Chapter 223
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Ferda answered the question.
“You have a sharp eye. That is indeed Sir Alberto.”
“I could recognize him even without that bumpy armor. What happened to it?”
“We melted it down and made weapons out of it.”
“Weapons?”
What kind of weapon could he mean?
The only thing that had changed about his appearance was that object shining gold.
Though he no longer had his distinctive rock-like armor, the shield and club he carried still made him look like an overwhelming fortress.
“How did you manage to entice a wandering knight who served no one as his lord?”
“It was only because we shared the common goal of fighting demons that the conversation went smoothly.”
“I see. Demons, you say…….”
Could Ureas not have thought of such a thing?
Even when Ureas offered to support him fully in killing demons, Alberto had not answered.
Ureas could not stop voicing his envy.
His own knights were beginning to look like shoddy third-raters.
As he stared at Alberto like a child standing in front of a toy display, Olivia stepped forward and greeted Ferda.
“You must be tired from coming such a long way. Get some rest, and then please stop by the command post so we can exchange information.”
“Of course, Imperial Princess Olivia.”
Ferda looked down at her.
“Could the two of us speak for a moment?”
“With me?”
“Yes. I have a proposal concerning the command of the tactical infantry.”
Olivia put on a surprised expression.
Even Ferda, who knew the matter had already been settled, was briefly fooled as well.
“I suppose it can’t be helped. Just for a moment—.”
“Wait.”
Just as Olivia was about to take a step, Ureas blocked her.
“If there’s something you want to discuss, why not do it here? I have a feeling people will start talking again for no reason.”
“What are you referring to?”
“Wasn’t there that scandal? My sister suffered quite a bit because of it.”
Olivia replied.
“Suffered? Things like that happen to me all the time, so I paid them no mind. You were the one who took it hard, Regent.”
That was indeed what had happened.
Ferda tried to reassure Ureas, who was standing in his way.
“She is to become the saint of the Arken Empire. How could I possibly lay a hand on her?”
“Then surely you can at least tell the man who will become your brother what you intend to discuss?”
He was being persistent.
Ferda had no choice but to answer him.
“During the monster-suppression campaign, Imperial Princess Olivia demonstrated excellent command of the tactical infantry. That is why I came to ask whether she might take command of this army as well.”
“Why should my sister take charge of your army?”
“Sir William is currently the overall commander of the tactical infantry. He also served as Imperial Princess Olivia’s adjutant. Having seen firsthand how capable his former comrade is, I hoped they could exchange strategies again this time.”
At that, Ureas folded his arms and said menacingly,
“Would it be all right if I cut that William fellow’s head off?”
Ferda frowned.
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s obvious you’re trying to make a move on my sister. How am I supposed to let that slide?”
Is this bastard serious?
Judging by the veins bulging on Ureas’s face, he clearly seemed to be.
There were certainly plenty of people who flirted with Olivia, but William was not that kind of man.
Olivia lightly touched Ureas’s arm and called to him.
“Brother. I think I understand what you’re worried about. Let me speak with him first, and then I’ll tell you—”
“Be quiet, Olivia. Your brother is speaking, isn’t he?”
“……”
“Olivia came here as the Altesin Church’s relief corps commander to provide support in the rear. What difference is there between choosing my sister, who knows nothing about the battlefield, as a commander simply because she happened to achieve a great victory once and throwing her into the jaws of death?”
Ureas’s attitude toward Olivia was becoming more or less clear.
“That sounds as though you don’t believe what happened during the suppression campaign.”
“I care deeply for my sister, but war is no game. How could she possibly have achieved such a feat, realistically? The son of that duke confessed that he gave her the position to curry favor with her. In any case, don’t try to ride this incident to—”
“Ureas.”
Ureas was rendered speechless.
Her voice was much quieter than his, but clearer than ever.
It was not her usual lively, smiling tone.
It was cold and chilling, like a blade honed over decades.
Though it was Olivia’s voice, his first thought was to doubt whether it was really her.
Ureas lowered his head to look at her.
He knew the look in her eyes well.
It was the hatred and contempt she had shown only to the First Prince, Alexander.
She said,
“Mind your own business.”
Leaving him with those words, Olivia walked toward Ferda.
* * *
Olivia entered Ferda’s tent before the Far Eastern joint operations base had even been established.
Though people had been muttering about propriety between men and women, no one dared force their way into the tent after seeing the maid Luri’s face.
That was why the atmosphere inside the tent was peaceful.
The chill in Olivia’s expression melted away in the warmth of the black tea.
