“Huh? A cornered dog jumping a wall? Me?”

In a hall carved off the usual path, a debate pit tailored for an outsider, Silan’s question cut like a cold wind.

“Miss Adelaide, did you mix something up?” She pointed at a slate flooded with weapon projections, palm pressed to the war prototype titled Moonforged Miracle. “If anyone’s the cornered dog, it’s you, not me.”

Fire lit in her phoenix eyes as she stared down Adelaide, insult barbed like a thorn. Adelaide stayed seated at the chess table, calm as winter water, and spoke slow.

“You misunderstand, Lady Silan. I only held a small backhand to keep you from doing something rash. Yet it seems I overthought it. These preparations look… needless.”

“Needless?”

“Yes. All busywork. Because you never noticed what I planned to guard against.”

Silan frowned high, confusion tightening like a bowstring. “You don’t think tossing out vague words lets you smear away your own suspicion, do you?”

“Of course not. Today, I’m completely candid. I’ll speak all I know and hold nothing back.” Adelaide smiled, eyes dropping to the board, the black and red pieces like soldiers under moonlight. “But first, I’d like to finish this game. Would you?”

“Still stalling for time?”

She shook her head. “No. An unfinished game leaves a chill of regret. Besides, your crack troops have this place ringed like a sky-net. Even if time passes, you won’t fear me bolting, right?”

Called out on the net she’d cast, Silan gave a small huff, pride rising like dawn.

She sat opposite Adelaide again, the opening confidence returning like a well-worn cloak. “If this is your last wish before prison, so be it.” She nudged her general a step. The chess clock began to tick, a steady drumbeat. “Anything else to say, say it before the game ends. It’s your last chance.”

Adelaide fell quiet for a few beats, then spoke.

“Since you offered, I remembered a question I asked before, one you never answered.”

She slid her rook and captured Silan’s cannon, wood clicking like a bamboo clapper, then lifted her gaze.

“Lady Silan, why did you let us into the Sealing Array so easily? You skipped inspection and registration entirely. As far as I know, the Elves keep their kingdom closed to humans. Otherwise the Empire’s countless rumors about Elves wouldn’t exist.”

Silan hummed again, face saying she’d expected this thrust. Her reply was steady as poured tea.

“You said it yourself. You arrived battered, so I didn’t overthink it. I treated you as guests, by courtesy first. My border warriors gave you good food and warm beds. Yet you repaid us with rat-like spite, vandalizing the inn’s array and scurrying through our peach-blossom refuge.”

Silan’s red rook slid across the file, openly sighting Adelaide’s piece like a drawn bow. Adelaide considered, then refused to answer in rhythm. She abandoned her rook instead, a cold cut.

“Fair. I won’t deny that. Yet most of our caravan stayed put and behaved.” Her eyes roved the board’s far wing, fingers moving a quieter piece. “And for those ‘not rats,’ those decent folk—what did you do to them?”

“Heh. What has that to do with your question?”

“It does.” Her tone turned light, like silk hiding a blade. “I heard your ‘concern’ led you to set aside all the airs of the Carne Family’s head. You went in person, isolated each one, and took them to separate rooms for rounds of interr—oh, pardon, ‘comfort,’ didn’t you?”

Seeing Silan’s color shift, Adelaide’s mouth curled. She pressed on.

“In hindsight, had I stayed at the inn, we would’ve met much earlier. No need to wait for the celebration feast. Missing that good chance left me regretful. So I found a moment to contact the team leader before you sent them all across the border. I hoped to learn your kindhearted way of hosting through him. Yet the result shocked me. They remembered nothing of ever meeting you.”

—Crack!

Silan slammed her next piece onto the board, a thunderclap between tiles, cutting Adelaide off.

“All human entrants must have every memory related to the Sealing Array cleansed before they leave. That’s our rule.” Her words went iron-hard. “Bluntly, it’s to guard against your greedy human king. It keeps his hand from meddling in our peach-blossom garden. As his subject, you’ve no right to nitpick it.”

“Oh? I see. I overstepped.” Adelaide’s voice stayed calm, gaze steady as a river stone.

“But if every memory tied to the Sealing Array must be washed away, tell me—why do they also forget what happened outside the array, in that desert village?”

“...!”

Silan’s mouth parted. A ripple shook the confidence in her eyes.

“That… that was mercy. I couldn’t bear to let them live under wounds that deep. So I cleared that sadness.” She raised her voice, glancing at the array that broadcast nationwide, its glow like a silver mirror. “And didn’t you promise ‘complete candor’? I fail to see how this connects to what you owe us now.”

“It does connect.” Adelaide’s smile held, soft as a crescent moon. “From hiding my Blood Magic aptitude, to moving ancient Nacha tech to the border of Sanda, and to you and me seated here—everything binds together.”

“Quit the mystic act! Then say it. What’s the thread?”

“Lady Silan, no need to shout.” Adelaide’s tone soothed like cool tea. “I said I would be fully frank. Truth is, I never hid my aim. I told you early on. The root of it all—my aim from the start—is the Nuhaman Massacre.”

Silence fell like snow. Even the images on the surrounding slates seemed to freeze. The Elf enforcement squad and the Nacha Tribe prisoners stalled mid-motion, stunned. Only Adelaide, calm maker of this storm, kept her poise. She studied the board again, weighed, tapped, and slid a piece, then nodded, satisfied.

