We moved like a hive that had been attacked.

“Link up with the army at once.”

Naturally, the first thing to do was link up with the army.

“Keep a four-shift watch. Put Rykenta’s ballistas into the sentries’ hands. Sky, ground, underground—shoot anything that approaches.”

Because the command group was the strongest band of warriors around, we had let our guard down—who would imagine they’d stage a surprise attack after giving us a Triumph.

We hadn’t thought through how far a cornered opponent would go.

I had assumed they’d render realistic judgment the way I did.

“You can’t get a clean observation route because of buildings? We’ll requisition them. I’ll sign the orders—post sentries from rooftop to basement across the lot. Get cannons up on the roofs.”

“Blue Knights, Knights, and Navigator-ranks move in minimum pairs.”

“Recover the bodies. Pack them in salt and lay them in coffins. If coffins run short, use sacks.”

That was the blunder.

Dawn.

In the ruined mansion I watched them bring the bodies out, one by one.

Some were unrecognizable. Some had faces I knew.

Kalin.

A mercenary-captain Knight who had until recently belonged to the Rykenta army.

One of the few women among the Knights; I remember how pleased Feijin had been.

Zen.

A certain Navigator-rank who often quarreled with Joi.

He kept butting heads with her, trying to speak for the soldiers as Joi—tasked with relaying more and more of my orders—pressed them hard.

I remember saying more than once that Joi wasn’t a bad person.

And Prokus.

The infamous wastrel foster-Blue Knight, famous together with his younger brother Epicus.

He had squeezed provincial lords under Traysan, lost to me, and come under Nereus afterward.

“Brother, my brother…”

They said Epicus lay in a straight line from where his body fell.

He had been replacing his shattered prosthetic after crashing through the hall.

Was Prokus such a talentless bully, the sort who only tormented small-town nobles, that he couldn’t dodge?

Or did he stand his ground to the instant his skull burst for the sake of his only brother?

We would never know now.

I left off watching the body detail and moved to the center of our army’s encampment.

This wasn’t what I needed to be doing.

“Erica.”

I sent for the command and headed to the adjacent pavilion.

“You called?”

Erica was waiting.

Even after that brutal melee, her body sheathed in Wind King’s Armor hadn’t so much as scuffed a thread of lace on her dress.

That touch of the ordinary was welcome just now.

“As I said, I’m convinced they came for you.”

“Thanks to that, I could act in self-defense without being bound by terms of oath, so I’m only grateful you said so.”

Erica lifted her skirt hem and dipped a curtsey.

“But… hearing you, it seems it was true?”

“And I think I know why.”

“How intriguing.”

A different color crossed her face.

The look of someone who had found a bargaining chip.

“The direct line of a great house wouldn’t have intelligence that poor.”

A flame climbed in my chest.

I forced myself into realistic judgment.

Erica had been entitled to self-defense.

If I abandoned myself to this anger and swung, she’d pop my head like a melon with a Windcraft blast.

I didn’t know whether her surrender target was me or the soldiers of Astreos, but if it was me, our army might soon look the same.

With so many outstanding superhuman warriors slain, there are things you simply do not say.

Until a short while ago, she had been the enemy.

I met her eyes with all of that in mind.

“Ahem.”

Erica coughed and looked away.

“So you can make a face like that. Well, they do say heroes and beauties are quick to tears.”

She sat on the sofa and continued.

“I’ll say this up front—I don’t know for certain. It’s not like I invited Mutated Beasts out of any fondness for them.”

“Anything’s fine. You think I’m in a position to pick between stale bread and fresh?”

“There were three civil wars over the succession.”

“Civil wars.”

“Astreos is so cohesive you may find it hard to grasp, but Rykenta is practically a feudal confederation of blood clans. The Patriarch is merely the confederation’s representative.”

I listened without letting a single word drop.

“We won the first two but bled badly; in the last we were routed and driven to the floor. I had to abandon my castle and run. Then, one elder who supported me to the last gave me that liquid.”

A wistful look, as if she were gazing at the past, passed through Erica’s eyes.

“He was known in the house as a devout believer of the Manseong Church, and he was keenly interested in records related to the ancient Empire of Evil.”

“How odd.”

“Yes. The closer you were to the house’s core, the more you mocked the Church. And the ancient Empire of Evil was nothing more than a curiosity.”

Anyway—her tone lifted.

“Rumors began to spread about him.”

“Rumors?”

“That he had joined a heretical sect within the Manseong Church. And that the sect was connected, in some fashion, to the ancient Empire of Evil.”

A heresy.

I still didn’t know why the Royal Stellite Line had come here.

But I thought I now knew why Bishop Saturn had died.

He had tried to learn about the Mutated Beasts.

“My lord. They’re assembled.”

I left it there for now and returned to the command pavilion.

Even calling it the command, I was looking at the same faces as before.

Only, there were empty seats here and there, and the attendees were bandaged.

“It feels like we’re fewer every time we sit down.”

I forced a smile to vent the gloom.

“Let’s talk before we get hit again.”

The Royal Stellite Line, the Musketeer School, the Manseong Church heresy, Gracus.

Realistically, we could not handle all of it now.

Vengeance and risk removal.

We had neither the means nor the margin for both.

“Last night Governor Gracus ambushed us.”

We had to focus on one thing.

【“As you should.”】

【‘The Dreaming Thunder Star’ finds your way of facing reality extremely commendable.】

【It murmurs that you are the only one, after all.】

A string of text rose and vanished over the Stigma of my right eye.

“Eh?”

“No—Kirikiri. You got stabbed by a Vow-taker too, didn’t you?”

“Did the blade hit your head, not your flank? If you’re mentally unsound, hand over command. I can take it. With the Royals’ Sword-Aura Hardening still vivid before my eyes, you say Gracus—what are you talking about?”