“Ureas has started getting strange ideas.”
She said.
Because Ferda had just come from witnessing a strange situation, its meaning felt ambiguous to him.
“What do you mean by strange ideas?”
“You know that King Heinkel is using the lives of his subjects to practice black magic, right?”
So that was what she meant.
“Yes.”
“The kings are after that magic.”
That utterly feeble King Heinkel had become a great archmage.
After delving into the kingdom’s situation and every possible outcome, he must have inferred that it was a spell called Legion.
He must also have realized that Legion was the paradise even the Great Demon King had failed to achieve, and that it had been brought into the mortal world.
So he was trying to take it by any means possible.
As people in power who had endured countless threats, they yearned for a way to paradise more than anyone.
“And he’s trying to become one of those idiots.”
“He doesn’t listen at all?”
“I didn’t say it directly, but I told him that anything connected to black magic must never be taken, and that the demons would try to join hands with him somehow. Every time, he shouted that as someone born with Arken blood, how could he do such a thing?”
“And…….”
“His plan hasn’t changed. He’s after that magic.”
Olivia’s expression conveyed a hatred of humanity.
“This is why obedient dogs annoy me.”
No, it seemed she did not even regard Ureas as human.
“Even if you train a dog to obey, a dog is still a dog in the end. It cannot suppress its instincts and simply trails after the bigger bone.”
“I see.”
“There I go, complaining again. I don’t know why I become so soft-hearted whenever I’m with you, Regent.”
She cast him a faintly reproachful look.
Is this my fault?
Olivia absently stirred her black tea with a teaspoon.
“I’m asking in case…….”
“I have not the slightest interest in that magic.”
“Oh my, you haven’t even heard what I was going to say.”
“I’ve already been interrogated about it once, so there’s no point in my saying more.”
“I understand.”
Olivia did not press the matter any further.
One scene was still playing vividly in Ferda’s mind.
Ureas watching Olivia’s back as she left the base.
His face had looked as though his world had collapsed.
“Will things be all right between you and your sister from now on?”
“Since when have you taken an interest in other people’s family affairs, Regent?”
“Political affairs.”
“Hehe, that’s true.”
Olivia smiled as though she were enjoying herself, then immediately spoke with apparent displeasure.
Olivia leisurely sipped her black tea and said,
“He won’t be able to beat me. He’s just a child who misses his mother terribly.”
“Your mother……?”
“Why do you think that bastard cares for me so much?”
“Because you’re his pretty sister?”
“That’s not a sufficient answer. Ureas projects his mother onto me. He’s obsessed with me because he thinks I’m growing to resemble the face of the mother he saw in his childhood.”
“……”
“Even if I hurled verbal abuse at him and wounded him, Ureas would never be able to abandon me. His mother, who went far away long ago, is never coming back.”
“I see.”
His mother is never coming back.
It was remarkably cruel, yet entirely like Olivia.
It sounded plausible, but part of him still wondered whether it was right.
But his thoughts soon came to a halt.
Olivia had always been a woman who handled her own affairs well.
Yet, as Ferda had worried, Olivia herself was not certain either.
This had been an impulsive act, after all.
If Olivia had been her usual self, she would undoubtedly have simply let Ureas’s words pass.
Or she might have gently talked him down.
But before she could even weigh those two options, the incident had erupted.
It had happened in front of Ferda, of all people.
Because he had shown Ferda how he clutched her like a cherished doll.
My heart belongs to that man.
She could not tolerate the insolent way he claimed, in front of Ferda, that she belonged to him.
Thinking about it again made anger bubble and boil in her chest.
“I suppose I should let Ureas stew a little longer. May I have another cup?”
“Please do.”
While I’m at it, I might as well enjoy that face a little longer.
Olivia smiled slyly.
* * *
The Far Eastern forces, once settled in, became superstars within the Imperial forward base.
They had brought along a mountain of modern inventions the Empire had never seen before, so everyone flocked there to snoop around.
“I heard it took them only a week to get here from the Far East thanks to those magic-powered cars.”
“They rode inside cars, didn’t they? Some people throw a damn fit, claiming even resting a hand on a wagon makes it heavier.”
“I heard their legs may be comfortable, but their stomachs get turned upside down. They say it’s worse than a wagon.”
“As if walking is more comfortable. An upset stomach is a hundred times better than blistered feet that need ointment!”
Traveling by vehicle was a privilege only nobles could enjoy, so they could hardly believe that ordinary infantrymen had enjoyed it.
