"If you refuse, then I can only say I'm sorry."
Honestly, before this, after Kiana met Lubbock, she'd felt that while his tone was a bit flippant at first, at least he wasn't hostile.
But after Aaron revealed some information...
——If it weren't for Kiana having the Kaslana bloodline, and Aaron also having the physical enhancements from that bloodline thanks to Perfect Attunement, anyone else wouldn't have even been able to react. They'd already be knocked out by now.
"You two! Talking all high and mighty! In the end, you still resort to a sneak attack!"
Watching Bulat emerge from the dust, and Lubbock over there already pulling his threads, Kiana pointed angrily at the two of them.
"And here I thought for a second you were good guys, robbing from the rich to give to the poor! How are you any different from those bastards who ambushed us!"
"Umm... little miss, I know it's a bit weird for me to say this, but... we're assassins, you know."
After drawing Crosstail's threads, Lubbock said with perfect composure.
"No matter how many fancy words we use, it can't hide the crime of us taking others' lives. We're the lowest of assassins—did you really expect an assassin to fight a fair and square duel?"
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"Y-y-you-you! How can you say something so shameless so righteously????"
"Assassins who care about 'face' usually die fast. And I'm very afraid of dying."
After getting ready to fight, Lubbock still turned his gaze to Aaron.
After all, he knew very well that the backbone of this two-person team was this black-haired man. As long as he convinced him, even if that white-haired girl didn't like them, she would inevitably follow the man and join their team.
That line about 'feeling like we're kindred spirits' was, of course, just him bluffing Aaron.
But in their later conversation, Lubbock found that he and the other guy... really did get along.
Well, at least he unilaterally felt that he and the other guy were the types who could chat.
There weren't many people with strategic minds among his comrades. Sheele was a natural airhead. Mine, that damn tsundere, wasn't stupid, but her perspective was too narrow. Akame's assassination skills were flawless, but she was always thinking about barbecue. And big sis Leone just liked to mess around.
In the end, the only people in the entire assassination organization with a bit of strategic sense, besides their boss Najenda, were him and the former Imperial soldier, Bulat.
And Bulat just had to be a hot-blooded guy. Expecting him to think that much... well, it wasn't easy.
If he could pull this guy in, besides reinforcing their combat strength, having another smart person for tactical thinking would definitely be an enhancement.
So after thinking it over, right before the fight, Lubbock asked Aaron the question that had been on his mind for a long time.
"My friend, I really haven't been able to understand. You're not an idiot. You should know full well that after revealing that information, we wouldn't let you leave easily."
"But you still said it. Was it a slip of the tongue? Or did those words have some other meaning?"
"It's not as complicated as you think. I just purely dislike the Revolutionary Army's strategy."
After taking out [Spectator] and two short blades he'd bought in the previous town, Aaron enhanced the blades into D-rank Noble Phantasms, then tossed both the Teigu and the Noble Phantasms in his hands to Kiana.
"Perhaps sometimes you really do need to become a demon to defeat a demon. But is the Empire really so corrupt that it needs someone to make the decision to sell off the nation's territory in the people's name, just to trade for a future?"
"Is it that this country is already rotten to this extent? Or is it that using territory to get foreign tribes to join this fight is just an excuse those people cooked up to betray the Empire for their own benefit?"
"My homeland went through this before. I despise those invaders, but I despise the collaborators even more. The thought that if I join Night Raid, I'll end up being controlled by this trash that's already trying to be collaborators... sorry, I just couldn't hold back."
"After all, I'm an orphan. When I think about how this ridiculous and hateful act could lead to even more orphans being created, I did lose my composure a bit."
Watching Aaron take out a pair of gauntlets and put them on, Lubbock was a bit speechless, but he couldn't refute the man's words.
He'd never expected that the other man had said those almost provocative words out of pure disgust.
And this pure disgust was because—his homeland had encountered something similar.
"Maybe you think this is a necessary sacrifice to bring happiness to the Empire's people. But I don't know if you've considered it—those highly aggressive nomadic tribes, after they enter the Empire and even take a part of its territory—what will happen to the residents of that territory?"
"Will the Revolutionary Army help them relocate before the victory? Are they forced to leave their homes? Will the Revolutionary Army stand up when the foreign tribes, banking on the fact the Revolutionary Army needs their strength, commit atrocities?"
"Don't rush to answer me, you two from Night Raid. Because you don't know, you're not qualified to know, and even if you did know, you couldn't stop their atrocities. After all, in your eyes—this, perhaps, is also a necessary sacrifice."
"We walk different paths. The Empire is rotten, true, but the Revolutionary Army doesn't look like anything good to me either. Now that we've said this much..."
"Are you... still planning to recruit me?"
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