Stepping into the heart of Old Gundam was like entering a municipality. A municipality under strict control, ruled by a dictator.

It was quite unsettling. It felt like all eyes were on me, like every little movement I made was being recorded…

It was as if every step I took was being specifically recorded.

Something like, ‘Franz Martin Inferesse stepped into some part of the garden at 1:46 p.m.’. If that were the case, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all.

Still, there was one thing that surprised me. And that was the number of cars around being fewer than I’d expected. The visitor parking lot was so empty it felt like all plans for today had been canceled, and everyone had been sent home. I couldn’t see Thomas’s car anywhere either, as if he’d never even come here.

How strange…

Still, I didn’t stare at the parking lot for long. Instead, I turned back to the man in the suit who was waiting for me to finish surveying the area. He was an ordinary, middle-aged man with a very calm expression.

“Please follow me. The meeting will begin in about half an hour.”

When I nodded without saying a word, the man turned around, walked slowly toward the massive building, and I followed him.

Once I entered the old palace, the feeling of being watched hadn’t changed. On the contrary, it had only intensified. Everyone we passed turned toward us for a brief moment, but instead of returning to their work, they kept their eyes on us.

If I were an ordinary person, I might have lost my mind under the pressure after a short while. But I remained calm; I didn’t let the stares bother me. Instead, I examined the place.

Although the interior of the structure, with its massive corridors lined with offices and rooms, had been modified for current use, it was still, after all, an old ‘palace’. Its striking design was quite captivating.

However, what caught my attention was something else. Just like what I’d seen in the visitor parking lot, it was the sense of emptiness. The number of employees also seemed lower than it should be. For the headquarters managing the entire Black Blood and the Old Gundam to feel so… ghostly was definitely not normal.

“The number of staff seems a bit lacking.”

My words were directed at the man accompanying me. But even though he definitely heard my question, he didn’t pause his steps for even a moment.

“Hey.”

He didn’t pause again. He didn’t even turn to look at me. But this time, he did react to my comment.

“Most of our staff are on break right now. Please just follow me.”

“…”

How… suspicious.

I didn’t say anything else.

We arrived at an elevator. It was quite spacious, but there was still no one inside. The buttons were numbered from five down to minus three.

The man pressed the button labeled minus three. Then the elevator doors closed, and we began moving slowly toward the floor.

I noticed another detail here.

We were going down to the minus-three floor, but… I couldn’t help but feel as though we were going even deeper. Either the floor we were actually descending to wasn’t actually ‘minus three’, or the floors were farther apart than usual.

Before long, the elevator doors opened. And in that very moment, I received the answer to the question in my mind.

The elevator had opened into a place where it seemed there were nearly five or six meters between the ceiling and the floor.

So… taking the wall thickness into account, I was currently about twenty meters below ground level. Or probably more.

“I thought the meeting would take place ‘above’.”

“For security reasons, the leaders of Black Blood conduct their operations underground.”

For security reasons, huh…

So that whoever goes in can’t come out? It’s possible, actually…

We walked through corridors that resembled a maze for nearly five minutes. Then we descended another ten meters or so via a staircase… which closed behind us shortly after we used it.

“…”

But I didn’t comment.

We moved forward for another five minutes on this ‘minus fourth’ floor. After that, we reached another elevator.

The only difference was that this wasn’t an elevator anyone could use. The man next to me first swiped his ID to open the elevator door, then entered a series of numbers, most probably something like a password, into a screen featuring a keypad instead of floor buttons.

Then… we were heading down again.

We went down about five meters, then ten meters… and then fifteen meters.

Finally, the elevator doors opened.

We were met by narrower corridors. Corridors that felt much more cramped and colder.

“…”

But I still remained silent.

We wandered through these corridors, which felt even more ‘labyrinthine’ than the previous ones, for about five more minutes. When we finally stopped, there was a closed electronic door on our right, covering the entire wall.

The man scanned his ID again.

~beep!

A green light appeared on the wall, indicating the ID had been verified. Then came the sound of the locks releasing.

~krrr-chk!

~pssshhh!

As the pressure holding the lock was released, the door, which was part of the wall, began to fold inward and open.

~vrrrrmmm-shnk!

Behind the door, which opened with a loud noise, was a rather spacious room. The ceiling was also quite high.

Aside from its size, it had a rather… open layout. There was nothing inside the room except for a two-seater table in the center. There was no sign of any security or staff either.

“Please take a seat. Someone else will be here to assist you shortly.”

After saying this, he bowed slightly. And the door, which he had opened with his ID, slowly closed, separating the two of us. It felt as though he were locking me in here.

“Haaaah…”

I took a deep breath. Then, approached the desk with steady steps and took a seat, just as I’d been told. At the same time, I surveyed the room again.

