The commotion died instantly. It was replaced by a wave of feverish whispers: 'That's right... if it's him, she'll falter.' 'They look identical, after all.'
Every eye in the tent locked onto Hiro.
"W-What?" Hiro's face scrunched in total confusion.
"Einar." Theo approached him, his smirk widening. "You're going to file a formal complaint with that witc—I mean, the Commander. You'll demand better treatment. If you fail, we're moving forward with the 'Hostile Takeover' plan."
"But...why me?" Hiro asked meekly.
"There he goes, playing dumb again. It won't work this time, Einar." Theo waved a dismissive hand.
"We'll wait here but you'd better be quick—we're on our last straw. Look, that man was about to shit himself." Theo warned, his smirk twitching into a grimace. He gestured sharply toward a knight in the corner who was currently collapsed on all fours, trembling.
"Go get her, Einar!"
"Show her who's the boss!"
"Ugh….Einar….please help….sob."
The brothers cheered as if he'd already won the lawsuit. While the last moan sounded suspiciously like a breach had already occurred
Hiro stood on the chair, frozen like a statue. A flash of a masked woman—cold, otherworldly, and terrifying—flickered in his mind. Totally not the type you could file a complaint to; she was the type who fired you into the sun.
And now his brothers wanted him to "Show her who's the boss"?
There was clearly a personal history he didn't know about, but Theo had dismissed his ignorance as an act, and John was still sprawled in the crates. The mob was no better either.
Fine. Hiro resigned himself to his fate
Taking a gamble on a masked "CEO" was still less risky than letting this mob start a riot. After all, she wouldn't fire a volunteer worker during a labor shortage... right?
****************
"Wait here. The Commander is still in the War Room."
A Black Templar sentry guided him toward a spacious chamber draped in oppressive black and crimson. Hiro had marched straight to the Keep and demanded an audience, bluffing about a critical emergency that required the Commander immediate presence. He'd fully expected a beating or, at the very least, a heavy-handed interrogation.
Instead, the sentry had simply bowed. "Understood. Please follow me, Einar Vane."
The memory of how easily the guard had complied left Hiro on edge. There was always a catch when something went too smoothly. Or, perhaps, the God of this world had finally decided to offer him a blessing bonus after putting him through a literal hellscape.
Hmm. This place actually smells nice and kinda familiar, Hiro thought.
In stark contrast to the rest of the Keep—which usually reeked of pungent incense and industrial-strength divine chemicals—this room was filled with a crisp, floral fragrance. It was a familiar, high-end scent that soothed his nerves and lowered his worry instantly. He tried in vain to remember what the scent was.
Hiro glanced at the ornamented partition blocking the view of the inner sanctum. It left him in a modest square of a parlor, furnished with a vintage tea table and matching high-back chairs.
Chill. This is just a standard waiting room, Hiro thought, shrugging as he sat down aloofly. He stared up at a stained-glass window that looked like it cost more than his entire annual salary back in Japan.
Still no clue at all. Hiro shook his head, frustrated by the lack of information.
He'd been trying to calculate the prior relationship between Einar and Godfrey with the Black Templar's Commander. His best bet? They were coworkers in the sense that both were Commanders of their respective "Departments."
Coworkers. Hiro gritted his teeth at the thought of his current unit.
"If I actually manage to close this 'Negotiation' successfully, I'm going to make those idiots scrub the kitchen floor for an eternity," Hiro scowled.
Thud.
Hm?
Something heavy bumped against the door. Hiro stood abruptly, instinctively dusting off his black plate armor and setting his helmet on the tea table. Meeting a "CEO" always gave him a complicated cocktail of emotions. For someone like him, who had climbed the corporate ladder from the absolute bottom, people at that level were like distant stars—beautiful, cold, and completely out of reach.
The door groaned open.
Polished steel boots stepped into the room. It wasn't the "CEO" he'd been expecting.
It was Sir Reinhardt.
Reinhardt moved to the far side of the room, taking a position behind the chair opposite Hiro. He left the heavy door ajar. The light filtering through the expensive stained glass bathed his black plate armor in a kaleidoscopic glow, giving the veteran knight the eerie visage of a radiant, fallen angel.
