Viviana was losing, as she expected. What Viviana didn’t expect was how badly she was losing, and how frustrating it was. Viviana had lost fights before (mostly to Selenne), but it wasn’t the same. Those fights were at least enjoyable. But this was like fighting a massive organism that separated and recombined to dodge and attack at once.

  Viviana couldn’t swipe at a single person before another person flanked. Explosions were going off left and right as smoke grenades were being thrown. Viviana knew to get out of those immediately and use her artifact as much as she could to prevent them from surrounding her.

  But increasing the distance between each of the members didn’t prevent them from surrounding her. It just meant that it would take more time.

  Even worse was the fact that her artifact was running lower and lower on mana. It was her only lifeline in this fight, and it was about to run out.

  Viviana grimaced as she took another blow from another angle. Fighting six people at once is just not possible. She parried the followup attack, then counter attacked, but that opponent immediately retreated, swapping themselves out with another opponent. They’re using their number’s advantage wisely.

  This cannot last. They will surround me soon, and as soon as they do I am good as dead. Think. Focus on one opponent at a time. Isolate a one-versus-one instead of exposing yourself to a one-versus-six.

  Viviana placed a [lightning trap] on the ground, and then morphed the space to push the [lightning trap] at the closest opponent.

  She detonated it. A scream. Success. Viviana lunged forward, decreasing the distance once more, driving a sword through their throat.

  [You have slain a level 6 soulbound.]

  [+7 exp]

  “Stay off the ground!” one of the breach knights yelled. The remaining grounded knights immediately activated their grapples, lifting themselves off the soil. Well, there goes that trick.

  She was in big trouble now. The knights were getting used to spacial manipulations. Viviana grit her teeth. It wouldn’t look good on video to die without taking out another. Getting another would be three out of seven initially. A little less than half, not bad.

  Viviana willed a [lightning spear] into existence, throwing it forward and shortening the distance it needed to fly. The speed of the attack and shortened distance made it nearly a sure-hit attack. Viviana moved forward as well, but the knight parried her strike, throwing her right into their midst.

  The well trained knights instantly capitalized on the opportunity, attacking from multiple angles at once. So Viviana shortened the distance between her grapples and the ceiling, pulling her upwards in a flash of speed. Viviana winced as a sword grazed her narrowly. If she was even a second later, she would be dead.

  Well, it doesn’t even matter. I’m dead.

  Then the world went black.

  Viviana felt it, the distinct mana of someone she really, really didn’t want to bump into. Then she heard her presence. Screams, shouts through the communication channels of the breach knights. Mana signatures fading as their wielders were killed. A massive flare of mana. One of the breach knights was trying to nuke the entire area, knowing that whoever was in the darkness wouldn’t be able to dodge. But before the mana formed into whatever skill that was, the darkness faded into light.

  There she was. Selenne Kerzenlied, in the flesh. She stood there in pitch black armor, blade covered in blood. Half of the breach knights were corpses at her feet. Viviana had taken out two. Selenne had taken out three.

  It made her a little mad to see Selenne walk in and kill three people in seconds when she had struggled so much, even with the overpowered distance manipulation artifact.

  Vivana deactivated her grapples, dropping to the ground while manipulating space, turning the long fall into a short hop. She dropped right next to Selenne, ignoring the remaining two breach knights. They were as good as dead anyways.

  “Why are you here, Viviana?” Selenne said, her voice raised. “I told you to withdraw from the war.”

  “You said, and I quote, ‘from now on’. We were already on a mission, so we just continued it. We’ll stop afterwards.”

  Selenne sighed. “Stupid. I’m trying to protect Lucian, and by proxy, that means you and the entire Landsknecht as well. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  “I didn’t listen because you spewed some cryptic bullshit and then left without an explanation. What exactly was I supposed to do? And then we fought, I lost, so now, I’m honoring our agreement. Yes, I’m here on technicality. I’ll be out of your war once the missions we accepted are over.”

