Had it been a week or two earlier, none of that would have been a problem.
Reinhard's name alone would likely have greased every wheel in sight.
But after the royal selection conference, the candidates were locked in as rivals.
Refraining from kicking one another while down was already the polite bar. Anything resembling mutual aid was out of the question.
Asking them for help wasn't going to happen.
Felt had no appetite for it either. A straight market transaction was one thing. Going cap in hand to a competitor meant eating whatever ugly clauses the competitor chose to tack on.
That was what asking favors of a rival bought you.
The upside was that just as she'd begun weighing whether she had any choice but to approach Crusch, a solution had come looking for her.
The Treasurer of the Royal Capital Commerce Guild had knocked on her door.
Russell Fellow.
Somehow he'd caught wind of exactly what Felt and the others needed.
He showed up with a smile and a proposal: the Royal Capital Commerce Guild would gladly pool Dragon Carriages on her behalf if she wanted a partnership. Prices, he said, were always open to discussion.
With too much time already gone and Gojo presumably waiting, Felt did the initial round of haggling and then agreed to the arrangement.
"Lady Felt, in fairness, the Royal Capital Commerce Guild didn't raise their prices. It's the standard rate."
Reinhard offered the reassurance while she grumbled.
"Then why did that guy insist on tagging along himself? I swear he's got his eye on the White Whale."
Felt was treating the corpse like it belonged in a bank vault.
One of the Three Great Mabeasts. What noble, what merchant, wouldn't want a taste?
And White Whale meat, by all accounts, was a delicacy.
A literal mountain of gold sitting in the open. Of course she was watching it like a hawk.
"Lady Felt, even after we haul the White Whale back, we're going to need a guild to help sell it, aren't we?"
Reinhard wasn't especially worried. Efficiency, in some situations, beat squeezing out the last copper.
"I know. I just think that guy's off somehow."
"He's too keen. Too eager."
She was in the middle of that thought when Reinhard's hand closed around her arm and pulled her behind him in one smooth motion.
"What's wrong, Reinhard..."
Craning her neck to see past him out the window, she caught sight of the devastation outside.
Closer to Flugel's tree, the destruction ramped up into something absurd.
What had been open, level ground was now gouged with furrows so deep and long they looked like claw marks left by a titan.
"This is..."
Having seen Gojo fight before, Felt put it together instantly.
The White Whale and its problems could wait. She kicked the carriage door open and leaned out, scanning frantically for him.
Just from the trail of wreckage, whatever he'd gotten into couldn't be small. Damage like this didn't come from nothing.
The moment her head cleared the door frame, a shape burst out of the carriage behind her.
Reinhard.
He came out in a single motion, the Dragon Sword Reid still in its scabbard raised flat in front of him like a shield.
"KRA-BOOM!"
"Lady Felt, stay back!"
Dust churned up in a cloud, swallowing him. A heartbeat later he was out of it again, unhurt and already turning to shout the warning back at her.
"Are you all right?"
She watched him return to her side, worry thick in her voice.
"I appreciate the concern, Lady Felt."
His grip adjusted on the sword's hilt as he spoke, voice as even as ever.
Whatever the strike had been, it hadn't touched him.
As he said it, his gaze pulled toward the far ground under Flugel's tree, where a familiar figure was waving at them.
"Reinhard! Over here!"
"Ha?"
"That's the current Sword Saint?"
At the sound of Gojo's voice, Regulus narrowed his eyes and looked across.
He'd been applying himself, in his fashion, to outlasting the insufferable man who kept needling him.
Which was why he'd lobbed that attack just now. Not for any grander reason. Denying Gojo a resupply was the only point.
Who the new arrivals were, and what they wanted, did not concern him. Kill them and move on. Nothing to weigh.
"That's him, yes. Feel free to run, if you're nervous."
Gojo clapped a friendly hand on the Sin Archbishop's shoulder as if they'd been pals for years.
"Nervous?"
"As I said. Divine Dragon, Sword Saint, it makes no difference..."
"Shame, really. You missed a chance to kill me just now. I dropped the Limitless Cursed Technique for a second there and you actually touched me."
The brag got shredded mid-sentence, replaced by a revelation that made Regulus want to claw at his own face.
"Die!"
He wheeled on Gojo and drove a fist at him. The response was a sly cluck of the tongue.
"Your combat experience. Your reflexes. Genuinely disappointing."
"You've been coasting on your Authority this whole time, no growth at all."
"No wonder. An Authority as rare as yours, and the best you can manage is flinging rocks."
Said in a tone that claimed to be above reproach. Each word filed to a point that found exactly the right nerve.
Regulus had believed, a moment earlier, that the dead-man-walking across from him wouldn't get to him anymore.
That belief lasted about three sentences. Rage surged again, and the attacks resumed.
Fists, kicks, each one pushing a wall of air ahead of it that hit like a razor.
Even the glancing shockwaves tore fresh damage into the ground around them.
The roar from the blows alone made the approaching convoy stutter, hesitating to come nearer.
"Reinhard, have the column hold where it is. The Sin Archbishop of Greed is here. He needs to be dealt with first."
The Sin Archbishop of Greed?
That title froze Reinhard. Inside the carriage, Felt and Natsuki Subaru went just as still.
What in the world was happening?
Had someone kicked over the Witch Cult's nest in the last forty-eight hours?
The White Whale. A Sin Archbishop of Sloth. Either alone was a once-in-a-generation event.
