The group, clad entirely in black, ran through the darkness of night toward their destination.
The moon, which would normally bathe the ground in soft light, was hidden behind clouds.
Given that it was winter, the temperature was low. The absence of snow was likely a stroke of luck for a group operating at this hour.
"No snow is good, but there's nothing to be done about this cold."
"Hah, then just kill that Ealand guy and burn him. Burn down that Officer Academy while you're at it. That ought to warm you up a little."
"The Officer Academy, huh. Are you sure about this? Apparently those strange folks said they'd help, but there's no way I can trust them."
"It's the same on their end. In the end, we're just using each other for our own purposes."
"It would've been easy if the ones who struck first had finished the job. Because they failed back then, the guy holed up in the Officer Academy. Damn it, what a pain. The Officer Academy, of all places. It's bound to be full of skilled fighters."
"You think so? The Officer Academy is just a gathering of novices who couldn't become knights or adventurers, right? Well, since they do combat training and all, they might be somewhat strong."
Though they exchanged words as they advanced through the darkness, their voices were extremely quiet.
Even if someone happened to pass by, they would never have been able to catch the content of the conversation.
...Though, more to the point, the men had no intention of leaving alive any witness who caught sight of them.
As they continued running, the outline of their destination—the Officer Academy—eventually came into view.
But when they directed their gazes toward the entrance, two soldiers armed with spears stood posted there. Seeing them, the man running at the front clicked his tongue and signaled everyone to stop.
At that signal, everyone came to a halt almost instantly and slipped into the shadows of a nearby building.
"Hm?"
It wasn't that they had noticed the movement, but one of the soldiers turned his gaze toward the darkness.
"What is it?"
"No, I just felt like something moved..."
"It's your imagination. Your imagination. ...Still, isn't it time for the shift change yet? Even with a fire, this is hardly warm at all. At times like this, there's nothing for it but to drink some strong booze and hit the sack."
At his partner's words, the soldier who had been peering into the darkness apparently concluded that what he had felt was indeed his imagination. He turned his gaze away and agreed.
"You're right. If I could, I'd rather drink some hot wine and go straight to sleep."
"You've got no desires. At least let's hit the brothel. I found a good girl recently. Her face is so-so, but she's got huge—"
"Ehh, if I had to choose, I'd rather have a beauty, even if she's small-chested."
"Idiot, you only say that because you've never known the bliss of being enveloped in that overwhelming softness. Listen..."
With no tension whatsoever, the two sentries—or more accurately, two men shooting the breeze—kept chatting.
The men in black watched them intently from the shadows.
"I thought it might be a trap to make us let our guard down... but it doesn't seem that way."
"Right. Did they not expect us to come?"
"Doesn't matter either way. Let's dispose of them and handle the target. Those soldiers were idiots, but they said something good. Hot wine is the way to go in this cold."
"Why are you joining in on the foolish talk? Ready? I'll take the one on the right."
"Then I'll take the left."
Having swiftly decided how to deal with the two soldiers, the men in black immediately sprang into action.
Timing their throws together, the two hurled black-painted daggers in unison.
If the moon had been out, perhaps the reflection of light might have allowed the soldiers to notice the daggers, even slightly. Or if the bonfire had been brighter.
But ultimately, the two soldiers never even realized daggers had been thrown at them. The blades buried themselves cleanly into their foreheads, claiming their lives.
It was perhaps a small mercy that the two soldiers lost consciousness without ever realizing they were dying.
To perish without fearing the terror of approaching death, without knowing anything, only to find themselves dead upon realization—that was, as far as ways to die went, on the fortunate side.
"Hide them."
Issuing the brief command, the men charged into the Officer Academy.
They dragged the fallen gatekeeper soldiers into the shadow of a building.
If someone came by and saw corpses on the ground, it would cause an uproar. But if no one was there, it could simply be assumed they were slacking off.
Of course, by tomorrow a commotion was certain. But for the men, all that mattered was that no alarm be raised until they had finished off their target, Ealand, inside the academy.
A pool of blood on the ground would be difficult to conceal completely, which was precisely why the daggers were aimed at the forehead—barely any blood flowed. Additionally, to prevent even the slightest scent of blood, they did not pull out the daggers embedded in the foreheads.
Of course, it was a winter night, and the wind was cold and strong.
Even a faint scent of blood would be scattered in an instant.
In any case, having swiftly cleaned up the traces of their assault, the men entered the Officer Academy and surveyed their surroundings.
Their intelligence network had, naturally, thoroughly investigated which dormitory their target was in. They sprinted across the grounds, and after about five minutes, the dormitory where their target resided finally came into view, when—
"Gah!"
"Gyah!"
"Geboh!"
Screams erupted abruptly.
From men who had undergone thorough training as assassins, no less.
Assuming something unexpected had occurred, the men instantly scattered in different directions.
Several of them cast their gazes backward as they did so, but what met their eyes were three figures collapsed on the ground.
What had brought them down was clear from the arrows embedded in their foreheads.
However—
(Impossible! I didn't hear the sound of arrows flying at all!?)
One of the men in black screamed inwardly.
The same was true for the others.
These men had undergone rigorous training as assassins.
Enough that hearing the sound of an arrow flying through this wind would not have been difficult.
But in that attack, they had not caught even a hint of the whistle of arrows in flight.
If only a single arrow had been fired, it might have been conceivable that they had simply failed to hear it by chance. However, three arrows had been fired.
Missing all of them was absolutely impossible. ...Or so it should have been.
If the one who loosed those arrows had been an ordinary archer, the men would never have made the mistake of missing the sound.
