Basterion, the Kingdom of Knights.
An ancient kingdom that boasted many distinguished swordsmanship clans, and, based on that foundation, overflowed with powerful knights.
There were just as many varied and practical sword arts famed throughout the land, but the one regarded as the most perfect was, as expected, the swordsmanship of the Basterion royal family.
Thus, every king in Basterion’s history had been a mighty Knight-King in his own right.
But the fourteenth king was different.
Leorant Lian de Basterion.
The last king of the fallen ancient kingdom of Basterion.
The youngest prince, the last descendant of the eleventh king, born with a body exceptionally frail compared to his siblings.
Perhaps because of that, he had no interest whatsoever in swordsmanship or chivalry from childhood; the only thing he loved was reading.
Among books, he was especially fond of magic tomes, so at the king’s request, Abelard Pavlenko—a mage then rapidly rising to fame—personally visited the royal castle to examine Leorant’s talent for magic.
Of course, having a small build and liking magic tomes did not mean one could become a mage. Young Prince Leorant had no talent for magic either.
Leorant was disappointed, but he did not despair. In truth, it did not matter all that much.
The line of succession was clear, and the bonds between the siblings were strong.
The king loved his children, and no one rebuked Leorant for being frail or for showing no interest in the sword.
There was nothing to worry about.
His father, the Knight-King of that era, was wise and strong, and his siblings likewise respected and followed such a father.
He had nothing he was good at, but he lacked nothing either.
Everyone loved Leorant, and Leorant loved everyone in return.
A kind prince who loved his parents, his siblings, and everything about the kingdom.
That was why.
That was why he alone had survived until the end.
Even as his parents, his siblings, and everything he loved disappeared one by one, he alone had survived.
It began with an obituary.
The obituary of the valiant Knight-King, who had always stood at the very forefront.
The dreadful news that the eleventh king, Leorant’s father, had personally set out to investigate an Aberration and died in battle.
It was a time when the word “Aberration” had not yet been officially made known.
Given the circumstances, the coronation of the twelfth king proceeded swiftly.
With every participant clad in armor and a sword at their waist, in a silence thick with killing intent, without even a single cheer that would have been commonplace.
“All of you.”
If there was a reason for it—
“Draw your swords.”
It was because this was a coronation and, at the same time, a departure ceremony for war.
“I will not wear the crown.”
The new king of Basterion turned his back, leaving the crown he had received set down without ever placing it upon his head.
The twelfth king.
“I will return after avenging the former king, and then I will sit here once more.”
Of course, his words never came to pass.
He had set out to avenge the former king, to soothe his father’s grudge, only for even his soul to be stained by the Abyss.
Unable to be recognized, he was beheaded by some nameless knight and met a hollow end.
“……How dare they!”
The thirteenth king was enraged.
The remaining siblings were enraged with him.
Every subject of the kingdom was enraged as well.
They were all the people of the proud Kingdom of the Knight-King.
A nation of knights who valued honor above life and protected the weak.
And so, without even pausing for anything like a coronation, they headed straight for the battlefield.
“I shall never return until every last Aberration is annihilated!”
The thirteenth king, Leorant’s second eldest brother, swore so before the king’s gravestone.
His enraged siblings all followed him.
All except one—Leorant, who had always been frail.
“Leorant.”
And so the new king, Leorant’s brother, met Leorant’s gaze with steadfast eyes before he departed and spoke.
“It will never happen, but if I do not return…….”
What should he have said then?
What words would have eased his brother’s heart, even a little?
“You will be king.”
That such a thing would never happen.
“I am sorry to leave such a heavy burden to you.”
Should he have answered that the strongest brother in the world and those mighty knights could not possibly be defeated again?
Or should he have encouraged him, telling him to go and that he trusted him?
Thinking that whatever he said would not sound reliable, lacking confidence in himself, he could not bring himself to speak rashly.
And during that brief hesitation, the thirteenth king left.
With that same dependable back he had always shown, without the slightest hesitation or the faintest trace of fear.
And that became the last sight Leorant ever saw of him.
Thus, the fourteenth king—the most unworthy king—was born in Basterion.
* * *
And so Leorant spoke.
“Please take us to Tetradia.”
The new king of Basterion, the Kingdom of Knights, in the midst of war against the Aberrations.
A diminutive king with neither a king’s spirit, nor charisma, nor leadership.
