On the rooftop of the Lehan Royal Knight Academy’s main building, we each brought our own dinner. However, it wasn’t until the stars had spread across the night sky that everyone finally gathered.

The last to appear from the rooftop door was Riona.

“Yappuu. Sorryyy, my part-time job ran late and I’m late.”

Riona spends most of her time working part-time, barely making time for club activities. Apparently, she claims to be the poster girl at a restaurant. She hasn’t told us where she works, but it seems she’s confided in Kilpus. She probably wants to be honest, but doesn’t want to be teased.

Still, if I asked her, she’d probably tell me.

Even so, it seems scraping together tuition is extremely hard. Her red hair is messy, and her face looks a little tired.

But as soon as she looked at the starry sky, her face changed, full of renewed spirit... Only to plop herself down tightly on the side opposite to where Lili was sitting beside me as soon as she noticed.

“I'm tired, heal me, El-tan~”

Like a cat rubbing its scent, she kept pushing her head against my face. It hurts. Look, Lili is giving me that cold stare again.

I grabbed Riona’s face with my right hand and pushed her back.

“Aaan...”

“Alright, now that everyone’s here, let’s eat.”

Void and Lili looked puzzled.

“Hey. You got something to say, right? You kept dragging it out till we all got here. Quit making it a big deal and just spill it.”

“Yeah, about that, it’s not that I was dragging it out. I was waiting for Riona.”

Riona pointed at herself with a blank look.

“Huh? Me? You mean you wanted to eat dinner with me? ......I love you!! Let’s live together and eat dinner every day!”

Predicting she might jump on me, I again caught Riona’s face with my right hand and pushed her back firmly.

Oujin was silently eating without paying attention. Today he had a giant rice ball stuffed with what looked like grilled fish. Same as always, the quantity is ridiculous.

“Phew. Sometimes I wanna drink some Miso-shiru.”

Miso...shiru? There he goes again saying incomprehensible things. Isn’t swamp soup enough for him?

Riona tilted her head.

“Ryoka-chan, you want miso soup?”

“You have it!? Wait, you know about it!?”

“Sure do. They have it at my part-time job. Next time I’ll bring you some miso. It’s different from the stews and soups around here but it’s pretty tasty. Good for dieting too~”

“Really!? Thank you, Riona-san!”

Good for you, Kappa and Nekomata.

“Eremia, so what’s the reason you gathered us? Does it have something to do with Belzhein?”

At Lili’s question, I nodded.

“It’s not confirmed, but if anyone would know anything, it’d be Riona, who used to be part of the Republic’s dark side.”

“Aah, but don’t get your hopes up. I was just a disposable grunt, so I was never told any important secrets or anything.”

“Yeah.”

I told everyone the story I had just heard from Juanere—Miriola.

It seems Void knew somewhat about the reason Miriola lost her light, but he hadn’t heard that the target was a magi alchemist.

Everyone stopped eating. Even Oujin, who had been stuffing his mouth mindlessly.

“That’s... the Republic’s top national secret.”

Lili muttered quietly, hand on her chin.

It’s definitely not something others should overhear. That’s why I chose this rooftop as our meeting spot.

“Yeah. And the Kingdom's higher-ups, who should have received reports from Juanere, must have known too.”

Lili, receiving all our gazes, shook her head side to side. Her long hair swayed.

“I had the rank of General within the army, but even I wasn’t told about that old man. I was only informed that dangerous biological weapons called Homunculi had been created by the Republic.”

“That guy in the Lehan Dungeon was the first battle?”

“No. I’ve killed several. They’re creatures most knights can’t handle.”

I nodded.

I figured as much. Lili had fought multiple Homunculi. But she kept it hidden.

Void muttered with a spit of disdain.

“Tch, so there’s more of those monsters out there, huh.”

“Yes. That was the third one I took down.”

Of course it couldn’t be publicized. If it leaked, even a mid-sized battalion could be wiped out by a single Homunculus.

That would mean inevitable defeat for the Kingdom in the next war.

“The only salvation is that Homunculi can’t be mass-produced. If they could, we’d already be done for.”

“Seriously...”

I held my forehead and looked down.

A troubling matter, but Kilpus probably knows already.

Shaking my head, I quickly looked up again.

“Riona, do you know anything about the old man Miriola failed to assassinate?”

“Hmm... I overheard something back when I was at the facility, but...”

“Wasn’t there anything detailed about your assassination targets? You know, like the list you showed during Lawrence’s case.”

Lili’s eyes flickered toward me, but now’s not the time to talk about that.

“Of course not. That old man was a Republic citizen, right? I was hardly given any info.”

Yeah, guess that’s obvious...

“But like I said, I do know some rumors. Want to hear?”

“Yeah. Tell us.”

Riona nodded.

To summarize:

A certain magi alchemist in the Republic had a daughter. His wife, who was already sickly, died after childbirth, leaving him to raise their daughter, named Atyura, with deep affection.

However, Atyura also fell ill with the same disease, and by her teenage years could barely walk. Despite magical treatments, she passed away a few years later, leaving the man alone.

From there, the man changed drastically. He obsessed over magi alchemy, dug up Atyura’s remains, and tried desperately to resurrect her from her bones.

He had become little more than a madman.

Receiving massive funding from the Republic’s top brass in exchange for his research results, he spent more than a decade cultivating living tissue from bone fragments inside a flask.

—Atyura... just a little longer...

It was around then that Juanere encountered the old man. Rumor has it someone spotted a young maid coming and going from the old man’s house.

At the same time, the Republic’s upper echelon reached out again, demanding the research results.

The flesh inside the flask had grown into the shape of a girl. The old man planned to hand over all his research materials except for the girl herself.

But an unexpected event occurred.

The Republic demanded the girl be handed over too.

—Ah, ah, Atyura... this isn’t what I wanted...

The day before the deadline, Juanere, disguised as a maid, acted.

She was to assassinate the man and burn all the research along with the girl in the flask. But she had learned too much about him.

That night, she found the old man collapsing in tears in front of the flask.

—Atyura, if you’re going to be used as a weapon, I’d rather end everything here with you...

When he turned around, he welcomed Juanere’s blade.

—Kill me. End this long nightmare.

In the end, the assassination failed. Republic knights, already posted to watch the house, stormed in, slashing Juanere’s face and forcing her to flee.

The old man, stripped of everything including Atyura, took his own life before morning.

“The old man’s name was, I think, Nereid... Nereid Arlensmith, or something like that...”

Riona added at the end.