He who holds the horn. (3)

Gabriel strode away from the mansion, but he didn't walk far. He found a spot in the courtyard where the trees grew freely and hid in a spot amongst them where he was hidden from all sides.

"Karas, Takt Ka." (Darkness, Mask Me.)

"Karas, Aset Ka Hui Ka'e Taki." (Darkness, Switch Me And My Mark.)

The darkness lingering between the trees rose as he beckoned, washing over his body as it swallowed him. When it settled down again, Gabriel had disappeared from the estate, a small black dot remaining where he had vanished.

Gabriel rose from a shadow in what looked like an office-building, rows of booths with stacks of papers spreading around him. Fig Tree's Branch, it was an accounting company based in the capital of the empire, it helped smaller and a fair number of medium-sized businesses with their taxes, ensuring that the crown always got what it was owed. 

Well, that was its official line of work at least. Beneath the surface, it was one of the companies owned by Gabriel's Night Pack. It was the largest of their hubs within the capital, and it was one of their main sources of information.

"Boss."

A voice called out to Gabriel after he arrived there, his head covered by a wolf-like mask formed from the surrounding darkness. A head rose from the rows of booths, which were naturally empty now because of how late it was. A mask resembling a black fox covered the head, Solomon had probably put it on the moment he sensed Gabriel's magic.

"A change in the plans, I assume?"

He was fairly familiar with how the boss handled his business, if he came here this late in person then it meant that they were going to either kick up a massive fuss or change their plans. But they were already in the process of kicking up a massive fuss so it was more likely that they'd just change their approach. Well, at least he believed that until Gabriel actually spoke up.

"The Kasarias Kingdom, bring out the map."

Solomon wasn't sure if he should feel a headache creeping in or if he should just give up an accept it. Well, he'd already asked himself something similar many a times in the past, but the answer he reached was always the latter. It was a hassle and a lot of work, but Gabriel had brought the Night Pack further than Solomon's father had ever been capable of, he was a profitable boss.

"Alright, what are we looking for."

Solomon waved his hand as he spoke, muttering a quiet spell as he did so. A bit of water appeared in the air around him as he did so, the liquid quickly spreading out to form a map of the Kasarias Kingdom. It sucked in some of the surrounding ink vials, using their contents to form the borders and separate lands of the kingdom.

The Kasarias Kingdom was a fair bit smaller than the Earhart Empire, both in land and in titles. They had the royal family, two dukes, three marquises, five earls, ten viscounts, and somewhere around 30 barons. Well, the only reason they had so many barons was because it was a title you could buy in the kingdom if you had enough money, it was a title that most nobles barely regarded as a title. 

Gabriel looked down at the map, which had the royal family as the central point from which all the other territories sprouted from. The territory closest to the Earhart Empire belonged to their original target, but it was no longer enough.

"Try to slip more people into Duke Quinterius' fold, I imagine that the inquisitors will start to move against him within the next three days, they'll just try to settle things with Duke Sorin's son first. But other than them, start to slip people into the homes of Marquess Sylwia, Marquis Bruno, Earl Isidor, Viscount Garrard, and as many of the baronies we can get our hands on. Let's stay away from Duchess Giselle for the moment, but keep an external eye on their movements."

Gabriel's finger slowly moved across the map, occasionally stopping for a second so that he could tap a blotch of ink. Solomon followed his finger, the lips hidden by his mask twitching subtly.

"Are we going to take down the royal family?"

The nobles that Gabriel had listed weren't random, they were all tied to, and relatively high-ranking in, what could be considered the noble faction. The royal family was the highest authority, but they still relied on the nobles to properly rule the country. As such, some of the nobles would naturally form a faction of their own so that they could negotiate properly with the royal family. Both sides would prefer to be the sole ruler, but they understood that it was impossible so they had no choice but to negotiate. 

"I'm taking the south, Solomon. So let's expand."

It wasn't a statement of his desire, it wasn't a voicing of his ambition. No, it was a very simple statement declaring the inevitable truth, they would take the south.

"Alright, I'll send out some men to dispose of various servants within the estates, we'll plant our people when they have to hire new workers."

The boss had given the order so Solomon could only follow along. It would take a bit of time to properly plant their people, but it wasn't like it was their first time doing it so he knew that they'd manage it. But then his boss had to go and make it harder for them.

