Chapter 56: Arbalest Division A

Armored Dragon Calendar Year 418 – Ghislaine

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[Ghislaine POV]

Waiting was unnatural.

Every instinct screamed to move, to hunt, to kill. The beast blood running through my veins had been bred for action across a thousand generations. My ancestors hadn’t survived by sitting still on rooftops watching merchant carriages pass below.

But I sat. I watched.

I waited.

The target walked through the street three stories below my position. Lord Vance of House Thornwood, a minor noble with major connections, dressed in silk that cost more than most families earned in a year.

He moved with the casual arrogance of someone who believed himself untouchable.

A year ago, I would have dropped from this roof and separated his head from his shoulders. The thought of it made my claws itch. Clean, simple, effective.

But Claude had taught me otherwise during these months of working together. Information before action.

A dead enemy told no secrets, revealed no allies, taught no lessons.

So I watched Lord Vance enter a wine merchant’s shop. Noted the time.

Noted the duration of his visit. Noted the small leather satchel he carried in.

And the heavier purse he carried out.

Interesting. A noble of his standing had no business conducting transactions personally.

That’s what servants were for. Unless the transaction required secrecy.

I memorized the details and withdrew, moving across rooftops with the silence that years of hunting had bred into my muscles. The sun was setting, painting the city in shades of orange and gold.

Beautiful, if you cared about such things. I didn’t.

Beauty was distraction. Information was survival.

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[Ghislaine POV – One Year Ago]

A full year had passed since the Metastasis Incident consumed the Fittoa Region, and the memory hadn’t dimmed.

The memory remained vivid, blindingly bright light spreading across the landscape like spilled paint across canvas, transforming everything familiar into alien and terrifying.

I’d been in the Greyrat mansion when it began, close enough to reach for Rudeus and my lady Eris, yet impossibly far when the magic seized hold of reality itself.

I’d run, beast-man reflexes pushed beyond their limits, muscles screaming as I fought against the inexorable pull of the teleportation magic.

But for all my speed, all my strength, I might as well have been moving through honey. The light swallowed everything, and when it faded, I found myself alone in a wilderness I didn’t recognize.

The first few days had been disorienting, using every survival instinct to determine my location while fighting off the desperate hope that this was all some terrible nightmare.

But beast-men don’t dream so vividly. And the ache in my muscles from the failed rescue attempt was too real to dismiss.

It was during my journey toward the nearest settlement that I found them.

Lord Philip and Lady Hilda’s bodies were barely recognizable when I discovered the monsters feeding on their remains.

The rage in that moment was unlike anything since my homeless days. It wanted blood. Nothing else.

I slaughtered every beast in that clearing. Not with the clinical efficiency of a trained warrior, but with the savage desperation of someone who’d failed to protect what mattered most.

By the time my vision cleared, the ground was soaked crimson and my claws were caked with gore that would take hours to clean.

Gathering their remains had been… difficult. The bodies were too damaged to transport intact across the continent.

Forcing me to make a choice that still haunted my dreams. I cremated them there in that blood-soaked clearing, using techniques Lord Sauros had taught me for honoring fallen warriors.

Their ashes rode with me in a simple ceramic urn for the entire three-month journey to Ars.

The capital city felt alien after months of wilderness travel. Too many people, too many scents, too much noise after the relative silence of my solitary journey.

But Lord Sauros needed to know what had happened to his son. And I was the only one who could tell him.

The only one who survived to tell him, I corrected myself. The guilt had its own weight.

By the time I reached Ars, I’d learned enough about the political situation to fear for Lord Sauros’s life. The Fittoa Region Metastasis had sent shockwaves through the Asura Kingdom, and someone needed to be held accountable.

An elderly noble with questionable loyalties made a convenient scapegoat.

The trial had been a spectacle designed to appease the masses while protecting the truly powerful.

I’d expected to watch Lord Sauros be sacrificed for crimes he couldn’t have prevented. His reputation destroyed and his life forfeit to political necessity.

Instead, I witnessed an unexpected turn, a boy barely fifteen years old dismantling the prosecution’s case with surgical precision.

Mike of Buena Village arrived with documentation, testimonies, and evidence that transformed a show trial into a genuine legal proceeding.

His backing group, this mysterious “Arbalest,” provided resources and expertise that rivaled anything the great houses could muster.

Claude’s childhood friend, I mused, remembering fragments of conversations from better days. Of course he’d be involved with something this ambitious.

The revelation that Mike, Claude, and even Rudeus all originated from the same small village in Fittoa struck me as either the greatest coincidence in history or evidence of deliberate design.

Three individuals of extraordinary talent, all connected to each other, all somehow involved in events that spanned continents.

What kind of place was Buena Village? I wondered.

What could produce such remarkable people in such a small community?

“I’m sorry to ask this of you so soon after your arrival,” Lord Sauros said, his voice lacking its usual robust energy, “but would you be willing to assist Arbalest’s search operations? They’re looking for more displaced people from the Metastasis.”

I’d never seen him so subdued. The loss of his son and daughter-in-law had aged him visibly, adding lines to his face and a stoop to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before the catastrophe.

“Whoa, old man, I know you’re grieving, but I never expected you to get this quiet,” Mike interjected with typical teenage tactlessness. “Are you feeling alright?”

The casual disrespect toward my liege made my hackles rise instinctively. My hand moved toward my sword hilt before conscious thought could intervene.

“Easy there, Ghislaine,” Mike said quickly, taking a prudent step backward. “No harm meant. Just worried about him, you know?”

