Blue Jade

"Another hour."

Shrike sat in a chair, watching the time on his pocket watch with a grave expression.

This was an abandoned station outside Old Dunling, but after several days of construction, it had practically become a temporary base.

According to plan, Shrike would take a train to a small town called Ende. Based on Lancelot's intelligence, the mysterious Sacred Coffin was stored there. Whatever awaited them, he would take the town by force... at least hold out until Lancelot arrived to retrieve the Sacred Coffin.

To avoid alerting the enemy, the operation had been split into two groups. Shrike and a large armed force had arrived early to wait here, while the Radiance would pull in an hour later.

Shrike had originally planned to head straight there, but now that Galahad had fallen, their odds without a Knight Commander were uncertain. To help them, the Perpetual Motion Pump had deployed a secret weapon. The Radiance was transporting it.

"Are you ready?"

He looked beside him at the enormous machine, silent in the darkness. Its massive steel frame formed a fearsome shape, with only a cold glint sliding across its surface.

It was a heavy-duty crane. Behind it, in the darkness, stood a series of reinforced armored train cars. According to plan, the Radiance would carry the weapon from the Berhans Arsenal and stop here. The crane would switch out the cars, allowing the passengers to continue their journey while the car carrying the weapon was coupled here, then sent straight to the mysterious town of Ende.

Shrike slowly stood up. With time so short, his injuries hadn't fully healed. He tried walking a few steps. It felt all right, though the noise was a little loud.

A mechanism covered his lower body. Power rods connected to the joints in his legs, and copper pipes ran up to a small steam pack at his waist. Every so often, a faint wisp of vapor escaped.

It was a masterpiece from the Perpetual Motion Pump. They called it Exoskeleton Armor, but technical limitations kept it from being used in actual combat. It was like a useless ornament. Still, it could help someone who had trouble walking run without a problem.

He looked down at the gleaming metal. Beneath it, precise gears turned and meshed together, their intricate design beyond imagination.

To be honest, Shrike's mechanical knowledge was only mediocre, but even he could see how precise the machine was. He couldn't begin to understand how it worked; he didn't even know what powered it. If steam hadn't occasionally hissed out of the pipes on either side of his thighs, he would have believed the thing had achieved the so-called perpetual motion.

Sometimes, he really wanted to crack open those madmen's heads and see what they were made of.

"How are things looking?"

Shrike looked at Blue Jade as she walked in from the other side and asked.

"Everyone's fully equipped, and the soldiers are ready. Once we join up with Kestrel, we'll have enough firepower to win a small-scale war."

Blue Jade wore a tight black outfit and a domed iron helmet fitted with a light. Since they were indoors, the light was off. Over her outfit, she wore a warm cloak that looked featherlight, but it was lined with high-strength, lightweight metal mesh. It would provide a layer of protection against heavy impacts.

"That's how people at the Mechanical Institute are. The Perpetual Motion Pump pursues even more forbidden technology, while they're after deadly firepower. Every mission ends up turning into a weapons test for those two research institutions."

The thought made Shrike uncomfortable. Most of the weapons he used were prototypes. Until the mission was over, he could never be sure whether a weapon would kill the enemy or explode in his hands first... like that damn Original Sin Armor.

"So what have they sent us this time?"

"I'm not sure, but it must be something special if they're shipping it straight from the Berhans Arsenal."

Blue Jade had once been fortunate enough to visit. Even just hearing its name made her feel hot.

The Berhans Arsenal was Inverwig's largest weapons factory. During the Glorious War, it melted down mountains of metal every day, and hundreds of trains carried its deadly weapons away. They said its steam furnaces were second only in size to those of the Mechanical Institute, making it one of Inverwig's industrial centers.

Shrike thought for a moment, then took out a sheet of paper and began writing.

"What are you writing? Your will?"

"Something like that. The place we're going is dangerous. We might die in there, and I hold a pretty important position. I should at least make sure my work gets handed over."

"You really love your work, don't you?"

Blue Jade raised an eyebrow. Unlike the dutiful Shrike, she had been deeply unwilling to take this job at first.

