The Sacred Kingdom of Hiberunia, whose might was second only to the Empire.
The Hiberunian city of Talasa was one of the great cities that represented the west.
A broad, well-paved road wide enough for three ordinary carriages to pass side by side.
Majestic gates and towering walls.
Strict order befitting a metropolis ruled by one of Hiberunia’s ancient and distinguished noble houses.
Talasa was a city famous for its cleanliness.
However.
“Me first! I got here first!”
“H-Hey, don’t push!”
“My identity is perfectly clear, is it not! Why in the world will you not allow me in!”
The area before the gate leading into Talasa was as crowded as a market at midday.
No, far more chaotic, confused, and disorderly than that.
“Now, now! Do you even know who this man is! He belongs to the Damon Merchant Guild—”
“Merchant guild or whatever, everyone knows you’re all packing up and running away, so what nonsense are you spouting!”
“……We are merely withdrawing for a time. Even so, he is not someone who should be standing together with the likes of you—”
“Hey! Move aside and stop blocking the way! If he’s so important, why isn’t he going in and is just loitering around here?”
“That is because those soldiers fail to recognize him—”
“Oh, Sir Knight! I am fine, so can you please do something for the children at least?”
“Us! My family came first! Sir Knight!”
The country had not even fallen yet, but their appearances and behavior were no different from refugees.
The small nearby territories had fallen one after another, and their residents, along with those active in the western region, had gathered in Talasa, the great city.
The number of people swelled with each passing day.
At first, Talasa had accepted and protected as many as it could, but even that had its limits.
Public order within the city was one problem, but they also lacked the budget, food, and space to accommodate them all.
“Please, let us in! We have nowhere to go!”
That was why so many people had gathered before the walls.
Unable to enter, they had settled down in front of them, even unpacking their belongings and making camp.
Those with some leeway, who had managed to bring luggage and property with them, could enter by promising donations to the city, but most people could not.
They had barely escaped with their lives, or had never possessed enough wealth to donate in the first place.
So what else could they do but sit camped before the gates like refugees?
And even at this very moment, countless people were newly arriving from every direction.
Claire and Hamelot were among those who had arrived in that way.
Unable to recklessly enter the tremendous crowd, Claire took a step back and looked around.
‘It’s almost…… like back then.’
The memory of the past she had seen with Hio on the Floor of Breakthrough.
The people clamoring to enter the magical city of Tetradia.
Was this not a scene that looked very much like that?
“What should we do, Master?”
Unlike Claire, Hamelot looked anxiously at the crowd gathered before the gate.
Had he not heard from Claire that he was in need of treatment?
If he could not enter Talasa and receive treatment, he would die.
But there were more people here who could not enter than one could count.
For Hamelot, who had grown up over the brief thirteen years of his life without anything remarkable to speak of, he could not help but be uneasy.
Yet that unease vanished without a trace the moment he saw his master’s face.
“It’s all right. Let’s go.”
His master, who did not seem that much older than Hamelot himself. At most, there was probably about a ten-year difference.
Since he was on the shorter side, she seemed to see him as a child, but he would grow rapidly soon enough, so perhaps then she would look at him differently.
“Yes! Master!”
Claire found the title “Master” terribly awkward, but the reason Hamelot insisted on using it was because of his anxiety.
If he did not form some sort of relationship with her like this, he felt as though she might leave without a word at any moment.
Because it felt as though his one and only hero might not spare even a glance for someone like him and simply go far away.
“When exactly are you planning to stop calling me Master?”
“Hehe. You taught me a lot of things, didn’t you? Then that makes you my master.”
“……Do as you like.”
In the few days he had spent with Hamelot, his master had only ever been blunt and expressionless.
By Claire’s side, Hamelot deliberately smiled more brightly and spoke more cheerfully.
How had his master, who was not even that old, come to lose her expression?
He wanted to see her smile.
What would Claire look like when she smiled?
One thing was certain: like the majestic flames she had shown when he first saw her.
