Inside the blood-soaked basement.
Creed's sword gleamed before Rohan's neck.
Creed suddenly recalled the first time he had seen Rohan.
Back then, Creed had also pointed a sword at Rohan, who had remained calm.
Just like now.
"I need to know now. Nothing you do makes any sense."
Rohan answered calmly.
"I can take the memories of people I kill."
"What...?"
Creed frowned in disbelief at Rohan's words.
That was Rohan's unhesitating answer when Creed asked what he was.
As always, Rohan stood with an unreadable expression.
"You expect me to believe......."
"Please help me."
"......."
How am I supposed to do that?
Creed closed his mouth before he could ask.
If Rohan truly stole memories...
Did he mean Creed should keep his secret from others?
Or was he asking Creed to help him kill so that he could use his ability?
Knowing Rohan, he probably meant both.
Creed let out a deep sigh.
The entire dilemma was meaningless.
After all, those questions only arose if Rohan's claim was true.
Creed spoke without relaxing his scowl.
"First, how am I supposed to believe you? Second, why should I?"
He could take people's memories?
No matter how Creed considered it, the ability made no sense.
'But if he's telling the truth, it explains everything.'
Even as he spoke, Creed looked back over Rohan's bizarre actions.
Indeed, everything made sense if he could steal memories.
Catching spies, discovering their gathering date and destination, even imitating Rainer's technique.
Then an unexpected statement left Rohan's mouth.
"Your younger sibling is being held by the Black Dawn Knight Order, aren't they?"
"What did you say, you bastard?!"
Creed seized Rohan by the collar and lifted him at the mention of that sensitive subject.
He growled in a low voice.
"How do you know that?"
Very few people knew.
Creed's younger sibling, three years his junior, had enlisted in the White Wolf Knight Order, but Creed had told none of his comrades.
They served in different squads, and even when they crossed paths, neither went out of their way to acknowledge the other. Not even Creed's squad members knew the truth.
Rohan shrugged.
"Who knows? Think carefully."
"......."
Creed recalled the people who knew.
Knight Commander Shupern and a few officers.
Only the officers who required his personal information upon enlistment knew about it.
One of them was......
'Rainer.'
The Deputy Platoon Leader of the Fourth Platoon.
Rainer, whom Rohan had killed, had also been one of the people who knew.
The Fourth Platoon was the Fourth Squad's direct superior unit.
'He took Rainer's memories?'
Creed suddenly recalled how Rohan had begun using the Swift Sword after Rainer died.
As his thoughts reached that point, the strength drained from Creed's grip.
Back on the ground, Rohan rubbed his reddened neck.
"Adein is probably still alive."
Adein.
It was Creed's younger sibling's real name.
Creed looked down at Rohan with an inscrutable expression.
"This is driving me insane."
Rohan's body was covered in wounds from Meiwa's swords, yet his expression remained calm.
Blood still poured from the wounds that had not yet closed.
"I'll help you see your sibling alive again. We'll be fighting the Black Dawn Knight Order soon."
Rohan smiled.
The sight was deeply uncanny, his white teeth exposed in a smile while he stood drenched in blood.
"Does that answer your two questions, Squad Leader?"
"How am I supposed to believe you?"
"You already know the answer."
"......."
Creed could not respond.
The more he considered it, the more Rohan's bizarre actions could only be explained by his absorbing memories.
Creed thought of his younger sibling.
If Rohan was telling the truth... could he really save Adein?
Regardless of whether it was true, Creed wanted to cling to the simple claim that his sibling was alive.
Having made up his mind, he spoke quietly.
"......Alive."
Rohan answered immediately, as if he had expected the response.
"I can't guarantee it. But I'll try."
Creed did not answer. He merely gave the faintest nod.
***
The first place Rohan went was his own locker.
When he searched inside, an eyeball in a glass bottle emerged from deep within.
"Potions work well. It still hasn't rotted."
Rohan spoke without emotion.
The eyeball submerged in water looked to be in excellent condition.
Creed did not know when Rohan had added a potion, but the boy's meticulous preparation was remarkable.
