The number of knights belonging to the imperial palace—that is, the knights of the palace who served the emperor as their lord—was estimated to be close to a thousand.
A number that plainly showed why the empire was the hegemon of the continent and a superpower.
Even if that included skill users and other special units, it was still an extraordinary number.
However, not all knights belonging to the imperial palace remained within the palace.
Aside from a few main knight orders, they protected the capital and its surrounding areas and were charged with managing those regions.
Even without the knights, the palace’s permanent personnel exceeded a thousand, so unless it was wartime, it was rare for every imperial palace knight order to assemble at the palace.
And right now, that very rare event was taking place in the imperial palace. A summons had been issued to every imperial palace knight order.
“In truth, knights like me who stay in the imperial palace are the true knights of His Majesty the Emperor. This kind of assembly order might be bewildering, but you’ll be fine if you stay beside me. Don’t worry too much.”
At the words of Dorman, a member of the Imperial Third Knight Order, Claire’s head gave the faintest nod.
“I see.”
It was the second day since she had come to the imperial palace for her practical training, and the summons had been issued.
Because Dorman was also from the Academy, he had attached himself to Claire from the first day and explained this and that to her, but much of his conversation was laced with empty bravado.
In other words, he was hitting on her.
“Haha. You don’t have to be so nervous. This is already the fourth summons this month. Well, I’m used to it.”
“The fourth? Didn’t you say there was no reason for all the imperial palace knight orders to gather unless it was wartime?”
The area around them was crowded with knights moving to find their positions and gather beneath the flags symbolizing each knight order.
Every last one of these people was a knight.
And not just any knights, but elite knights of the imperial palace, positions said to be so difficult to obtain.
Such people were gathering before the entrance of the vast Palace of Envoys and lining up in order.
As Claire asked while looking around, Dorman burst into what he considered a manly, hearty laugh and reached out to pat Claire on the head.
Of course, Claire, frowning as hard as she could, neatly dodged him.
“Hahaha! That means there have been four matters important enough that all of us elite knight orders had to gather.”
“……So what are they?”
“Haha! Important meetings held by very important people.”
“What kind of meetings?”
“……Hahaha! Th-that’s confidential, the kind of thing that must not be leaked carelessly……”
“Are we attending the meeting too?”
“No, not that.”
“Then why do so many troops gather every time there’s a meeting?”
“Mm, well……”
The more the questions continued, the more confidence drained from Dorman’s voice as he answered.
In truth, he knew nothing at all.
No matter how important the meeting was, there had never been a case where every imperial palace knight order was summoned.
And yet this was already the fourth time this month.
All he had learned in the meantime was that it was a meeting related to some expeditionary force, that the Sword Saint, who had been the commander of that expeditionary force, would personally participate, and that they had to prepare because there might be some kind of armed demonstration with the other party during the process.
But he could not say it exactly as it was.
Hadn’t he realized it by instinct just yesterday, right after meeting Claire?
‘Ah, it’s this woman.’
He had met his destined partner.
A rare beauty.
And on top of that, a fellow Academy graduate.
She was an angel sent by the gods for his marriage.
Not even a minute after meeting her, he had already planned their happy future.
‘Two dependable sons and two daughters as cute as rabbits. And the eldest…… since it’ll combine both our names, Clorman would be good. Then the second can be Croman, the third Saloman……’
So he squeezed out everything he knew and conveyed it to her.
As a senior, and as a man, it was not very impressive to admit there was something he did not know, and Claire, who had been indifferent since yesterday, was showing strong interest for the first time.
“The people in the meeting are from the same expeditionary force, and ah, what the expeditionary force is, see, they’re the ones who went directly into that strange gate where the monsters came out and defeated the source. Ah, of course, I was invited too, but I was so busy that I had no choice but to refuse. Ah, I’m older than you, so you can just call me Oppa. Anyway, so this meeting is actually……”
If one stripped away about half of the pointless talk, then stripped away half of the nonsense from what remained, a certain amount of truth could be heard.
Claire focused on two things.
That there was a unit called the expeditionary force that had gone directly into that black gate, and that the Sword Saint Vitalianus would personally participate in this meeting.
“Ah? Lord Vitalianus? Hahaha! So you respect Lord Vitalianus too. Well, he is incredible. I see him almost every day in the imperial palace, so I’m used to it by now. If you want, I can speak to Lord Vitalianus and……”
Just as Dorman was losing himself and spouting nonsense, a shout finally rang out.
“Dorman! You idiot! What are you standing around for? Get over here, now!”
It was the sub-unit leader of the unit Dorman belonged to.
“Ah, Sub-unit Leader. It’s not that. The trainee said she was curious about something……”
“You dimwit bastard! Is that important right now? Shut your mouth and stand properly!”
“Yes, yes sir!”
Dorman, now fully stiffened with discipline, found his place, and Claire also had to stand at attention beside him in confusion.
Dorman might have looked a little slow, but he was an elite knight who had belonged to the imperial palace for a full six years.
And yet this was how he was treated.
