The underground prison.

Drip, drip.

The sound of flowing groundwater echoed.

Kyrie stared down at the woman inside the iron bars like a lighthouse.

“It does not sound like something you truly mean.”

Irritation clung to his voice, the sort that said not to speak nonsense that would never fly.

“It is exactly what I truly mean.”

Blue Hydrangea answered without the slightest movement.

“Your sisterhood is famous, isn’t it?”

Kyrie probed openly.

The marksman school.

The Empire’s finest mercenary corps, whose crest was a firearm crossed over a bouquet woven from a hundred flowers, with a White Flower Star floating above it.

Like the Myriad Star Church, it was an organization that made contracts with a constellation not through bloodline, but through precepts.

Above all, it was also famous for the fact that all of its formal cadets were women.

“So you are saying you would abandon the classmates you lived and endured with for years, and even the juniors who follow you around calling you elder sister? Truly?”

Kyrie’s question was not mockery.

It is as hard to betray oneself as it is to betray others. I searched first for a way not to abandon Andromeda, even staking my soul on it.

It was a question he threw while reflecting on himself.

She is a superhuman soldier too. Those sisters of hers were forged through years of brutal training, shedding blood, sweat, and tears together, establishing bonds like a family and bonds like love. There is no way she could abandon them.

He knew she could not choose the answer of abandoning them.

“Yes. It is because of those classmates and juniors.”

Yet Blue Hydrangea’s manner remained as calm as a flower.

“Hm?”

“There may be four hundred here in this prison now, but when we return to the main school, there are four thousand, forty thousand.”

Only then did Kyrie understand what she meant.

“We are mercenaries. Those who sell blood to buy gold. If my weakness is seized and I begin selling my blood and my sisters’ blood cheaply, then every wielder of power in this Empire will try to do the same. The affection among sisters must be strength, not weakness. So I will protect the affection I share with my sisters of the main school.”

Blue Hydrangea smiled firmly.

That was the identity she could not abandon.

Even bound in chains, a flower was still a flower.

All those acts of breaking and trampling it did was emphasize that beautiful moment all the more.

“Are you not afraid of death?”

Kyrie asked anyway.

“I am afraid.”

Blue Hydrangea closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and whispered brightly, like dawn dew falling.

“But it is the law of nature that flowers bloom and wither. From the day I received the name Blue Hydrangea, I knew such a day would come someday.”

“Ha.”

“My sisters will use my sacrifice as nourishment and go on receiving vast sums of gold from the powerful of this Empire. That is enough to satisfy me.”

At those words, Kyrie burst into a bold laugh before he knew it.

I used to want to speak like that too. I truly wanted, with all sincerity, to be able to believe something like that.

He laughed as a Blue Knight.

Clang!

Kyrie immediately opened the prison door.

He tore away the chains tightening around Blue Hydrangea’s neck, wrists, and ankles.

Regardless of whether she was enemy or ally, she possessed a dignity worthy of respect as a superhuman noble warrior who made a living by the blade just as he did.

Kyrie’s hand touched Blue Hydrangea’s neck and then fell away.

Unexpected.

For a moment, a subtle shift stirred in Blue Hydrangea’s eyes at that unexpectedly delicate touch.

He is different from ordinary Blue Knights. He is neither emotional nor impulsive. But neither is he rational like a gear wheel. Calculating, no... realistic, yet kind by nature? He must have received affection from someone that transcended gain and loss. I heard he was an orphan, though?

She was a vice-captain-class officer of the marksman school, and in her prime she had watched the loves and wars of cadets every single day.

She had a talent for guessing the essence of a person from just a brief conversation.

“We will not continue Ortupios’s contract.”

Kyrie continued, then declared firmly.

“That man was not the rightful head of house, but a vile usurper. Every negotiation and treaty he concluded has been rendered null.”

“I understand.”

Blue Hydrangea lowered her head calmly.

This must be the real point.

Concealing the fact that she was reading his intentions.

“However, I will formally hire your four hundred. All of them.”

Kyrie lowered his voice.

“The mission will be escort duty and hunting in the corpse-waste plains. The term will be while the Elector Princes Council is in session. Draw up an estimate within a week and send it to the castle.”

“I will do so.”

“I will have your sisters all released by today. I will lease an entire high-class inn for you, so stay there.”

“Thank you.”

At the last moment, Blue Hydrangea slowly lifted her head and examined Kyrie’s face.

A faint smile rested in the one eye of the Lightning Blade as he was turning away.

So he never intended to kill us from the beginning. Did he also know that I had not truly resolved myself to die?

Blue Hydrangea realized that he too had been reading her thoughts.

He is not like a Blue Knight.