Like that brightest, most splendid fire in the world, it would surely be a very beautiful smile.
“But…… will it really be all right? From the looks of it, they only seem to be accepting people with a lot of money……”
Hamelot asked while they forced their way through the crowd.
He knew Claire was strong.
After all, Claire had burned to ash, far too easily and without so much as a change in expression, a monster he had never seen before in his life, one that had made his body tremble just by looking at it.
But Hamelot had no one to compare Claire to.
He had never seen a knight before, and he did not know how strong the monster they had faced was compared to other monsters.
Of course, Claire was certainly the strongest and most beautiful person in the thirteen years of his life, but entering a city was another matter, was it not?
Since Claire said it would be fine, it surely would be, but what would happen if those knights stopped Claire in front of the gate?
For some reason, Hamelot thought it would make him terribly angry.
Because in Hamelot’s still-narrow world, Claire had become a hero, a goal, and an object of admiration who could never be ignored and never should be.
A feeling as though his soul had been seized by a single burst of flame.
His young master probably did not understand that feeling either.
“I said it’s fine, so stop talking and come here.”
Claire tightly held Hamelot’s hand and led him so he would not be swept away by the crowd.
They pushed forward through the shouts flying from every direction, through rough bodies surging in with the thick smell of sweat.
With strangely nimble movements, she slipped through the gaps in that vast crowd and finally arrived close to the gate.
The sight of the gate, previously hidden by the crowd, revealed itself again, along with the knights and soldiers guarding it.
By the time the people clamoring before them could be clearly seen, the thought filling Hamelot’s head was not something like, “Can we really get in?”
‘What happens once we’re inside?’
Claire had said that once he received a priest’s treatment, she would arrange for him to meet the lord of Talasa.
She had said the skill he had awakened was exceptional, so if the lord had his head on straight, he would hire him in order to raise him into a proper knight.
A lord, of all things.
A noble who ruled a great city like this, no less.
Meeting someone like that was astonishing enough, but Claire saying she would introduce him as if it were nothing was even more astonishing.
She was not the sort of person to bluff, so he knew she truly meant it, and yet he still could not believe it. He could not even imagine it.
The image of himself meeting a noble. The image of himself becoming a knight.
Because he had never even dared hope for such things, he could not picture them.
‘……But if I say I’ll become a knight, Master will……’
That, at least, he could imagine all too easily.
Because Claire would leave without looking back.
Without him ever learning the reason behind the sorrowful expression his master, who always looked at the world with emotionless eyes and never wore any expression, sometimes showed when she looked at him.
They would simply part ways like that.
Becoming a knight was something he could not even imagine, but merely thinking about it made his heart race.
On the other hand, parting from Claire was something he could picture with painful clarity, and merely thinking about it made him depressed.
He had only spent a few days with Claire, but he did not want to part with her.
What kind of world did she see?
Why did she look at the world with such empty eyes, and how had she lost her expression?
What kind of person was she, what status did she hold, how had she lived? There were still far too many things he wanted to know, far too many things he was curious about.
‘……What should I do?’
Should he stay here and become a knight, as Claire said?
Or should he insist on following Claire, even if he had to force it?
While Hamelot was inwardly agonizing over such thoughts—
“See here! Are you telling me it is still impossible even after properly confirming this identity plaque!”
The two of them finally managed to break through the entire crowd and arrive at the very front.
What they saw was, as expected, a group of people arguing in front of the gate.
The one somewhat unusual point was that a knight clad in silver armor was personally dealing with them.
Which meant that the person he was dealing with possessed a proper status.
“To think you would dare block the path of the great Baron Floigen’s house! I shall meet the lord of Talas and tell him of this personally! What is your name!”
It seemed a noble had come in person.
However, the knight blocking his path had an expression that displayed blatant annoyance and irritation, hardly the face of someone dealing with a noble.