From Joi to Nereus, they were all taken aback.

“No. We were ambushed by Governor Gracus.”

I stressed it again.

“The loathsome pig promised us a Triumph to make us relax and played for time. In the meantime he hired the Musketeer School and gathered Knights; he even bought a templar of the Manseong Church to assassinate Bishop Saturn.”

“……”

Sensing it was no slip of the tongue, they shut their mouths.

“And after we captured Gracus, we searched his office and found letters exchanged with the Royal Stellite Line. We’ll consider the reasons in due course—anyway, that’s what it is.”

One thing at a time.

“I’ll think through how to bind Gracus to Traysan and the Royals. If another house has intervened, His Highness the Patriarch will have no choice but to take our side. Then we’ll have the house’s best elites at our back, and we’ll take our revenge with joy.”

We already had more than enough grounds and proof.

What mattered was the capacity to use it. And time to turn it in our favor.

For now, we focused on Gracus.

Head and heart of the realist shouted in one voice.

“……”

A brief silence followed.

I wondered if someone would object that this wasn’t befitting a Blue Knight.

Blood of Astreos would vent its rage now and sprint for the culprit.

“Kyrie.”

The one who broke the silence was Epicus, seated in a corner.

His eyes were bloodshot to the hilt.

“It’s a blessing you’re the commander.”

Tears finally rolled down his face.

Even a man who had spent a lifetime making others weep could weep.

With such an uproar, there was no way people wouldn’t hear.

“What on earth happened?”

“Should we leave the city for now?”

“My nephew says he saw a file of Blue Knights come out from the governor’s palace at night.”

Through Gluttony and other merchants, Joi spread the word fast.

“Did you hear?”

“They say Governor Gracus sent Blue Knights and Knights to assassinate Imperator Kyrie!”

“I heard it wasn’t just assassination—he meant to break the whole army. Didn’t he even bring in the Musketeer School?”

“Then the Triumph was all bait?”

“How can a man do that? Hosts a Triumph by day and comes to kill by night?”

“In the end Gracus stabs us in the back to the last. He never did anything for us.”

That rumor produced an effect even Kyrie hadn’t foreseen.

By origin, Imperator was a title soldiers and the people raised of their own will.

“Because of you, we could win.”

“Because of you, sons, husbands, fathers came home alive.”

The fervor of Spiramentaon’s citizens toward Kyrie had that meaning.

And Gracus tried to kill that Kyrie.

“Isn’t that pig Gracus the house’s true enemy?”

“If he’d only funded the Border Patrol Corps properly, we wouldn’t have been driven like this at the opening of the war. He raked taxes so hard—did he just stash the money in his vault?”

“Long live Governor Gracus, loyal servant of Rykenta!”

It made the citizens feel as if their hard-won hope and stability had been smashed by the governor’s own hand.

“Why is Heir Traysan backing a man like that?”

“I thought he was competent—seems he’s better at taking bribes.”

“This is why a foster heir shouldn’t lead a house. He thinks it’s not his, so he does as he pleases. Look at Lady Andromeda, how calmly she does her share.”

Public opinion for Traysan, Gracus’s patron, began to fall into a steady skid.

“…Is that so.”

Nereus received a sequence of reports from his adjutant.

“It seems the mood has completely turned.”

The adjutant raised a salute with his left hand—the right had been cut off in the previous night’s battle.

Nereus offered neither wry smile nor platitude.

Instead he summoned an Engravers’ Iron Citadel artisan and gifted him a thousand-gold magi-device prosthetic.

“You may go.”

“Yes…”

Tears streaming, the adjutant withdrew.

Should I have assigned him a Knight and paid for sword lessons…?

Watching his adjutant’s back, Nereus felt something he hadn’t in a long time—regret.

Kyrie.

And him?

Is he blaming himself for that night?

Hearts were unknowable as stormclouds; life in Astreos was one that could be seen only through lightning-swift action.

‘After we captured Gracus and searched his office, we found letters exchanged with the Royal Stellite Line.’

‘I’ll think through how to bind Gracus to Traysan and the Royals. If another house intervened, His Highness the Patriarch will have no choice but to take our side.’

Recalling Kyrie’s words made at least one thing certain.

Such a thing wouldn’t be repeated.

It felt un-Blue-Knight-like, and yet at other times most Blue Knight of all.

He wanted to win, too.

He believed they felt the same.

Ooooooh!

At that moment Kyrie stared at the figure rising over his Stigma and restrained a shrill cheer.

Hold it. This is not a time to caper with joy.

【Sub-Objective 1: Hero of the People】

【You have received the expectations of over 500,000 subjects. The subjects believe you will send them home.】

【Failure Penalty: Celestial Lightning Body synchronization −100%】

【Success Reward 1: Celestial Lightning Body synchronization +100%】

【Success Reward 2: For overachievement, +1% Celestial Lightning Body synchronization per additional 10,000】

【Progress: …】

There had been a reason the “Progress” figure hadn’t settled the other day.

【‘Success Reward 2: For overachievement, +1% Celestial Lightning Body synchronization per additional 10,000.’】

【You have achieved a record-setting figure.】

【You are now the hero of all Spiramentaon citizens.】

【Celestial Lightning Body synchronization increases by 50%.】

One percent per ten thousand.

Fifty percent for five hundred thousand.

Spiramentaon’s population was about a million.

It meant, effectively, the expectation of nearly everyone.

Rapture wrapped his body, and the Celestial Lightning Body surged again.

His Celestial Lightning Body synchronization exceeded 1,000%.

【Sub-Objective 2: …】

A second sub-objective surfaced.

Chapter 87

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