“Received from the elders.”

Erica of Rykentrion Rykenta answered.

What a pathetic excuse.

“What exactly are these elders?”

“What do you mean?”

“No. Elders always seem like a group that only checks the head of the house and cooks up strange conspiracies.”

“Are the elders of Astreos not like that?”

Erica countered.

I thought of Elder Lakul.

“No. They are not. They are pillars of the house, filled with loyalty to the head and sworn to defend the house and its leader with the knowledge accumulated over a long life.”

“Ridiculous! Elders who don’t plot conspiracies — that contradicts their very reason for existing.”

“Of course this head of house is remarkable… but Astreos has traditionally been tightly united around its head for generations.”

“If that is truly so, I envy you that one thing,”

Erica sighed, surprisingly sincere.

I mulled over the scale that couldn’t be felt.

If the elders were involved, that means the upper echelon of the wind-power house Rykenta is implicated. This will get very big.

Elders of a noble house.

The senior members of a great house that held a seventh of the Empire of Stars.

I couldn’t even imagine how many lives and resources had been invested.

No. That’s actually good. At least it’s believable. Anyway, I exposed this huge matter. The house surely won’t keep this scale on me. At the right moment I can hand it over to Andromeda and step back.

I let a faint, sly smile cross my face as I thought of how this could benefit me for a moment.

“We confiscated all the fluid used to produce the Mutated Beasts, and your army scattered into pieces. Several Navigators also died.”

“It would be so.”

“Cooperate. I will spare you.”

I made a reasonable offer.

“You would know if you are a child of the house.”

Erica gave a bitter smile.

“Regrettably, the only thing I can say now is Ugh! Kill me! That’s all. You know well what happens to a politically ruined direct line, do you not?”

Yet in those gem-like eyes there was the pride of a noble bloodline counted among the Empire of Stars’ top ten.

I’d rather die than be broken.

I would rather die than be bound.

A feeling all the more familiar to Astreos.

This is tiring.

I bit my lower lip.

At my level I cannot offer a reward that would tempt her.

I still couldn’t claim great power.

The wealth and authority I could offer would be laughable.

No. Do I really have nothing?

I closed my eyes for an instant, opened them, and ran high-speed calculations.

“Let me be frank. I am still small in both power and force. If this matter spreads into a dispute between House Rykenta and House Astreos, I must step back.”

“You are excessively frank. Don’t you know? Those who look down on themselves attract no followers.”

Erica sneered sharply.

“Listen to the end.”

“Hm?”

“I will step back anyway. I don’t care who planned and pushed this scheme. I don’t know the internal affairs of Rykenta in the first place. I will report exactly who you point to as the true mastermind of this conspiracy.”

A moment later.

“Are you saying only my report will be accepted as the evidence Astreos will recognize?”

A look of astonishment flickered across Erica’s face.

She understood.

If her report became the official report, Erica could, with Astreos’ power behind it, sink her brothers and sisters.

After all, one house could rarely be completely annihilated in the Empire of Stars.

There would be compensatory penalties or tariff adjustments, but that would be bearable.

Erica looked at me with different eyes than before.

“I am tired today. I wish to talk slowly from tomorrow.”

A smile, so sweet it could rot, hung at the corner of her mouth.

“Don’t expect too much. If you need a pen or paper, tell me anytime.”

I rose from my seat.

Joy and I left the barracks.

“Your Excellency!”

A soldier came running up.

“Lord Gracus has sent a messenger.”

“A messenger?”

The messenger handed over an order.

[The opponent is the noble direct line Erica… a wind power artisan whose force could scatter all the clouds of the sky; due to difficulty using guided explosives she is at a strategic advantage… avoid engagement until reinforcements arrive…]

The instruction told us not to fight.

Some time earlier.

“That governor of the big city couldn’t even cut off one supply line?!”

Traysan’s fury shook the senior heir’s palace.

“You said there were thousands upon thousands of troops! They’d consume ten thousand-plus people's worth of food and water a day. If you had starved them for a day or two, a rebellion would have started, or bankruptcy, or desertion and collapse — any one of those would have happened. And you couldn’t cut that one day or two?!”

“P-Please calm yourself.”

“Calm? Well said. I should drive Gracus into the wall with a pin and fix him in place!”

There was no need to drive them to actual starvation.

Emphasize that Kyrie had marked Governor Gracus, offer better terms when the mercenary captains under him wavered.

There were ways to absorb the forces without swinging a sword.

“He is a Blue Knight who has lived decades longer, holds a rank many times higher, and is far stronger! Even if Andromeda were backing him, Andromeda would be a senior governor deserving respect! How could a distant junior ruin him… I’m losing my mind. It’s more likely he defected without my knowledge.”

Traysan wrote a letter seething with anger.

If they did nothing to Kyrie immediately, the man would end his days as a baron of some sleepy rural village.

Dangerous.

Beneath that boiling emotion was unease.

The instinct honed as the senior heir of a great house warned of danger.

If he loses, it’s fine. But if he wins?

If Kyrie won, Kyrie would truly become a warlord.

Not a ragtag band of small mercenary companies, but an army solidly united around a single purpose and a single center.

If he accepts the surrender of Rykenta’s knights, his numbers would more than double.

Ten thousand.

That number filled Traysan’s thoughts.

It was not an overwhelming mass.

But it was an army capable of doing what was necessary at the necessary time and place.

It could influence central politics sufficiently.

The Empire of Stars did not maintain large standing armies.

Cavalry, light cavalry, border patrols — those numerous military groups kept only their core forces in peacetime.

Typically a few hundred elite soldiers who doubled as Blue Knights, Knights, Censer-Bearers, and Retainers, plus stablehands, blacksmiths, and couriers.