Seeing her glow at her own move, Silan’s temper finally burst. “What nonsense are you spouting?!”

“Lady Silan, let’s drop the masks.” Adelaide’s gaze sharpened like a blade out of scabbard. “That desert village felt familiar to you, didn’t it? In many details, it matches the slaughter you handled ten years ago, does it not?”

Silan swallowed. A dangerous warning flickered across her eyes, like lightning behind clouds.

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Adelaide. But remember this—level a false charge without evidence, and you’ll face an extra count in court.”

Adelaide considered for a few quiet seconds.

“Evidence. That is troublesome.” She sighed like a breeze slipping through reeds. “You and I both know that case is literally ‘no living witness.’”

She winked, sly as a fox. Silan understood the hint. Muscle under her sleeve tightened like a drawn wire.

“Not only did none of the Nuhaman survive, but the Nacha Tribe culprits who committed that abyss of a crime were all executed too. Ah—” She felt inside her lining, fingers searching like fish in reeds. “Found it. I happen to carry a sketch of that satisfying scene.”

She pinched a picture from her inner pocket and held it up for Silan and the array’s ‘lens,’ then tilted her head to take it in herself.

“Hmm… you Elves say ‘the face mirrors the heart.’ Seems true here. These men look like demons perched on a cliff.” Her gaze settled on the Nacha figure at center. “Especially him. Look at that scar. It’s a wound that screams.”

“Enough!”

Silan rose, voice a whipcrack. “You boast of candor, yet you jest and stall, tossing in useless trifles to drag out the clock. You vile liar! This ‘debate’ need not go on! Guards! Take her!”

Footsteps swelled outside, voices muddled like a storm surf. Adelaide stayed seated, unruffled as a lotus on black water.

“You’re impatient, Lady Silan. Though you’re right on one point. These aren’t trifles, but I am stalling—for evidence that’s almost here.”

“…What?”

Adelaide lifted a finger to her lips. The shush was a petal falling. “Hush. Don’t rush. Listen. It’s arriving.”

“What are you—”

Silan froze mid-sentence. The noise outside surged again. Fireball blasts thumped through it, hot and hollow.

She realized at last. Those steps and voices weren’t answering her arrest order. Something else was happening.

What it was arrived with a lion’s roar that split the sky.

“What—?!”

Boom. A second blast hammered down. The stone roof snapped with a dry crackle. The full-dome projection shattered. A jagged hole gaped above, nearly a quarter of the room.

Gentle moonlight poured through that wound like a spotlight. In the unlit room, it revealed the cause—no, the twin causes—of the hole.

A gold-maned lion, enormous beyond nature. And a human, almost ordinary beside it.

Silan stared, mouth open, words lost like leaves in wind. Adelaide rose and walked straight to the lion.

As she approached, the beast opened a maw wide enough to swallow her whole. Then—pah—it spat out a long, black sack.

Splat. The wet bag hit the floor, leaving a gleaming trail of drool. The lion made an “ugh,” gagging like a big cat that tasted something foul. It tossed its head and flung the rider off its neck.

The man hadn’t braced. He gave half a scream and corkscrewed into a faceplant. The lion shrank in the next breath to a normal size, fur rippling like wheat under wind. It leaned into Adelaide and rubbed its fluffy crown against her thigh.

She crouched, hands firm and fond, and scrubbed its head.

“Good work, Barni.”

“Grrr-rr…”

Barni purred deep, a rumble like a drum in a cave, then lifted his tail to her face. The pretty long tail had a charred patch at the tip. The fur still smoked, thin wisps rising like incense.

Those must have been the fireballs just now. Adelaide saw Barni’s wounded pride in his eyes and gentled her touch, stroking harder, soothing him like rain over coals.

"It's fine. I'll heal you in a bit... Relax; I swear your tail won't end up as bare as a winter twig."

"That's not the point—the arrow's flying wide!"

The one who'd been tossed and had eaten dirt finally hauled himself up like a weed after rain. Mud clung to him like dusk. It was Kabos, a familiar silhouette in the dust. He shot out the complaint, anxiety scored across his face like claw marks.

"Miss Adelaide, you've gotta come see this thing—it's like a hornet in a jar!" His words tumbled like pebbles down a slope. "Miss Mira ordered us to hand you this damned thing before the debate. But time hounded us like wolves. We ran like our lives were on loan and still couldn't make it. A lot of Elves blocked the road like a thorn hedge. The other brothers opened a path and stayed to hold the rear like burning torches. They all got grabbed—like fish in a net—"

"It's all right, Kabos, no need to wind yourself tight," Adelaide cut in with a smile as mild as spring rain, shaking her head. "They'll be fine, like stones sunk but not lost in a clear stream. As for timing... no, you weren't late; the drumbeat landed true. If anything, you brought me what I needed at the moment the bell was meant to ring, like a key at the lock's click. You breathed the missing wind into this play."

Kabos blinked, like a stone dropping into a still pond, and croaked, "...Huh?"

"Sorry, I think I didn't get that," he stammered, his thoughts knotted like vines. "Wait—the thing you needed most... you already know what this thing is, like calling a shadow by its name?"

"Mm." Adelaide nodded, a quiet seal like a moonlit stamp. Her gaze swung back to Silan, who still stood dazed like a statue in fog. "After all, we'd just mentioned him, like a name drifting on the wind, didn't we, Ms. Silan?"