Contract of Submission with the Enemy - Chapter 19
Rité clicked her tongue, scrunching her face, and focused solely on creating the weapon. Aster watched her, arms crossed, and said, “It’s unfortunate, but to use your ability, you always need to recall pain. Your life must be full of it to wield your power as freely as moving your body. Consider it the punishment you mentioned.”
Rité’s face darkened. Indeed, her ability felt more like a curse than a blessing. It was the punishment for abandoning Nox to save herself.
The moment she recalled that time, light began to emanate from her hand. Her eyes widened slightly. The light repeatedly condensed and dissipated, undergoing a pre-transformation phase before becoming a weapon.
Aster advised, “Carefully sculpt the light while observing the weapon before you. Think of yourself as a craftsman carving light, transforming your inner pain into art.”
Concentrating, Rité shaped the weapon more clearly. Finally, she created a small self-defense dagger in her hand.
Aster smiled and said, “Well done.”
Rité felt awkward at his praise but was amazed by the incredible feat she had just accomplished.
The weapon she created vanished after three minutes.
“It seems there’s a time limit for maintaining your ability. Though assassination happens in an instant, it would be better to increase the duration. Rarely do you only kill one person and leave,” Aster remarked, sounding rather eerie. Lost in thought and staring at the floor, Rité suddenly remembered something she had been curious about.
“Why do you, of all people, have… a wound of the heart?” she began to ask, but someone knocked on the door before she could finish.
Aster looked at the door, his expression turning serious, and asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s Benyak, sir. Major, you need to come out immediately. We’re under attack!”
Rité’s eyes widened at the news.
Aster turned to the worried-looking Rité and said, “Today’s training is over. You can spend the rest of the time sharpening your knives, practicing on mannequins, or resting in your quarters. Do as you wish.”
He then followed Benyak upstairs. Although he spoke lightly, his face had hardened.
Something serious must have happened to summon him urgently during a state of emergency.
And his intuition was correct.
Aster walked briskly into the operations room and asked, “Report the situation.”
“Yes, sir! We received a report five minutes ago that Supply Transport Base One has been attacked. The assailants are believed to be a terrorist group known as the Vigilantes,” Benyak reported.
Aster paused at the mention of the Vigilantes. They were the group Rité had belonged to before coming here. Additionally, Supply Transport Base One was not far from where she had been captured previously.
Aster, deep in thought, muttered calmly without any emotional disturbance, “I see. They must be after weapons. What’s the current status there?”
“They’re struggling. It appears there’s an Awakened among them,” Benyak explained.
Aster’s eyes gleamed with a peculiar light. “Their infiltration route?”
“We haven’t determined it yet. The fog is thick, making it hard to distinguish friend from foe,” Benyak answered.
“Contact Khalid immediately and find out the weather conditions in that area,” Aster ordered, reviewing the information from the intelligence department. The weather at the attacked site was clear and sunny, not foggy.
Aster smiled oddly and said, “So they have an Awakened who can control fog… That could be useful for future operations.”
Seeing Aster prepare for combat, Benyak asked in shock, “Are you going personally, sir?”
Aster, fastening his combat belt, answered nonchalantly, “Yes.”
“But it’s dangerous! If the fog is thick, it’ll be hard for us to protect you, and the poor visibility puts us at a disadvantage,” Benyak protested.
“Recruiting Awakened is my most important task. I must meet the expectations of the higher-ups,” Aster replied confidently, his composure inspiring trust among his subordinates.
Aster often personally hunted Awakened. His involvement in operations almost guaranteed success, with a near 100% capture rate.
He had never experienced failure. Knowing this, his subordinates silently saluted him from behind.
* * *
Rité returned to her room but couldn’t rest easily. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something ominous was about to happen, and her bad premonitions usually proved accurate. She found herself nervously biting her nails, only snapping out of it when she felt a sharp pain. Blood trickled from a torn cuticle.
Feeling anxious, Rité stepped outside and stopped abruptly when she heard voices.
“The vigilante group tried to strike back this time? But it won’t make a difference.”
Rité’s eyes widened at the mention of the vigilante group, freezing in place behind a wall.
“If they had just stayed quiet, they might have survived. But trying to steal? They won’t get away easily.”
The soldiers continued their conversation as they walked away. Rité’s trembling hand clenched tightly. Her hand felt as cold as if all the blood had drained from it.
Could it be that the vigilante group attacked because of her?
Faces of the vigilante members flashed in her mind, sending chills through her body.
Later, when she heard that Aster had returned to the headquarters, Rité hurried to the second-floor hallway to look out the window. She saw someone being unloaded from a military truck, their entire body bound. Her knees nearly buckled.
Barely holding onto the windowsill, Rité’s eyes quivered. The man being dragged by soldiers at the front, surrounded on all sides, was none other than Maud, the leader of the vigilante group.
Two more people, familiar faces though not close acquaintances, followed him out of the truck.
Fortunately, it seemed only three had been captured. They must have sacrificed themselves to let the others escape. Maud was always more concerned about his members than his own life…
Rité’s eyes reddened.
The captives were taken straight to the torture room. Rité, her anxiety rising, ran her hands through her hair before heading to the torture room. However, she ran into Aster in the hallway and stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide.
His neatly combed ash-gray hair was slightly disheveled, and his uniform was stained with blood. It was clear he had personally captured them.
Behind him, Maud was being dragged, blindfolded with a black cloth and severely injured, unable to walk properly.
Aster glanced at the hastily approaching Rité without a word. His expression seemed especially cold and frightening today.
Rité’s eyelids fluttered. She moistened her dry lips and spoke.
“Aster…”
“Move aside, Rité.”
His cold interruption made Maud flinch behind him. Rité urgently asked,
“What are you going to do with them?”
Aster replied without a hint of emotion,
“What else? We need to extract information.”
“Aster!”
Rité called his name desperately, but Aster ignored her, turning to his subordinates.
“Torture them until they spill everything. We need to know the vigilante group’s future plans and their ties to the royalists. Report to me as soon as they talk.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aster didn’t enter the torture room himself. Instead, he headed to report the day’s events to his superiors. When Rité tried to follow, the soldiers blocked her, gripping her arms tightly.
“Let go! Aster! Talk to me! Stop right there…!”
Aster ignored her pleas, walking down the hallway. His boot steps echoed coldly today.
Rité tried multiple times to request a meeting with him, but Aster refused every time. For the first time, she found herself curious about his every move and schedule, driven by a prey’s fear.
Rité paced anxiously, and when she heard he had gone to the torture room, she rushed there immediately.