The moment the monster vanished into the forest of the Dead City of Flowers, Inea sank to her knees.
Her legs shook uncontrollably, and cold sweat poured down her entire body like an open floodgate. The rest of the Babel personnel—warriors who usually prided themselves on being worth a thousand men apiece—were in the exact same state. Every single one of them was profoundly relieved from the bottom of their hearts that war with that monster had been avoided.
"Guildmaster! Have you lost your mind, picking a fight with him?! If things had gone south, every hunter in Babel could've been slaughtered!"
A woman clad in revealing armor—just a breastplate and remarkably short shorts—confronted Ralph Excel with tearful eyes.
"I know, I know. It chilled me to the bone. Shaved decades off my life, honestly. You couldn't pay me enough to get on his bad side a second time."
Ralph let out a long, ragged exhale and slumped straight to the ground. Turning his head toward Princess Rosemary, who stood smiling nearby, he spoke with palpable exhaustion.
"We in the Hunter Guild had nothing to do with this scheme. Princess, will you vouch for us?"
"Of course. I will explain everything to Kai later. Once he understands you bear no ill will, Ralph, he won't go out of his way to make an enemy of you."
Princess Rose offered a gentle smile, completely devoid of anxiety or doubt.
"The Hunter Guild got dragged into this mess completely by accident, and Master isn't unreasonable anyway. You've got nothing to worry about. If anything, the real problem is with you folks at Babel."
Zack—a towering, ruggedly built martial artist standing two mels tall—shot a glance at Inea, pointing out the very thing she dreaded most.
This time, Inea and her faction had merely ridden the coattails of the plot orchestrated by Kai Heinemann's subordinates. But judging by his demeanor earlier, no matter how much she tried to plead that excuse, it wouldn't earn them an ounce of leniency. His resolve had been terrifyingly clear: he was fully prepared to wipe the entire organization of Babel off the face of the earth.
"Do you truly believe that?"
"Pretty much. Those brainless fools over there forgot their place and genuinely pissed Master off. It's a lost cause. Nothing left to do now but let the chips fall where they may."
Zack jerked his thumb toward the captured, despondent members of the vice headmaster faction behind them, shaking his head with a grimace.
"In other words... Babel's entire future hangs on the safety of Laila Helner?"
"Yeah. The truth is, Master cares a hell of a lot more about his people than he even realizes. And not just Laila Helner, either. If any one of us was harmed, he'd react the exact same way."
"Then, if anything were to happen to her..."
"Obviously, Master won't listen to a single word of your excuses—he'll obliterate Babel. He'll wipe it out so thoroughly that not even dust will remain. We can't stop him, and we don't plan to try. All that's left for you to do is pray that the girl named Laila comes out of this in one piece."
"I... see."
Inea felt her composed smile fracturing. She knew she had been walking a razor's edge, and she knew Kai still perceived himself as human. But he was the world's strongest Transcender. She simply hadn't anticipated that he would retain such raw, mortal sentimentality.
"It is true that the Girimehkala Faction pulled the strings from the shadows, and that you merely capitalized on their design. However, is it not an undeniable fact that members of this Tower sought to murder my master in the first place?"
Seemingly indifferent to the tension, a stunning woman dressed in foreign garb and wearing a monocle let out a lazy yawn before posing the question.
"Yes."
The assassination attempt against Kai Heinemann had been plotted by the vice headmaster's faction at the request of that foolish prince. The vice headmaster was undeniably part of Babel. Therefore, the blame remained absolute.
"Then, in a sense, you have brought this entirely upon yourselves."
"Ain't that the truth. If you think about it, aren't we lucky the Girimehkala Faction got involved at all?"
Zack folded his arms, muttering his thoughts with deep conviction.
"Indeed. Had the more zealous elements among Master's followers caught wind of this first, mere outrage would not begin to describe their response. The entire organization of Babel would have been erased without a second thought. It was only because the Girimehkala Faction happens to be a bunch of eccentrics with a peculiar fondness for gnats—that is, humans—that they bothered with such a convoluted approach to contact Babel."
Zack and the monocled woman exchanged these incomprehensible remarks casually. Yet, despite how absurd it sounded, Inea couldn't stop the cold shivers running down her spine.
"Yeah. But still, that old guy Girimehkala is pretty unhinged, right? Is this whole thing actually gonna wrap up smoothly?"
As Zack muttered the question as if it were entirely someone else's problem, the woman replied.
"Lucas has also been deployed for this operation. Barring any unforeseen anomalies, the matter should be settled cleanly once Master intervenes."
"Old Man Lucas is on the move too? Man, now I've really got a bad feeling about this. And 'unforeseen anomalies,' huh...? In a mess like this, isn't that the ultimate jinx?"
Zack rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then shot an exasperated look at the monocled woman.
"Surely you are overthinking—"
The monocled woman started to scoff, but suddenly furrowed her brow, her gaze snapping toward the far reaches of the Dead City of Flowers.
"—or perhaps not."
She murmured those utterly ominous words into the heavy silence.