Kyrie walked away with light steps, as though he found it amusing.

Step, step, step.

Bang!

When the iron door shut, the damp silence returned.

“Hoo, ha.”

Blue Hydrangea followed with her eyes for a long while the strap of the eyepatch trailing behind him until it disappeared, then let out her breath.

As the tension she had held for so long loosened, her whole body sagged.

Countless faces passed through her mind.

Silver Rose, Golden Cotton, Green Orchid....

The names of sisters who had laughed shoulder to shoulder with her came one after another. Names she had saved alive, and names already erased.

“Girls.”

Blue Hydrangea murmured lowly.

It was a promise.

As a senior, as an elder sister, as a classmate, there was a vow she had to keep without fail.

“I will get you out soon.”

Blue Hydrangea wet her palms with the trickling groundwater and washed her face.

She firmly retied her disheveled hair and brushed the dirt and dust from her red coat uniform.

She boldly tore away the shredded garter belt.

Now all that remained was dignity.

“L-Lady Blue Hydrangea?”

Several guards approached.

Their eyes were a mixture of vigilance and respect.

“We will guide you to the inn first. It is by order of His Highness Kyrie. You will likely be able to receive your weapons back soon as well.”

They cautiously held out her shoulder cape and armband.

“Thank you. But that will not be necessary.”

Blue Hydrangea accepted her garments in a manner that was humble but not servile.

She draped the shoulder cape over her left arm and put the armband on her right arm.

“My juniors are here. I cannot leave first by myself. I will leave only after I have confirmed that all of them have been released.”

She smiled with the chill nobility of a hydrangea.

The flowers of the marksman school were beautiful even when trampled.

She remained in that prison of her own accord and closed her eyes again.

A few days later.

“Your Highness Kyrie. This is the estimate you requested.”

Blue Hydrangea visited the royal palace again.

Beside her stood a young cadet with neatly braided black hair hanging in two plaits and round glasses.

Unlike the time she had been seen in the prison, there was a healthy flush on Blue Hydrangea’s face now.

Her red uniform had been pressed perfectly straight, and her black shoulder cape and armband gleamed with a sheen.

She no longer bore the bearing of a prisoner hovering at the threshold of death, but of a commander once more, worthy of the marksman school, the Empire’s finest mercenary corps.

“Are these numbers correct?”

“They are, Your Highness.”

I slowly turned the final page of the estimate.

Though she was so sorrowful and yet so dignified, my gaze remained fixed only on the numbers in the estimate.

Even if one or two zeroes were missing here, it would still not be a small sum.

“If your intention is to avenge your sisters this way, then I would call it a great success.”

A smile rested on Blue Hydrangea’s face at my words.

“They do say that hiring the marksman school produces roughly the same economic effect as being attacked by the marksman school.”

I drew a breath, then tapped with my finger the place where I would stamp the estimate.

“But if one feared such things, one could never win victory in the first place. And I doubt you would wish to serve under someone who could not obtain victory.”

My fingertips trembled slightly, but my voice came out bold.

“I will have it sent over within a day or two.”

In truth, it was something worth pouring out untold wealth for.

Ortupios’s private assets had already been confiscated, and the coming Elector Princes Council was the stage on which my life would be wagered.

“Is that child your soeur?”

I pointed at the bespectacled cadet standing quietly beside Blue Hydrangea.

It would have been discourteous to summon them to the reception room and send them away too quickly.

“I did not expect you to know that term.”

Blue Hydrangea’s eyes widened slightly.

“I was top of my academy class, for all that.”

“But no. My soeur died in battle long ago. This child is still only a second-year, currently training in the general affairs department of the student council.”

“That is regrettable.”

The moment I said it, regret flooded in.

But Blue Hydrangea calmly shook her head.

“The White Flower Star must have taken her in. She gave us eternal beauty, and in exchange makes us fall at our most beautiful moment.”

“In that respect, she resembles the thunderous star as well.”

“Yes. But where the thunderous star deems beautiful one who lived vividly and departed vividly, the White Flower Star loves even more the sight of one beautiful falling vividly.”

The eyes marked by that tear mole curved.

It was not a maddened smile, but a smile that had accepted madness.

“Get some rest.”

“Yes.”

I sent the two of them away and let out a long sigh.

At the marksman school, “year” referred not to age, but to rank.

First-year was the training course, second-year the main combat force, third-year commander class.

That Blue Hydrangea, who on the outside looked not even twenty, might in truth contain within her a battle-hardened veteran of who knew how many years.

Put differently, that made her all the more capable of reading what lay inside others.

She had seemed to know it.

That I had no intention of killing her.

That I was trying to read her thoughts.

Is she my kind?

