A certain city in Rikenta.

A dark back alley untouched even by starlight.

It was inside a building thick with the smell of mold.

"You have come."

People in hooded robes sat gathered around a round table.

"Comrades, I hear Orcail has been defeated."

A man who had just taken his seat opened his mouth.

"Defeated? Is he not direct-line pureblood as well?"

"If that is true, then the crack in power has begun in earnest!"

"No. Not a crack, but liberation!"

A storm of reactions followed.

"The Blue Knight of Astreos, the one-eyed Oathbearer, Kyrie the Lightning Sword, has pried that gap open. This is not chance, but the inevitability of history!"

Their tone was intensely theatrical.

"That is rash and excessive goodwill. No matter how merciful and fair he may be, he is still an adopted son of a great house, an oppressor who received the middle name of Astreion!"

Since authority that did not rely on the stars was still difficult to distinguish from a moral struggle for the stage.

"That is right, comrade. Kyrie too is one who inherited the blood of a great house. What we want is not a new authority, but the end of all authority."

"He captured Erica of Rikenta, cut down the senior adopted son of Astreos, and struck down a cadet branch of the royal family. He even stood against the loathsome Papal See. What more do you need? Has he not proven it in blood and footsteps?"

Upon that stage, one young man defended Kyrie, and one middle-aged man doubted Kyrie.

"What we shouted with our mouths alone for hundreds of years, he has made real with sword and lightning!"

The young man defending Kyrie poured out a fiery speech.

"But those who receive power always walk the same road. Today's revolutionary becomes tomorrow's tyrant. If we cannot accomplish it solely with the hands of us human comrades, then we will once again bow our heads beneath the starlight, doing nothing but stand in awe of those blessings and contracts."

The middle-aged man seated opposite him mocked him heatedly.

That moral struggle ended there.

Bang!

A fist came down on the table.

It was a hand trained like a knight's.

"The argument is over."

The seat of honor at the innermost side of the room.

"The revolution does not compromise. The revolution is completed not through mercy, but through resolve. We pursue not dreams, but reality."

The man with a knight's hand declared it flatly.

"......"

The flame of the lamp trembled.

Everyone's gaze turned to him.

The eyes that held flame wavered as well.

"Comrades, tonight, we strike. We turn the dream of night into reality."

A vow made not to the stars, but to oneself, spread through the room.

"It is a struggle without compromise!"

"Tonight, the revolution of Rikenta begins!"

Between held breaths, short cheers burst out.

"Ah, revolution!"

The light in the men's eyes was blindly straight and true, every one of them.

Eyes that only those who never once doubt that they themselves are justice can possess.

Blue Knights, Navigators, Oathbearers, Red Knights, Cathedral Knights, they all possessed those same eyes.

At dim dawn.

Erica looked over the battlefield.

What a mess.

The jungle through which war had passed had been devastated.

In the aftermath of Windspout, great trees had been ripped out by the roots and toppled over, and flames shot up from bushes struck by Lightning Strike.

"This way! Gather them here!"

"Move! Anyone who drags his feet will get the whip!"

The noncommissioned officers of Kyrie's army and Nereus's army shouted as they drove the ordinary-soldier prisoners of Orcail's army into an open clearing.

"Navigator Yugdrios. Ah, thank you."

By contrast, the Navigators were escorted beside warm campfires.

With help from Kyrie's retainers, the Navigators were disarmed and handed bowls of soup thick with meat and mulled wine boiled with fruit.

"I am Navigator Arsen. Ah, your Thunder Shot was truly exhilarating."

"Blue Knight Labelsis. Not at all, sir. I only barely defeated you with supporting fire from the field guns. If our deputy battalion commander had been even a little more inexperienced, you would have taken this officer prisoner."

The Navigators and Blue Knights praised one another's valor and bargained over ransom.

It was common sense in the Empire of the Stars.

And yet Ortupios had no intention of leaving either my life or my honor intact.

No matter that they had been enemies until recently, one could not treat brothers and sisters who had contracted with the same Constellations carelessly.

Once, they all would have bowed their heads equally beneath me.

Watching that sight, Erica gave a bitter smile.

"Sir Kyrie!"

"His Excellency the Lightning Sword has returned!"

Kyrie had just come back.

"My lord!"

Deputy Battalion Commander Joi looked ready to faint, drenched in sweat and soot.

Even in that state, he approached Kyrie and made his report.

"The prisoners have all been accounted for, sir. Thirty-three surrendered Navigators, one hundred sixty-three knights, and approximately five thousand six hundred soldiers from retainers on down, sir."

His low, rough voice rang out sharply.

"Good work."

Kyrie nodded.

He turned his head toward Erica and lifted a hand, then walked over to her himself.

"You heard, right? Thirty-three Navigators alone, and more than five thousand troops."

