Ch.147Report on the Downfall of Diligence (12)

Kain thought of Hans, the Diligence.

A man who used boys and girls like consumables, toyed with them like toys, and then discarded them like trash. And when that wasn’t enough, he “picked them back up” and raised them as heretical priests for his sinister purposes.

If they were alive, Hans would have whispered all sorts of sweet words to those children who would have been around Kain’s age. Just as he had done with Jakob.

Then was Jakob an innocent victim?

No. He was certainly not a mere participant. He wasn’t just tangentially involved. He was a beneficiary of lies, a victim of threats, a tacit accomplice, and sometimes an active participant—another con man.

Yet what he actually did, the decisions he made as a member of the Committee of Seven, were neither particularly good nor particularly bad. He had been making ordinary, unremarkable decisions.

For someone who could merely read, write, and do calculations, whose only worldly experience came from following a traveling circus, and whose only skill was managing cheap fake medicines—it must have been an excruciating struggle.

And now this man—who had lived on lies and deception for over ten years—was trembling, confessing his wrongdoings through tears and snot, begging Kain to protect his children.

Kain thought of the shelter.

“Whose idea was the shelter?”

“Hans. It was Hans’s idea. At first, it was just to give Grace, who had left the convent, a position. But once I became a delegate, things started to take a strange turn…”

“Donations poured in. More than you could handle. And at the same time, surveillance increased.”

“Even if I wanted to embezzle, I couldn’t. The place was crawling with informants, swindlers, and watchmen. Some even slandered me, claiming I did things I never did. So I had to make everything completely transparent.”

“But, but still. I was genuinely happy to be able to help people. Especially the children.”

“As atonement for what was done to the Children’s Crusade?”

The fat man flinched as if stabbed by an invisible knife. He glared at Kain briefly but soon nodded with a dejected look. This man was now begging to save his own children.

With complicated thoughts and a troubled heart, Kain twisted his lower lip.

What should he do?

‘I am.’

A section chief of the Security Bureau. An agent carrying out the imperial family’s secret orders. Someone who had dedicated himself to the Empire but would retire from everything after this mission.

‘I am…’

A strange smell wafted in.

Wondering where it was coming from, Kain slightly lifted the cloth covering the carriage window. The carriage was passing along a road by the river. He could see a large ship. Judging by the distinctive decorations of the Eastern Union, it seemed to be a ship that had sailed upriver.

It was a worn-out vessel. Though painted here and there, it couldn’t hide its shabbiness. Split planks. A hull that creaked even on calm waters, like an old man groaning “oh my” even from a feather bed.

And the smell.

The smell of the sea.

* * * * *

In the Eastern Union. When his identity was exposed. When Beatrice presented irrefutable evidence. She had asked with a sneer. By then, their relationship had already deepened beyond the point of no return.

“How curious.”

Strangely, he felt an inexplicable sense of liberation at that moment. The feeling that what was inevitable had finally come. The thought that he would die here, that perhaps “comrades” might be waiting outside with spears. And some small consolation that at least he was hearing these words from Beatrice.

“I’d always heard that Imperial agents were emotionless, like animals. But you’re not like that, at least not from what I’ve seen.”

She was already fidgeting with a sharp awl.

The story that a stiletto could pierce a knight’s armor on the battlefield and find the gaps is an exaggeration. Such gaps don’t open up for that short weapon.

Rather, the explanation that it’s used to end the suffering of fatally wounded allied knights seems more plausible. Whether even that is true or not is uncertain, but one thing was certain:

The awl she wielded never missed its mark. And Kain would not be able to block it.

“What should I do with you? Kain, no, Kairos?”

Beatrice had asked with a smile-filled face.

Kain wanted to protest, asking why she was asking him. After all, now that he’d been caught, his only options were to die or take his own life. But she raised the tip of the awl to eye level, genuinely seeming not to know.

“You’ve fought for me more than any ‘comrade’ I’ve ever met. You saved me from assassins, drove away kidnappers, and even showed me how to stand up to my father.

And now I find out that the knight who came to save me was actually an agent from an enemy country. An Imperial agent, one of those supposedly heartless monsters. So tell me. Are you an Imperial agent? I hope you won’t lie. I’d be really disappointed if you did.”

With all the evidence already there, there was no point in making excuses.

“Yes. That’s right.”

“You bastard…”

Kain laughed weakly. It was Beatrice’s old habit—cursing while on the verge of tears.

“Damn it, you could have at least pretended not to know. Then I could have killed you right away without feeling anything.

What kind of person are you? If you’ve been deceiving me all this time, keep deceiving me. Why are you suddenly being honest now?

Why aren’t you lying to me? Why are you giving up like this? Because of these scraps? Just because of these scraps?”

“If you’re going to kill me, do it quickly. I won’t resist.”

In the heart of Venelucia, there was nowhere to escape. Especially since Beatrice knew all the routes Kain knew. But Beatrice only gripped the awl painfully.