When war came, they hired mercenaries and conscripted the citizens to form an army as needed.

Of course Traysan could raise an army of a hundred thousand or a million if required.

But he could not be sure Andromeda would watch that with calm eyes.

It will become dangerous. No — it already is a threat.

Kyrie had wielded that justification like a sword and succeeded in forming an army without interference.

How he would wield that army now depended on Kyrie.

Traysan decided to stop him before Kyrie could wield it.

“What should we do?”

Gracus was trapped.

If I go out myself I could win. Of course I could. But it would be humiliating. The fact that I fought him directly would be a medal for him.

If he did not kill Kyrie, he would only increase Kyrie’s renown.

If he actually killed him, Andromeda would brand him a traitor and sacrifice his relatives to Thunder Star.

He had to do something about Kyrie’s force.

But Kyrie’s army was already half out of his control.

The mercenary captains listen to the border patrols, not me. Kyrie’s supplies depend on the southern towns, not Spiramentaon. Those towns are nearer to the border patrols than to me.

Cutting supplies might have been possible originally.

But Kyrie’s influence over the border villages made that difficult.

I don’t know. For now, stop the victory at least. If they can’t fight, they can’t win.

Gracus concluded to prevent the battle itself.

He was no fool.

He at least grasped that the opponent was Rykenta’s direct line Erica and feared the danger.

He issued a prohibition on all-out war.

In that case, let it grow. Stall until tens of thousands of reinforcements are raised, provoke disputes over command, stall again. With a force of that size, the border patrol thousand-captains or perhaps Andromeda himself might have to intervene. Even as an adopted son, they could push Kyrie to the back room.

If the force was not formed and Kyrie lost all his troops in repeated skirmishes, fine.

If the force formed and Kyrie achieved no honors and became a minor captain, fine.

Either way, Traysan’s orders would be carried out.

So if the messenger had arrived a little earlier, that might have been possible.

“Hrm.”

A campsite not far from the battlefield.

A clearing in front of the command tent where a campfire burned.

“What to do? We already fought and won long ago.”

Kyrie read Gracus’s letter with Joy, Nereus, Gabeng, Feijin, and Prey.

“What will you do?” Gabeng asked, cocking his head.

“For now, the signature of the border patrol thousand-captain is enclosed. At least there is room to interpret that the border patrol’s Blue Knights should not have intervened in the entire battle,” I said.

“Hey. Does that make sense? He received operational command as an adopted son. And you expect some thousand-captain to block him?” Nereus growled.

“There is room. If you lost the military fight, they would frame you with crimes like insubordination and coercion of illegal orders. They would have done the same even if you had lost the previous battle.”

Gabeng finished his restrained explanation.

“But you won, Your Excellency.”

Joy looked up at Kyrie.

“Yes. I won. In fact, I won before receiving the letter.”

I tore the messenger’s letter apart.

Nereus gasped; Gabeng made a low, restrained sound.

The messenger’s face turned ashen.

“As you know, even if I had fought after receiving this letter, there would be little punishment if I had won. They’d let it slide because I won.”

“Kyrie.”

“But I won even before this letter arrived.”

I threw the letter into the flames.

The letter and signature turned to ash in an instant.

“I received a direct mission from His Highness the head of house. I have no interest in orders from the likes of Gracus.”

“Do you intend to make Governor Gracus your enemy?”

The messenger asked, pale.

I inhaled lightly and quickly rolled my outer eye to survey the air around us.

Nereus, Prey, Joy, Feijin, even Gabeng all wore the same expression.

A little tension and a few times that in anticipation.

The face of Astreos.

“He first made me his enemy, did he not?”

I announced as if for them to hear.

【‘Hero’s Journey Stage 2: Warlord’ completed.】

A complete success string appeared in the scar beyond the blindfold.

“The man first made me his enemy.”

The moment I uttered those words.

How did my life end up like this?

I almost collapsed on the spot.

I had declared war on the ruler of a city of over a million and the power behind him.

My legs trembled.

I had privately thought Gracus and Traysan both quiet, but it was the first time I had spoken it aloud.

Feign composure.

Stay calm.

Nothing had happened yet.

This was a plateau in the jungle.

Thanks to plentiful supplies, there was no need to send people to the city to maintain supply lines.

When, where, and to whom I would send this victory report was entirely up to me.

First, I must report to Andromeda and His Highness the head of house.

Whether things went well to make them go better, or things went poorly to evade responsibility, I must report to the true superiors.

And I needed to squeeze a lot of information out of Erica and find a third collaborator.

I had intended to bow out reasonably, but now I could not.

From now on I must strike like lightning forever.

Make me the hero who stood against Rykenta and saved the house.

Make Gracus the great sinner who obstructed me, and make Traysan his patron so they both blow away together.

I first went to find Bishop Saturn.

“Your Excellency.”

“Kyrie.”

“Rykenta was using Mutated Beasts as puppets. I have irrefutable evidence, testimony, and witnesses. Please report this to the headquarters of the Manseong Church.”

Only the Manseong Church could serve as a fair judge between Traysan, Andromeda, and myself.

“Aha.”

Bishop Saturn sighed long.

“I do not know why a noble house like Rykenta would engage in such deeds, but if one turns a blind eye after seeing today’s battle, it would be a sin against the stars shining beyond the clouds. Hand over the evidence. I will hang it on this Cross Constellation and report to headquarters.”

I was about to hand over the letters from Rykenta’s Navigators and the glass vials containing the Mutated Beast fluid.

【“No.”】

【‘The Dreaming Thunder Star’ dissuades your action.】

If the constellation’s voice had not come unexpectedly, I would have handed them over immediately.

Chapter 75

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