Three days later.
The morning air atop the wall was cold.
The guards of Arku had barely finished changing shifts before they were back at the watchtower.
Because of the blockade and surprise inspections that had continued through the night,
the wall felt less like a wall of “defense” than one of “surveillance.”
It was the fourth morning since the council had exploded.
The city greeted the day without having slept,
and the blockade order tightened around its throat.
The people were growing exhausted, and the gendarmes were becoming rougher.
Amid it all, the word “reinforcements” began to circulate.
The Empire is coming.
Some clung to those words like hope,
while others felt them like a rope around their necks.
One guard in the watchtower narrowed his eyes.
“Over there…”
His fingertip pointed north.
Dust.
The dust did not look as though it was “coming,” but surging forward.
The air above the road changed first.
Without realizing it, the guard adjusted his grip on his spear.
The cold metal clung to his palm.
Someone, wearing the face of a man who had missed the moment when he ought to laugh,
stood with his mouth open and swallowed his breath.
The city, unable to sleep for four days,
was now growing tense even at the sight of dust.
A long, low cloud of dust rising over the road.
It was not a trace made by a favorable wind,
but one that appeared only when many feet struck the ground in the same rhythm.
The guard beside him swallowed.
“So they’re coming.”
It was not a question.
It was confirmation.
People crowded onto the wall.
A senior gendarme came up, followed by the officer in charge of the gate guards.
Someone muttered, “It’s only been four days,”
while someone else trailed off with, “Still…”
“They received the message, assembled troops… and did all that in four days?”
“They shouldn’t even have had time to gather reinforcements…”
Their voices were tinged with suspicion.
“Four days…”
Someone muttered again.
The words did not sound like hope.
The feeling of “too fast”
soon led to “they were prepared from the start.”
The city liked conclusions like that.
That way, it could decide where to direct its anger.
The dust still stretched long across the road,
and to the city, it looked like an answer.
But dust did not lie.
In the distance, a flag came into view.
A crest modeled after the sun.
Beneath it, lines of infantry continued without end.
The dust kicked up as they passed through the road spread in one mass,
as if the road itself were moving.
Someone below the gate spat a curse.
The gendarmes hurried to form ranks, and the gate guards adjusted their spears.
“The gate will be opened. But do not let them inside.”
The order was passed down.
The formality of the request for aid still remained.
For now, “outside” and “inside” had to remain separate.
Everyone knew the Empire was not some unfamiliar entity.
There had long been a small knightly garrison,
and the temple of the Sun God Church branch had taken root in the city long ago.
That only made it more burdensome.
A familiar hand had brought with it, this time, far too large a body.
The gate opened.
Outside the gate, the Imperial vanguard stopped without passing through.
Quietly, as if this place had belonged to them since long ago.
The soldiers split into two groups.
Some spread into a broad defensive formation and swept the surroundings,
while others immediately began inspecting the location where they would be stationed.
Where to pitch the tents, how far to draw the perimeter,
where to draw water from—
their hands moved before words did.
They did not ask.
Nor did they wait for permission.
They measured the tent sites with their eyes,
the perimeter with their feet,
and the waterway with their hands.
If this were “reinforcement,” one would usually speak first.
But they first made a place for themselves.
As if this ground before the gate had always been their camp.
Someone atop the wall swallowed a curse.
A guard watching them spoke in a low voice.
“That’s not… ‘reinforcement.’”
No one could continue the sentence.
There was no need for words.
What unfolded before their eyes was already the answer.
Just then, three people separated from the rest and came toward the gate.
The one standing in front was a knight.
Cedric Belhart.
His armor was neat,
and the decorations on his knees and shoulders were not excessive.
He looked as though he had put on “courtesy” before battle.
Beside him stood a priest of the Sun God Church.
A red cloth wrapped around his neck,
and a sash engraved with a delicate crest hung over his shoulder.
The last was a scribe.
He held a thick leather document case under one arm,
and an envelope in his hand.
The senior gendarme inside the gate stepped forward.
Before crossing the threshold,
Cedric first offered a respectful salute.
“We have come in response to the Arku Council’s request for aid.”
His voice was low and clear.
There was neither disheveled anger nor an excited sense of mission in it.
The senior gendarme gritted his teeth and said,
“The troops remain outside the gate. The details of the request will be discussed at the council.”