"No need to erase them, buy them out like we did with the maid of Kaden Sorin."

Solomon almost stumbled over his thoughts as Gabriel spoke. He couldn't help but cast a glance his way, but Gabriel wasn't even looking at him, much less batting an eye. They'd infiltrated their fair share of mansions over the years, and the removal of servants was always the most efficient way to plant their own people. Sure, it wasn't impossible to buy them out, but it would certainly take longer and carry more risks. Why suddenly change their tactics?

"…Alright, we'll buy them out. I'll offer them jobs at the branches we open up, that way we can still keep an eye on them."

New branches would always need more manpower, and if they could get their hands on people who were already familiar with the area then it would save them some trouble. Naturally, most of those people couldn't be interred into their actual business, but that was just the nature of their line of work.

"Good."

Gabriel left him with a single word, Solomon was always exceedingly efficient, that was why he had taken over the Night Pack in the original story. It would be safe to leave things to him while Gabriel prepared the other things. The map on the desk faded as Gabriel stepped away, Solomon tidying things up as he cast a glance over.

"Leaving already? Is the interrogation already over?"

He could feel Gabriel's mana moving so it was clear that he was going to leave immediately. If he rushed out that quickly then the inquisitors had probably finished interrogating Duke Sorin's son, meaning that they would be calling up on him again since he was the one who levied the accusation. But once again, his boss left him with a statement that made him stumble over his thoughts.

"Probably not, but it's not like they need his testimony, they have enough proof even without it, but there's a kid I've got to keep an eye on so I can't be gone for too long." 

Solomon didn't get to question the strange statement as Gabriel was swallowed by the darkness and vanished from the office. He removed the mask from his head and wiped his face a few times, looking at the spot where Gabriel had just stood.

The boss had changed, and perhaps he was in the process of changing further.

——

Gabriel once again appeared amongst the trees within the courtyard, the quiet mansion looming a short distance away. After leaving Solomon, he stopped by a few other places in the capital to prepare things, now that he had finished what he had to do, the first rays of light were just barely visible on the horizon. He strode across the courtyard and entered the mansion again, making his way through the dark hallways. But his gaze moved slightly as he retraced his earlier steps.

The little girl, Bellona, hadn't gone to where Alice and Edith were sleeping. Looking at the small marks in the carpet, she had veered off and headed down a different hallway. With that being the case, Gabriel naturally turned down the same hallway and followed her tracks.

He could hear her before he could see her. A subdued sound, a voice just barely breaking through several layers of fabric. Before long, he reached the spot where she was hiding, a room tucked away within the servants quarters. Naturally, it would be where the servants, if they had any, would sleep. As such, it was quite far away from Gabriel's room, where Alice was currently sleeping.

Gabriel could hear her through the door, a mixture of fearful and pained sobs. Pushing open the door, he could see her curled up in one of the beds, completely buried in pillows and blankets that she had scavenged from the other beds. He stopped in front of the bed, but she didn't seem to notice his presence even as he pushed aside some of the pillows.

She was curled up like a ball, her knees tucked against her chest as she kept her head lowered. She was sleeping, but she was crying, sobbing in pain and fear. She had looked at him with an unyielding and stubborn gaze, but in the end she was just a child. When she found a chance to be alone, she curled up like a wounded wolf to lick her wounds in solitude. She couldn't cry in front of others so she had no choice but to cry when she was alone, burying herself in pillows and blankets as if they could protect her.

Gabriel's head tilted for a moment as he looked down at the girl, who was desperately clutching the cloak he had dropped on her before he sent her away. Yeah, in the end, she was just a child, a scared little girl.

He pried the cloak from her grasp and covered her with it, putting the pillows back on top of her before he left the room and closed the door behind him. Since the sun was rising it probably wouldn't take too long before people started to wake up so he may as well prepare some breakfast for everyone.

And indeed, as he was working on the breakfast, he could hear the sound of people moving. Bellona was the first, trudging into the kitchen with bleary eyes, the cloak draped around her almost like a robe.

"Go and get washed."

