This was bad.
Really bad.

My adoption wasn’t even the only problem anymore.
No—fine, that was the biggest problem, but at this rate, adoption or not, I could very well die.

Think.

If I reported everything through the official route, Prochus and Epichus would reap all the credit.
If I didn’t report it at all, it could start a real war—and I’d be the one blamed for hiding it.

I gnawed on the callus beside my nail, forcing my mind into overdrive.

The situation was rotten.

“Sir Kyrie. We have to decide soon.”
Jo waved a single sheet of paper like it was a cursed letter.

“Let me see that.”

It was signed by Prochus and Epichus.

A few days ago, Nereus and I had crossed the border into Rykenta’s vassal territory, burned the fortress village suspected of dispatching mutant beasts, and defeated their Navigator-class knight. We’d gathered solid evidence of Rykenta’s involvement in the incident.

Now we’d returned to the border village on Astreios soil.

[ …All returning Blue Knights of the Falling Star are to compile and report their expedition’s results. ]

Next step: decide what to do.

Can’t hide it completely. The losses are too big.

I’d started with seventy soldiers.
After the battle, more than a dozen dead or crippled—barely fifty left in fighting condition.

Losing only ten men in such a massacre was an achievement, but compared to a full unit, it was half strength.
Prochus and Epichus were bound to notice.

I chewed the hardened skin again.

Even thinking at lightning speed, I couldn’t find an answer.

Was there no Blue Knight’s move—a single, striking flash of lightning that could flip the entire board?

Flip…?

An idea struck.

“Jo.”

“Yes, sir?”

“How much did we profit from this expedition?”

“Yes, sir. We split the captured Rykenta supplies and coin with the 121st Century, half and half. Our share is six hundred gold. Counting the trade goods, provisions, and spices, we can make it nine hundred.”

“And with my personal funds?”

“With yours included, one thousand two hundred. But that’ll clean you out completely, sir.”

One thousand gold.

Hm.

Even the central capital would consider that serious money.

I glanced out the window.

Shhhhh—!

Rain was pouring down.

“No messenger pigeons in this weather?”

“No, sir. Not during the monsoon.”

Southern monsoon season—like the sky had burst open.
If Andromeda hadn’t sent the courier dragon Amphithea, I wouldn’t have been able to send my last report either.

And I remembered: neither Prochus nor Epichus had brought a courier dragon.

Which means Trisan has no idea what’s happening here.

I organized my thoughts.

“Jo.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Call Nereus. Tell him we’re pulling back to reorganize and report losses.”

“To where, sir?”
She looked uneasy.

“The capital.”

Her eyes widened—sharp as ever.

“We’re withdrawing to Astreion.”

First, I needed to get out from under those damned adopted sons’ reach.

We had to deliver the preserved mutant carcass, the thick red-veined fluid, and Rykenta’s documents.
Following the official route would mean handing all that evidence to those two bastards.

Not a chance.

With the heir and senior adoptee already at odds, reporting my success to the senior adoptee’s lackeys would practically be treason by my standards.

Obviously, the report had to go straight to Andromeda.

They’d scream, of course—
claim I’d broken protocol, demand the planetary-rank Blue Knights punish me.

I needed political cover—
a shield strong enough to deflect that pressure.

And at the Academy, they’d drilled this in: every political shield needs two materials.

Money—and justification.

Money, I had.
Justification, I didn’t.

Astreios bloodlines lived by the creed form before life.
Better a beggar with honor than a king without it.

So I needed someone who could give honor to what I was about to do.

Nereus wouldn’t work.

His philosophy of “I’d sooner die than let those bastards profit” could stir hearts but never persuade minds.

I needed someone who could persuade minds.

“I want to depart within three days.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And before that, I’ll see Gabeng.”

“The evaluator Gabeng, sir?”
Jo tilted her head.

Gabeng was locked in the basement of a farmhouse.

“They’re bringing him up now, sir.”

The guards moved aside the stones covering the hatch and hauled him up by the ladder.

“Sir Kyrie.”

Even with a broken arm, the man still had that sharp-eyed fire typical of a Squire.

I smiled faintly and took his injured arm.

“Aaagh!”

Gabeng screamed.
I didn’t let go.

“Not what you were hoping for, huh?”

He clicked his tongue and glared at me.
“How did you know?”

“How could I not? You’re still a Squire, rotten or not. That bone’s healed by now.”

That same meticulous gaze—unchanged.

“Well, then we can skip to it. Why have you come? Decided to have the second evaluator mark me officially deceased?”

At least he was blunt.

“Read this.”

I handed him the copy of the letter Erikant had received—
the one mentioning the whistle used to control mutant beasts.

His eyes widened with shock and confusion.

“This is… real?”

Even his voice trembled—a first.

