I'm Fighting Kal'tsit? Seriously?

"I don't see anything wrong with it. If you really can't accept it, why not treat it as a belated birthday gift from a friend?" Gerald shook his outstretched hand. "You said it yourself—you won the investment with your own abilities, so consider it a birthday gift. That way, when your next birthday comes around, I won't have to go out of my way to pick something for you."

For some reason, a flicker of surprise seemed to pass through Saria's eyes when she heard that.

But those words also seemed to help her make up her mind.

She reached out, just as she had when they first met, and their palms exchanged warmth.

"I understand—pleasure working with you, Gerald," she said softly.

"Pleasure working with you too, Saria." Gerald gave their clasped hands a firm shake, then let out a long breath. "All right. Come to think of it, when's your birthday again?"

"April 23rd."

Saria answered blandly, yet for some reason, a faint smile suddenly appeared at the corner of her lips.

"All right, then I won't give you a birthday gift next time... Wait."

Kazimierz's knight selection tournament ran roughly from June to October. Based on the dates he'd heard before, plus or minus the time he'd spent in the dream and studying—

"—What date is it today?"

Respect

The two of them tacitly chose to avoid the subject.

After a brief, awkward silence, Saria cleared her throat and pretended nothing had happened. "In any case, now that things have come this far, I'll be completely honest with you."

"But before that." Her gaze paused on the blueprints on the table for a moment before she nodded at Gerald. "Let's talk somewhere else."

Lunch break was one of Mansfield's rare periods of rest. The prisoners tacitly set aside their usual grudges, while the guards knowingly turned a blind eye to the prisoners' little underhanded activities.

At times like this, most guards chose to digest their food near the second-floor corridor. There was sunlight and fresh air from outside, enough to put one at ease.

However, that wasn't where Saria took Gerald.

Out of habit, she used Calcification to slow the camera's movement, hid in its blind spots, then relied on Gerald's awareness of the surroundings. Their journey went surprisingly smoothly, and before long, they arrived in the guards' living quarters.

Gerald observed the surroundings as they walked and found the area even more spartan than he'd expected. They were already familiar with the prisoners' quarters, but this was his first time entering where the guards lived.

The rooms reminded him of single dorms in a university basement—the space was only a little larger than their cells, yet they were unexpectedly clean and tidy. The furnishings were simple, the basic amenities complete, but beyond that, there was little worth praising.

Saria's room was especially minimalist. The moment she opened the door, he saw bare walls and an undecorated desk and chair. Several rows of books on the bookshelf were among the few things in the room that drew attention. Other than that, there were almost no personal decorations or touches, as though all traces of life had been deliberately erased.

Gerald entered the room, casually swept his gaze around, and curled his lips slightly. "Your room really suits your style. Nice. My stereotype of you just got another layer deeper."

"That's fine. You'll get to know me slowly." Saria ignored his teasing, merely walked over to the bookshelf, pulled out a bag of files, and handed it to Gerald. Her tone was calm. "We don't have much time. Ask whatever you want. I'll answer as best I can."

"What's in the files?" Gerald took the bag she offered, opened it, pulled out the documents inside, and glanced over them. "Beach Umbrella, Tower Mountain Technology... Columbia medical companies? Those should be your competitors. What do they have to do with this prison?"

"After everything ended yesterday, I investigated the traces left behind by the person pulling the strings. Just as you suspected, their methods of concealment were predictably clumsy."

Saria replied evenly, "The target's name is [Jeston Williams], Beach Umbrella's ace. He's a mercenary who can be hired as long as the price is right... But from that perspective, it's strange in itself that the Hyde Brothers would hire someone from another company."

Gerald narrowed his eyes slightly. "You already knew the Hyde Brothers existed."

"Yes, and I also knew Anthony would receive an assassination attempt from them." Perhaps because she felt a little guilty when mentioning it, her voice unconsciously softened. "But correspondingly, cooperation between a construction company and a medical research company is quite baffling, let alone hiring the other's employees to carry out an assassination."

"The only explanation is that Beach Umbrella already had some private connection with Mansfield Prison. The Hyde Brothers learned of this somehow and pinned their hopes on that relationship, intending to kill Anthony through Jeston."

The situation became clear in an instant.

He slowly flipped the documents in his hand to the page on [Beach Umbrella]. Most of the information was annotated in Saria's own handwriting. Combined with the current situation and his own experience, understanding the whole picture wasn't particularly difficult.