But Gabriel chased her away the moment she arrived, she was still exceedingly dirty. After she trotted away, he could hear some faint sounds from the washroom she entered so she probably met Alice and Edith. And sure enough, when she returned to the kitchen she did so along with Alice and Edith.

But the children weren't allowed to stay for long, Alice sending them to the dining room so that they could prepare the table. Once alone, Alice cozied herself up to Gabriel from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist while she rested her chin on his shoulder.

"Bellona, huh? Any particular reason?"

Her breath tickled his ear as she spoke in a languid voice. The little girl had probably told Alice the story while they were in the bath, it wasn't like she could keep silent when Alice wanted an answer. And naturally, what Alice asked about wasn't why he decided to give her such a name.

"…"

Gabriel didn't answer immediately, chewing on his words for a moment. Why did he accept her, when he could have so easily pushed her away?

"I was a bit envious of her."

Yeah, thinking about it, that strange emotion was part of it. How wonderfully Alice had changed him, that he was capable of experiencing and recognizing such feelings.

"She feels quite similar to the past me, raised into a particular role. But I never questioned my role, I never fought it. I was raised to fight in the civil war, brought up to be a weapon. It was all I knew, so I never questioned it, I never rejected it."

When it was all you knew, how could you possibly think about rejecting it? To Gabriel, that world had been completely normal, death and murder just another part of everyday life. It was like breathing, so why would he protest?

"But she did. Born a slave, raised to be sold, she should have been broken from the start and just accepted it. But she didn't. She protested, she rejected it. I don't know, I guess when I looked at that stubborn gaze I was envious that she had something the past me didn't."

Bellona had every right to be broken, sold before she was even born, molded to be a perfect servant. But she rebelled, she fought against it, the great scar on her face serving as proof of her resistance. Gabriel had broken, but she had not.

"It would be a shame if she broke after all that, so I may as well raise her to a point where she can't break."

It was an unfamiliar feeling. Hell, just the fact that he was feeling something for someone else was unfamiliar enough. In that regard, should he say that Alice had fixed a broken person, or that she had simply broken him differently?

It was… hard to say, he didn't have anything he could compare it to. But it didn't feel bad. He could feel a steady rhythm in his chest, the thumping of a heart. Each beat spread color throughout his body, a brilliant crimson and violet dyeing his sight. His heart came from the warmth behind him, so the color it gave the world came from her. But occasionally, there would be a different flash of color, a tinge of blue, a flash of yellow, a twinkle of green. She gave him color, but slowly and surely he was able to add a bit of his own paint.

"Edith could sleep peacefully thanks to you, Gabriel. No nightmares, no fears, no worries. She said that she hadn't slept so soundly even once in the last four years."

Alice's voice tickled his ear as she spoke. He could feel the slight curve of her lips, a pleasant smile, a sweet one. A smile for him.

"The past you may have lacked it, but the current you can give it to others. Remember that, Gabriel, because those who can feel it will never forget it."

Her warmth disappeared from his back as she pulled away, blowing one last breath into his ear before she left for the dining room with a quiet giggle. Gabriel burned on the inside, the last breath bringing with it a fire that threatened to swallow his insides.

But he swallowed it down with a heavy breath, allowing it to become ice in his stomach. Not yet, not just yet.

He finished cooking, it was all just simple things that could be eaten with bread so just about anyone could make it. Still, the food went down fast, especially for the two children who clearly hadn't had a good meal in quite a while.

"Eat more. Training requires a lot of energy."

Gabriel forced more food onto Bellona's plate even though she said she was full, his tone and expression leaving no room for arguments so she had to eat. In the end, Edith also asked if he could train her when she found out that he was going to train Bellona, but she was a fair bit shyer about it. As a result, she too had more food forced onto her plate. And like that, they managed to finish their first breakfast.

"I'm going to the Imperial Palace for a bit, I want to meet Abigail and have a chat. I'll leave the kids in your hands until I return."

Once they finished eating, they laid out their plans for the day, Alice kicking things off. Gabriel didn't technically have anything to do until the inquisitors finished with Duke Sorin's son, he couldn't leave the city or go too far away from the mansion either in case they called on him, so this was the perfect time to handle the children that wanted training. Alice on the other hand was a lot freer and could thus proceed with her own plans as she wished.