"Don't mind me. I'm merely standing guard. The Commander is on her way," he said, his voice flat and indifferent.
"Understood, Sir," Hiro replied, snapping a fist to his left shoulder in a practiced black templar salute.
Silence followed—heavy and suffocating.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The strike of steel boots against the distant stone floor echoed down the hallway, growing louder with every heartbeat.
"I won't say much, Vane. But she hasn't been the same since that day," Reinhardt said, shifting his stern gaze toward Hiro. "Don't expect a warm welcome."
Seems like he knows something. Hiro thought, his throat going dry. He managed a weak, professional nod.
If the Commander wasn't on good terms with Godfrey, he was literally walking into a tiger's den. But if that was the case, why was Theo so confident? Why did he think Einar had "Bargaining Power"? All he had was a face that was a mirror image of a dead man.
Then, a slender, polished steel boot stepped in.
"Thank you for waiting...Brother Vane." The voice was cold, yet melodious—like a blade made of crystal.
The Commander of the Black Templars. The Master of the Trench Fortress. The "CEO" of this gothic nightmare stood before him in her glorious, dark armor. Her silver half-mask glinted in the colorful light of the stained glass.
"Not at all, Ma'am!" Hiro snapped a crisp, high-pressure salute.
She took the seat across from him. As she moved, her midnight-blue hair caught the light from the stained glass, shifting into a soft, ethereal lavender.
Lavender.
Right! The room's fragrance—that fresh, floral scent with its sweet, herbaceous, and woody undertones—was lavender. This wasn't just a parlor; it was her private office. No wonder it was tucked so far away from the grime of the Great Hall.
But why? Hiro wondered, his practiced service smile faltering for a split second.
"I'm listening," she said, crossing one armored leg over the other. She clasped her hands and propped them on the armrest. "You may sit, Brother Vane."
"Yes. Thank you, Commander." Hiro sat, his spine as stiff as a frozen cooling rack.
The two top executives of the Black Templars were staring him down, waiting for the "Urgency" he had claimed to have. Hiro was used to the menacing glares of men like Reinhardt, but it was the Commander's ash-gray mask that truly threw him off. He couldn't read a single metric behind that silver surface—except for her dainty red lips, which looked... distractingly appetizing.
C-Calm down, Einar's hormones! Hiro cursed internally. This is a professional consultation, not a mixer!
"I am here to report a 'Collective Input' from the Logistics Squadron, Ma'am," Hiro began, pivoting immediately to his problem-solution pitch.
"Based on our initial 'Site Survey' and our shared findings regarding the lack of basic necessities at our station, we formally propose that either an immediate 'Facility Replacement' or a prompt 'Infrastructure Renovation' is necessary to optimize our daily output."
There. He'd done it. He had filtered the "Constipation Riot" into polite, universal corporate-speak that even a medieval warlord could understand.
"Were the places not to your liking?" the Commander asked, her head tilting forward slightly.
"The floor space is satisfactory, Ma'am. It accommodates our squadron's current well," Hiro replied, expertly neutralizing the complaint. "However, the operational infrastructure requires visible improvement to produce an optimal output."
She unclasped her hands and tilted her head, clearly calculating the cost of a renovation or the cost of burying his whole squadron.
"Very well. I grant you permission to renovate the station," the "lavender" haired Commander announced. A small, enigmatic smile tugged at her red lips "You may coordinate with the Master Blacksmith later."
That was too easy… Hiro started to dismiss the thought, his mind already moving to the "Cleaning Schedule."
"Most gracious, Ma'am! Then, if there's nothing else, I shall excuse—"
A slender, steel-encased hand rose into the air, cutting him off.
Hiro looked at that gauntlet and realized that the God of this world hadn't helped him at all—he'd just been waiting for the punchline.
"On one condition," she said, her voice dropping into a low, smoky register.
"Yes, ma'am?" Hiro winced.
He was already imagining a "Suicide Mission" for his squadron as the price for a few working toilets.