"Why the hell did you gouge out Rainer's eyeball?"
Creed frowned at the sight.
"I need it to feed them false information."
After speaking, Rohan carefully tucked the eyeball inside his clothes.
He then took out a piece of paper and began writing with the fountain pen provided for common use in the barracks.
[One-third of the White Wolf Knight Order poisoned]
It was a short, concise report.
Creed rounded his lips in surprise.
"Is that Rainer's handwriting?"
"Yes."
"You can even imitate handwriting? You don't just search their memories?"
"Searching through memories allows me to do many things. I need to study it further myself, though."
Creed pressed his lips together.
'Am I really supposed to believe this?'
With Rohan already copying Rainer's secret technique, the Swift Sword, it seemed ridiculous that handwriting had surprised him.
The two then headed to the wooded hill near the knight order.
It was also the mountain Rohan visited at dawn whenever he went hunting.
The guards had been shocked by the state of the two men when they left camp, but Creed's assurance that he would report directly to Shupern allowed them through without difficulty.
On the way, Rohan stopped where a flock of crows had gathered.
When he held up the eyeball he had brought, one of the crows staring at it flapped down onto his arm.
Rohan tied the report he had written to the crow's leg.
After tilting its head at the eye in the glass bottle once more, the crow fluttered away from Rohan.
A little farther on, they reached a thicket overgrown with reeds.
It was the location inscribed as the spies' teleportation point.
"You made it?"
"You're late."
Kaisen and Johanna emerged from between the reeds.
Behind them, Numbers Two and Four lay bound side by side.
"Sorry. One of them died."
Johanna spoke without looking sorry in the least.
One of the two was no longer breathing.
Rohan, who coveted the swordsmanship of Number Two—Meiwa—looked toward the thicket.
Fortunately, Meiwa's chest still rose and fell at regular intervals.
"It seems he hid poison in a molar. He killed himself before we could do anything."
Creed's expression twisted as he looked at Number Four.
"You didn't beat him to death?"
"No."
The man's entire body was bloodied and bruised, his face battered beyond recognition.
Kaisen tossed over a dog tag.
"An ordinary soldier from the supply transport unit."
Number Four's true identity was that of an ordinary soldier.
Calling him merely an 'ordinary soldier' without even mentioning his name also showed how little presence he had possessed.
Rohan had no particular interest in Number Four either, so he headed toward the fallen Meiwa.
Meiwa was still breathing, but she was just as bloodied and battered as Number Four.
The stump of her severed wrist had been cauterized with something hot, stopping the bleeding.
Aware of Rohan and Creed's gazes, Kaisen grumbled.
"Do you know how hard we worked to keep her alive?"
Cloth had been stuffed deep into Meiwa's mouth.
It was presumably meant to stop her from killing herself with hidden poison.
Kaisen circled the fallen Meiwa.
"Haha, to think we caught a Noxis spy... Let's interrogate her and wring every last scrap about Noxis out of her. This might be a huge help to the war effort!"
He seemed to feel a profound sense of accomplishment at capturing a Noxis spy.
"We'll get promoted for catching a spy, and our pay will go up too!"
"If we interrogate her properly, we may also uncover Noxis's tactics and intelligence."
Johanna joined in.
SHING—!
But the sound poured cold water on the heated mood.
The three people who had been talking turned their heads at once.
"Ghk..."
Meiwa gave a short groan and twitched once before going limp.
Rohan's sword was embedded in Meiwa's heart.
Kaisen and Johanna's mouths fell open.
"Wh-wh-what?"
"You've truly gone mad..."
Their gazes instinctively turned toward Creed.
After all, he was the squad's commander.
But Creed's words shocked them even more.
"Say he died during the battle."
***
Beneath a gloomy sky.
A flag emblazoned with the Black Dawn Knight Order's symbol, a black sun, fluttered in the wind.
Beneath it, a middle-aged man nailed to a black cross groaned.
"Ughhh—. Please spare me. I'm begging you."
