“Morning. Have you two eaten?”
“We have. Stew today, and bread baked with butter in it.”
“It was so good I had two whole bowls.”
Rofel ate a great deal, being a boy, and Romi wasn’t far behind. Both of them were in the thick of growing, so Lee Hyeon had asked the kitchen to be generous, whatever they wanted. Perhaps because of that, their cheeks had filled out a little.
He made small talk as he sat down. For a man of few words he put effort into chatting with the people around him. He’d kept his distance from people because he hadn’t wanted to shoulder any more of the emptiness and the debt that came after losing them.
And he could survive alone without camaraderie or cooperation, so he’d spent his time on the front line wiping out aberrations in silence.
But in this unfamiliar place his own strength couldn’t manage even his own share of the work. Only with cooperation did he cover one person’s worth, and thankfully that cooperation came without a burden attached.
Here he could give as much as he took, and set down the fear of losing them besides.
And I need to be able to face Yuan.
Remarkably enough, Lee Hyeon was adjusting. To working with people. To giving back what he was given.
Cohen brought tea and a simple breakfast again as he started, and set them down quietly at one corner of the desk.
“Thank you.”
He ate while reading the matters sent up from the territory, and when he’d finished he conferred with Cohen and took whatever measures were called for.
The more he worked, the more he understood what a formidable person Yuan had been. Cohen had let slip in passing that even the master’s voice got quieter in the face of Madam’s competence.
He’d said this too, of course.
“But your competence hasn’t rusted at all, Madam. You returned to work the moment you got back, and on your eye alone you hired talent this fine and kept them beside you. You asked Lady Dione for help and set a disordered house right in no time. My own work has gotten easier for it, which honestly leaves me feeling apologetic.”
Awkward as he was about saying it, Cohen showed relief and no small pride that the estate was being put right. And Lee Hyeon was grateful that where he fell short, other people were propping him up.
Next to Yuan he could barely get the work done with assistance. Still, the load was split now and everyone had a little more room in their day. That much was a blessing.
As lunch drew near he sent Rofel and Romi off.
“Let’s do the rest after lunch and some rest.”
Their eyes lit up and they hurried to tidy what was left before heading for the dining hall. They made him promise not to keep working while they were gone. He kept sorting anyway, right up until Cohen came with lunch.
Then, as he was about to look over a document, blue light flickered in front of his eyes.
[Warning. A hazard has been detected.]
What?
[A hazard will appear within approximately 3 km shortly.]
[Please prepare for danger.]
He whipped his head around to the window behind him. In one patch of clear blue sky a dark red meteor was falling toward the center of the capital, trailing a long tail.
A moment later it hit the ground and drowned part of the world in that same color. His vision went black, flashed white, and what came out of it was this:
[An S rank gate has formed at bearing 124°, distance 2.8 km.]
A gate, swallowing everything around it and contracting as it went.
He registered what it had swallowed, and then he was up and running out of the study.
It had come down directly on top of the academy.
“You can’t, Madam! We have to wait for the imperial knights to respond! If you move recklessly, you’ll be—”
Lee Hyeon climbed onto the driver’s seat over the protest and took a hard grip on the reins. He’d never driven a carriage in his life. But if all he needed was to make it run, there were workarounds. Startle a horse and it had a habit of bolting on sheer momentum.
Faced with danger, though, Cohen wasn’t a retainer who simply obeyed. He snatched the reins away and bore down on Lee Hyeon’s shoulders. In ability he was on par with a B rank hunter, so Lee Hyeon was pinned with no recourse.
“Even for the young master’s sake, I cannot let you put yourself in danger as well!”
Lee Hyeon didn’t struggle against the hands holding him down. He watched Cohen with cool eyes. Reckless as he was in one sense, his conduct was ice. Cohen was visibly shaken, and fear was written all over him.
“Cohen.”
At the calm way his name was said, Cohen flinched and lifted his hands slowly off those shoulders. He kept the reins.
“As a retainer, I cannot send you to your death as well. Whatever you say to me, I won’t let you go.”
“Even if Millian dies?”
Cohen’s eyes went wide and his face went like a dead man’s, as though he’d just heard the most horrifying thing there was.
“That rift’s entrance will close before the palace can respond. The people inside that academy can’t handle something like this on their own. Didn’t you tell me the headmaster himself is only a second Authority? The faculty are third and fourth Authority, and the students aren’t at a level to take part in a suppression at all.”
“...”
“And with all that, you’re telling me to wait on a decision from the palace that may or may not come. I can’t do that, Cohen.”
The hand on the reins shook like a leaf, and it said plainly how frightened he was. Madam was right. Better that anyone who could fight go in there and protect the children and the people than sit here waiting on the palace.
If it were the master standing here instead, Cohen would have seen him off without a second’s hesitation.
But Madam.
“You’re a fourth Authority. Even if you go—”
“It’s all right, Cohen.”
Lee Hyeon answered the trembling man calmly.
“I spent two years surviving inside a rift and came back. I know how to stay alive better than anyone.”
Cohen’s eyes shook hard at a statement built on plain fact. He was right. This was a man who’d survived two years in one and walked out. Low Authority or not, there was a reason he was this confident about living.
While Cohen was still agonizing over whether stopping him was even right, Lee Hyeon took the reins back out of his hands. He’d pushed him off the seat and was about to snap them when somebody came bursting out of the crowd and climbed up beside him.
“I’m coming with you!”
Laurent barely made it onto the seat, caught one side of the reins, and spoke to both of them.
“I can drive a team. I’ll get you there. Having me along will help more than going alone, at least.”
He met Cohen’s eyes as if asking for his blessing. Only then did Cohen, frozen in indecision, gather himself enough to ask something of him.
“...I’m entrusting Madam to you.”
He wanted desperately to go too, and he had a duty. Edwin had to be told. And if Madam and the young master didn’t come back, Cohen swore he’d atone for it with his own life in front of the man.
“Yes. I’ll put him before my own.”
Laurent pulled the reins out of Lee Hyeon’s hands as he said it. Caught off guard, Lee Hyeon surrendered control. The man’s momentum was unstoppable in a different direction from Cohen’s.
“We’re off. It’s going to shake hard, so hold on to the seat.”
He brought the reins down and the carriage lurched. Lee Hyeon grabbed the nearest handhold and watched the gate draw closer.
“Lord Lee Hyeon.”
Laurent forced a path through streets in chaos with the evacuation as he spoke.
“This is an independent rift, which makes it dangerous. The threat level will be grade 1. Neither I at fifth Authority nor you at fourth are coming out of that in one piece.”
He laid the urgency out and drove without a scrap of ease on his face. Cohen’s worry was justified. In this capital, the knights who could resolve an independent rift were the imperial knights and almost nobody else.
Unlike the ducal houses guarding the four directions, most nobles in the capital chased profit and property rather than power.
In practical terms there wasn’t a noble among them who’d step forward and go into a rift the way Lee Hyeon had. If the imperial knights weren’t committed in time, everyone inside died. Helpless.
Laurent knew that was the reality, and he still couldn’t not follow him.
“I believe in you, Lord Lee Hyeon.”
Because this man had saved his life once, and Laurent had let himself believe the young master might be saved the same way.
“Please hold back on anything too reckless. I can’t heal wounds that are too severe with what I’ve got. All right?”
Lee Hyeon glanced at him and leaned out toward the rift, which was almost on top of them.
“Don’t worry. I’ll repay the faith.”
And not just Laurent’s. If anyone put their faith in him, he’d carve them a road in return, even through the fires of hell.
Then, without a signal passing between them, they leapt from the carriage into the rift at the same instant.
