······There were two young men and two children running through the tunnel. In the sound of their own sprinting, they recalled their parents’ voices.
We’ll take care of this place, so run and don’t get caught.
And so their legs were desperate. Not because they knew what would happen if they were caught, but because they knew whom they had left behind.
“······Ah!”
Light seeped in from far ahead. It meant the tunnel’s exit was not far.
“We made it. Kids, now······.”
As they ran in urgency, they suddenly froze.
The tunnel’s exit was right before their eyes. There stood a man.
He seemed to be reading a book, but sensing their presence, he raised his eyes and stared at them.
In the darkness, blue light gleamed in his eyes. It was a cold, surging flash.
“······!”
The moment they saw his face, they could not even step backward. The thought of fleeing was impossible.
Deculein of Yukline.
A clan of obliteration inherited from ancient times, an evil spirit who had driven tens of thousands of Redborn into the deathland Rohalak.
That monster was beyond them.
“······.”
He looked directly at them. No words or threats were necessary.
Under that gaze, the two children soiled their pants, and tears welled in the two young men’s eyes.
“······Hmm.”
Deculein calmly looked behind them. Then he asked.
“Are you the last of them?”
“······.”
None of them could bring themselves to answer. Even that simple question made their mouths feel completely blocked.
“······I.”
Amid the flesh-cutting tension, a young woman in her early twenties spoke. Her trembling lips let out a pitiful voice.
“Only me. These children are still young. So only me······.”
“Do not overestimate your own worth. You are merely one person as well.”
Deculein muttered coldly and slipped the book into his coat. At that moment, death flowed in like the wind. At least, that was how the four Redborn felt it.
“However, if you desire sacrifice. Shall we make a small wager?”
Then Deculein took out a coin.
Ting──!
The coin, flicked by his finger, rose and then sank into his hand.
“Heads or tails. Will you try?”
They did not know what sort of hobby this was, but the power over their life and death lay with him. They must not show any discontent.
The woman quickly nodded.
“Yes, yes. I will.”
“If it is heads, you die. If it is tails, I will let you go.”
Frankly speaking, it was a suspicious proposal. The coin itself could be tampered with. But naturally, raising such an objection was impossible.
“······Yes.”
At the woman’s answer, Deculein revealed the coin hidden in his hand.
It was heads.
Huaaah—
A scream leaked out like air escaping from a punctured balloon. He sat back down in his chair and opened his book.
“······.”
After that, there was no reaction at all.
Did it mean he was letting them go?
The four hesitantly walked forward, and Deculein truly did them no harm.
Gulp─
Still tense, they left the tunnel, looked around, and turned west.
But then.
“East.”
Deculein, who had been reading, offered a single word.
“Go east.”
“······Yes.”
This time as well, they believed Deculein. They pushed through the thick undergrowth and advanced toward the east. They had no destination.
Only, may God’s blessing answer us······
······After the Redborn left like that.
In the quiet tunnel. Deculein lifted his eyes from the book and looked at the coin in his hand.
──「 Coin of Alignment 」──
◆ Information
：A special coin obtainable through the Item Catalog.
：It can distinguish a character’s alignment.
◆ Category
：Special ⊃ Miscellaneous
◆ Special Effect
：Distinguishes a character’s alignment through a wager of ‘heads or tails.’ It shows heads to those of good alignment, and tails to those of evil alignment.
[ Midas’s Hand : Level 3 ]
────────
An object obtained through the Item Catalog—a coin that judged a character’s good and evil.
There would be villains among the Redborn as well, and there would surely be fanatics of the Altar. I would not hesitate to kill such Redborn······.
Dadadada-! Dadadada-!
The sound of three or four footsteps echoed from beyond. I read my book and listened closely. I waited for the arrival of another group.
* * *
Late at night, I received the message that the situation had been resolved. When I returned to the battlefield, the prisoners were gathered in droves across the empty plain.
The Imperial Guard member who had informed me of the tunnel’s existence quickly approached.
“Professor. What happened to the tunnel?”