It was an empty room, with absolutely nothing in it aside from the pure white walls. It didn’t look like there were any traps anywhere, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the walls suddenly transformed into turrets, each one facing me.

I felt more like someone who wasn’t supposed to leave their spot until they were interrogated than someone in a waiting room.

Are they trying to show me that the power and authority lie with them…? Is this some kind of show to say that ‘even though you’ve gained some power lately, the real power is ours’…? Like a way of saying, “We can silence you whenever we want, so don’t get too cocky”?

If so… they’re doing their job damn well, no lie.

~vrrrrmmmm!

At the sound echoing through the room, I turned to my left, straight toward where the door was. I hadn’t even been sitting there for half a minute when it opened again.

~shnk!

The figure behind it finally came into view with that.

Like all the figures in this city, he was wearing a black suit. Under his jacket, he wore a white shirt and a gray vest. His black tie featured white diagonal stripes.

He was tall. Though he didn’t look particularly muscular, his strength was evident even from the aura around him.

With his black hair carefully combed back, he looked every inch the Cevilian noble. His clean-shaven face was smooth, yet his features suggested he was in his late thirties. His eyes, which appeared bluish, were completely devoid of emotion; he seemed unnervingly calm.

~thud… ~thud…

His steps felt heavy and deliberate. It was as if every movement had a purpose.

“…”

As I watched the man approach me, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. He seemed almost on my level, yet there was an unsettling aura about him. It was as if… he didn’t care about me.

~vrrrmmmm!

As the door closed again, he finally reached the table. Without saying a word, he sat down in the chair across from me, straightened his tie and jacket. Then he fixed his cold, navy-blue eyes on me.

A brief silence fell between us. A silence in which neither of us spoke a single word, making the atmosphere feel quite tense.

“I was expecting someone to accompany me to the meeting… not someone to sit across from me.”

After I spoke, he let out a soft sigh. He took off his jacket, leaned it casually against the armrest of his chair, and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. Then, his first words slipped from his lips.

“Welcome, Aiden Tenebra.”

“…”

Aiden Tenebra?

Not Franz Martin Inferesse, but Aiden Tenebra…?

…

…

Well, alright.

I sent a subtle amount of mana to the device hidden beneath my clothes. The fake skin and everything else that made me look like Franz Martin Inferesse slowly melted away with that, turning into vapor beneath my clothes and vanishing… leaving only my original body and my clothes behind.

I removed the eye patch covering my left eye and flung it randomly to the side. Then I leaned back, let out a soft sigh, and fixed my gaze calmly on the man in front of me.

“Well, thanks for the nice welcome.”

“…”

This time, it was he who remained silent. Though it wasn’t entirely clear whether it was because he found what he saw repulsive or if there was another reason.

“You seem calm.”

Apparently, it was the latter. He didn’t seem to care much that my disguise was disabled in a rather disgusting way.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You’re in enemy territory, about fifty meters underground. Your identity has been exposed.”

I shrugged in response.

“So? There’s nothing for me to worry about.”

I continued speaking nonchalantly, without a single moment’s hesitation.

“I’ll get what I want. At this point, it doesn’t matter much what kind of surprise I might encounter.”

“…”

This time, he really did look surprised. The coldness in his navy-blue eyes had faded slightly, and his calm expression had cracked just a bit.

“Wow. I didn’t expect you to be… this confident. Did you come in here expecting this?”

I shook my head.

“No, you addressing me by name was an unexpected surprise. I certainly didn’t anticipate you guys figuring it out already. But as I said…”

I channeled mana into my cane. A blue glow quickly enveloped it, and then it took its usual sword form, with the sharp tip pointing downward.

“From this point on, it doesn’t matter that much.”

As the left side of my vision slowly turned purple, I carefully stood up.

“I’ll get what I want.”

And I pointed the tip of my sword at the man in front of me.

“Black Blood will be destroyed today, no matter what you do.”

“…”

Yet, he didn’t react in any way except keeping his eyes fixed on my sword.

But then, taking a deep breath, he stood up just like I did.

I could have attacked him, pounced on him at any moment… but I didn’t. With confidence, I let him do whatever he was doing, unconcerned. And he clearly realized that.

As the air around him grew heavy, his eyes first glowed, emphasizing their navy-blue hue, and then a purple, ominous glow slowly swallowed that color entirely.

“What a hassle…”

Blue sparks appeared in his hands; before long, he was holding two daggers. Daggers beginning to be enveloped in a purple aura…

“I hope I get paid extra for this.”

“Unfortunately, the people who pay you will soon be dead.”

But then, I paused.

“Well… you’ll be dead even before them, so it doesn’t really matter, I guess.”

A brief silence fell as we both stared intently at each other. It was as if the world had stopped spinning for a moment.

And then, a short while later… there was no air between us anymore.

Instead, there was the sharp tip of a dagger right before my eyes.

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