They seemed even more envious of that fact than of the magitech rifles.
At the same time, the knights were also examining the Far Eastern equipment and talking among themselves.
“The infantry have changed in all sorts of ways, but the knights don’t seem to have changed at all.”
“That’s not quite true. The knights are carrying something too, one of each. Something like a short, thick wand, and something that looks like a fruit.”
“What are those?”
“I asked, and they said they were shotguns and grenades. They said they could use magic too.”
“How could little tricks with things like that surpass a mage?”
“The infantry are already at the level of one mage each. Why couldn’t they?”
“Hmm…….”
It was hard to believe, but it was not entirely impossible.
At least when it came to the Far East.
“But I think this shotgun business is probably a bluff.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You know the Moving Fortress, don’t you?”
“You mean Sir Alberto.”
“That’s right. Sir Alberto’s shotgun was shorter and had a golden sheen.”
“If it were a weapon made of gold, they’d make it ceremonial, wouldn’t they?”
“If Sir Alberto carried around a weapon like that made of gold, wouldn’t that mean it had no practical use?”
“In any case, it’s hardly surprising that country bumpkins boast.”
The knights had been muttering thus and were about to leave it at that.
But one knight who knew a little more refused to let it pass.
“Wait, did you say a golden weapon?”
“That’s right.”
“A golden weapon…… That weapon can’t have been made of gold.”
“Then what is it?”
“I heard that Frontesis visited the Grand Duchy of Valdrova.”
Every knight was startled upon hearing the name.
“Frontesis! You mean that Bronze Dragon known as the God of Blacksmiths?”
“Why did he come to the Far East?”
“I heard he left in a fury, saying they had handled his property carelessly. If something that looks like gold has appeared, what could that mean?”
“Don’t tell me it’s frontenium?!”
Even the Imperial workshop, said to be capable of making anything, could never handle that one-of-a-kind ore.
It was the foremost symbol of the continent, enough to make even the title of the Empire’s finest seem shabby.
“No way…….”
“My grandfather used to mutter nonsense about seeing that material when he was starting to lose his mind…….”
But if it really was frontenium, they could not help wanting to see more of it.
Hearing that an item made from that ore was right there, they kept stealing glances at him as though merely passing by, desperate to feast their eyes on it a little longer.
* * *
The knight Zed, who had been watching all of this, nudged the person beside him and spoke.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
The person sitting beside him was Arwen.
“What did I say to you at the Grand Council?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember just fine whenever I call you a country bumpkin, judging by how you throw a fit.”
“Damn it, why are you picking a fight with me?”
“No, I was going to tell you something amusing.”
When Arwen glared at him, Zed snickered and jerked his chin toward the Imperial knights.
“See their faces?”
Arwen turned his gaze in that direction.
A Far Eastern knight and three Imperial knights were talking there.
Since a knight from the provinces and knights from the capital were gathered in one place, Arwen thought they might be about to pick a fight, but that was not the case.
They were examining the magitech shotguns with fascinated expressions.
“I see them.”
“The looks on their faces are exactly like yours back then.”
Arwen’s expression hardened when he saw the Imperial knights’ eyes.
“……Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Accept it.”
“There’s no way I made such a pathetic expression, is there?”
“That’s reality, country bumpkin.”
“Ah, seriously!! Stop saying pointless things! I might just cut you down!”
“Wahahaha!!”
When Arwen shouted angrily in a way uncharacteristic of him, Zed achieved his goal and disappeared into the distance.
Arwen tried to dismiss it as nonsense and forget about it.
But the words had already become a curse circling in his mind, and he kept seeing his own face in that pathetic expression.
In the end, unable to bear the embarrassment, he slammed his fist into the ground.
* * *
The next morning, Ureas came to see Ferda.
“I was too emotional yesterday. I apologize.”
It was a remarkably unfamiliar sight.
Ureas, of all people, apologizing to someone.
Apparently even he was afraid of his little sister.
“Not at all. I understand that you care about your sister’s chastity.”
“Thank you for putting it that way. I was too harsh toward someone who is engaged. Let’s end the uncomfortable subject here.”
Ureas got to the point.
“That brings me to the matter of the territory. I’m going to speak with the allied army, prepared to give up half of it. There will be six of us, counting me: three men from my side, Count Rooster, and you. What do you say?”
“Thank you for the offer. I’ll attend.”
He had been curious about it anyway.
When kings all shared the same filthy goal, what sort of conversation would they have?
This was the perfect opportunity to find out.