Cedric nodded.
“We will comply.”
His gaze rose once toward the top of the wall, then fell again.
The guards and citizens gathered upon the wall.
The moment that gaze touched them, some lowered their heads by reflex.
Not out of respect, but out of habit.
Or fear.
Cedric stepped forward.
The priest and the scribe followed.
As they passed through the gate and headed for the council,
the city’s reaction did not flow in a single direction.
One merchant whispered,
“They’re finally here. Those Silver Moon Order bastards will all be caught now.”
Rather than hope, those words seemed like a recoil from anxiety.
He had the face of someone who felt his mind would only settle if someone was captured.
On the other hand, an old man in an alley spat.
“An army arrives in four days? …They were ready from the start.”
“Didn’t they move before the messenger even got there and back?”
Those words were suspicion.
Suspicion could soon become hostility.
Hostility spread easily.
Especially in a hungry city.
In front of the Sun God Church branch, a priest stood calming the people.
“The Sun will restore order. Do not be swept away by fear.”
Some nodded at those words,
while others passed by with their eyes lowered.
Some believed, some pretended to believe.
And some feared that belief would become a “handle.”
The closer Cedric drew to the council, the quieter the road became.
People stepped aside.
The sight of them giving way looked like order, and also like avoidance.
Gendarmes attached themselves to the procession.
Whether it was protection or surveillance was hard to tell.
When they reached the steps before the council hall,
Cedric took one breath and nodded to the scribe.
The scribe hugged the document case more tightly.
The doors opened.
Inside the council hall, it looked as though the traces of the explosion had been erased,
but they had not been erased completely.
Cracks remained behind newly painted walls, and fissures behind repaired ornaments.
The moment Cedric saw them, his expression did not change.
Only his eyes, for the briefest instant, sank coldly.
The chairman and the councilors rose from their seats.
Some let out breaths of relief,
while others pressed their lips tightly shut.
Some wore “welcome” on their faces,
while others were frightened because that welcome had come too quickly.
Cedric offered a courteous bow.
“Your Excellency, Chairman. I am Cedric of House Belhart.”
The chairman answered with proper courtesy as well.
The angle of his bowed head was correct, but his heart was not aligned with it.
“Sir Cedric. You have come a long…”
The chairman stopped for a moment as he spoke.
Because the words “a long way” did not suit this day.
A distance of three days.
Under normal circumstances, a messenger would go and return,
approval and preparations would be exchanged,
orders to depart would be given,
and only then would the road open—
yet all of that seemed to have been completed in four days.
Cedric did not miss that pause.
But neither did he seize upon it.
Instead, he spoke in a very level voice.
“The request stated that the matter was urgent.”
It was an answer, and yet it was not an answer.
An answer that made one want to ask more.
The scribe stepped forward.
The document case opened, and papers were spread out with orderly hands.
The priest stood silently beside him.
An arrangement that held meaning through presence alone.
Cedric raised his head.
“The Empire has accepted the Arku Council’s request.”
“The deaths of a priest and a knight are a grave matter.”
“Accordingly, we have been granted authority to support the investigation and search.”
The air in the chamber tightened.
A chair on the chairman’s side creaked ever so faintly.
Someone lifted a cup,
then set it down before it touched his lips.
Cedric’s expression remained unchanged.
That composure instead felt like a notice that everything had already been decided.
The priest said nothing,
and that silence filled the empty spaces of the chamber.
Some were expectant, and some grew more afraid.
With a courteous face, Cedric laid out the conditions.
“We require the council’s full cooperation.”
“Joint searches with the gendarmerie. Approval of travel restrictions. Reorganization of the reporting system for those involved.”
“And… in the course of the investigation, the authority of the Sun God Church branch will be partially expanded.”
The chairman’s fingers pressed a little harder against the armrest of his chair for an instant.
Behind him, an opposition councilor’s hand trembled as he set down his cup.
One pro-Empire councilor’s lips twitched.
The word “Finally…” circled only in his throat.
Cedric received all of those reactions without expression.
That was his way.
Opening the door with courtesy,
and tightening the throat with procedure.
Outside the council hall, before the gate, the Imperial soldiers were already tamping down the ground.
The positions of the tents were being set, and the perimeter was being drawn.
The reinforcements had begun.
And to the city,
that beginning resembled an end.