“Yes, yes, Baron Floigen. Our city has no room to spare right now either. You must make a donation if you wish to enter……”
The knight looked the procession claiming to be a baron’s house up and down.
They did not seem to possess any great wealth, nor any goods or food to donate.
The only thing they had was the identity plaque proving he was a baron.
“Well, if you have nothing, then I’m afraid you have no choice but to return to that great baronial house of yours.”
A baron was not all that different from an official knight to begin with, and nobles from rural territories or fallen noble houses like these would only cause trouble if allowed in, while providing no help whatsoever.
In a wartime situation like this, they were treated as being worth less than knights.
“Y-You……! What insolence……!”
It was then that Claire and Hamelot suddenly stepped out beside them.
Because if they stood around watching, those people would clearly keep at it all day.
Claire, who had places to go and many things to do, stepped forward first.
At the sudden appearance of Claire and Hamelot, the gaze of the knight standing guard at the gate turned toward them, and a curious light entered his eyes.
“One woman and one child…… Show your identification.”
It was because Claire’s appearance drew the eye.
Refugees of every sort, fallen nobles trying to hide their anxiety behind forced bravado, merchants who had accumulated some ambiguous degree of wealth.
In a place filled with such people, her conspicuous red hair, gorgeous appearance, and expression devoid of tension combined to pique the knight’s interest.
Of course, just as the knight took an interest, the baron and his party, who had been arguing with him, also looked at Claire and Hamelot.
“Step back at once!”
“How dare you intrude upon a noble’s conversation!”
Perhaps thinking that their authority could not be allowed to crumble any further, they began shouting, their faces flushed red.
Of course, Claire did not give them even a single glance, and perhaps because that attitude further enraged them, their reaction grew even more violent.
“A wench who doesn’t know her place……”
“To think you would ignore a noble in this land and still—”
A subordinate of the baron moved to seize Claire himself.
The knight, letting out a small sigh, wondered whether he should stop them.
And just as Hamelot was about to move to Claire’s side to keep them from touching her—
Claire’s hand, which had been rummaging inside her clothes, slipped back out.
The knight who had been sighing.
The people of the baron’s house, who had been shouting and reaching out.
Hamelot, who had been about to block that hand.
All of them froze for an instant and turned their heads.
What was the reason?
She was merely taking out an identity plaque, so why did it feel as though they were being pressed down so heavily? Why did they not even feel like opening their mouths?
Why did their heads move on their own and follow Claire’s hand?
Why could none of the clamor uttered by so many people be heard, and how had silence settled over such a vast space?
There were likely very few who could know the reason.
That a golden artifact handed down through the Empire since ancient times had been worked by a master craftsman.
That the Sword Saint’s intent had been personally imbued within it.
That such immense power and meaning resided in a mere plaque proving one’s identity.
Even if they could have known, they would not have had the leisure to think about it.
The Golden Lion’s plaque emerged along with Claire’s hand.
The pressure radiating together with its glittering golden light stole everyone’s eyes and minds.
“I am of the Empire’s Royal Knights.”
That golden light captured every gaze.
In the silence of thousands of people closing their mouths at once, Claire’s single sentence rang out in her usual level voice.
“Open the gate.”
The knight raised his sword, still sheathed, to eye level and bowed his head.
The soldiers pointed the tips of their spears toward the sky and withdrew simultaneously to either side of the wall.
Though this was a foreign nation, it was the utmost respect they could show as warriors, as those who held swords and spears, toward the strongest knight order on the continent.
Accepting all of it as if it were only natural, Claire walked forward.
Through the quiet, through a silence where reverence and pressure mingled, Hamelot walked with her, holding Claire’s hand.
And so Hamelot could not help but feel as if his heart would burst, as if his mind were being covered in rapture.
He did not know what had happened.
He did not know why the knights and soldiers, who looked impressive and strong at a glance, were showing such admiration-laden awe.
‘……Royal Knights.’
But that word, at least.
Hamelot’s goal, at least, became all the clearer.