But the enemy he had expected never appeared. The smiling waiter respectfully brought in their meal.
Unlike the sandwiches sold at the café outside, the restaurant served a proper Mettenheim-style breakfast.
Crispy, golden-brown bacon; white sausages boiled with celery; two sunny-side-up eggs with runny yolks; roasted cherry tomatoes, halved; sautéed button mushrooms with salt and pepper; a big spoonful of baked beans in tomato sauce; two slightly burnt slices of bread; and a pot of black tea.
At 80 pfennigs, it was a little too expensive and greasy for breakfast, but just right for Lude, who needed to replenish his energy.
"Would you like anything else, sir?" the waiter asked with a smile.
"No." Lude cut into a runny egg with his fork. "Come back to clear the plates in half an hour. Don't disturb me before then."
"Of course, sir."
The waiter respectfully backed out.
"Honestly, people will do anything for money..." Sally muttered, spearing a sausage and bringing it to her mouth.
But the next instant, a fork pressed against her lips, stopping the sausage in its tracks.
"Mm, Mr. Hastings?"
Sally stared in confusion at the cold fork resting against her lips.
Then she saw Lude gently shake his head at her and raise a finger to his nose.
"...!" Sally paused briefly, then immediately nodded.
Lude cut open a sausage with his knife, brought it to his nose to sniff, then put it back.
Afterward, he picked up his teacup and slurped away. Sally watched him slurp for a long while, but the tea in his cup didn't go down at all.
Did someone poison the food? Sally silently mouthed.
Lude nodded slightly and began cutting up the bacon and eggs on his plate.
The serrated blade scraped across the enamel plate with a grating sound.
Ever since coming upstairs, Lude had been wondering whose men had followed them.
Was it Malinkov's spurned suitor who'd chased after them? That seemed unlikely. Lude wasn't even wearing the Lord's Ring right now.
Were they the Collector's men? That was the least likely possibility, since their dealings had been fair.
Were they assassins from the Black Tide Society? That was the most likely. Though the people at the Vienna headquarters couldn't get here so quickly, the Elite Guard members who'd been sent ahead could.
The Black Tide Society leader's Elite Guard had ten members in all. Aleppo was dead, his partner was still lying low in the Obsidian Hall, and the remaining eight had split into four teams to hunt Lude down.
Since there had only been one westbound train out of Vienna that night, Lude guessed that most of those four teams had headed west. Besides the waiter's team, three more teams should be waiting in different areas.
"Damn, what a hassle."
Lude thought to himself as he kept cutting up the food in front of Sally, who was practically drooling. He made smacking sounds with his mouth, almost as if he were chewing, and occasionally lifted his teacup to pretend to take a sip.
About three minutes later, Lude suddenly raised a hand and made a small grabbing motion toward Sally.
Sally immediately nodded and clamped both hands over her mouth, not daring to breathe too loudly.
At the same time, the waiter stood ramrod straight outside the private room.
He watched the brass pocket watch in his hand, listening to the sounds inside.
After realizing the room had gone quiet, the waiter waited for about another half a minute.
Then he drew an Iron Sparrow revolver from his waist and slowly pushed the door open.
He didn't think there was any need for this. The dose he'd used could put five rhinos into a baby-like slumber.
It was simply a professional habit.
But as the waiter opened the door, his pupils suddenly contracted—
"Where are they?!"
The window stood open. With the curtains fluttering, it was clear that Lude's seat was empty.
On the other side of the room, the plainly dressed young girl smiled and waved at him, as if greeting him.
And at that very moment, a cold gun barrel pressed against the back of his head.
"Don't move."
Lude spoke in a low voice. Climbing out the window and circling around behind him had taken a bit of effort.
"Oh!" The waiter raised both hands. "Don't shoot, Professor Beshe. We may never have met, but I feel we're old friends who've known each other in spirit for a long time! What do you want to know? How many pursuers there are? The Rhine Kingdom's border defenses? Or my partner's Secret Art?"
The moment the waiter said that, Lude nearly lost it. You sure know how to read the room!
And what was with calling him Professor Beshe? Ah, yes. Professor Beshe had stolen the Vessel, then the Vessel had disappeared, and Professor Beshe's body had been burned. Now the Vessel had come back to life. So who was the soul inside the Vessel?
Such a mystery! he thought in a deadpan tone.
But the man's mistaken assumption was of no use to Lude. Their fighting styles were worlds apart. If they actually came to blows, only an idiot wouldn't notice that he wasn't Professor Beshe.
Still, Lude wasn't about to pass up the chance to get some information.
So he asked, "Tell me how many of you are in this town, and what each of your Secret Arts is."
The waiter gave him a stiff smile. "All right, I'll tell you. Just give me a moment to gather my thoughts—we have all eight members of the Elite Guard here, and this restaurant is surrounded. So I strongly advise you to surrender as soon as possible..."
Well, Lude could tell from his tone alone that the old bastard wasn't telling a single truth!
For starters, where had those eight people come from?
Had he brought Aleppo back from the dead and dug out his partner from the Obsidian Hall too?
The lie was so outrageous that it actually gave Lude a clue: the news that he'd taken out Brandon and Polina probably hadn't reached the Black Tide Society's headquarters in Vienna yet.
After all, if Vienna had received the news, they would have informed the Elite Guard members assigned to pursue him right away. That would have made them a much greater threat to Lude.
Which meant the Black Tide Society still didn't know that Lude was hiding out in Blackwater Town.
Thinking this over, Lude's face darkened. So he'd run into a Black Tide Society assassin in a little border town simply because he was unlucky enough to blunder straight into their ambush?
With that in mind, Lude decided to break both of the waiter's arms to vent his frustration.
But just as he was about to seize the waiter, a bullet suddenly shot out from a building across the street.
The moment he heard the gunshot, Lude leaned slightly to one side and dodged it.
But that simple movement made the muzzle of Lude's gun shift for just an instant. He wasn't used to using firearms.
Just an instant.
But when spellcasters fought, they often needed only that single instant!
Seizing the moment when Lude's gun barrel slipped away from the back of his neck, the waiter spun around and pointed his revolver straight at Lude's brow.
He pulled the trigger without hesitation, but Lude was faster. He had already grabbed the waiter's gun hand.
"Click, click!" The waiter pulled the trigger twice, only to find that Lude had already pinned down the hammer.
"You made the wrong choice." As he spoke, Lude was about to crush the waiter's wrist.
But at that moment, a gunshot suddenly rang out from behind the waiter.
"Bang!"
Before you continue