"So that's why you were so nervous when you saw I could use Originium Arts." After seeing the four scarlet words on the final page and reading the contents, Gerald wore a cold expression that rarely appeared on his face. "Direct implantation of casting units into the human body... [Loken Watertank]... Heh."

This wasn't difficult to deduce.

In Columbia, prisons were also a business. But those who controlled that business always needed other avenues to obtain their ticket of entry in advance before they were qualified to invest money in fields so closely tied to the law.

Warden Randall had acquired this abandoned mobile platform through his cooperation with Beach Umbrella and turned it into the Mansfield of today. Then, after achieving success and fame, taking care of his old partners and contributing to their unfinished "business" didn't seem strange at all.

After all, a prison constantly racing across the wilderness was much harder to discover than a hidden laboratory buried underground, one that pedestrians unknowingly walked over at all times.

—The tolerance for prisoners beating each other between A and B Sections, even the tacit acceptance that deaths didn't matter.

—The reason it was willing to take troublesome prisoners from other prisons, and why there had been so few incidents involving prisoners causing trouble in C Section until now.

—Although the warden himself was a capable man, he chose to hire and trust an idiot like Barton, using businesses like his and Anthony's as camouflage.

Yes. Yes.

[Mansfield is an ever-beating heart, racing endlessly across the wilderness, never stopping.]

Whose blood is your heart burning, Randall?

"Come with me."

Their conversation didn't last long. Saria soon led Gerald to another recreational area in the guards' residential district—this was basically where they played cards and billiards later in the day, one of the prison's few amusements besides watching prisoners fight.

"I see. No wonder you brought me here."

After entering the area, Gerald narrowed his eyes at a wall beside him. "Interesting design. The building here connects to another place, right between C Section and the residential district. The blueprints from earlier collectively labeled this area the 'storage area.'"

As his senses gradually settled on a particular point on the wall, he couldn't help letting out a laugh. "Heh. Has nobody really noticed this?"

"They won't." Saria lightly tapped the wall with her finger. The Enamel that had been disguised to blend with the wall's color instantly vanished without a trace, revealing a hole barely large enough for someone to pass through. "It'll be dark inside. Be careful."

"Thanks for your concern, but are you sure you should be saying that to me?"

Gerald pointed at himself, then took the lead and crawled into the hole. But he was quickly drawn in by the smell in the air and frowned. "This is bad."

"Be more specific." Saria crawled in after him. As Calcification covered the entrance again, the passage became pitch-black. She quickly took out a flashlight and illuminated the road ahead. "What do you mean by bad?"

"It's similar to the scene I dreamed about a few days ago. The difference is that these people considered sanitation and infection, so they disposed of the bodies. The scene in my dream didn't."

Gerald closed his eyes, sensing the movement of the wind and the scents drifting from afar. "The people who built this prison made this place very complicated. The slopes and repeated structures make it easy to get lost. The stench of blood in the air is strong, and it fills this entire area."

The passage before them was like the mouth of a monster slightly opened, revealing a blood-red throat.

There was something he didn't tell Saria. Based on what Gerald knew of her, saying it would only place another burden on her shoulders for no reason.

Simply put, they hadn't died peacefully.

Normally, even on a battlefield, the scent of blood only gathered heavily in certain places. It was rare to see anything like this passage, where nearly every inch seemed soaked in blood.

There weren't many possibilities, but at least several could explain it.

Being hunted, eaten, and dragged by beasts was one of them.

"..." Saria clenched her teeth tightly, refusing to let her anger show on her face. Her nails nearly dug into her palms as she asked in a low voice, "Can you tell where this passage leads?"

Gerald nodded. "Yes. The route map for this area is taking shape in my mind right now, but you should know that there are walls all around us. The place you're looking for has definitely been sealed off by now."

"Assuming there are cameras or sensors in the passage, the risk of alerting them is too high." He paused. "If we want to inspect it carefully, a round trip will take at least an hour."

"Unless I take you with me at full speed. In that case, we can reach the end in a minute, but the commotion won't be small. Besides, how do you plan to deal with the wall at the end?"

"And most importantly—"

He bluntly listed a long series of potential risks, followed by the question Saria cared about most. "Are you prepared for your identity to be exposed?"

After a period of silence, Saria looked at Gerald beside her.

