The Beginning of the End of Magic

Grimoire 01 - Chapter 04 - The Might of the Empire [Part 06]

A third voice came into play. An unmistakable voice to which Freya can never forget even if she wanted to. As quickly as she could, Freya turned around and faced the person in question. Rinslet tilted her chair slightly and turned to look as well.

"D-Director M-Mauser! I-I can explain!"

Upon seeing Reinhardt, Rinslet jumped out from her seat frantically with flailing arms.

"Working as hard as ever, Rinslet? You certainly set a prime example for the rest of the Operators."

"E-Eh? N-No, you give me too much praise. I'm just simply doing what I can."

"Is that so? Keep it up then."

Reinhardt enjoyed the short conversation with Rinslet, giving her a warm smile before turning his attention back to Freya.

"Reinhardt."

"It's barely been a day, hasn't it? Fancy seeing you here. Though, you aren't supposed to be in here."

At that sentence, Rinslet visibly shook as she swallowed her saliva. Reinhardt noticed and simply smiled at her. His expression seem to say that he paid it no heed. Rinslet heaved a sigh of relief.

"You know something, don't you?"

Freya glared at him, never once stopping to blink. Reinhardt took it with stride, and simply replied nonchalantly as ever.

"I do know the situation. Even if they are Empyreans Gifted, part of the Royal Family no less, never underestimate the surveillance network of O.R.D.E.R. We already knew long ago, the moment they stepped foot within Lindonium."

"Wha...?!"

Freya staggered at the information that was shared. And then... anger boiled from within.

"Then why didn't you stop them right there and then?"

She screamed at the top of her lungs, right at Reinhardt. Due to the near silent atmosphere of the room, her sudden outburst was all the more impactful, causing other Operators nearby to turn their head and look. Reinhardt noticed the commotion and turned to look at the rest. Using hand gestures, he signalled them to settle down. Only when all was calm once more, did he then simply looked at Freya, and replied.

"We did. Or should I say, we tried."

At those words, Freya became slightly confused.

"The team of Restraint we sent, were all wiped out."

"No way?!"

That response came not just from Freya, but from Rinslet as well. The both of them were flabbergasted and shocked at the fact which Reinhardt casually revealed.

"Then all the more...?!"

"Now hold on, not so fast, you don't have to jump to conclusions just yet." Reinhardt put his hand up, to which Freya slowly calmed down. "I did say wiped out, but I did not say killed. The team is very much still alive, albeit they might be out of commission of weeks. They did quite a number on them. But an eye for an eye, so did we."

Reinhardt then continued while Freya and Rinslet kept silent, their ears at full attention.

"This situation is a bit tricky, you see. We've received information that this is an independent action taken by an independent individual from the Empire. As such, the Empire themselves, as well as Empyrean members of O.R.D.E.R are all working with everything they can to make sense of this trouble as we speak. But, as much as I would like to, we can't just send a full force down and clean up the trouble. One, we certainly do not want to attract attention. Two, the true capabilities of the enemy is yet to be seen. And three, we do not yet know the objective of said enemy. And of course, we wouldn't want to be the trigger of an all-out war."