  Viviana couldn’t comprehend why Selenne wanted them out of the war so much. Why even that breach knight warned them about picking a side. They’re afraid, Viviana thought. I’m strong enough to shake them.

  “... I can’t believe Adam didn’t tell me about this,” Selenne muttered. “Fine. We’ll wrap this up quickly. Then you leave immediately.”

  Viviana turned away from Selenne, drawing her attention back to the two breach knights. They didn’t stand a chance.

  Turns out, fighting with and not against Selenne was annoying. Selenne kept turning off the lights at the worst timings possible, forcing Viviana to fight with her other senses instead. Even so, they made short work of the knights, now continuing down the tunnel to meet back up with the rest of the group.

  Viviana manipulated space one last time to shorten the distance they had to travel to get to the mission objective. The artifact had run out of mana completely. Viviana decided to pocket it. Even though it was useless now, Viviana knew that there had to be a way to recharge it. She imagined it would be useful later.

  They began moving through the corridor, but Selenne stopped halfway. Viviana turned to observe her. “Are you coming along?”

  Selenne shook her head. “Can’t. Something came up.”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “Why? Isn’t it because Lucian’s there? What are you trying to hide from him? Why not protect him yourself? I don’t get it, Selenne.”

  Selenne didn’t respond. “I can’t tell you. Goodbye, Adler-Stern. Stay out of trouble. Make sure he does, as well. I suggest that you both leave.”

  Selenne turned around. Viviana sighed, continuing down the tunnel herself. She had a mission to complete.

  It didn’t take long for Viviana to reach her destination. She passed through a blown open door. Lucian and Thomas and Bena had succeeded. There were signs of a fight– defeated Ferric Meridian forces scattered left and right. No breach knights, but if they were sent down here, they were certainly decently high ranked.

  She continued a little further, finally bumping into the rest of the Landsknecht members, and a small party of Adam’s men. Behind them was a pool she couldn’t see the end of. No, it wasn’t a pool, but an underwater tunnel that led into the blue lake she had seen on the surface. Viviana couldn't imagine just what sorts of horrors were in there.

  A non-euclidean underwater dungeon. If you died down there without the proper equipment you were stuck for months. It was why those who entered this part of the dungeon carried specialist dive gear. It gave the user both the ability to breathe underwater, but also teleport out of the dungeon. The technology was based on the portals that scattered this terrarium’s surface.

  A shame that this sort of stuff only works down here, though.

  “Vivi, you’re alive!” Bena’s voice. Viviana nodded.

  Lucian blinked. “As expected, I suppose. It was only a full squad of breach knights. Glad to have you back.”

  Thomas murmured his agreement. “Glad to have you back. You hurt?”

  “I’m a little hurt, but I’ll manage. How long has Adam been down there?”

  “Not long,” Thomas said. “Ten minutes… he should be back in another ten…”

  Just then, splashes echoed in the tunnel behind them. They were back. Adam crawled out of water, pressing a button on his armor that instantly dried it.

  “This mission is over, Landsknecht,” Adam said. “I’m stopping the contract here.”

  Viviana blinked, suddenly caught off guard. “What? Why?”

  “Another murder. Two, in fact. A member of Team A and an FM girl, permanently dead. I need to investigate.”

  Viviana’s head swam with thoughts. “Take us with you,” she said. “We’ve been contracted to investigate as well.”

  “No,” Adam said. “Go home. Don’t get caught up in this. This is a guild thing.”

  “We’ve been contracted by a guild member.”

  Adam simply stared. “Leave, immediately.”

  Viviana swallowed. The rest of Landsknecht looked at her. She hesitated for a split second as someone came to her mind. “Fine. The payment?”

  “Sent to you in full. Now get out of here.”

  …

  Days later, Adam sat in his office in terrarium two, suspended high above the clouds. Adam poured over the files and sheets on his desk, holding his head in his hands. He sighed, staring out the window with a collection of pictures in his hands.

