You Want Me to Fight Kal'tsit? Seriously?

"..."

The new female prison guard said nothing. After placing the tray on the table, she stepped to the side and stood there, apparently intending to watch Gerald finish his meal.

"Hey, don't you think this is awkward? You're watching me eat, having to endure the smell while standing there quietly."

Gerald's talkative nature was especially active around strangers. After turning the matter over in his mind, he moved another chair beside the books. "If you don't want to talk to me, how about reading for a while? That one's pretty basic. Think of it as improving yourself during work hours."

He had no idea what she was thinking, but judging from how she hesitated before sitting down--

They were not completely unable to communicate, right?

Seeing her open his notes and begin reading, Gerald shrugged and lowered his head to enjoy the high-calorie food.

Yet he had barely stuffed a few bites of noodles into his mouth when a cool voice came from across the table. "Your annotations are very detailed. Are you self-taught?"

"Hm? Yeah."

He speared a meatball among the noodles, coated it in broth, and shoved it into his mouth. Gerald answered the guard's question indistinctly, "I only had a little systematic education. Most of what I know is half-understood. Whether I can treat someone or not depends entirely on fate."

"Very impressive, but you place too much emphasis on efficiency and immediate treatment. It may leave patients with lasting complications."

The guard fell silent after saying that. "But there is not much room to think about the future on a battlefield. My apologies. I was being presumptuous."

"Pfft—cough, cough cough cough..."

Gerald could not help laughing when he heard that, and choked on his food. It took him a while to recover.

Faced with the guard's puzzled gaze, he smiled. "Whew... No, I wasn't laughing at you. I just never expected to meet someone in this damned place who could reflect on themselves. Seems I've run into every good thing there is."

"That is not unusual. Medical personnel in particular need to be rigorous. Also, while the methods above are indeed feasible, I still believe you should learn some academic knowledge and approaches. After all, in most cases, patients will not be in such harsh circumstances."

Gerald found it rather interesting. This prison guard looked like a cold beauty who kept everyone at arm's length, yet her conversation was mostly advice and guidance, and her tone was quite gentle.

It felt like he had returned to a childhood classroom.

"I know." He was somewhat unaccustomed to her attitude, but his hands never stopped moving. He carefully wrapped the edge of the pizza with a napkin to keep the grease from splashing onto his hands. "Otherwise, there would be no reason for me to read this sort of book."

"I will give you a personally recommended reading list. Studying them in order will provide a good supplement to your current progress."

Those slender, elegant fingers deftly flipped his notes to the last page, then picked up a pen and held it over the paper.

She raised her eyes and asked, "Do you mind if I use a page of your notes?"

"Go ahead, but professional books are usually expensive. I've never seen one for less than fifty Columbia Gold Notes—no, no, no, why are you writing so much? How am I supposed to finish reading all that?!"

"If you study in your spare time, you should be able to finish them in less than a year." The prison guard tilted her head, seemingly unable to understand what Gerald was wailing about.

"...Fine. I suppose now I understand what a gap in perception means." Looking at the long string of technical terms and the pen that nearly refused to stop, the young man could hardly bear to look at his miserable future. "I'm begging you, could you go easier on me?"

"The patients you face will not be saved just because I go easy on you now."

After writing the final book title, the guard checked everything once more. Once she confirmed there were no mistakes, she nodded in satisfaction and carefully closed the notebook.

"Fine, fine, I understand. I'm terribly sorry. I'll read every excellent work you recommended."

Gerald pressed his palms together, but in the next instant, the conversation in his mouth took a sharp turn in another direction. "Then may I ask why such a genius lady, who can finish all these books in her spare time, would deign to come to a remote corner everyone hates?"

The prison guard fell silent for a moment. When she spoke again, she did not answer the question directly. "You seem to have a good relationship with Mr. Anthony."

"Your coworkers all know him well. I suggest you try raising your colleagues' opinion of you. They should be more than willing to tell such a beautiful lady everything, right down to when he likes to bathe and use the toilet."

At some point, Gerald's plate had become completely empty, even the sauce scraped clean. "If you're asking me, I can only say I won't stop you from doing whatever you intend to do. As for whether he can handle it, that's his problem. I can't keep babysitting that young master forever."

"Even if he dies because of it?" The guard nodded slightly, showing no emotion.

"I don't think he'll die that easily. Probably."

"It seems your relationship is not as harmonious as it appears."

"How could that be? Anthony is my dear friend and brother. If you want his life, you'll at least have to go on a date with me before I can reluctantly consider it."

Gerald smiled and glanced around the library. "Though this isn't a good place. I'd be heartbroken if the books got damaged. The cells are full of sturdy things, so that would be a good place to fight."