Known commonly as the Unworthy King.
“I know nothing of the sword. I know nothing of chivalry.”
The fourteenth king was no Knight-King.
He had held a sword only a few times, and all he knew of chivalry came from books.
“I do not know how to command ten thousand knights with a single word like my father did, nor do I know how to win the hearts of a million subjects like my eldest brother.”
There was so much he did not know.
“I am neither strong nor upright like my second brother. I am not a knight.”
He did not know how to command a battlefield, nor how to stand at the very front of them.
Because he had always only seen their strong backs, and had never stood before them.
And yet—
“I am king.”
Even so, he was king.
Even if he was the most unworthy in the world, he was king.
“It does not matter if the whole world points fingers at me, or if I am recorded in history as the most unworthy king of all.”
The weight of the crown upon his head was so heavy that sometimes—no, in truth, every single day—he lived crushed beneath it.
“I am a king who knows nothing of honor, who does not know how to govern his retainers, who has never once ruled.”
The blood of his father, the resentment of his siblings, and the lives of his people contained within it were so unbearably heavy that he woke every day with dry heaves.
“But I, too, have a conviction.”
Even such an unworthy king had a conviction.
Even he knew one thing.
“If one dies, it is all for nothing, is it not?”
What meaning could there possibly be in death?
Because he knew nothing of honor, chivalry, or their spirit, he knew it all the more.
That there was no meaning in death.
That the pain suffered by those left behind was worse than death.
“Proud knights are those who fear losing honor and conviction more than death. But I am not like that.”
Death was terrifying.
His own death was terrifying, and the death of those close to him was even more terrifying.
“I know. Of course, you know as well. Basterion, lacking mages as we do, can never win this war.”
Everyone would die.
Even if every knight cast away his life like so much straw, even if the greatest mage lent them aid, they would ultimately fail to hold out more than a few times and be consumed by those cursed things.
Like his father.
Like his siblings.
“So please…….”
Because he knew that, he pleaded with desperation.
“Take us to Tetradia. Lord of the Magic Tower!”
The king knelt.
An act possible only because he was an unworthy king who knew neither honor nor shame.
An act possible because there was something in his heart more important than such paltry knees, more important than honor, more important than humiliation.
“As king, as the king of knights who knows nothing of chivalry, I must save them.”
How could he not know shame?
How could he not know humiliation?
Even so, there was no hesitation in the knees he bent, and the will he put into words was more earnest than anything else in the world.
To keep every person in the kingdom he loved from dying.
That was the Unworthy King’s sole conviction.
The desire he wished to fulfill at any cost.
“So, Lord Pavlenko. Please…….”
Hio quietly closed his eyes.
But the sorrowful tears that had flowed with that desperate gaze had already been engraved in him as an afterimage, so closing his eyes did him no good.
The king’s plea to be taken to Tetradia.
What, indeed, had Abelard Pavlenko, the lord of the Magic Tower, answered?
“There are too many people who must migrate?”
What conclusion had he reached?
“Then I will stay behind. The most unworthy king in the world will remain.”
Now, he knew.
That his own answer would have no effect whatsoever.
“Please allow my knights, my people, to live on without dying.”
He was an observer.
A mere follower retracing Abelard’s memories.
Even so, it was difficult to face that earnest, desperate expression, so he closed his eyes.
Unable to bear the sight of him, in the most pathetic state in the world, begging not for his own life but for the lives of his people, he did not open the eyes he had shut.
“……Lord of the Magic Tower…….”
It was not long after that he sensed a change.
The king’s heartrending cry gradually grew distant, and even with his eyes closed, his vision blurred.
The scene was changing.
Abelard Pavlenko.
The greatest mage of the era and the great master of Tetradia’s Magic Tower—what decision had he made?
Had he willingly helped the Unworthy King and the countless people of Basterion migrate to Tetradia?
To confirm it, Hio slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing that entered his sight was, as expected, the figure of the king.
He was clad in armor that did not suit him, with a sword at his waist that did not suit him either, awkwardly mounted upon a horse.
Beneath the blue sky, the king’s eyes, in which not the slightest trace of dignity could be felt, were empty, and his gaze was fixed far away.
“O Basterion.”
Because Hio followed those hollow eyes, he was able to see the same thing as the king.
Darkness surging in from the distance. The Abyss.