One of the man's eyes was already an empty socket, as though it had been eaten away.
He appeared to have suffered every kind of torture, and vivid red blood poured from all over his body.
"I'm only a farmer who supplies potatoes to the knight order."
The man was a farmer.
As usual, he had delivered potatoes to the White Wolf Knight Order and was on his way home.
Noxis soldiers had abducted him in a deserted place far from the knight order.
A cloth had covered his face, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself imprisoned in a Noxis military zone.
An ordinary civilian, he could not even guess why he had been abducted.
"Hmm."
A young woman watching him gave a low hum.
Her silver hair was cut as sharply as a blade at her jaw.
Her crimson lips and eyes seemed to burn like flames.
With no hesitation, she used the dagger in her left hand to carve away a piece of the man's flesh.
"Aaaagh!"
His scream filled the air.
Blood spattered across the woman's face, but she did not so much as blink.
She placed the dagger beneath the man's chin and asked in an icy voice.
"How many potatoes did you deliver to the knight order this morning?"
"Twen...twenty sacks. Enough for the knight order to eat for two or three days."
The man spoke weakly.
He had lost count of how many times she had asked the same thing.
He felt stifled, but did not even dream of resisting.
"And after that?"
"I agreed to deliver the same amount again in two days."
"Tell me the truth."
"I-it is the truth! Aaaagh!!"
The woman carved away his flesh once more.
He had been tortured at this same point several times already.
He had only told the truth, yet he could not understand why she reacted this way.
"What was the mood in the camp?"
What in the world was this woman trying to discover?
The farmer wondered, but there was nothing he could do.
With his head hanging low, a rasp escaped his mouth.
"......The same as usual."
"That makes no sense?"
The woman brought the blood-dripping dagger to her head and scratched it a couple of times.
Her other hand held a small paper note.
It was a report from the White Wolf Knight Order's spies, delivered by a familiar.
[One-third of the White Wolf Knight Order poisoned]
"If a third of them are dead, why haven't their food deliveries changed?"
She muttered as though she could not understand.
Feeling her fixed gaze, the farmer trembled violently.
"I-I know nothing about that. I truly know nothing..."
"I don't understand."
The woman pointed the dagger before the man's eyes.
"Either you're lying."
Her dagger then pointed far into the distance.
"Or they're the ones lying."
She indicated the direction of the White Wolf Knight Order's encampment.
The man nailed to the cross coughed, blood running from his mouth.
He pleaded desperately.
"Please. Please, just spare my life. I have two daughters and a son!"
The woman silently turned away.
She looked up at the sky once.
Caw, caw.
Dozens of crows filled the sky.
The crows circling her were all familiars she had tamed.
"Eat."
She opened her mouth.
CAW— CAW!
The dozens of crows circling through the air descended upon the man on the cross at once.
"A-agh! Stop, stop!"
The farmer's screams came from behind her, but she did not so much as blink.
A nearby soldier spoke quietly to the woman.
"Lady Muria. Your skill at handling familiars improves by the day."
"I still have far to go. I hear that those who can control them more deeply can share the vision of every familiar."
Familiars.
They were the reason she had become a Company Commander at the youngest age.
They were also the reason she could gather the vast quantities of intelligence scattered throughout the Empire.
"Come here."
Muria beckoned to one of the crows hovering in the air.
A large, sturdy crow landed on her hand.
Compared to the other crows, its feathers gleamed and it appeared to overflow with vitality.
It was one of the few crows whose vision Muria could share.
Only a specimen large and vigorous enough to share thoughts across great distances was capable of it.
"Lady Muria. That specimen is..."
"I have no choice. Not in these circumstances."
Sharing vision consumed a great deal of mental energy, making it a strategy she avoided unless something exceptional occurred.
Muria stared into the crow's eyes and projected her will.
- Go and search every corner around the White Wolf Knight Order.
The crow went blank for a moment, then spread its wings wide and flapped into the air.
At the same time, Muria's eyes clouded over.
The crow's view of the earth from the air began appearing before her eyes.
All that remained was to wait.