And now, on top of that.
Another Sin Archbishop.
"Lady Felt, may I ask you and the caravan to keep your distance for the moment? Once I've handled the Sin Archbishop of Greed, I'll rejoin you."
Reinhard's voice stayed gentle as he turned to her.
"Betty's going with you."
Inside the carriage, Betty stepped forward, eyes locked on the figure under Flugel's tree.
She'd spent enough time around Gojo to have a working sense of the man.
Certain features of his personality and thinking, she had down.
And one thing she knew for certain: when he classified someone as an enemy, he didn't go easy on them. Ever.
Yet right now the so-called Sin Archbishop of Greed was not only alive but standing companionably next to him.
That fact alone told her plenty.
Either Gojo couldn't kill the man, or something complicated was in play.
"I'm sorry."
"Miss Betty, please stay with Lady Felt and protect her."
"I'll deal with the target. There's no need to worry."
"And as for Mr. Gojo, I think there are very few in this world who could pose a threat to him, wouldn't you agree?"
Her brow stayed furrowed as she studied the small smile on Gojo's face, a smile that looked, as always, like nothing was wrong.
After a beat of silence, she gave a curt nod.
"Understood, I suppose."
"I'm trusting you, Reinhard."
"Yes."
He returned the nod, serious.
"Come on. This isn't where we should be."
Betty tugged Felt back inside and pulled the door shut.
"Damn Witch Cult."
Felt ground the words through her teeth, watching Reinhard stride forward.
"Turn around! Every carriage, fall back!"
Her shout carried. The Dragon Carriage wheeled on the spot, and the order rippled down the line.
Watching the convoy peel away out of the blast radius, Reinhard gave a small nod of approval. That settled one weight on his shoulders.
Once he was sure Felt's group was out of danger, he turned and walked toward the tree.
"It's all right, Betty. Nothing bad is going to happen."
With Sloth dealt with and the cultists broken, Natsuki Subaru had slipped back into something resembling his usual self.
Seeing the twin knots of worry on Betty's and Felt's faces, he spoke up.
"If anything bad really does happen, Betty, I need you to do it."
"Don't tell me first. And try not to make it hurt too much."
He'd drifted up beside her, voice dropped.
Besides Gojo, Betty was the only other person who knew about Return by Death.
Which meant that if Gojo went down, she was Subaru's way to rewind the clock.
A great spirit of the Yin Attribute would have no trouble at all ending an ordinary human like him.
Without her, he'd have to do it himself.
And he didn't know how long it would take him to work up to that. If he blew past the Save Point while he hesitated, everything was lost.
Betty looked at him for a long moment, then punched him cleanly to one side.
"Hmph. As if someone like him could be in trouble."
"Don't speak such defeatist nonsense, I suppose!"
She snapped it out.
Natsuki, picking himself up, caught what she didn't say. The little spirit's eyes were full of worry whether she admitted it or not.
After all.
She hadn't let her gaze off Gojo since they'd arrived.
The convoy pulled back a good distance. Reinhard closed the last of the ground between himself and the two men under the tree.
"Reinhard, you made it. I'm leaving this one to you."
Gojo sounded positively delighted.
"By the way, his name's Regulus. Popped up not long after you guys left. Clings like wet mud, won't let go."
"Huh?"
The expression on Regulus's face contorted.
Wasn't this the same person who'd been going on about seeing who could wait the other out?
Wasn't that the whole reason he'd stayed? Otherwise he would have walked. Why would he have wasted his time with this loudmouth?
All that talk about cowards, and this was how it actually went.
"You're running?"
"Coward!"
Regulus was all but howling by the end of it.
"Sorry, sorry. Coward, fair enough."
"But look, I lined up a proper opponent for you. Reinhard won't disappoint."
"Go get him, Regulus-chan."
Gojo gave a cheery little wave, all encouragement.
Watching the white head turn away from him without a backward glance, Regulus finally saw the whole play for what it had been.
The rage that went off inside him crested past anything he'd felt before, a volcano tearing itself open from the inside.
"You... you bastard..."
"I'm sorry. Your opponent now is me."
Reinhard said nothing else. He slid a step sideways and put himself squarely in the Sin Archbishop's path.
"Out of my way!"
The roar came with a high, thin whistle in the air. The atmosphere itself sharpened into blades that scythed toward the knight.
Gojo, strolling away with the noise at his back, let a smile curl his mouth.
He'd been waiting for his ally. What had Regulus been waiting for?
That little girl from earlier had been the smart one by a mile.
What was her name, Louis?
He shook his head and let it go.
She'd had the wit to run, which was fine. Otherwise he wouldn't have minded a chat. She'd have been easier to deal with than Regulus by a wide margin, and less messy besides.
His wandering brought him to the foot of the White Whale's corpse.
He looked up at the twin mountains of it, scratched his head, and waved off toward the distance. "Betty! Come here for a minute!"
She'd been watching the whole affair from a tense perch in the convoy, and at his call she launched herself toward him without hesitation.
"And here I thought Betty was going to be free at last, no longer ordered about by a certain someone, I suppose."
She landed in front of him with her small face set in a pout.
"How hurtful. I was just here alone fighting two Sin Archbishops, thinking about Betty the whole time."
"Two Sin Archbishops?"
She rocked back on her heels, her face freezing mid-scowl.
"Yep. A Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, on top of this one."
...
Get early access to 40 chapters ahead on my Patreon!
patreon.com/fawkess