The ochre glow of the candle rippled gently across the contoured wooden wall. The windows were closed, preventing any of the midnight breeze from entering, but even the smallest movement would stir up the air sufficiently for the candle to flicker.
And tonight, there was to be considerable movement.
Kirito and Asuna lay on the bed, hands interlinked, droplets of sweat collecting on their napes and sliding down their backs. The blanket had been tossed aside and left in a crumpled heap on the floor, but it was far too warm for the cotton quilt to be of any use – especially when their passions burned within them like a searing flame, consuming their hearts with primal love, spreading through their veins like hot mercury.
"I'm gonna get a drink," Asuna said, still gasping slightly for breath. "You want one?"
Kirito nodded. "Sure thing. Thanks."
Asuna rose from the bed and wrapped her nightrobe loosely around her body. Kirito quietly admired the shadow cast by her delicate silhouette as she left the bedroom, before rolling onto his back and exhaling deeply. His thoughts felt restless, though that wasn't merely due to the exercise he had just been engaged in. It wasn't the relentless stream of raids either – he thrived so well in high-pressure situations that his brain often forgot that he was supposed to be stressed. No, it was something more intangible that currently gave him pause.
Asuna returned with a glass of honey extract in each hand. She handed one of the cups to Kirito, who sat up to drink from it. For a while, the two lovers sipped the nectar in blissful silence, enjoying the warmth as it trickled down their throats.
Finally, Asuna broke the ice. "You thinking of something?"
"Hm?"
"You seemed a little out of it just now. Just a tiny bit, but I could tell."
"I'm surprised you were distracted enough to notice, given how hard you were biting the pillow at times."
"Kirito!" Asuna slapped Kirito's forearm and scowled. "I'm being serious here!"
"I know, I know." Kirito chortled. "I'm glad you asked. Though… honestly, I don't really know. Something's bugging me, but I can't seem to be able to put it into words."
"If you figure out what it is, you should tell me. You went out of your way to help me with Caenor's situation, after all. It's my turn to return the favor."
"Caenor, huh…" Kirito sank into the pillow he had propped up behind him, almost spilling the honey onto the mattress before he placed it on his bedside table. "Maybe that's it. How is he?"
"He's a full vice-commander of the Knights of the Blood now. He'll have a lot on his plate. I heard Silica's training him in the way of the dagger."
"Silica's gonna show him the ropes, but beyond that he's on his own… I see, so that's what it is. I understand everything now."
"What is it?" Asuna's eyes widened. "What did you realize?"
Kirito slammed the fist of one hand onto the palm of the other, as if a lightbulb had just gone off in his head. He turned to Asuna, and locked her eyes with his.
"It's Caenor. I'm worried about him."
Asuna tilted her head as she waited for Kirito to elaborate further. That elaboration, however, never came.
"…That's it?" she eventually said.
"That's it, I guess."
Asuna struck Kirito's arm again, though this blow was much softer than the last. "Oh my goodness. Kirito, really? I thought you were concerned about something more… substantial."
"But it is substantial. Caenor's a friend, and I worry about my friends." Kirito frowned, as though wondering why Asuna looked so upset. "Don't you consider him a friend?"
"We don't maintain that sort of relationship. It wouldn't be prudent for a subordinate and a superior to have personal ties."
"He's not your subordinate anymore, technically. And I don't really see anything wrong with being at least friendly with the people who work for you. Maybe not actual friends, but acquaintances."
"I… guess. More importantly, though, I don't think he likes me very much."
Kirito had half a mind to tell Asuna about Caenor's opinion of her, but he ultimately decided that confidentiality would be most conducive to a future where he and Caenor did not have their lives prematurely ended.
"That's just how he is," Kirito replied. "From what I can tell, he wears his heart on his sleeve. If he doesn't like something, he'll make sure you know about it, one way or another. I think that's a good thing in itself. It'd make me happy if you tried reaching out to him again."
"I appreciate his honesty, but sometimes it feels like he's a bit too awkward about it. He just doesn't know when he should hold back."
"But that's what you like about me, isn't it?" Kirito put an arm around Asuna and pulled her close. "I always tell you what I think. Maybe in a different universe, you'd be Caenor's girl instead of mine."
"Don't say that." Asuna nuzzled her head into Kirito's chest. "I'm sure even in a different timeline, we would have found each other somehow."
The sky was black with the clutches of deepest night, but the candle was not extinguished until the sun threatened to creep over the horizon. Life waited for no one, after all, and those who traded the pursuit of pleasure for the comfort of sleep would inevitably find themselves with neither.
Caenor tossed and turned, occasionally pulling the blanket over himself when the frosty air creeping around the bedroom grew too cold to bear, then throwing the quilt away again when his body heat overrode the external drop in temperature. In the end, he decided that he would be better off tiring himself out until he grew sleepy again, and so he roused himself out of bed and made his way towards his office.
It had been two days since he had essentially tripled his team's total head count, and his office desk was now already strewn with reports, notes, and various other potentially useful scraps of information. Altorius' notes took up a third of the desk space – he was an amazingly quick writer and logical thinker, and his thoughts on everything from orange guild recruitment to human body weaknesses were incredibly detailed, if a little difficult to read at times.