Gabriel naturally had no complaints so the two said a short farewell before Alice departed for the Imperial Palace, leaving Gabriel with the two children. One looked at him strongly, stubbornly, while the other looked a fair bit more timid, yet still clearly found some comfort in Gabriel's presence.

"Follow me."

He spoke shortly as he beckoned for them to stick close, guiding them through the mansion. He brought them to an underground training room, specially reinforced for when the owner of the mansion would have stronger knights engage in sparring matches. Being underground it was naturally also very well hidden from sight, so any accidents that happened here would never reach the surface.

Gabriel's feet stopped, Bellona taking the lead to scurry in front of him, Edith following shortly after. They stood with their backs so straight that they looked like they were about to shake. Was it nerves, excitement, or some lingering fear?

Gabriel was silent for a moment as he looked at the two of them. He had actually given this training a bit of thought, how to proceed and what he should do. Naturally, he originally only had Bellona in mind when he thought about it, but now Edith had to be included. 

When he saw how Bellona had cried, curled up in a fortress of pillows, and thought about how Edith had cried at night and clutched his chest desperately, he had already decided how to proceed. He would be honest with them, and he would train them how he knew best. He would train them in the way he felt that they needed it.

"I can't train you to be strong."

He was very upfront about it, the two children swallowing a mouthful of saliva. They were sensitive so they could sense it, the thing lurking within his tone.

"I was never trained to be strong, so there is no way I can train others to be strong."

Yes, when had Gabriel ever trained to be strong? In his past life, he was trained to kill his opponent no matter what scheme he had to rely on. And the same was true for this life under Lawrence, he never trained Gabriel to be strong. But even so, there was something Gabriel was adept at that he could teach the children.

"But I can teach you how to kill, and above all, I can teach you how to survive, I can teach you how to take back that which was taken. The second tenet to being a good person, if you have something you treasure then you can never let anyone else take it from you. If that fails, then there's the third tenet to being a good person, if there's something you want, then you must make sure to acquire it no matter what you have to do"

Aye, Gabriel knew how to kill, he knew how to survive, and he knew how to take the things he wanted. He first taught Alice about these things, the tenets. Never would he have expected that he would go on to teach it to other children, kids who were no older than Alice was when he first taught her.

Gabriel unsheathed the sword that hung at his waist and stabbed it into the ground in front of him, grabbing another sword from a rack that hung at the side of the training grounds and doing the same with it. And then he spoke.

"Karas, Veck." (Darkness, Release.)

His shadow stretched out and bulged for a moment before it spat out the thing it had been hiding for a while now. A man appeared between Gabriel and the two children, his arms and legs bound by shackles while his mouth was gagged. 

Unruly orange hair, sharp yellow eyes that had become rather bloodshot, coupled with his sharp features he looked as if he was a living flame. Kaden Gaun Sorin, the third son of Duke Sorin and the man responsible for the two children's predicament. 

His eyes were wide open as he looked around, struggling rather wildly. He was supposed to be in the prison of the Amber Inquisitors, awaiting the next round of questioning. 

He naturally recognized Gabriel when he saw him, both from the footage of the investiture and from when Gabriel arrived at his mansion with the inquisitors. It was this child that was the reason everything went wrong, they would have been able to keep going for much longer if he hadn't intervened.

But he couldn't say anything, partly because he was gagged and partly because of the look in Gabriel's eyes. There was a coldness he had never seen in a human before, an instinctive fear slowly filling his insides as Gabriel turned his gaze towards the two children.

"This man is the leader of the slave ring that you belonged to, you were kidnapped and sold because of him. When you suffered torture, it was because of him. When you were deprived of food and water, it was because of him. When those around you died or were sold, it was because of him. Your fear, your sadness, your pain, this man sits at the core of it all."

Gabriel spat out he truth so that the two children could understand it. Everything they had suffered, they had done so because of this man. Because he wanted to sell them, because he wanted them to be obedient so that he could earn more. Their lives had been ruined just because of him. And as they learned that, Gabriel pointed at the weapons he had stabbed into the ground.

"Take them. Cut out your fear, cut out your sadness, your pain. Leave them in the grave with him. Its time to take control of your own lives, don't let someone as small as him become a reason for you to cry, you're stronger than that."