"Fight?"

"Huh? Did I say what I was really thinking?" Gerald said without a care. "Sorry. There aren't many interesting opponents in prison. Compared to you, Anthony—well, maybe ten of him together could barely add up to your level?"

The prison guard was silent for a moment before continuing.

"...Have you not considered that I may have come here for you?"

The room suddenly fell quiet.

Gerald toyed with the plastic dinner knife in his fingers, turning its serrated edge toward himself before smiling.

"I don't think so."

"No one would be stupid enough to use a warrior and protector as an assassin... even if people like you are exactly the sort I have the hardest time dealing with."

"Besides, even if I misjudged you."

He put down the knife and gave her a brilliant smile.

"You still couldn't kill me on your own."

Elsewhere, in the dining hall for A and B Sections, a sharp-headed girl secretly counted her morning haul from a corner of the cafeteria before joining the long line to wait for her meal.

Pickles, a sandwich with cheese, shriveled vegetables, and ham, plus a bowl of soup that might or might not have had a few flies fall into it.

No matter how optimistic a girl was, she could not smile sincerely at food like this, and Kafka was no exception.

Listlessly carrying her food, she sat beside an older guy she knew and greeted him. "Big bro~ Do we have to eat this stuff every day?"

"Heh, count yourself lucky." The big bro Kafka called took a quarter of the sandwich in one bite, then chewed slowly, trying to make the taste linger in his mouth longer. "If Barton hadn't gone crazy lately, acting like he was high on ice all day, we wouldn't even get this."

Kafka could only sigh. She had eaten worse things before, but nobody enjoyed suffering through misery twice.

So she copied the big bro and took a bite of her sandwich, hoping conversation would ease her gloom. "Hey, big bro, didn't you say this morning that I should be careful when cleaning C Section? You still haven't told me what I need to watch out for."

"Mm?! Cough... cough cough, why are you talking about that while we're eating?"

The big bro had just been enjoying his food, but Kafka's interruption instantly killed his appetite. He could only glare at the tactless little girl.

Kafka smiled sheepishly. "Hehe, I didn't know. Ignorance is no crime, ignorance is no crime."

"...Fair enough." The big bro licked his slightly bitter lips as the remembered disgust welled up again. He took out a plastic bag, put the sandwich inside, and stuffed it into his pocket. "There's someone in C Section, living next door to Anthony. You probably won't run into him, but it's better to be careful."

"Uh-huh." Kafka nodded along. "Some vicious major criminal, right?"

The big bro shook his head. "If we're talking major criminals, he only killed one person, and that guy deserved to die. But it happened on Columbia soil, and the way he did it wasn't good either."

He cautiously looked around, making sure the person he was talking about had not come to eat in the A and B Sections cafeteria on a whim that day. Only then did he lean close to Kafka and lower his voice. "Don't tell anyone, but I used to work as a guard for the guy he killed. Outer perimeter security."

"I only found out later that our former boss was some Kazimierz capitalist bastard. I heard he treated his own wife and daughter like gifts, then fled to Columbia."

"That day, he came in carrying a sword, threw everyone blocking his way into the air, and never brought us down. He made us face the inside of the mansion."

Kafka's eyes widened. "Wow! He can use magic!"

"Magic my ass. That was Originium Arts, and the scariest kind at that." Sweat appeared on the big bro's forehead, and even his fingertips trembled slightly. "And he didn't kill a single person. That was scarier than someone who killed people and went to prison. He just knocked people out with the sword hilt, then tossed them into the air."

"He tore open the mansion's outer wall with his bare hands, punched every guard inside unconscious one by one, then dragged out the foreigner at the very center."

Kafka was engrossed, but then noticed that the big bro had stopped talking. She hurriedly urged him on. "Then what? He definitely went whoosh and sliced that guy's head off with one swing, right?"

The big bro shook his head.

"He skinned him."

Kafka froze for a moment, then a faint blush spread over her face. "Pah, pah, pah! Aren't you ashamed? What does that have to do with a girl like me?!"

"Not his clothes."

The big bro slowly continued what he had left unsaid.

"His skin, flesh, and bones."

Calcification, Kid

The protagonist of that terrifying rumor had no idea people were gossiping about him behind his back.

He only felt that things were getting troublesome.

Once he truly faced this prison guard, Gerald realized that he had probably acted too cocky earlier, leaving himself unable to back down.

It was a real miscalculation.

After seeing him act like that, the woman had immediately brought him to a corner without surveillance and shown him her outrageously powerful Originium Arts.

Who knew that thing would counter him so badly?