The layouts for the two Laughing Coffin hideouts that the guild had previously raided were also there, drawn hastily by one member from each of the hunting parties that had been tasked with clearing them. The first hideout had been a large cave consisting of two levels, one larger main area and one deeper floor that served as a storehouse and prison, which had required a joint effort between multiple guilds to flush out; the second hideout had been little more than a hut, hidden some distance from a well-used desert path, that had been stumbled upon by a passing guild party. Only one of that party had survived to tell the rest of the guild about it, and the Knights of the Blood had sent a small force to ensure that it would never haunt any passersby again.
Caenor's guess was that most Laughing Coffin hideouts would be similar to the latter variety. Large safehouses were expensive to maintain, and were not really Laughing Coffin's style – an orange guild like theirs would be more nomadic and decentralized than the legitimate guilds, who could afford to strike out from a single base of operations.
It would hence be sufficient for Caenor's team to be comprised of a small number of highly efficient and well-drilled operatives, rather than a bigger number of moderately-trained troops, which would be much better suited to boss fights. Altorius suggested eight as the maximum number, though in truth four or five would be sufficient until they reached one of the larger hideouts. With Cantabile, Altorius, himself, and hopefully Seki available, they would not require any more reinforcements for now.
Just as he felt his eyes start to droop from staring at Altorius' tiny writing in the weak lantern light, he heard the shuffling of footsteps passing by the door. Even in the day, having people come to this part of the building was a rarity – at night, it was an impossibility.
He tiptoed over to the door and pressed his ear against the wood. The footsteps were slow, deliberate, and slightly muffled, as though the person walking outside did not want to be heard. They faded away, but then soon returned, and stopped just as they were loudest – right outside his door.
Caenor darted behind one of the nearby shelves as the door creaked open. The dim lantern in the room failed to reveal the intruding figure's face, though Caenor observed that they had a head of long hair. They were clad in brown armor, meaning Caenor was unable to tell if they were a member of the guild or not, but it was highly unlikely that an adventurer not connected with the guild would be able to sneak in, especially since the front entrance was always locked by midnight.
The figure rummaged through the papers on Caenor's desk, lifting each sheet to the light and peering at it, then moving on to the next. Finally, they took the two Laughing Coffin hideout blueprints and stuffed them into their pockets. They continued to search through the mess, but eventually conceded defeat and turned to leave.
Questions inundated Caenor's mind, but the figure was already on their way out. Caenor waited until the door snapped shut before going up to it, pressing his ear against it again, and waiting for the footsteps to fade. Slowly, he pulled the door open, slipped through the gap, and gripped the doorknob as it swiveled back to prevent it from making any unnecessary noise. Once the door was closed, he waited for the long shadow cast against the wall to fade, then began to follow.
The vice-commanders all had their own houses outside of the headquarters, as did many of the lay members. Caenor, along with Seki and Ferramo, had opted to reside here, hoping to pool some money and buy a larger place for themselves later on. Ferramo's passing had shelved those plans for now, but Caenor still hoped to find a house for himself and Seki someday, so that Ferramo's aspirations might not be for naught.
Returning to the present, this meant that whoever had stolen the layouts would most likely not be a vice-commander. But why would a lay member come for those papers, or even know what they actually were for?
Caenor rounded the next corner, and found himself face to face with a completely deserted hallway.
A burst of panic overtook him. The figure had vanished.
He crept down the hallway, placing one hand on the pommel of the dagger sheathed in his belt. He could not take any offensive action against other players in the city's anti-criminal Area, and he could not take any damage either, but he touched his weapon out of instinct anyway. By now his regular sessions with Silica had taught him to be wary of any and all threats – especially where he might least suspect them.
Yet the adjacent hallways also turned out to be empty, and anxiety soon gave way to resignation. From what he knew of the headquarters' vast network of corridors, the only place the figure could have headed was the western annex, where a cluster of living quarters were located. Caenor could not exactly go around waking people up and asking whether they'd been snooping about, and so he had no option but to return to the office and survey the aftermath of the figure's encroachment.
Back in the office, as he sifted through the papers, he noticed that aside from the two blueprints, one document remained conspicuously missing – perhaps the most important document of them all. He had distributed the Laughing Coffin hideout coordinate list to the other two, but he always kept a copy of it on his person at all times. Luckily, he recalled taking his own copy with him back to his bedroom for another quick read, which meant that it had not been left in the office. A stroke of good fortune, given that the sanctity of this space had been so readily breached.
Satisfied that everything was in order, he returned to his bedroom, locking the office as he did so. He did not previously think locking the door every time he left was necessary, but now he knew that he would have to go that extra mile. More importantly, he had to find out who the figure was. Long hair and gray armor was little to go by as appearances went, but surely within the ranks of the Knights of the Blood there could not be that many people with that hairstyle. Asking for a full guild picture roster from Asuna would not be difficult, as long as he explained his reasons.
The figure's motivations were unclear, but for now all Caenor could think of was to try and sleep. Yet the episode had not helped his chances of that at all, and his beating heart would not be easily stilled. Though he crawled into bed and shut his eyes, it was only when the meek rays of dawn filtered through the windows that he finally gave in to slumber.