“Leave it, Ghislaine,” Lord Sauros said with a weary sigh. “He saved my life. I can tolerate his… informality.”

I forced my hand away from my weapon, though the protective instinct remained strong. Lord Sauros had given me purpose when I had nothing.

Taking in a failed beast-warrior who’d been robbed blind by supposed comrades after Paul and Zenith disbanded our party. He’d seen potential in me when I was still just a Saint-level swordsman, desperate and nearly starving.

He saved me, I reminded myself. And now this boy has saved him.

“I understand, my lord,” I said finally. “I’ll assist Arbalest however I can.”

The assignment placed me with Arbalest Division A, led by someone called Ash, a young man roughly the same age as Eris, Claude, and Mike.

My first impression was of competence beyond his years. The kind of quiet confidence that came from genuine experience rather than bravado.

His mount was perfectly suited for long-range reconnaissance, a creature I’d never seen before but which moved with the speed and endurance necessary for continental search operations.

Everything about Division A spoke to careful planning and professional execution.

This isn’t what I expected. I admitted to myself as we prepared for our first joint mission.

I’d anticipated working with amateurs, well-meaning children playing at being adventurers.

Instead, I found myself part of an organization that operated with military-level precision.

Arbalest was far larger and more sophisticated than I’d imagined. What I’d initially dismissed as a group of teenagers united by friendship had revealed itself as a multi-divisional operation with impressive resources and clear strategic objectives.

Division A handled reconnaissance and search operations across the continent. Division B managed resource acquisition and financial operations.

Division C established intelligence networks in major population centers. Each division operated with considerable autonomy while maintaining coordination with the others.

A group created by Claude years ago, I learned during our first briefing. The timeline was staggering.

This organization had been in development since before any of its leaders had reached adulthood. The level of foresight and planning required suggested either incredible luck or knowledge that shouldn’t have been available to children.

“They knew,” I said aloud during a rest stop three months into our search operations.

“Arbalest knew about the Metastasis before it happened.”

Ash looked up from the map he’d been studying, his expression carefully neutral. “What makes you say that?”

“The preparedness. The resources. The fact that you were already organized for exactly this kind of disaster relief operation.” I kept my voice level, though suspicion was sharpening. “You can’t build this comprehensive an organization in response to an event. You have to plan for it in advance.”

He was quiet for a long moment, weighing his words carefully. “What would you do,” he asked finally, “if someone told you the sky was going to fall five months from now?”

“I’d want proof.”

“And if they showed you a strange orb floating above your region, visible to anyone who looked up?”

I remembered that orb, a strange magical phenomenon that had appeared months before the Metastasis. Most people had dismissed it as a curiosity, possibly dangerous but not immediately threatening.

“People called it gibberish,” Ash continued. “Even when the evidence was right there in the sky for everyone to see. Even when official warnings were sent to every major authority in the region. Who believes that floating lights can destroy an entire kingdom?”

His words sat between us for a moment. The disaster that had torn apart so many lives, scattered so many families, could have been prevented if anyone had listened.

But who would believe such a thing? I thought, remembering my own dismissive attitude toward the orbs.

Who could imagine destruction on that scale?

“There was someone else,” I said, fragments of memory surfacing. “Just before the Metastasis. Someone incredibly fast, possibly one of the Armored Dragon King’s subordinates. They questioned me about the orb, seemed desperate for information.”

Ash’s expression sharpened with interest. “What did they want to know?”

“Everything. When they’d appeared, how they moved, whether I’d noticed any changes in their behavior.”

The memory was clearer now, aided by hindsight. “They were trying to understand the phenomenon, maybe find a way to stop it.”

“And you told them?”

“What little I knew. But I didn’t take it seriously at the time.”

The admission tasted bitter. “I thought it was just academic curiosity.”

We sat in silence for several minutes, both lost in our own thoughts. Around us, the continental wilderness stretched endlessly, the same kind of terrain where I’d found Philip and Hilda’s bodies, where countless other Metastasis victims had likely met similar fates.

How many people could have been saved if we’d listened?

“My lady Eris,” I said suddenly, voicing the fear that consumed my quieter moments. “Is she safe? Please tell me Rudeus is with her.”

Ash’s expression softened slightly, the professional mask slipping to reveal genuine sympathy. “We’re still searching. But Claude’s people are resourceful, and Rudeus has proven remarkably capable of surviving impossible situations. If anyone can keep her safe, it’s them.”

The reassurance helped, though it couldn’t entirely banish my fears. Somewhere out there, scattered across unknown continents, my lady was facing dangers I couldn’t protect her from.

The helplessness was almost unbearable.

I’ll find you, I promised silently. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, I’ll find you and bring you home.

That was a year ago. The search had continued.

Months of tracking, investigating, following leads that sometimes paid off and often didn’t.

And somewhere along the way, Claude had found me. Not physically, he’d been on the Demon Continent when I’d joined Arbalest.

But his instructions had reached me through Mike, through Ash, through the organization he’d built.

You’re wasted on search operations, one letter had said. You’re a Sword King. You know how to hunt. Apply those skills differently.

Another letter, weeks later: Information is power. You understand tracking prey. Tracking information is the same principle—follow patterns, identify weaknesses, strike when the target is vulnerable.

He’d been right. The skills that made me an effective hunter translated directly to intelligence work.

The ability to remain still for hours while gathering information. The killer instinct that recognized when to strike and when to wait.

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