Chapter 49

Once the stewards finish servicing Olka's abandoned cabin, the Assassin Leader lets himself in and draws a deep breath, reading the room through smell. From the lingering perfumes he counts the people traveling with the target, then radios the informant to agree the group will most plausibly run the following night. The informant, meanwhile, catches two of the bugged assassins badmouthing him and scheming to claw back their payment, and quietly begins arranging insurance for himself.

Leaving the promenade, a drowsy Anya wanders the wrong way murmuring Yor's name before conking out in the hallway, forcing an exasperated Loid to carry her. He notes the continued silence from Yor and chalks it up to a busy schedule.

In the second-class hideout, Yor confirms the room is stocked and defensible until the rendezvous. When Gram cries and a trembling Olka struggles to soothe him, Furseal theatrically wails about how terrified he was, and the pair settle down while scolding his cowardice, exactly as he intended. Olka then asks the man, whose real name is Zeb, why he followed her instead of serving the gang's new boss. Zeb answers with his history: the black market the Gretchers ran after the war kept him alive, and a young Olka once slipped him bread in secret. That memory, he says, is reason enough, and he vows to shield her from harm.

Matthew arrives, scolds Yor for forgetting their coded knock earlier, and assigns her the door watch while he prowls the floor to thin out the enemy. When Zeb marvels that the war supposedly ended a decade ago yet never really stopped, Matthew replies that human nature guarantees the fighting continues, and that he and Yor are soldiers serving their country from the shadows. He leaves Yor with a blunt warning: lose focus and everyone dies.

Standing guard, Yor realizes she never contacted Loid and Anya and pictures herself beside them. She admits that against Barnaby she held back, afraid visible wounds would unravel her cover and cost her the family. Turning over thoughts of Yuri, Loid, and Anya, she asks herself what she is doing here as the clock ticks down to twenty hours before the rendezvous.

The Assassin Leader demonstrates his scent-tracking ability, profiling Olka's entourage from her vacated cabin, while the informant starts hedging against his own treacherous clients.

Zeb's loyalty is explained through his wartime debt to the Gretcher family and Olka's childhood kindness. Matthew organizes the night watch and begins hunting assassins preemptively. Yor recognizes that fear of exposing her double life made her fight below her ability.

During Zeb's flashback a voice calls out to young Olka; the manga leaves it anonymous, but Episode 32 of the anime identifies the speaker as her father.

The chapter is adapted in Episode 32, and its closing countdown, twenty hours to the rendezvous, frames the timeline for the arc's climax.