She had acted on her own many times.

Most of the time, she didn't communicate much with others. Once she had the information she wanted, she acted according to her own logic.

But this time was different.

Having a friend who could help her and work alongside her... It was deeply nostalgic.

And deeply trustworthy.

"If possible, I don't want my identity exposed here," she said. "But... can I hear your opinion?"

"My opinion?"

Most of Gerald's features were swallowed by the darkness, leaving only his golden eyes visible. Surprise flashed through them for an instant, but it soon turned into gratification.

This was a good change, and the first time he had seen this diamond-like woman truly display the ability to [adapt].

Naturally, he wouldn't betray her trust.

"From a rational perspective, the best opportunity must be when everyone's attention is drawn away by an accident."

"Murder isn't enough. Even a massacre falls short. The malice capable of sustaining this bloody stench wouldn't be affected by such things."

"So the only option left is to wait until we're close to Columbia, then have a group of prisoners stage a grand prison break."

As he spoke, Gerald quietly listened to the anguished cries and wails coming from beyond the wall at the end of the passage. Then he silently swallowed it all, making sure Saria wouldn't notice.

They might be criminals who deserved it, or good people wrongly imprisoned. But he wouldn't torment himself over it, nor would he overthink it.

He only knew that he needed to protect his friend's heart.

At the very least, that mountain-like back, already covered in scars, shouldn't bear any more unnecessary burdens.

"And conveniently, just when we need someone to escape and draw attention, the owner of the blueprints in your hands, that pointy-headed girl, the assassin who failed her attempt, and my two friends have all made preparations to leave this damned place."

"When the escape begins, this mobile platform will immediately restart and head into the wilderness. It won't return until the obstacles inside the prison have been cleared."

"By then, we may have no other choice. Leaving through the wilderness might be our only option."

Gerald slowly took a step forward, turned around, and looked into Saria's eyes.

"We might encounter Catastrophes, migrating beast herds, enemies in the wilderness. If we can't stop the prison immediately, it could take days, even more than ten days, before we return to Columbia."

"Food may run short. The water source may be contaminated. Wolves may lurk nearby, waiting to bite through our throats in our sleep—can you accept that?"

Saria answered with an utterly unhesitating attitude.

She nodded without the slightest hesitation, the words leaving her mouth with unquestionable resolve:

"But if enduring such insignificant hardship allows us to reclaim the order others deserve—"

"Then no matter how many times I must make that trade, I'll accept it."

The bloody stench in the air seemed to grow thicker.

He should have known long ago. When he'd casually slit the throats of those three assassins and Saria hadn't stopped him at all, he should have known that the Vouivre before him had never been a gentle soul.

A true warrior was nothing less than this. A true warrior should be like this.

Gerald smiled, and the grim atmosphere in the air instantly vanished.

"Good answer." He casually leaned against the wall. "Relax, I was just trying to scare you. It won't be that troublesome."

"Don't forget, Pegasus are the race best suited for long-distance travel. And you've got this old soldier with you."

"I'll take you across the wilderness."

Anyway, Let's Have Tea First

Even someone as free-spirited as Gerald still had to stay in prison when he was supposed to. It wasn't as though a living person could disappear for an entire hour without anyone noticing.

So after drawing out the structure of the "storage area" with Saria, he quickly returned to his cell. He planned to put on the necklace during nap time and enter this dream.

The time period was short, but the advantage was that nobody would deliberately come disturb him without cause.

The reason the guards and Barton weren't fond of bothering him was Randall's outward attitude toward him.

Not only had Randall forbidden guards from provoking or using violence against him, he also tolerated some of Gerald's excessive behavior in prison. For example, he didn't have to work, could arrange his time freely, and was practically treated like some honored guest.

Was it because Randall had suddenly felt generous, found Gerald especially pleasing, and opened up all these privileges on a whim?

Of course not.

It was true that he had privileges, but Gerald knew that if he disappeared, the line crossed would be far more serious than any prison break in this facility.

Gerald knew where his privileges came from. On one hand, someone had helped smooth over the relevant connections in Columbia when he was imprisoned and paid the prison warden a substantial sum as compensation. On the other hand, Randall understood one thing very clearly.

This Pegasus imprisoned in Mansfield, without shackles binding him, truly could destroy his prison by himself.

This time, entering the dream went very smoothly.