“I killed about twenty.”
“······Oooh! As expected!”
I looked over the faces of the Redborn. There were roughly three thousand of them, but many prisoners were almost impossible to distinguish by appearance.
“Can they be identified?”
“Ah, of course. With the blood magic invented by Lord Betan, we can distinguish them to a certain degree. Of course, it does require quite a lot of flesh······.”
Indeed, the prisoners had peculiar wounds. It was still far too cruel a method of classification to be put into general use.
If that could even be called fortunate.
“Good evening, Professor!”
At that moment, a mage saluted me.
A man with long blue hair tied back. I knew his name well.
‘Gurken.’
He was a fellow who used steel, similar to me.
“But is there really any need to keep these bastards alive? I will dispose of them.”
Kkiririk— kkiririk—
At his words, fragments of steel resonated. They were literally ‘fragments.’
They were too small to be called pieces, a magic that seeped into the body and delivered the worst pain imaginable. When I thought of his intent, I had to question the caster’s mental structure.
“No need.”
I blocked his steel with 「Psychokinesis」. Gurken seemed flustered by the sudden magical interference.
“Ahem······?”
He looked as though he urgently needed the restroom and tried to activate his magic again, but my 「Psychokinesis」 did not budge.
I said,
“They are too lowly a race to be killed comfortably. Send them all to Rohalak.”
“I had no intention of killing them comfortably, though······.”
Gurken scratched the back of his neck and nodded.
“Yes. Let us do that.”
“······Transport them all.”
The soldiers saluted thunderously, and the prisoners’ complexions turned dark. They must be weighing which would be more painful: dying here, or living in Rohalak.
“Hey! You vermin, you heard him! Move! Get up and move! If you’re slow, we’ll dump you in the desert, so keep that in mind!”
However, you may believe this.
At the very least, ‘being alive’ would be dozens of times more beneficial······.
* * *
─Deculein of Yukline has rendered great service in this Redborn suppression operation, and therefore······.
After returning to the Imperial Capital, I was awarded a medal. Its name was the Imperial Order of Military Merit. Sophien personally pinned the roughly second-class commendation to my chest.
Thanks to that, I also gained bonus stats, so it was not an entirely bad affair.
“You have done well.”
“I am overwhelmed by your grace, Your Majesty.”
Sophien, on the platform, looked down at me and spoke.
“I shall offer you one piece of advice on this occasion.”
“Yes. I shall accept it with gratitude.”
“Do not even look up at a tree you cannot climb.”
“······?”
“Now! That is enough!”
With those strange words as the last, Sophien ended the award ceremony, and the banquet began.
In the banquet hall where refined melodies flowed, and where they busily called out, Count Yukline-! Professor Deculein-!, I managed my bothersome connections before returning to the car.
“Mm?”
However, there was a letter placed on the back seat of the car.
[ It is Karixel. ]
It was from Karixel of Rohalak.
I tore open the envelope. The very first sentence was wretched.
[ I have finally obtained a pencil and paper, so I am now able to send you a letter, Professor. To begin with, life in Rohalak is not very smooth, but it is not the worst, as I had braced myself for. We discovered a water source, and fortunately, not many of our people are starving or drying to death. It could be said to be thanks to the many edible monsters that appear here······ ]
Karixel’s sentences were long. To summarize, he was saying that the Redborn were living well in Rohalak.
Whether it was provocation or an attempt to test me.
After reading the entire letter, I replied with a single sentence.
[ Pretend it is the worst, but if there are Redborn among them who still devote themselves to the Altar, deal with them as you see fit. ]
Just then, the car stopped. However, outside the window was not the inside of the mansion.
Secretary Ren spoke in a somewhat troubled tone.
“Professor.”
I looked beyond the glass.
At the entrance of the mansion not far away. A woman stood there.
It was Julie.
“What shall we do?”
“······I will get out. You take a lap around.”
“Yes.”
After getting out of the car, I looked at her from afar. I infused mana into 「Eyesight」, strengthened by Authority.