Blue Jade was born in a seaside town. Her father died young, and after her mother remarried, her stepfather turned out to be a drunk. He spent all his time waiting for Blue Jade to grow up so he could marry off his pretty stepdaughter to some wealthy family and get a dowry big enough to support him in his old age.

Honestly, it wasn't a pleasant memory. It was enough to drive anyone mad. As her drunken stepfather watched Blue Jade grow up, his gaze took on a disturbing edge. To escape that wretched fate, Blue Jade hid in a freight car one day. She had no idea where it would take her. She only hoped to get as far away from that nightmarish place as possible.

She survived for several days on the bread she had brought aboard and droplets of water condensed on the copper pipes. When the car doors opened again, she found herself in that fantastical city. To Blue Jade, who had grown up in a remote town, everything there seemed miraculous, as if she had stepped into a legendary place.

Vast airships cruised across the sky, while steam trams and automobiles raced down smooth roads. Compared with this perfect city, she looked filthy and out of place. She looked up at the sign at the station and struggled to make out the words with her limited education.

Welcome to Old Dunling.

"But if I have the choice, I'd still rather survive. I'm young, after all, and I've planned my retirement pretty carefully."

Shrike spoke as he wrote. There was still some time before the Radiance arrived, so he could chat for a while.

"Like what?"

"Buying a little island somewhere in the ocean and living out my days watching the sun rise and set. Or renting a ship and traveling around the world... or going east. I've always been curious about that mysterious country."

It was a country called Jiuxia. Ever since its dazzling appearance more than a decade ago, it seemed to have been forgotten by the world. Unless someone brought it up, hardly anyone remembered there was such a mysterious country in the East.

"If it weren't for the Fiends, I might have become a sailor. What about you, Blue Jade? I remember you've always tried to get Arthur to fire you by slacking off. You don't seem to like this job much."

Blue Jade rolled her eyes at Shrike and sat beside him, weighed down by her equipment. She wasn't wearing a mask, but her domed iron helmet still concealed most of her face. Even so, the sliver that showed hinted at her striking beauty.

"That's right. Fighting those twisted, hateful things every day? Only lunatics like you would enjoy it!"

Blue Jade cursed.

"I've only got one wish: find a rich man and marry him. Then, in five years, figure out how to kill him and live happily ever after with his money."

Men couldn't be trusted. She'd learned that from her father, who died young, her damn stepfather, and all the men who had once been her clients.

Blue Jade had scraped by in Old Dunling for years. As she grew older, her looks became more and more captivating, and someone discovered her and made her an actress at a theater.

Many people didn't think much of the newcomer. They assumed she was just lucky to have a pretty face. But what she did next surpassed everyone's expectations.

She was a girl driven by a goal. She rose steadily through the theater's ranks, using the skills she'd picked up over years of surviving in Old Dunling to eliminate anyone who tried to stand in her way. Her fame grew, and every day, admirers' flowers covered her door.

But this wasn't the end for Blue Jade. No one else could be trusted; only she could rely on herself. She began attending balls, getting powerful people drunk one by one, stealing their secrets, and trading them for wealth.

Like a snowball rolling downhill, Blue Jade's influence grew. Under threat of exposure, even the lofty nobles became her pawns. They called her the Queen of the Underworld, until one day she tried to get a man codenamed Arthur drunk.

Blue Jade had only two choices: rot in prison for the rest of her life, or join the Purification Agency. Arthur needed a highly skilled female knight.

And so Blue Jade ended up in the thieves' den, where she had remained ever since.

"That sounds terrifying. Why can't men be trusted?"

"Do you think Galahad can be trusted?" Blue Jade said scornfully. "A pure-hearted knight, the youngest Knight Commander, and then he nearly killed you and Robin. If not for Nikolai, he could've slaughtered his way through the Lower District before his power ran out."

"So the only person you can trust is yourself, Shrike."

As Blue Jade spoke, a melodious whistle sounded. At the far end of the darkness, the train's headlights were like a meteor drawing near, bringing steam, a cold wind, and the thousands of troops inside its cars.