Karnak and his companions continued north along the imperial road. It was a long journey on foot, without horses or carriages. Not, of course, because they couldn’t afford it. Surely no one believed Karnak’s group was that short on funds. Rather, it was a deliberate choice to avoid drawing the eyes of the Cult of the Black God.

Horses and carriages were expensive, and expensive things left a paper trail. Even simple farm horses or secondhand wagons came with transaction records. Careless spending would immediately expose their movements.

In fact, one of the most basic tactics for any intelligence organization tracking a target was to examine recent horse and carriage purchases. They couldn’t use a carriage from the Altas merchant guild either. If they left with one less carriage than they arrived with at Grental, even the dimmest cultist would notice something was off.

At the very least, they needed to travel on foot until they reached a major city. Only once lost in the crowds could they safely purchase transport without revealing their identities. With that in mind, Serati packed thoroughly. They would have to endure nearly ten days of sleeping outdoors and subsisting on rough meals, so proper preparation was essential.

Unfortunately, her meticulous efforts never saw the light of day. Karnak absolutely refused to camp.

"We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?" she protested.

"We are in a hurry," Karnak replied, "but that doesn’t mean we have to rush through it eating garbage!"

After all, a human life barely lasted a hundred years. Assuming three meals a day, that came out to just over a hundred thousand meals. How could he waste even one of them? With such logic, he made sure their route included decent inns and restaurants every single day. The rest of the group was deeply moved.

"You’re planning to live more than a hundred years?"

"A hundred thousand meals is barely anything?"

And so, the group continued their journey at a leisurely pace, eating well, resting properly, and sleeping in comfort.

"Are we really doing the right thing?" Leven asked with a worried frown.

Karnak, unbothered, gave a casual shrug. "It’s fine. We’ll be what, three or four days slower at most?"

And apparently, there were unexpected upsides too. "They’re gonna be completely thrown off. I know because I’ve been on the other end before."

Milia and Lapicel tilted their heads in confusion.

"Thrown off how?"

"What do you mean?"

***

Kallat City was one of the largest cities in the western Lacania Empire, and also home to the Western Legion of the Brigade of Purification. It was here, beneath the surface of this military stronghold, that the Cult of the Black God had established a covert branch.

To be precise, they had chosen Kallat because of the brigade’s presence. It allowed them to monitor imperial activity up close and react swiftly.

Pakrath, age forty-two, was the head of the Kallat branch. He was a powerful necromancer on par with Harbert, and a formal sixth circle mage. He had earned Elezar’s trust and was tasked with overseeing the entire western region of the church.

In a concealed stone chamber within an unassuming commercial building on the city outskirts, Pakrath sat with a deep scowl on his face. "You still haven’t found them?"

"No, Archbishop Pakrath," came the steady response from his subordinates. "We’ve backtracked their entire predicted route and movements."

"But there’s not a single trace," one added, trailing off awkwardly as he glanced at his superior.

"It’s possible we made a mistake, but..."

"To leave zero traces like this is..."

The cursed Karnak Zestrad was from the Eustil Kingdom’s King’s Order. He had brought down Archbishop Harbert recently. Official reports claimed he had returned to the Eustil Kingdom with the Altas merchant guild. Still, Pakrath had dispatched agents just in case, to track him discreetly.

Normally, he wouldn’t have gone to such lengths. But the current situation within the Church of the Black God was anything but normal. Diogres Kolon, an archmage and Master of the Tower of Dawn, had vanished.

The entire church was on edge, focusing all their resources on locating him. And now, of all times, Karnak—an individual flagged as extremely dangerous—had turned up in the empire. Ignoring the possibility of a connection was not an option. Perhaps Karnak was somehow related to Diogres Kolon.

So Pakrath had ordered an exhaustive sweep of every route Karnak’s group might’ve taken. But nothing had turned up. It was unthinkable that a group in hiding would stay at luxurious inns, so he had all the quiet mountain paths and back roads investigated. But no traces of Karnak’s group had turned up.

"Did they really return to the Seven Kingdoms?" Pakrath muttered.

His subordinates nodded in agreement.

"They had no real reason to stay in the empire, after all."

"It’s likely they simply completed their mission and departed."

To be fair, what connection could an archmage of the empire possibly have with someone from the Seven Kingdoms?

I was overthinking it, Pakrath admitted to himself.

In the end, he ordered the pursuit to cease. There were more pressing matters than chasing shadows.

"Return to the search for Kolon," he said, shuffling through documents. Then he asked, "Where is the Holy Sword of the church currently at?"

***

Ten days had passed since they’d departed Grental. At last, Karnak’s party arrived in the Kabrat region, where the Tower of Dawn stood. The Lacania Empire was vast. It was far too vast to cross on foot from the western reaches to the northern territories in just ten days. And considering how leisurely Karnak’s group had been traveling, it should have been even more impossible.

But impossibility had become reality for a reason. They now had horses and wagons. Unless one was in a bustling metropolis, the purchase of such transport left an obvious paper trail. But once they'd reached a major city, buying horses and carriages no longer risked exposure.

They had traveled on foot for about four days. From there, they acquired transportation in the northwestern Mezan City. Thanks to the empire’s exceptionally well-maintained roadways, the efficiency of travel by horse and carriage far exceeded that of the Seven Kingdoms, allowing them to drastically reduce travel time.