Her haggard and shabby complexion first caught my eye, but I focused on a fact even more serious than that.
「Status Ailment : Curse」
Right now, she did not have much time left.
In my eyes, I could see that waning remaining life.
「1084 : 53 : 23」
1084 hours. A life that would not even last two months.
I approached Julie. When she found me, her body stiffened rigidly.
“Julie. You have been visiting often these days.”
“······.”
“How far do you intend to disgrace yourself?”
She could not even meet my eyes. She merely bowed her head deeply and spoke in a dry, withered tone.
“······Our knight order is collapsing. Because of corruption and favors I know nothing about.”
“Just because you do not know does not mean it is not a fault.”
The subordinate members of Freydenheim, including Rockfell. Yusephin had probably done her utmost to set the trap. The knights would be unable to escape that scheme.
······However.
Thud─!
Suddenly, Julie knelt. In that instant, some heavy, solid stone seemed to settle upon my chest as well.
“······I beg you.”
My breath trembled faintly. However, I must never show it.
I looked down at Julie, whose position had lowered, and spoke.
“Are a knight’s knees so light?”
“As a person, not as a knight······.”
Julie clenched the two fists resting on her thighs.
“Knights who have no connection to this are suffering. At this rate, they may be stripped of their qualification as knights. They are youths who gave everything they had to become knights. I will take all responsibility. So please, only they······.”
Julie’s voice continued, and the time shown in 「Eyesight」 ticked—tocked—down.
Tick—tock—
Tick—tock—
Her curse did not stop.
“No. I will destroy your entire knight order.”
However, at that very moment.
At one word from me.
“Leave the Imperial Capital. If you are going to die, die in your hometown.”
Her time stopped.
「1084 : 52 : 23」
The system’s second hand came to a halt, and soon, as though time were going against time, it rapidly increased from 1084 hours to 1098 hours, from 1098 hours to 1120 hours, from 1120 hours to 1180 hours. Her vitality deepened.
······What a mysterious sight.
“Are you worried about your comrades? That is none of my concern. Those damned bastards who call themselves Veron’s comrades will not be able to set foot in the Imperial Capital and live here anyway.”
I smiled.
At the very least, this method was not ‘wrong.’ I could earn time for her sake.
“If you want even those bastards to remain alive, leave the Imperial Capital.”
Even if that was all······.
It was worth being hated.
“Die as far from me as possible. So that you do no harm to my family.”
The trembling of Julie’s body ceased. She sank into calm. An emotion fiercer than any inferno had frozen cold.
A deep silence and a chilling stillness.
At last, she looked up at me and nodded. Resolutely, she declared,
“Yes. I will do so.”
──At that moment.
The eleven hundred hours visible to my Eyesight swelled into sixty days.
* * *
Chijijijijik———
The sound of the train stopping on the tracks. Then the violent trembling of the car ceased. Julie blankly gazed out the window.
A white and pale land, a parched sky, a faint blizzard crumbling like dust······ A pure white world where the terrain could not be distinguished.
It was northern Fhairden, a snowfield that left humans stupefied.
“……”
Yulie, who had stepped off at that station, silently looked over the scenery of her homeland for a moment.
Since long ago, she had meant to leave, yet in the end, she had failed to do so. She had returned once more.
And in the worst possible state……
Crunch— crunch—
Yulie walked in silence. Her only luggage was a single sword and a bundle. Nor was her destination the castle of her house.
She intended to prepare a place to live. She knew better than anyone that her life would not be long, but she had not the slightest intention of giving up so emptily.
“……Deculein.”
She gripped the sword in one hand even tighter.
Her order of knights that Deculein had destroyed, her subordinate knights, the humiliations of that day, and the events of the distant past all came back to life.
The hatred and resentment that arose in her heart had already frozen cold.
She placed a hand over her heart.
Thump…… thump……
A cold temperature. A pulse so slow it felt as if it might stop at any moment. If a doctor were to see her, they would be horrified, saying, “Isn’t this person already dead?”