The marksman school took in orphan girls and raised them into marksmen through brutal training.

A superhuman noble warrior of low birth, now carrying out command duties as well.

Since she had passed through a curve of growth like mine, it would not have been strange if her way of thinking resembled mine as well.

Whether we would become people who understood one another well, or sink into a kind of hatred of one’s own kind, only experience would tell.

Still, with this, the marksman school matter was settled for the time being.

Four hundred cadets and Blue Hydrangea, and the contract that would continue after this.

Now all that remained was the Elector Princes Council.

【Hero’s Journey Step 12】

【Step 5: Attend the Elector Princes Council】

【Detailed Objective 2: The Protagonist of Tonight!】

【Ensure that your own agenda is discussed as a core matter at the Elector Princes Council】

【Reward for success: Thunderbolt Body +100%】

【Penalty for failure: Thunderbolt Body -100%】

I checked once more the lines of text that had risen on the stigma.

This time, the goal demanded by the thunderous star and my own will aligned perfectly.

All I had to do was convene the council.

The agenda was already prepared.

I was not particularly worried.

Rikenta, House Astreos, Flammerios, the Myriad Star Church.

If just those four powers gathered, a majority would already be secured.

The royal house could not be separated from the Myriad Star Church, so that made five already.

If five of the eight gathered, it would be difficult for the remaining three to turn away.

The course of the Elector Princes Council had already been decided.

“Erica.”

“You have come?”

I went to the Viceroy’s office and relayed the result of my negotiations with Blue Hydrangea.

Erica nodded as she read through the documents.

“Her people’s authorities will indeed be especially effective against skeletal specimens. Their bullets have excellent penetration, so they will dig into the gaps between bones, and their eyes are accurate, so they will be able to find the core well.”

“When do you think departure would be possible?”

“If we think only of departure, we could leave as early as tomorrow. The problem is that if we depart tomorrow, we might never be able to return.”

At her words, we smiled bitterly at the same time.

“No matter how much the church supports us, there is a limit.”

“That is right. The moment you and I leave our posts, they will rise everywhere. Especially in the east. The lords who built their wealth through trade with the Eastern Continent will rise all at once.”

“Then we need to settle things before we go.”

“Do you have something in mind?”

Erica looked at me with the expectant eyes of a child, fresh as a spring breeze.

“Of course.”

I smiled like storm clouds before the tempest.

For a time, Erica and Kyrie’s conquest of Rikenta made the entire Empire buzz.

“Did you hear?”

“Of course. They say Rikenta has a new head of house.”

“I heard it is some brat in his mid-twenties.”

“Whoever does it, it will be better than the last one.”

The words passing from place to place were mixed with wariness and expectation.

When the proclamation of the Myriad Star Church went out, the fervor grew even greater.

“We recognize Erica of Rikentrion Rikenta as Viceroy of Wind, and Kyrie of Astrion Astreos as Grand Duke of Wind. Furthermore, in order to respond to the rampant emergence of mutant demonic beasts, we convene the Elector Princes Council.”

Rumors concerning the mutant demonic beasts were already spreading rapidly among the people.

“Too many mercenary bands have been saying they saw ‘strange goblins’ these days.”

“They say the slimes that were purifying the underground waterways have all mutated.”

“They say contact has already been lost with several mountain villages.”

Following the roads along which the merchant companies traveled, unease spread through every territory.

But at the same time, the fact that the Myriad Star Church, which had protected humankind for thousands of years, and the blood relatives of the great houses, sworn to the constellations, had stepped forward in person steadied people’s hearts.

“Long live His Highness Grand Duke Kyrie!”

“O Myriad Star, bless His Highness Kyrie!”

“O constellations, shine upon us!”

Hymns and cheers burst out everywhere.

The main castle of Astreion.

The residence of the head of house, where rain, thunder, and lightning never ceased.

Andromeda came down after finishing what had now truly become a mere formality, the monthly report.

It happened exactly as I thought! When Nereus moved the armies of southern Astreos, the Navigators of northern Rikenta quieted down. Thanks to that, my younger brother will be able to move much more freely. Ah, my younger brother! Your elder sister is always thinking of you like this. Let us meet at the Elector Princes Council! Do you understand?

A loosened smile bloomed across her lips.

Yet Kyrie of Rikenta was sunk in precisely the opposite thought.

So the Elector Princes Council is being convened, and House Astreos’s armies have halted. It was the right move to shift the Red Knights and make it known that we are a community of shared interests. Yes. As expected, every power that moves in this Empire is calculating the share it can seize in its own hands. I have to climb onto that calculation as well. So that at least those on my side can keep moving together.

Even so, the conclusion was similar.

That was how siblings were.

Chapter 192

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