A calamity rolling in as it devoured the blue sky.
Beneath it swarmed the Twisted.
And the king facing them.
“Follow me.”
The most wretched cry in the world.
The hollow resonance of one who knew the ending.
It was unmistakably the figure of one who had accepted death.
“I will be with you.”
Abelard Pavlenko had, in the end, refused to permit the Unworthy King and his people to migrate.
* * *
“Hold them back! Endure! Do not be pushed back even an inch!”
The Space of Infinity.
Against the surging Abyss Monsters, the knights were still struggling desperately.
“Silbert!”
Of course, the same was true for the possessors.
They were not facing the monsters directly, body to body like the knights, but under the knights’ protection, they were providing tremendous firepower from within the formation.
If not for them, the formation would have collapsed long ago, and they would never have held out this far.
“Why are they so damn tough!”
But even that was gradually reaching its limit.
They were being pushed back little by little, so slowly it was almost impossible to notice, one step at a time. The once-wide circle had, before anyone knew it, become visibly smaller.
“Increase the firepower! Raise the intensity of your skills!”
The possessors had also been carefully conserving and controlling their mana according to the operation, but this was no longer a stage where that was possible.
The number of monsters that had piled up had begun to exceed the range they could handle.
“If we increase our firepower, we won’t last long!”
“We’ll be pushed back anyway at this rate!”
It was a decision that came somewhat late.
But from Daphne’s perspective, it had been inevitable.
When on earth were Antipus and Hio Pavlenko going to break out of the Space of Ordeal?
Since both of them excelled in combat power and in knowledge about the Abyss, she had thought they would emerge quickly. She had never imagined it would take this long.
“Increase the firepower!”
At the order, every Awakened began raising the power of their skills.
Kwaaaaang—!
The blue light of Rafflesia, the blue bow that symbolized Daphne, grew even deeper.
With a single flash, Abyss Monsters collapsed in droves like bundles of straw.
Silbert’s telekinesis, which had only slowed the enemies’ charge and restricted their movements, now began to press them down in earnest.
Flames flared up everywhere, ice poured down, and explosions erupted.
Kwaaaang—!
The effect was clear.
The relentless offensive loosened, and many gaps opened up.
“Now! Push them back again!”
Of course, it lasted only for a moment, and monsters soon surged back into the empty spaces and filled them again. But there was no one in this place so careless as to miss that brief opening.
The formation that had been pushed back was restored, regaining its stability.
“Endure!”
And so they entered another operation of endurance, but everyone knew that the time they could hold out would be shorter than before.
This recovery had come at a greater cost than expected.
A brief sense of stability gained by pouring out the mana they had been saving and saving again.
Thus, by the time several more hours had passed, the circle had already narrowed as much as it possibly could.
They had been pushed and pushed until they were pressed tightly against one another.
“……Pour out all the mana you have left!”
Now there truly was nowhere left to retreat.
The Abyss Monsters appeared endlessly. Wretched creatures whose souls had already been wholly stained, yet who charged in with all their might without regard for anything ahead or behind.
This was no situation where they could endure by conserving mana, and if they were pushed back any further, the knights and skill users would become tangled together and the situation could spiral into the worst possible outcome.
They had reached a point where the very act of holding out was losing meaning.
And so they had to pour out all their mana, secure space, and open a path.
“We must open a path! Move faster!”
But the path did not open.
There was a fairly wide space in the direction where Vitalianus stood, but even he could not block an infinite number of monsters alone, nor could he protect nearly three hundred people by himself.
By that point, not only the possessors but even the mighty knights were being crushed beneath the pressure of infinity.
When faced with that truly endless onslaught, when the thought that perhaps this might never end began to dawn faintly upon them, the shallowly spread aura of the Abyss seeped into that small crack.
No matter how strong they were, when their bodies and minds had grown exhausted from the unending battle, the Abyssal aura that stealthily seeped in was difficult to resist.
It was then.
When their mana had hit bottom, when their bodies had grown heavy, and even lifting a sword had become difficult.
When their minds were strangely dizzy, and the thought that they would ultimately be consumed by infinity filled their heads.
The darkness itself, filling everything, shook.
Looking closely, something immense was trembling.
The enormous gates that stood high on both sides.
One of them was a Space of Ordeal.
“That’s……!”
The Space of Ordeal on the left was breaking apart.