Even after graduating from the Academy and spending six years as a knight of the imperial palace, he was still at the very bottom.
It likely was not because Dorman alone was lacking.
Most people were probably the same.
That was how vast the imperial palace was, and how overflowing it was with talent.
‘……As expected.’
As expected, this would not do.
If she simply followed along like everyone else, drifting with the current, she would ultimately only go through the same process.
At this rate, even six years, seven years, ten years would not be enough to stand at the highest place, or even somewhere she could simply see him.
At that rate, when would she ever look at the same thing he did and stand by his side?
She needed a bolder, more certain decision.
“……It’s time. Do not move!”
With someone’s shout, the front of the already quiet Palace of Envoys fell utterly silent, with not a single sound to be heard.
Nearly a thousand knights had gathered, yet there was not the slightest movement. It was a sight truly befitting the imperial palace knight orders.
A tension began to rise slowly from the very front.
Claire simply could not understand it.
Because she knew nothing.
Why so many knights, the entire imperial palace knight orders famed for their strength, had to be summoned for a single meeting.
What the senior knights at the front were so tense about, and what they were so wary of.
Because she knew nothing, she could not know the reason either.
Some time passed like that.
The Palace of Envoys, where important envoys from other nations were received.
A group of people appeared, coming to enter the Palace of Envoys where the knights stood in formation, leaving a path open.
As the flags symbolizing the knight orders fluttered high, and as she saw them pass each one and approach the entrance, Claire’s eyes widened.
The face of the person at the very front was exceedingly familiar.
‘……Professor?’
Professor Sirbert, whom she had been too busy to even see for the past few months.
The person who had personally brought her to Imenia through Hio’s introduction, and who was known to the world as a master of telekinesis.
That Sirbert was entering the palace together with dozens of people while being guarded against by countless knights.
Only then did a rumor suddenly come to mind.
Expeditionary force, Sirbert, the Saint of Black Wings—various words combined, and something seemed to flicker before her, within reach yet just out of grasp.
Thinking back, even her first meeting with Sirbert had been far from ordinary.
Had he not come to find her himself through a large-scale spatial transfer at a single word from Hio?
And even afterward, had he not often shown himself to be closely connected with Hio?
‘There’s something there.’
A strong intuition came to her.
The meeting taking place now, the expeditionary force.
This was a massive current.
She could not know exactly what it was, but it was a great river in which giants such as Hio Pavlenko, the Sword Saint Vitalianus, and Sirbert were deeply involved.
An irresistible current that could not be defied even if all the countless elite knights gathered here were combined.
And she had, by chance, reached somewhere near it.
This might be an opportunity that would never come again.
If she could not resist the current, then at the very least she had to ride along where it led.
If she failed to do so, she would be left far behind, with no choice but to run until her legs tore apart.
‘……No matter what.’
Claire’s crimson eyes, holding fire within them, turned toward the distant Palace of Envoys, toward the inside of that lofty palace.
* * *
All inhabitants of this world possessed innate skills.
It was merely a question of whether they manifested them, or failed to manifest them until the day they died.
And even if one discovered and manifested one’s skill, that might not be the end.
A person might manifest one skill and train only that to death, but in truth, there was no way of knowing how many innate skills they possessed.
Usually, one skill was the end of it, but skills were something that could exist in twos, threes, or even fours.
Those who used two or more skills were called multi-skill users. They held a slightly more special position than ordinary skill users.
However, having many skills was not necessarily a good thing.
What mattered most was how well they fit with one’s own traits.
Only then could one develop one’s skills further in connection with those traits.
In this place, those who evolved their skills to an extremely powerful realm—those who, by the standards of possessors, could wield high-level skills—were called “Awakened Ones” and regarded with awe.
High-level skills were so difficult to obtain that even possessors, who grew strong at extremely rapid speeds, could only raise one or two over three years.
Sirbert’s “Telekinesis,” Ailights’s “Enchantment”—once a skill entered the high level, the power and variables of that single skill became immense, which was why they were called such.
Then what was a “Trait-bearer”?
It referred to those who used both the sword and skills.
One could not be called a Trait-bearer simply because one swung a sword.
When a knight who had reached the level of drawing aura outside the sword—at the very least, a knight of the fourth rank or above—could also use skills above a certain level, such a person was called a Trait-bearer and, along with Awakened Ones, was evaluated as high-ranking combat power.
A knight who controlled aura was, by that existence alone, a powerful weapon and a core of strategy.
But imagine such a knight also using skills of middle grade or higher.
That was nothing less than a calamity on the battlefield and a terrible nightmare for the enemy.
As such, Trait-bearers were not common, and people like Royal Knight Damon Liefte, or the former commander of the Second Knight Order and possessor, Antiphus Praman, were called top-class Trait-bearers.
However, this place right now was somewhere such common sense of the world did not apply.
It was a place where one could see multi-skill users, Awakened Ones, knights on the verge of becoming superhumans, and even Trait-bearers simply by turning one’s head.