Now, Yulie’s chest would be an eternal winter. For that very reason, she would not let it end like this.
She would overcome it. Absolutely, truly, without fail.
“Without fail……”
Yulie resolved herself as she walked across the ice.
……
“How is she supposed to be of any use like that?”
Zeit, who had been watching Yulie from quite a distance away, spoke. Yusephin, standing beside him, shrugged.
“It’s Yulie, isn’t it? If she’s of no use, that’s when she’s family, isn’t it~?”
“A broken engagement, then?”
“You knew it wouldn’t work anyway, Patriarch~ Yukline and Fhairden were an impossible relationship from the start.”
“……Hmm. Still, it does anger me. That curse, in the end, was because of Deculein as well.”
Yulie had gained that curse while trying to protect Deculein. Of course, even that had been Yulie herself, foolishly chattering that it was “part of the mission” and that she was fine.
“Tell Yulie to enter the Fhairden Knights.”
“Huh?”
Yusephin’s eyes went round.
“She’s widely rumored to be a corrupt knight right now, you know? Do you think the knights of the north will just stand by and watch?”
“That is hers to bear. Tell her to silence them with her skill.”
Zeit clicked his tongue and turned away. Yusephin spoke to his broad back—no, rather than broad, his enormous back.
“Patriarch. When are you going to let Yulie go?”
“……”
Zeit turned only his head to look at Yusephin. Those sharp eyes carried the pressure of “the strongest knight in the mortal world.”
“……Someday, when that child defeats me. That is when I will let Yulie go.”
Could Yulie defeat Zeit? Yusephin was deeply skeptical of that possibility.
That monstrously powerful madman.
Not only within the House of Fhairden, but throughout the entire history of the Empire, there was likely no one like him.
“Yusephin, you seem as though you would hold on to Yulie for the rest of your life and never let her go.”
“……”
The edge in Zeit’s gaze was piercing, but Yusephin merely answered with a smile.
“Would I~? Surely not~ She’s still my little sister~ Huhut.”
* * *
……Around the time autumn was nearly over. Epherene, who had been officially certified not as a Solda but as a “Candle,” showed off her new robe as soon as she arrived at the assistant research office.
“How is it? Doesn’t the color look more refined?”
“Yeah. It does.”
Drent, who was likewise a Candle, was absorbed in his own magical experiment, and Allen was nowhere to be seen.
“……When am I going to get a junior?”
Epherene pouted for no reason and sat down in a chair. On the desk lay a newspaper Drent had been reading.
[……Frenheim Knights Disbanded.]
The lead article concerned the bribery and solicitation case involving the Frenheim Knights. It had been causing an uproar in the newspapers and on the radio lately.
“Frenheim means……”
It felt familiar somehow, but Epherene’s interest immediately moved on to the next paragraph.
[“Blue Eyes,” Published by an Anonymous Author, Becomes a Bestseller]
“……That girl.”
The book Sylvia had published had become a bestseller. In fact, that “Blue Eyes” was sitting on Epherene’s desk as well.
The disappointing part was that the next volume had yet to come out.
If she was going to release it, she should have released it all at once. Why split it into volume one and volume two?
Epherene, who had been smiling contentedly, widened her eyes at the scenery outside the window.
“Huh?”
Then she stuck herself right up against the window.
“It’s snowing already?”
Snowflakes were scattering down from the sky. They were far too large to be sleet—big, fluffy flakes. Epherene grinned and sat back down in her chair.
“Ah~ the seasons are changing now~ but there’s still so much to do~ I haven’t solved a single thi-i-i-i-ing~ ooooh~”
Humming a melody that was popular these days, she took out the wood-steel. She was still carving Deculein into her unconscious.
It was difficult, but it was also quite fun and rewarding.
“I’ll just do a little and then go to class…… Drent! You know we have Professor Deculein’s class today, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course I know.”
Drent nodded as if half-listening, and Epherene chuckled as she focused her mana into the wood-steel.
“Today, for sure……”
She would complete this magic.