"Well, it was hardly too far away to hear."

Erica gave a light shrug.

"We can resupply once we go back into the city. And since at least a dozen of the Navigators were imprisoned with you, you should be able to keep that many under control, right?"

But Kyrie said something that Erica could no longer take so lightly.

"Are you saying you would place them under my charge?"

Erica's eyes widened.

Did he hit his head hard? Or overheat his nerves?

If this was a misunderstanding, it would be unbearably embarrassing.

Would it not be like boiling the cheese fondue before anyone had even thought of handing out the bread.

"Yeah."

Kyrie nodded with a faint but refreshing smile.

"I already released you, so I can't keep treating you as a prisoner forever, can I? Since we're the ones invading, I can't just let all those prisoners go, and I can't kill them either. And I can't command them myself when I come from another house. Why? Is it awkward because they're former traitors?"

Erica could not open her mouth.

You do not fear me.

The firelight of the campfire wavered red and lit the corners of her eyes.

"......"

For an instant, Erica saw the eyes of Deputy Commander Joi, who was standing one step behind Kyrie.

Yellow eyes filled with all manner of emotion.

Erica was familiar with that emotion.

That is only natural.

Someone who had been born a commoner, become a soldier, then a retainer, and then another retainer still, could not help but envy someone who had been a princess from birth, remained a princess even after becoming a prisoner, and was still a princess even after being released.

Only the shape of that envy was somewhat unfamiliar.

Joi, covered in dirt, ash, and blood, and Erica, without so much as a single roughened edge, formed a strange contrast with Kyrie standing between them.

"My wife."

"W-what did you say?!"

"My dear, my love, my lady."

Kyrie shattered that contrast in an instant.

His bright blue single eye curved into a sly smile.

"No, no. You!"

Erica could not contain herself at the ticklish sensation spreading through her hands and feet.

"Even if it's awkward, I'm counting on you. There's no one else I can leave it to but you."

Kyrie finished with a chuckle.

"Do you... trust me?"

For the moment Erica erased Joi from her mind and looked only at Kyrie.

"What else could I possibly do right now. I don't use people I can't trust, and once I use someone, I trust them. That's all."

Kyrie answered calmly, then turned his gaze to Joi.

"Is that everything? It looked like they brought tens of thousands."

"Ah, there are many small remnants that retreated, each taking hundreds with the Navigators and knights, sir. They may respond with guerrilla warfare, but they may instead come surrendering, sir."

Joi jolted and reported at once.

Erica thought Joi's voice sounded oddly high, but even so she studied Kyrie's face.

Crackle, crackle.

A gentle smile on a face turned faintly red by the campfire glow.

Saying something like that with that kind of expression is cheating.

Erica clenched her fingertips tight and nodded.

It looks like I am about to play the role of warlord commander one more time. This time not as a fugitive, but as a challenger.

She had no intention whatsoever of betraying that trust.

I already succeeded in that challenge, so if I succeed in this one too, it will be perfect.

The fact that the person Kyrie trusted now, when he was the very one whom Andromeda trusted and relied upon so deeply, was Erica herself, was more than enough reason she must never betray him.

At that moment, Kyrie looked into the fire and thought of the Myriad Star Church.

If Ortupios claims that I was the principal force behind this invasion, and the Church and royal family accept that claim, things become troublesome. They could distort it as Astreos applying external pressure on Rikenta and shaking the balance among the Six Great Houses. If I put a few thousand troops in Erica's hands, that will not happen.

He did not spare even a thought for Erica's betrayal.

From the moment I freed her from captivity, whether she had an army or not, her danger was the same. If she fires one Air Cannon into my tent while I'm sleeping, it's over anyway, so what of it.

A realist does not agonize over problems that produce no answer no matter how much they are considered.

First, let us enter the city. We need supplies and repairs too. The army took more damage than expected.

Kyrie raised his head.

He looked far off toward the table mountains.

Upon those mountains, flat on top and ringed on every side by sheer cliffs, beautiful white stone buildings could be seen.

I headed toward Orcail's city.

To enter the city, we had to cross a river.

But no matter where I looked, there was no bridge.

"What is this?"

"There is a dock over there, sir."

"It's only a few rowboats. If we ferry twenty-three thousand troops across with those, it'll take ten years."

"Engineering corps! Engineering corps! Sir Hari! Please look over here for a moment, sir!"

I felt uneasy from that very moment.

That unease became reality exactly as it was.

"Was there a war here too?"

The city was as much of a mess as the jungle where we had fought.

The trees woven into walls had all rotted away, and the stone retaining walls had collapsed by half.

The sewers, roughly dug out of the earth, were clogged solid with filth and fallen leaves, and swarms of flies buzzed above them.

"The smell, fuck."

Joi let out a curse, then hurriedly checked my expression.

"My apologies, sir."

"Forget it."

