Chapter 112: Mad Shrike and the Rembpit Interlude

“Theresis, do you have any idea how much a single loaf of bread costs in Kazdel these days? Five hundred thousand LMD! You couldn’t even fit that much cash into a beast-drawn carriage!”

Theresis frowned, his expression a mix of deep confusion and mild concern. “But I just walked past a bakery on my way here. They were selling them for a hundred and thirty-five…”

“Don’t interrupt my flow!” Tabo slammed his hand against the table, the sudden noise making the Sarkaz general jump. “That was the only dramatic line I managed to memorize!”

Clearing his throat, the white-haired youth adjusted his collar and forced the conversation back on track. “Anyway. The fundamental crisis facing the Sarkaz is external exclusion and crippling economic blockades. Take Leithanien, for example, where the political hostility is the most blatant…”

They say rebellion is the greatest catalyst for progress. After finally coming face-to-face with Theresis, Tabo’s mental state—which had been teetering on the absolute brink of collapse for weeks—had miraculously recovered by more than half.

He knew perfectly well that the man sitting across from him was still withholding crucial information, but now was not the time to play detective. Momentum was everything.

“Whether you look at historical tradition, strategic geography, or the sheer direction of economic development, there is only one nation that stands in the absolute greatest conflict with the Sarkaz—”

In the span of just half an hour, Theresis had transitioned from deeply wary, to utterly astonished, to entirely convinced. He raised his hand to answer with the eager reflex of a top student. “Leithanien!”

He was finally beginning to understand the grand picture. Those naturally evil Leithanien brats were the root of it all!

Tabo guided him with the patience of a seasoned instructor. “Exactly. So, the very first target we strike after formalizing our cooperation is—”

“Kazimierz.”

Theresis nodded subconsciously. “Right… wait, huh? Kazimierz?”

What in the world did this have to do with Kazimierz?

The white-haired youth leaned forward, his voice dripping with cold, irrefutable logic. “If we can see the existential threat Leithanien poses to us, the other nations certainly can too. Those Casters in Leithanien are heavily entrenched and prepared. Fighting a grueling war of attrition in an environment bristling with Mage Towers… tell me, how would that be any different from the bloody meat grinder of our own civil war?”

He tapped a finger against the wooden table. “By contrast, I have a wealth of experience in fighting positional warfare against a bunch of primitive Pegasi who rely entirely on their brute physical fitness!”

The air in the room shifted, the lingering ghosts of their recent clashes settling heavily over the table.

“Three of the seven elite guards who have been protecting me since I woke up are already dead,” Tabo said, his tone dropping its comedic edge. “And I haven’t even settled that score with you yet.”

Theresis fell silent. He stared down at his hands for a long moment before speaking, his voice rough. “Of my twenty-five students… fifteen had already reached adulthood before you woke up.”

Tabo’s mind flashed back to his own ruthless, mechanical commands over the past two months. The buried landmines. The sacrificial decoys. The gasoline fire traps. The weaponized bloodline curses.

“…I see,” Tabo murmured. “How many are left?”

Theresis lowered his head, a bitter, hollow smile touching his lips. “…Just Manfred.”

The invisible scar from their earlier, lethal confrontation was unintentionally torn open, leaving the two men sitting in a heavy, suffocating silence. The cost of their little war was tallied in the blood of the people they cared about most.

“To our desperate cooperation,” Theresis finally said, raising his glass first.

“To our madness of hanging our own kind on the thorns,” Tabo replied, holding the rim of his glass and lightly clinking it against the general’s.

While the two masterminds were busy deciding the geopolitical fate of Terra over drinks, on the other side of the base, Theresa was still locked in a bitter struggle with W over a broken door that simply refused to align with its hinges.

Theresa let out a long, exhausted breath. She caught herself just before wiping her grease-stained hands on her pristine skirt, opting instead to offer a bright smile to the mercenary beside her.

“Thank you for your help, W. There’s no need to be so stiff. I’ve been trying to fix this stubborn thing for half a month already. I’ll get it eventually.”

W stood frozen, her entire worldview actively crumbling into dust.

Her Majesty, the Lord of Fiends, was personally fixing a door?

For a street rat like W, who had clawed her way through corpses and struggled on the razor’s edge of death since childhood, the title ‘Lord of Fiends’ had always been synonymous with untouchable, high-and-mighty divinity. She held absolutely zero reverence for Sarkaz tradition, and she had never hesitated to harbor the most malicious, cynical speculations about the legendary monarch.

But never in her wildest, most feverish dreams did she expect the lofty, mythic figure of the Sarkaz to bend down in the dirt with a wrench to fix a jammed door.

Just as her cynicism began to waver, Theresa looked up. The gentle, disarming smile on her face looked about thirty percent too similar to a certain white-haired tactician.