“The Abyss Gate will be announced to the world under the name Demonic Realm. As the hegemonic nation of the continent, the empire will inform all nations that entry into the Demonic Realm is forbidden, and will request cooperation in times of crisis. The Adventurers’ Guild and the empire will undertake the conquest as a single expeditionary force. Vitalianus Mahel will be appointed as the official commander, but as independent organizations, you must coordinate your opinions with each other and decide the direction. That is all. Are there any objections?”
The meeting hall where the possessors who had participated in the expedition to the 52nd floor and the empire’s most elite figures had gathered.
At the highest seat sat Sylvia Verden, displaying the majesty of the emperor of the empire, and directly behind her stood the Death Knight, Theordo, letting black aura flow like a haze.
Even so, they did not stand out greatly.
For the ones seated on either side of Sylvia were Vitalianus Mahel and Antiphus Praman.
And beginning with them, among those seated in order, not a single one was easy to deal with.
“Then this concludes the meeting.”
The Abyss Gate would be announced to the continent as the Demonic Realm, and the expeditionary force that would destroy it would be officially made known.
The transmigrators and the Empire would first join forces and move together, but each would keep its own leader and carry out separate operations.
The Empire could not trust the transmigrators, and the transmigrators did not want to entrust their lives to the Empire’s orders, so it was a natural conclusion.
After discussing the other particulars as well, the meeting that had continued late into the night finally came to an end.
Sylvia and Teodoro were the first to leave the conference hall, and even after the rest of the people had followed them out of the palace, Vitalianus remained seated.
“You’ve worked hard. I’ll see you at the coming raid.”
At last, when even the final person had left the conference hall, Vitalianus was left alone.
In the vast hall where all manner of nerve wars and invisible currents had passed back and forth, only a cold silence lingered, and he sat alone within it.
After sitting like that for some time, Vitalianus slipped a hand into his breast pocket and took out a sheet of paper.
If there was a reason he had remained alone, lost in thought, this had played no small part.
—Regarding the appointment of the 2nd Knight Order Commander.
The position of 2nd Knight Order Commander, once held by Antipus Praman, had become vacant.
Of course, this had been expected.
From the moment he heard from the mage that there were people who had come from another world, received the list directly from Sylvia, and saw Antipus’s name written upon it, he had been preparing for this.
So it was not something he needed to concern himself with greatly.
The problem, however, was that the person suited to fill the vacant position of Knight Order Commander was one of the ten Royal Knights.
And so, in the end, he had left the Royal Knights and become the new commander of the 2nd Knight Order.
The Royal Knights were the strongest military force on the continent.
They possessed no special authority or post, yet as a knight order directly under the Emperor, obeying only his commands, they were honored members free from every external pressure save the Emperor’s.
And yet now, only five remained.
Including the one who had left upon being appointed commander of the 2nd Knight Order, five of the original ten had departed from the Royal Knights.
It was a rather paltry number for what was called the strongest group on the continent.
There were many reasons for it… but regardless, this was now an established fact.
“Everything keeps changing.”
The era, his surroundings—they continued to change, and Vitalianus himself was changing little by little as well.
A rather biting wind blew through his heart.
“I suppose I should get up.”
Had his thoughts dragged on too long? Before he knew it, there was almost no sign of anyone nearby.
With the brilliantly risen moon as his companion, he stepped outside.
It was a night upon which many thoughts overlapped. Sleep would likely be difficult.
Well, it did not matter much. Even if he stayed awake for several nights, his body and mind would remain sound.
It was the only advantage of a body still alive because it did not age.
Outside, it was fully night. A chilly late-autumn night, with darkness settled deep.
Perhaps because his solitary contemplation had lasted quite some time, even the knights who had been bustling about noisily had all dispersed, leaving the place empty of people.
He walked slowly before the palace.
“The weather is quite cold.”
The weather had grown much colder.
It was the season that reminded him of an old friend who had once spoken excitedly about how winter was passed in his homeland.
The continent’s worst villain, Ataolf.
His old friend, condemned by his homeland and mocked by the Empire.
When even the only family he had leaned on had become a cold corpse, Vitalianus was now experiencing, if only slightly, the biting wind he must have felt then.
“What a truly lonely and desolate season it is.”
Before the bloodless corpse of the friend he had met again after so long, no tears had come.
His heart had not surged. In his cold, cooled chest, there was no fuel left to burn hotly as it once had.
Only an emptiness mingled with the wind that blew in.
“Winter will come.”
Winter was coming.
A season when the nights were long and dark, and the wind was cold and biting.
“Do you know?”
Vitalianus’s gaze turned toward the clear night sky.
“Winter nights are also the season when the stars shine brightest.”
For the stars in the winter night sky did indeed shine with a particular brilliance.
Vitalianus lowered his gaze and slowly turned around.
The intense presence he had felt from the moment he stepped out of the palace.
A heart burning hotly, something he could no longer possess.
A girl like summer, beginning to enter his field of vision.
“Child who bears fire in your heart.”
What filled his empty golden eyes was a girl of red.
“What is it that you yearn for so fiercely?”
A cool wind blew through the autumn night.
It was a time just before winter.