“You, of all people, understand what happens if this blows up.”

I spoke with studied calm.

“It could spark a war between great houses. Not a border skirmish—a full-scale war involving direct-line nobles.”

“……”

“And in times like that, succession lines must be clarified. Trisan’s senior adoptee’s fall is inevitable.”

“A swordsman doesn’t abandon his master just because he thinks he’ll lose.”

“Do you serve the house—or Trisan’s senior adoptee?”

“……!”

His gray eyes flickered.

“Right. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get it. No one serves an abstract house. We all serve the person standing before us. But there is something that binds us together—the line, the name.”

“You’re saying now’s the time to rally around Lady Andromeda.”

“If Trisan truly put the house first, he’d do that himself. I’m sure of one thing: Lady Andromeda would never stir internal strife during wartime. Can you say the same for Trisan?”

“He wouldn’t either.”

“And the brothers he sent—Prochus and Epichus?”

“……!”

His eyes flickered again.

“If you’ve got even a green-skin’s worth of conscience, you won’t pretend those two came here to help. Whatever I report, whatever I say, they’ll twist it. In peacetime, I’d fight them for my own sake. But now? I fight them for the house.”

“You think I’d join a Blue Knight’s private feud?”

“I don’t. I’m going to the capital to report directly.”

“That’s a violation of the Code. You’d be skipping half the chain of command.”

“Then make it sound honorable.”

“I won’t lend myself to injustice.”

I reached toward him, letting anger flare.

“You speak of injustice—now?!”

I’m the one about to die here.

“Rykenta’s sending mutant beasts, and those sadistic bastards are sabotaging us from the middle! If there’s a law that says I should watch the southlands of our house burn, then that law is wrong!”

I grabbed his collar, shouting in his face.

“And a mere Blue Knight of the Falling Star decides what’s wrong with the Code?”

“The only truth in this world is the Word of the Thunder Star. Everything else is flawed—me, you, even the High Lord himself. You think the Code is any different?”

“……”

Mentioning the Thunder Star made his eyes waver for the third time.

Never fails.

“I’m not asking you to help me or Lady Andromeda. Go back and kneel to Trisan if you want. But if you truly serve this house, then at least write the logic that lets me walk free of those deranged brothers and their disgraced pets—long enough to report the truth to someone who still fights for the house.”

Gabeng wasn’t just a nuisance.
I’d seen that from our first meeting.

If he were merely obstructive, he’d flatter me while quietly saving evidence to report later.
His fixation on procedure was genuine.

And if it was genuine—

“…There are clauses allowing omission of protocol under wartime emergency conditions.”

He had no choice but to say it.

Got him.

I grinned inwardly.

Jo finished the withdrawal preparations faster than I’d ordered.

“All done, sir.”

To an adjutant like her, monsters such as Prochus and Epichus were nightmares incarnate.

Blue Knights might be brutal, but they at least spared their own troops.
Those upper-level administrators didn’t even see soldiers as people—just numbers.

“Gluttony.”

“Yes, sir.”

I met with Gluttony to pass information.
A merchant, always sniffing for advantage.

Even knowledge that this region would soon be in chaos was profit to him—
either by keeping his smuggling routes alive while others burned, or by abandoning them first and carving new ones.

Both meant gain.

“Much obliged.”

In exchange, I paid him a handful of coins and learned of one of his secret routes.

“Let’s move.”

Nereus soon joined me.

“Why is Your Lordship going to the capital too?”

“You think I endured all that training to report to bastards like Prochus and Epichus?”

Nereus stayed faithful to Astreios tradition.
“There’s a hierarchy, you know.”

“Guess no one told you—Blue Knights are trained to ram through any hierarchy they can’t accept. If even a thick-headed knight like me can’t accept it, it’s either nonsense or too detached from reality to live by.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

His adjutant squeezed his eyes shut in despair.

“If Kyrie’s going, how can I stay behind?”

But inwardly, Nereus was proud of his fellow knight.

“I’ll give it my all, sir.”

His adjutant, too, was Astreios to the core.

Under skies that seemed torn open with rain, Kyrie and Nereus led their battered troops north toward the great southern city of Astreios.

“Brother, why aren’t Kyrie and Nereus sending reports?”

“Don’t tell me…”

Prochus and Epichus finally caught on.

“Get the messenger pigeons ready! Bring them in before they reach the capital!”

“S-sir, the weather—pigeons can’t fly in this. Eight or nine out of ten would crash, and the rest would take twice as long!”

“Oh? Then maybe you can explain why I should keep alive a man who can’t even send a pigeon!”

“My lord, please! Mercy!”

Epichus beat the handler to death and organized a pursuit team.

“Why are there no sightings from the nearby villages?!”

But Kyrie, traveling by smuggler routes, was already far beyond their reach.

Chapter 38

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