“What am I supposed to do when you’re being honest like this?”

“Why hesitate?” Kain spread his arms slightly. “Just stab me.”

Beatrice stood up. She stabbed the awl into the desk with a thud, like a lioness tearing into her prey. She rushed to Kain and slapped his cheek.

The sound was closer to a thud than a slap. Kicks and punches followed. As the only daughter of the Duce, she knew how to fight to protect herself.

Kain, unable to endure anymore, fell to his knees.

“Fine. Being beaten to death isn’t so bad either.”

“You.” Beatrice knelt down, crying. Not from sadness, but from uncontrollable anger. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

“You’re right about everything. What else can I say?”

“You’re a coward. You know that?” Beatrice grabbed Kain’s collar and pulled him up.

“Kill you? Stab you? You’re an enemy agent who’s been exposed, so you should die? What’s so comfortable about that? I’m racking my brain trying to figure out how to go with you, and you’re just sitting there comfortably telling me to kill you?”

Kain looked at her, bewildered by her incomprehensible words. He couldn’t understand what Beatrice was saying.

“Go with me…?”

But he couldn’t ask twice. Because Beatrice kissed him.

It was a very painful kiss. Kain’s mouth was already torn inside, his lips were split, and his eyes were bruised.

Yet Beatrice still bit his lips slightly, as always. Because she was a lioness. Like a lioness.

“Don’t, don’t run away,” Beatrice sobbed.

“I know the situation is shit. But I’m going to take you with me. No matter what you’ve been doing, you’re still precious to me. I don’t care if you’ve been eating the Emperor’s dog food or licking the floors of Stone-Fire Faith temples.”

“…Why?”

“Because you love me.”

Beatrice declared with fierce eyes. What a graceless woman, Kain thought even in that moment.

“And I know that. Keep doing what you’ve been doing. Now that I know you’re a bastard, act like one. Do whatever you want. But I won’t kill you. I won’t let you go easily. I won’t let you run away. Because.”

Though he felt like an idiot, Kain still had enough sense not to ask why again. It wasn’t just because Beatrice’s face was contorted. Instead, she took a deep breath.

“Because I love you. And you know that too. Kain. No, Kairos.”

When Beatrice rushed at him, Kairos couldn’t move a finger. Even when she tore at his wounded lips again, he only winced in pain but didn’t push her away.

It was because of the smell of the sea blowing in through the window.

* * * * *

Jakob looked at Kain with anxious eyes. Kain hesitated and lowered the cloth again. He now understood why he couldn’t make an easy decision on such a simple matter.

If he had followed principles. If he had been full of youthful vigor. He would have acted strictly according to the law. Because that was the right path. But Kain knew that life doesn’t always flow in the right direction.

If Beatrice had acted correctly, Kain should have been dead. But she didn’t. She abandoned righteousness and followed happiness, saved Kain and died instead. Like a ghost. Lingering in his retina.

Would he have made a different decision if he hadn’t smelled the sea?

Kain shook his head self-deprecatingly.

“No. I won’t protect your children.”

The fat man’s face turned pale. But Kain’s mind was unchanged. He had neither the ability nor the energy to judge whether what he was about to do was right or just another mistake.

But Kain had made his decision.

“Because you can protect them yourself.”

“Huh?”

Jakob returned to his dumbfounded expression.

It was so irritating that Kain wanted to hit him. He was tempted to act like he knew why Jakob couldn’t understand something so obvious. He also felt like laughing at the thought that he must have looked like that himself once.

“You’re a fake. As you know, as I know, as the coachman outside, Grace, and Brother Theodore know. You’re standing in a place where you shouldn’t be.

But to others, you’re still Hans the Diligence. A member of the Committee of Seven, an important person who determines the future of the city. Sometimes teased for being fat, not receiving tremendous respect and love, but still someone who hasn’t committed any blunders or faced criticism. Right?”

Jakob nodded hastily. He still couldn’t understand exactly what Kain was saying. But since everything Kain said seemed plausible, and was in fact true, he nodded reflexively.

“Then. The city guard will listen to you. At least they won’t refuse or rebel when you give the order to deploy. Right?”

“Y-yes…?”

“And while this city is Imperial territory, it’s full of the Elector’s nobles, and the power of the order controlled by Theodore, I mean the real Hans, can’t spread its wings much on either side. Right?”

“That’s also correct.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Kain knocked on the wall toward the coachman’s seat. When the knocking sound was heard, Maria slowed the carriage. Jakob looked at Kain, not understanding what was happening, blinking his eyes. He looked like a fish out of water, gasping for breath.

“Aren’t you going to arrest Brother Theodore, that arrogant monk who is hated by everyone for his excessive insolence, who tried to harm Hans the Diligence, one of the Empire’s Seven Heroes? You have that much authority, don’t you?”