Enamel, bright as the moon, coated her arms. Even the wind from her punches could scrape the exposed skin.

Although traces of brutality could vaguely be seen in her combat methods and techniques, her overall strategy was conservative. Like a heavy cannon, she steadily and unhurriedly secured every advantage.

If he had a gun, a sword, and an Arts catalyst in hand, dealing with her might not have taken much time.

But if Pegasus were restricted to his original physical abilities and made to fight a female Vouivre capable of using Originium Arts, the gap could not even be called enormous. There simply was not a single place where he could win.

A violent gust howled past, followed by a fist carrying the heavy force of a sonic boom. In almost an instant, Gerald's reaction time was compressed to its limit.

Yet even without Originium Arts, the rhythm of the wind still sang in his ears—Gerald merely stepped half a pace back, then twisted on his toes and rapidly lowered his center of gravity. His body snapped free from the blow's path like a nimble whip.

But even though he avoided the frontal strike, the blast of air it stirred still scraped his exposed arm, and his skin immediately stung as though it had been shaved by a sharp blade.

"Whew...!"

Gerald steadied his breathing and opened the distance again.

He did not need to think too deeply about where that power came from. Whether it was the enhancement of Originium Arts or this female Vouivre's naturally unbelievable physical strength, all he could do now was rely on his innate speed to keep his distance, repeatedly adjusting his breathing and footwork as he searched for openings and evaded attacks like collapsing mountains.

He shifted his feet again to avoid her fist. His previously steady heart now pumped blood harder and harder, trying to make this "long deliberation" last a little longer.

Pegasus' endurance and speed might have been his only weapons at the moment. It was not as though he had not considered smashing the shackles in his hands directly against her Enamel—but come on, Mansfield was as far from Columbia as it could get. There were no Originium crystals in his blood to forcibly drive those Arts.

If he actually shattered it, one of them would have trouble escaping while the other would have trouble explaining herself.

And just as Gerald dodged her fist once more and waited for his next chance to attack.

Saria, disguised as a prison guard, was suppressing the fighting spirit erupting from the center of her heart like magma.

She knew it was a stress response to malice. Since the battle began, her neck, heart, eyeballs—every vulnerable point on the human body—had sent powerful warnings of danger to her mind more than once.

Even though he had no intention of attacking those areas, and the only clash so far had been her Calcification blocking his incoming elbow strike—this purest malice, existing solely to take lives, made the anger in her heart swell wildly.

How many people did one have to kill to nurture such malice, the kind that made someone feel chilled to the bone from a mere gaze?

Yet she could not condemn a warrior who had been on the battlefield for that. Just as she had nothing to say about the annotations in his notes. Killing and being killed were not things the man before her could decide. The blame could only lie with those politicians clinking glasses at banquets.

She had been born in Columbia and could not empathize with such suffering. Thinking of its causes only made it feel all the more bleak.

"Enough."

Saria stopped moving. The Enamel covering her arms slowly receded, revealing pale skin faintly eroded by calcification marks.

"Ha... See? I told you that you couldn't kill me."

The instant the battle ended, the coldness on Gerald's face melted like ice and snow, and he immediately returned to his usual carefree self. "Sigh, can't be helped. Someone cheated. Originium Arts at that level—there probably aren't many people like that in all of Columbia, yet I still had to run into one. My luck is really something."

It was a shame, too.

The speed at which Enamel formed seemed to operate according to her thoughts. She could control it as naturally as her own limbs, extending her will to every corner of her body and even the environment.

In other words, as long as his attack was faster than her thoughts, as long as he laid the groundwork for that fatal blow and concealed his intentions—

Forget it. Anyone could talk about hypotheticals. The fact was that he had been suppressed in that fight, and he had indeed stumbled at this hurdle.

"Fine. With this, you should have figured out the situation inside the prison."

Gerald showed no outward sign of frustration. "With Originium Arts like yours, I can't stop you while wearing shackles. But the way you fight so openly and honorably from beginning to end..."

"If you want to keep your identity from being exposed and remove yourself from this matter, you'll probably need something else."

Saria picked up the hat that had been blown away by the wind during the fight, dusted it off, and put it back on. "For example?"

"A complete prison break plan and a structural blueprint of this building. If you can provide those, great. If not, then I'll have to trouble you to unlock my shackles the next time we dock at Trimounts."

"I don't recall ever saying why I came here," Saria said.

"Please, we're both adults." Gerald rolled his eyes at her. "Putting someone like you among a bunch of idiots who can't even fight is like putting a star in the night sky—anyone with a little skill can tell. That Barton guy may be an idiot, but this prison's warden is not."