I did not accept her apology.

I could not condemn her for sin merely because she had expressed a fact somewhat roughly.

We, meaning myself and Joi, together with Nereus and Erica, rode side by side through the city.

"Kyrie! Kyrie! Kyrie!"

"Erica! Erica! Erica!"

"Your Highness the Princess! Your Highness the Princess!"

A countless crowd waved their hands.

Every last one of them was gaunt, their ribs visible.

I turned to look at the Rikenta Navigators.

Erica lowered her head, and Hieros turned back in exactly the same motion as I did.

"Rikenta is not a house that lives by farming."

After a short silence, Erica opened her mouth.

"Then what?"

"Commerce. They sell spices from the Eastern Continent to the Empire of the Stars and buy magic tools, then sell the Empire's magic tools to the Eastern Continent and buy wheat, silk, and spices. That is how they built wealth through intermediary trade."

I recalled the meaning of the office of Viceroy.

Originally it had not been a noble title, but the term for a governor who ruled a colony as large as the homeland itself.

The office of governor, dispatched during the Ancient Empire of Evil to administer the territory that is now Rikenta, had somehow turned into a hereditary title in the process by which the Ancient Empire of Evil collapsed and was reorganized into the Empire of the Stars.

"But House Rikenta's ocean-going navigation is not technology, but power."

"You said that Navigators are distinguished not by combat power, but by whether or not they can raise wind and cross the sea?"

"They hardly even need sailors."

Erica whispered like a quiet but chilly wind.

I recalled the ship Orcail had arrived on.

That giant vessel more than 200 meters long.

Without power, it was too large to move.

"So because they have cheap grain imported from the Eastern Continent, they have no need to foster agriculture, and because they can buy as many magic tools as they like with spices, they have no need to foster industry. And since even those imports and exports are carried out through power, there is no particular reason for seamanship or shipbuilding to amount to much either."

I felt like I understood why Rikenta had become like this.

"All the more so because the land is barren and full of monster beasts."

Erica did not deny it.

"And that is why the army is strong too?"

"Because it is one of the few ways to survive."

I understood how Rikenta's field gunners could stand against a Blue Knight's charge without running.

Even if they fled, they had no tomorrow.

The road came to an end.

The cliff of a table mountain rose straight up.

Mechanical elevators hung from cables twisted out of thick iron wire.

"Go up and see. You will be surprised."

We rode the mechanical elevator up to the top of the table mountain.

The higher we rose, the lower the humidity became, and a pleasant wind began to blow.

"Wow."

"Remarkable."

"It feels like we came to another world, sir."

The summit we reached truly seemed like heaven above the clouds.

Nereus and Joi too marveled in pure admiration.

Between splendidly rising trees stood ancient temple-style buildings lined with straight columns, neat as rows of white teeth.

Flags made of eastern silk fluttered lightly.

Clear water pooled shallowly, then flowed away pure and bright.

A paradise where not even a single bug could be found, let alone a monster beast.

"Everything up here is beautiful."

Erica muttered low.

"They have scraped together only the most luxurious goods of both the Eastern Continent and the Empire of the Stars. Clad in silk garments and delighting in sweet pastries, listening to tales told by nobles who came from other table mountains, the nobles spend their long whole lives looking only higher, only toward the sky-castle of Rikentrion, without a single one of them thinking about what is happening below."

I thought of Astreion.

At Astreion too, the Prime was more beautiful and better maintained than the inner fortress, and the inner fortress more than the outer fortress, but the gap had not been this vast.

Only then did I discover the ultimate source of the discomfort I had been feeling all along.

This system was inefficient for everyone.

Because it functioned only on the premise that the trade network kept working properly.

If trade stopped because of chaos like war, then even the Navigators would be left sucking their fingers.

What kind of farce was that.

"Joi."

"Yes."

"Set the encampment below the cliff. And send soldiers to search around the docks. There must be grain warehouses there. Once food is supplied, we get out as fast as possible."

"It shall be done, sir."

It was not a city where I wanted to stay long.

That night.

I stayed in Orcail's palace.

The buildings of the city, built at such high altitude that not even a single bug could be found, emphasized aesthetics over practicality.

Looking at those antique yet refined snow-white marble columns made me think of Erica.

The image of her draped in eastern silk, walking among them, suited the place very well.

"Come out."

Crackle.

I let out a low sigh and spoke.

Forget Erica, some bastard that looked like a caterpillar had shown up on my Bio-radar.

Whoosh.

A figure leaped down from behind the corridor.

"Did Ortupios send you? Or the Myriad Star Church?"

"No. The Dawn Council."

"The Dawn Council?"

"Comrades of revolution who will drive away the starlight and summon the dawn of mankind. I am Jacobin III."

He seemed, for the moment, to be someone not fully in his right mind.

Chapter 176

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