W jumped as if she had been shocked, her survival instincts violently snapping her back to reality. ‘Wait a minute. Isn’t this the exact same routine as that damn white-hair?! Her Commander literally sells his looks in a bar to manipulate people! By comparison, the Lord of Fiends playing the humble mechanic is just another psychological trap!’Her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.’Is she even fixing the door?! Or does she just have some kind of twisted door fetish?!’Theresa blinked. Thanks to her empathic Arts, she suddenly read a complex cocktail of extreme wariness and genuine terror radiating from the mercenary.’Does she think a monarch shouldn’t do manual labor?’Theresa wondered innocently.’Is this young little mercenary actually as hopelessly feudal as those dusty old Nachzehrer?’

W began a bizarre dance of approach and avoidance. She would step forward, get spooked by Theresa’s warm smile, hiss like a cornered cat, retreat two steps, and then cautiously creep forward again.

Down the hall, Ines and Hoederer—who had just been released from custody thanks to Theresa’s trusting orders—felt their blood pressure spiking to dangerous levels. The moment his handcuffs were removed, Hoederer had tentatively leaned toward the Babel corridor wall, seriously considering ramming his horns into the metal plating to knock himself unconscious.

He didn’t possess the empathic abilities to understand W’s complex internal crisis. All he saw was a suicidal little cockroach who, after miraculously surviving teasing the Ghost of Babel, had now decided to start aggressively hissing at the Lord of Fiends.

‘W, what on Terra are you doing?!’

The agonizing farce finally ended when Ines marched over, grabbed W by the ear, and dragged the hissing mercenary away down the corridor.

Left in peace, Theresa sat down, hugging her knees to her chest. She leaned against the cold iron of the half-fixed door, pulling out her terminal to handle the mountain of official Babel business late into the night.

The weight of the crown was heavy tonight. The traitor executed earlier that day had been a personal guard who had followed her loyally for many years. His sudden death left a gaping hole in her security detail and had sparked dangerous unrest among the veteran officials. These were all ugly, difficult problems that required her immediate, delicate touch.

She could not afford to fall. As the beacon for her people, all the Sarkaz in Babel risked their lives in the mud and blood because they believed in her vision. She had to be worthy of their ultimate sacrifice.

Suddenly, a hand clad in a familiar black glove reached down and plucked the terminal right out of her grasp.

“Theresa, when exactly did you catch my bad habits?”

Theresa looked up. The Doctor stood over her, holding a steaming thermal kettle in one hand. He leaned down, offering his free hand to her.

“The ground is freezing. Get up. I’ll split half my instant noodles with you.”

Theresa didn’t say a word. She just sat there, staring fixedly at the youth who was still bundled up as tightly as a winter ration pack. She watched him until the prolonged silence made him uncomfortable, forcing him to turn his head away to hide his embarrassment.

Only then did she allow a deeply satisfied smile to grace her lips. She took his gloved hand and let him pull her to her feet.

“Doctor, are you trying to comfort me because of the execution today?”

“…Are you going to eat or not? I even shelled out for two Feathered Beast eggs!” The youth’s voice came out muffled and defensive from beneath his mask, sounding very much like he was grinding his teeth.

In the dead of night, the two most important figures in Babel found a pair of disposable paper cups and split a cheap kettle of instant noodles.

“Doctor, you smell of cheap wine and lingering sadness. Where did you go?” Theresa asked softly. Ignoring Tabo’s pained, horrified gaze, she deliberately poked the soft-boiled Feathered Beast egg with her fork, letting the runny golden yolk bleed directly into the noodle broth.

Tabo took a massive, spiteful bite of his own fully-cooked egg, speaking around the food in his mouth. “I went to see an old acquaintance from the battlefield… And can you please not let the yolk run into the soup?! What flavor is even left in the broth now? If I had known you were going to ruin it, couldn’t you have just eaten this hard-boiled one?!”

Theresa playfully made a motion as if to dump her half-eaten, runny egg into his cup.

The Doctor instantly threw his arms over his bowl, guarding it like a dragon hoarding gold. “You’ve already taken a bite! You can’t put it in my bowl! I absolutely refuse to respect Sarkaz sharing culture in this specific regard!”

It was a rare, quiet moment of warmth. The two of them drew just a little closer over the steam of late-night junk food.

As the idle chatter slowed, the youth stared down into his cup, his voice dropping to a light, distant murmur. “I want to go back to Rembpit. Alone. Just to take a look around… I can’t let my entire understanding of this land be limited only to blood, war, and hatred.”

Theresa’s hand jerked.

Her plastic noodle fork slipped from her fingers, splashing directly into the greasy, yolk-stained soup at the bottom of her paper cup.

She stared down at the cup. She now had exactly two choices: she could either drink the rest of the noodles directly from the rim like an animal, or she could plunge her bare fingers into the hot, greasy broth to fish out the fork.

Theresa: “…”

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]