Before them stretched a desolate basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, and at its center rose a towering spire of dark blue stone.

"That must be the Tower of Dawn," Leven murmured.

Surveying the area, Serati frowned. "It’s a mess, isn’t it?"

Originally, the surroundings of the tower had been imbued with powerful magic, ensuring eternal springtime weather and a serene atmosphere. But that wasn’t the case anymore.

It was clear that a battle had recently taken place. The land had been ravaged, outposts shattered, and weapons and broken tents lay scattered everywhere. The absence of corpses was only thanks to the empire’s thorough burial operations.

They had not done so out of respect for the dead. But because in these times, unattended corpses tended to cause far greater problems later on. The tower itself bore the marks of conflict. Parts of it were scorched or crumbled, and with almost no traffic coming in or out, it looked abandoned from afar.

Karnak spoke up. "I hear the Tower of Dawn is half-closed off now."

Officially, the tower had been cleared of heresy charges. Only Diogres Kolon, the tower’s master, had been deemed a heretic. The rest of the mages were said to have been deceived by him. But a tower without its master could not function properly.

Jedtzen, a ninth circle master, had taken over as interim tower lord, but external activities had been suspended indefinitely.

Karnak drew his wand. "Let’s see if any residual thoughts are lingering nearby."

Carefully, he gathered the scattered remnants of consciousness from the surroundings. He hoped to uncover something that Maloka might have missed. Unfortunately, there was nothing of value.

"Well, I suppose someone as thorough as Maloka wouldn’t overlook anything," said Karnak.

There was, of course, a clear difference in the depth of residual thought analysis between Maloka and Karnak. But that didn’t necessarily mean Karnak would find what she hadn’t.

Their abilities could be compared like this. Maloka could finish reading a book thoroughly in an hour. Karnak could skim it in ten minutes. Regardless of the speed, the information they retained was effectively the same.

"I wasn’t expecting much anyway." Stowing the wand, Karnak looked back toward the Tower of Dawn. "In this case, we’ll have to rely on the locals for information."

***

Half a day’s journey south of the tower lay a village called Courtwall. It was where the tower’s mages occasionally visited for supplies or a bit of fresh air. As the sun dipped toward the horizon, a mage named Rynes found himself once again in Courtwall, sitting alone and drinking.

Pouring himself a stiff glass of spirits, he muttered gloomily. "Hah... what now..."

He was alone in a corner seat of the tavern. Usually, the locals would greet him cheerfully and join him for a drink, but today they only threw him uneasy glances and quietly avoided his table.

So he drank more, perhaps too much. He remembered staggering out of the tavern door... but when he looked around, he found himself standing on a roadside near the Tower of Dawn.

"Huh?" He was startled at first, but Rynes quickly relaxed.

Guess my tolerance really is shot these days...

It wasn’t unusual to lose a chunk of memory after drinking too much. Still, the homing instinct was truly impressive. Despite blacking out, he’d managed to make it all the way back near the tower.

Shaking his head, Rynes walked straight into the tower. To him, it was just another ordinary day. That is, if one didn’t count the group hidden beneath the rocky shade beyond the roadside, quietly observing him.

"So clean," Lapicel murmured in admiration.

Karnak flicked the mana needle on his index finger with satisfaction. "Right?"

It was truly a perfect world with no casualties, the happy ending everyone wanted. Lapicel nodded in agreement, confirming that he’d done a good job.

Karnak felt a surge of pride. I’ve truly become a decent human being.

Of course, that drunken mage didn’t know much. In fact, he arguably knew less than Karnak’s party. He hadn’t even heard that Diogres had escaped with the help of a mysterious ally. But there had been one meaningful gain.

As a local, the man held vague knowledge about a nearby cult hideout. It wasn’t exact. After all, if the location were that clear, someone would have wiped it out already. But for Karnak, even that was enough.

"Let’s go. We’ll probably find something once we get closer," he said.

***

Three hours later, Karnak’s group found themselves in a cave nestled within the rocky mountain located west of the Tower of Dawn.

Karnak looked around and grumbled. "I swear, it’s gotten harder to locate these nowadays. Back then, I could spot one from over the ridge."

Nowadays, unless he got up close and really focused, it was hard to sense the traces of darkness. There was simply too much of it scattered across the world. Still, their efforts hadn’t been fruitless. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Karnak turned toward the dazed young man kneeling before him and asked, "So then, where did Diogres Kolon go?"

The man was one of the cultists hiding in the mountain. After scouring the area and locating the cult’s hideout, they’d quietly abducted him alone. Once you found them, abduction wasn’t difficult. After all, standing by Karnak’s side was Varos, and he was a master of kidnapping, confinement, and torture, honed over decades.

Naturally, Varos wasn’t content being pushed all the blame.

—Hey, wasn’t it you who ordered all that, young master? Why do I have to be the bad guy?

—And you think the guy who obediently follows those orders is a good guy?

—Wait, are you actually being reasonable right now?

In any case, with a needle in his head, the cultist answered obediently. "He appears to have fled south."

"South?" Karnak questioned him.

"Yes. The church’s Holy Sword is pursuing him with an elite force," the cultist continued.

Serati blinked in confusion. "The Holy Sword of the church? Who’s that supposed to be?"