But in that attack, they could not perceive any sound of arrows cutting through the air at all.
Unable to comprehend what had happened, the men in black nevertheless did not stop in their tracks. Each one melted into the darkness to accomplish his objective.
However... as if the men's actions were irrelevant, arrows that sliced through the night yet produced no sound of flight struck them down one after another.
Even if one of them was struck and killed, the others would still eliminate their target, Ealand.
The men had made that determination with a resolve to die... but the flying arrows sank into their heads as if drawn in magnetically.
"Well now, I suppose that takes care of most of the ones who sneaked in. ...I feel sorry for the soldiers on guard duty."
Muttering with a glint of sorrow in his eyes was Sardat, standing on the rooftop of a building within the Officer Academy grounds.
The deaths of the academy's guard soldiers were a sorrowful event.
Under normal circumstances, Sardat could have prevented it, but given the current situation, there was a reason he could not.
"If they had only entered the school grounds before I attacked, I could have stopped them."
He murmured, reaching for his already-empty quiver.
If anyone other than Sardat had been present, they would have wondered: Is he going to remove the empty quiver?
But what Sardat did was pour magical power into the quiver.
The quiver began to glow faintly... but in the next instant, Sardat stopped channeling magical power and leapt from the spot.
Simultaneously, the sound of impact echoed around him.
"...You missed, huh."
Standing in the spot where Sardat had been just a moment before was a single man.
The longsword in his hands had been slammed into the rooftop floor, gouging out a massive crater in the stonework.
An attack that could easily gouge through stone—and not just any stone, but the sturdy kind used in Officer Academy buildings. What would have happened if that attack had connected was not difficult to imagine.
But even seeing such power, Sardat showed no particular sign of fear.
As an S-Rank Adventurer who had survived countless battles, facing an enemy with this level of attack power at close range was by no means an unfamiliar experience.
He took up his bow and focused his awareness on his quiver.
(No good, huh. If I'd had just a few more seconds, I could have produced at least a few arrows, even crude ones.)
When wielding a bow, the most important thing to watch out for was, naturally, the number of arrows.
Since one could not attack without arrows, the arrow count was of vital importance to any bowman.
However, Sardat's quiver was a magic item called the Trail of Abundance, which could generate an unlimited number of arrows by channeling magical power into it.
If that were all, it would be similar to the Eye of Nebula that Rei had obtained in the Bestia Empire, but this one could produce a greater variety of arrows.
It could increase the inherent durability of the arrows themselves, or imbue them with various elemental attributes.
Furthermore, unlike the Eye of Nebula, the arrows did not disappear over time.
Firing them with Sardat's unique skills and the Heavenly Bow—which was also a magic item—was the combat style of the S-Rank Adventurer known as the Heavenly Bow.
...However, that combat style also had a weakness.
Once he exhausted the arrows stored in the Trail of Abundance, he needed to channel magical power again to produce new ones.
Crude arrows could be generated in as little as ten seconds, but conversely, that meant ten seconds during which the man bearing the alias Heavenly Bow could be prevented from using his bow.
"They proved more useful than expected."
From the man's words, Sardat grasped the truth of this turn of events.
"I see. So it was a decoy to make me exhaust my arrows. In that case, does that mean agents of the Holy Light Religion are also involved with that noble child, Ealand?"
Despite having the attacks of his greatest weapon sealed, Sardat showed no particular sign of agitation. If anything, with a composed demeanor, he swept his hair back and addressed the man before him.
The man, for his part, showed no sign of letting his guard down against Sardat either.
Standing before him was an S-Rank Adventurer; he understood that he was not an opponent he could overcome so easily.
(If I had inflicted damage with that first strike, things might have been different.)
Inwardly harboring bitter feelings at the sight of Sardat standing unharmed before him, the man did not let it show as he continued.
"Whatever the truth of the matter, I have no intention of giving information to the enemy. Sorry, but I'll have you keep me company here for a while... no, keep us company while we buy some time."
As he finished speaking, several figures emerged from behind the man.
All of them were clad in robes, each holding a weapon.
Despite the fact that they were about to face one of only three S-Rank Adventurers in the world, they showed no sign of being daunted.
If anything, their extremely relaxed appearance made it clear that they would not falter and fail to perform to their full abilities out of fear.
Seeing them, Sardat distorted his beautiful features in an expression of pain.
"You people really do love your brainwashing, don't you. ...But do you really think Stigma can defeat me with just you alone? I am, after all, an S-Rank Adventurer. I'd think that the ones who best understand that strength would be you lot, given our recent encounters."
"Yeah, of course I don't think I can win. But my role is to hold you in place. That much, even I—"
Can do—before he could finish, Sardat fixed a sharp gaze on the man.
At the sharpness of that gaze, the man faltered for a moment... and without missing that opening, Sardat smiled and spoke.
However, the smile on his lips was by no means the one he usually wore when seducing women. It was the smile of a fierce predator that had found its prey and was about to sink its teeth in.
"*Tch!? ...I see, you certainly live up to being called the Heavenly Bow. It's true that as I am now, I couldn't hope to beat you, let alone stall for time. But have you forgotten? I am Stigma. One who bears the Holy Mark upon this body!"
With those words, the tattoo-like mark on the back of the man's left hand emitted light, and some kind of power spread throughout the surrounding area. A power that seemed similar to magical energy yet was fundamentally different.
It was a power that Sardat, who had lived for many years as an Elf, did not recognize.
And yet, it was a power he had seen when fighting Stigma on several occasions before.
Emitting that strange power, the man charged toward Sardat.