"Update me on the renovation progress every week, in this room," she said solemnly, her ash-bound mask glinting in the dim light. "Please come at night, so as to not interfere with my schedule."
Hiro stood perfectly still, but he was cheering internally. Weekly status reports? In a climate-controlled office that smells like lavender? That was unexpectedly manageable. He liked his new CEO already. She was sensible, lenient, and—objectively speaking—a high-value visual asset. Especially the way those midnight waves of hair cascaded over her dark cuirass...
"Cough. Y-Yes! Loud and clear, Ma'am!" Hiro snapped into a rigid, high-energy salute.
She giggled.
Hiro never knew a giggle could sound so pleasant. She was pretty inside and outside; perfect. He scooped up his helmet, his mind already planning to "torment" his brothers. On his way to the door, however, he caught Sir Reinhardt staring at him.
The veteran knight wasn't looking at him with respect or his usual scowl. It was a look of pure, unadulterated pity.
Hiro wondered why.
***************
A pair of irisless eyes, shielded by the ash-bound mask, tracked the retreating figure of the man in black plate armor. Once the door clicked shut, she stood up and reached back, patting the massive shoulder of the giant behind her as if he were a loyal, well-trained hound.
"A job well done, Reinhardt," she murmured, her red lips parting slightly in a dark, satisfied curve.
"It was nothing, Commander," Reinhardt replied, his head bowed in a posture of total, fearful submission.
"You may go now," she dismissed him with a casual, regal wave of her hand.
"Yes, Commander." Reinhardt stepped out, saluting one last time before sealing the heavy door behind him.
The room fell into a heavy, floral silence.
The Commander stood motionless for a heartbeat. Then, she crossed the floor to the chair where "Einar" had just been sitting. She didn't sit in it. Instead, she sank to the cold stone floor, pressing her masked face against the seat's fabric.
She inhaled deeply.
"Aaah… I can smell it," she whispered, her voice trembling with a terrifying, gleeful hunger. "The living flesh. The warm blood of a Vane."
She caressed the wooden texture of the chair, her fingers tracing the lingering heat Hiro had left behind. Her smile widened, predatory and ecstatic. Godfrey's "Legacy" was back in her office, and this time, she wasn't going to let go.
She stayed like that for a long, heavy moment before moving toward the large partition. With a sudden, violent grace, she yanked it aside.
Swoosh.
Dozens of lavender pots were revealed, meticulously arranged in a ritualistic circle around a massive, white-lit bed encased in reinforced glass.
"You always liked lavender, so I've surrounded you with it. Do you like it, my love?" she whispered, her gauntleted fingers stroking the glass with a terrifying tenderness.
She paused, as if listening to a silent reply. "Oh, you're such a romantic," she giggled, pressing her palms against her reddened cheeks in a bashful, schoolgirl manner.
"There's no need to be jealous, Godfrey. He isn't your replacement. You live within him now." She stared down at the occupant of the glass-encased display.
Golden armor. Black hair. A weathered, identical version of Einar.
The former Commander of the Royal Knight.
"From now on, we will be together forever, Godfrey. I promise to love Einar just as much as I love you." She gave the glass one final, lingering touch before turning toward the window.
Below, in the fortress courtyard, Hiro was walking with a visible spring in his step—the walk of a man who thought he'd just secured a "Facility Upgrade."
"Einar Vane. You used to hate me to the very bone, yet today you stammered. You must have fallen for me, too. Ah, how gracious of God... for both brothers to fall for me."
Her serene smile began to twitch, stretching into a strained expression as if she were barely restraining a tidal wave of mania. She bit her red lip hard, a single bead of blood trailing down her chin.
"Einar. Einar. Einar. Einar. Einar. Einar. Einar."
**************
Chill.
"Achooo!"
Hiro rubbed his nose, a sudden, inexplicable shiver rattling his black plate armor. "I felt a draft... must be getting cold out here."
He dismissed the sensation as nothing more than a pressure drop.
He had a renovation budget, a happy unit to torment, and a "Meeting with the CEO" on the books for next week. What could possibly go wrong?