  Adam leafed through the pictures, not even looking at them while ruminating. He was so close. It was someone on Team A, in Selenne’s squad, and it happened during a plan he had made himself. He participated in himself.

  Adam was so close to the murder, that if he were someone else, he would have suspected himself.

  Let’s go over the possibilities again.

  The first murder, a dead VAC student. Clean cut, no fight, possibility of stealth skill usage.

  The second, a dead Pact student. Same thing. No signs of struggle.

  The third and fourth murders. Back to back, within the FM compound. Too many people were here. If the murderer got away without being spotted, a stealth skill was necessary.

  Adam had already run through all the people in the academy that had some sort of suitable stealth skill. Unsurprisingly the amount of people was high.

  Not to mention that a stealth skill doesn’t matter if the murderer was simply sneaky. Or super fast, or even had adaptive camouflage, like my own.

  Yet for some reason, one person kept popping into his mind. Selenne Kerzenlied.

  Naturally the first thing he did was ask her about the murder, but she, too, had no idea what happened. She sent her helmet camera footage through to him, but the most she could get were blurry images and flashes of darkness. Selenne’s stupid skill apparently applied to cameras too. All perception.

  All the other members had no usable footage either. And FM? Not a chance. Team A had gone in with an EMP to shut down any early warning system and delay the response as much as possible. None of FM’s camera information was being streamed anywhere. No breach knights were even present for the first thirty minutes of the fight.

  It’s all too convenient.

  He had thought this before. Selenne was perfectly suited for the job. She wasn’t stealthy, per se, but technically she was if no one could observe her. She would have been more of a suspect if her background alluded to any sort of motive, but no.

  He had done a thorough investigation into Selenne when he pulled her into the Pact. Nothing in those files implied anything about murder. She simply had no motive. Her past wasn’t a mystery. She was the guild’s rising star, someone raised by good parents who had close ties with the guilds. There was simply no reason to kill.

  Above all else, Adam couldn’t imagine Selenne to be a killer. She was ruthless, yes, but also incredibly kind. She cared for her men like no other in the guild. They all loved her.

  It has to be someone else. Someone with actual motive. Someone who wanted all these people dead.

  Adam shuffled some papers on his desk, now focusing on the victims instead of the suspects.

  All of the victims are high rankers. All of them have some sort of influence, and all of them are the progeny of a guild authority figure. Maybe someone is trying to undermine the guilds?

  Adam then thought about it. Just who has known anti-guild stances?

  Viviana Adler-Stern. The exile who slaughtered the personal knights of the Adler-Stern patriarch. That single action drove a dozen different underground gangs to attack local guilds garrisons.

  Could this be her gambit? Target and threaten key guild members by threatening their children in the academy?

  She was there, every time a murder happened. Although there are no reports of her near the area of the first…

  No. For the second, third, and fourth murders, she was near me, or within vicinity. I fought her in terrarium two during the first murder, and the third and forth, she was close by. She had no stealth skill, either, so she couldn’t have slipped away.

  Just then, Adam got a message from the higher ups in the guild. He cursed. He read it over quickly. In short, it contained a lot of anger and panic.

  The murder cases have long since reached the guilds– the true guilds, outside of the academy. But this was the final straw. The students in the academy proved they weren’t capable of solving the mystery, and the murders were continuing.

  Adam shuddered. Rumours had it that the Eisenwald family, the core family of Ferric Meridian, was beginning to move. Adam was a part of Pact already and had connections. He knew that Pact was coming. Yet if he, a firmly Pact connected person, knew about Ferric Meridian’s movements…

  If the guilds were coming, it would mean war. Not some stupid academy war, but a real one. A corporate war between the guilds of Central.

  If the guilds come to find the real culprit, they’ll naturally accuse each other. Blood has already been drawn. Wars have been started for less.

  Adam went back to his investigation. He had to find the true culprit or everything would come crashing down around him.