Colin, Godfrey burst into laughter and shouted,
"Burn to death, you dog of the Emperor!"
"Tsk."
Clicking his tongue, Lucian swiftly pulled something from his robes and tore it apart.
At that very moment, light flashed within the dark clouds, and a massive bolt of lightning speared down toward the ground.
A split second later, the thunder caught up, leaving everyone's ears ringing.
KWA-RA-RA-RA-BOOM—
Lucian's group instinctively clutched their ears and staggered.
For an instant, the world was dyed pure white, making it impossible to see ahead.
Moments later, when their senses finally returned and they looked forward—
"…What?"
Godfrey's group, who had been shouting triumphantly just moments ago, was gone.
All that remained were charred lumps of blackened charcoal shaped like human figures.
As everyone stared at one another in stunned silence, footsteps approached from behind.
The one who came crunching through the snow removed his hood as he greeted them.
"Pleased to meet you, Your Grace the Duke. I am Colin, a mage of the Celestial Astrology School."
"Seize him."
No sooner had the greeting ended than Lucian's retainers lunged toward Colin.
***
"K–Khh, could you loosen these ropes a bit? I can't do anything anymore!"
"Who knows. You might pull some strange spell, escape, and drop another lightning bolt on us."
"Mages capable of doing that are extremely rare! It's like saying a knight could shatter chains with his bare body!"
Lucian tossed something toward the blinking Colin.
It was the shredded remains of the paper he had pulled out and torn apart earlier.
Colin stared blankly at the scraps for a moment before his eyes went wide.
"A defensive-type scroll!?"
"That's right. That scroll. I received it as a gift from Sir Glen."
A chill ran down Colin's spine.
Along with the Pyromancy School, one of the few officially recognized schools was the School of Defense.
They specialized in blocking and dispersing external physical and magical interference.
But for that School of Defense to create a consumable, single-use scroll rather than an installed magic device?
Even if its effect was fleeting and usable only once, its defensive power was guaranteed to be overwhelming.
So it wasn't nonexistent after all…
Lucian looked at the mage, tightly bound and shouting indignantly.
To be honest, he was a bit confused.
He had expected Godfrey to attempt an assassination—but he never imagined that the mage Godfrey hired would betray him and try to switch sides.
In the first place, why come to me at all?
From the outside, Lucian currently looked like the perfect image of a loyal servant of the Emperor.
Anyone who knew how ruthlessly the Imperial Family hunted down mages would never approach Lucian.
Yet this mage called Colin hadn't even tried to flee—he had openly revealed himself instead.
"I don't understand what you're scheming. Do you think you saved my life? Did you expect protection if you swore loyalty while claiming a life debt?"
"How could that be? I saw Your Grace's composure. You clearly had a plan. Even without my help, it would have been more than enough."
"You really don't listen, do you? I'm saying it would've been enough even if you'd sided with him."
"…Pardon?"
If I hadn't betrayed him and had carried out the original contract—calling down lightning on that man…
The exact extent of the defense was unknown, yet somehow—by instinct rather than theory—he understood.
He could have inflicted some damage, but not a single person would have died.
Everyone would have survived.
And after Godfrey's group was dead, his own head would have been the one to roll.
"If you seize him, he's a benefactor; if you let him go, he becomes a reaper," they said.
Cold sweat trickled down the back of Colin's neck.
Only now did he begin to grasp, even a little, what the prophecy's words truly meant.
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