Episode 199

Even though the Kingdom and the Empire were trying to foster a spirit of reconciliation through exchanges, embers of discord still existed.

These embers were present within the Kingdom and, to some extent, within the Empire as well.

Emperor Hapsburg hadn’t completely extinguished these embers of discord.

While he could unify everything with force, he didn’t want to overturn everything due to immediate fatigue and annoyance.

-It’s like not tearing apart the whole house just because a single spider got in.

The Emperor once said something like that. He wasn’t particularly fond of nuisances.

I felt the same way. It was a situation where I had to act, but if I didn’t have to, I’d rather not.

Then, what about now?

‘It’s the time to act.’

The time to disguise myself as a pest within the Empire and play the role of the Empire’s assassin.

“Ugh!!”

Hernandez hastily defended with his sword. Judging by how he accurately blocked the Imperial sword technique, it seemed the Golden Dawn Knights had undergone at least minimal training against the Empire’s forces.

‘Then how about this?’

Quickly withdrawing my sword, I thrust forward. Though it looked like a straightforward thrust, I lightly pressed the device attached to the hilt, releasing a burst of magical energy.

Paa—ang!

“!!”

Hernandez’s eyes widened as he prepared to counter the thrust directed at him. In that split-second reaction, his gaze fixed on the blade aimed at him, which ‘exploded out’ from my sword and flew toward his chest.

Puuuuck.

The blade, shot out like a crossbow bolt, embedded itself in Hernandez’s chest. If he’d worn a breastplate or chainmail under his shirt, the blade might not have pierced as deeply, but a single thin shirt couldn’t stop a blade projected with aura.

“This…”

Thud. Hernandez fell to his knees. Even with a blade lodged in his heart, he forcibly channeled mana to keep himself alive, but he only had seconds left, enough only to witness the deaths of his comrades.

“Aargh! You imperial scum!”

“Why are you blaming us for your country’s downfall, ugh!”

The Platinum Lord and Carlos showed no hesitation with their swords. Perhaps to spare the others some burden, they had resolved to personally take down the Golden Dawn Knights with full force.

And perhaps another reason was the anger embedded in their hearts for the atrocities these knights had ‘committed.’

“Why… are you trying to kill us?”

Hernandez asked with half-closed eyes. He seemed certain of his death but looked as though he at least wanted to know the reason.

“Are you truly descendants of a fallen kingdom?”

“…….”

“Then, why?”

Logically, there was no reason why rebels from a country vanquished in the Empire would come all the way to the Lemveri Camp to attack the Golden Dawn Knights. He may have been curious about the illogical nature of this situation, but—

“You will die, at the hands of the Empire’s shadows.”

I took an item wrapped in a paper pouch from the pocket of my black robe.

“That…!”

“Your death comes from the Empire’s assassination unit.”

“If you do this…!”

“War.”

I took out the white powder and sprinkled it lightly over Hernandez.

“You. Dislike peace. Enjoy war.”

“You… madman! Are you… a mercenary—”

Thud. With his mana depleted, blood poured from Hernandez’s heart, and he collapsed forward, lifeless.

“…….”

I silently stepped back. Then, I gestured to the assassins who had come with me, and one of the smaller-framed ones immediately climbed the stairs.

A few seconds later.

“Aaah!!”

A woman, barely clothed in underwear and covered in bruises, scanned her surroundings with tears streaming down her face.

“He, heek…?”

Though all the knights were slaughtered, she didn’t scream in terror, as if she had witnessed such scenes before. Instead, a sense of “Good riddance” seemed stronger than any fear of being killed herself.

“Verify.”

“Yes.”

A shadow, who had brought the woman, reached toward her lower abdomen.

Whirring. The mana emitted a faint glow, but no reaction occurred.

“Negative, boss.”

“……Troublesome.”

“Shall I kill her?”

“Hm.”

Sir Carlos, standing behind, pretended to wipe his bloodied sword, but I extended my hand and shook my head.

“Unnecessary. The objective is achieved.”

“Confirmed.”

We turned away.

“H-hey!!”

The woman called out to us from behind, but we ignored her and headed straight outside.

Ta—at. Putting distance between us, widening the gap, we soon reached the temporary hideout we’d prepared.

“Phew.”

I removed my mask, and Carlos and the Platinum Lord also took off theirs.

“Hey, boss.”

“There’s nothing around. We can relax.”

I threw off the black robe I had deliberately stained with blood and immediately picked up the prepared shovel.

“Wondering what this action means? A meaningless act.”

I dug the ground.

“But if I were to attach meaning to it, it’s an action with absolutely no chance or purpose.”

By infusing aura into the shovel blade, chunks of earth were scooped up and scattered around as if I were spooning out jelly.

“The previous Emperor of the Tersian Empire destroyed or forcibly subdued thirteen countries. Although quite some time has passed since then, it’s enough for one of those nations to secretly raise the strength to wipe out a squad of royal knights with just three people.”

“What’s the reality of that?”

“There is no such thing.”

The Emperor Hapsburg acted with thoroughness. Thus, I, too, chose to act thoroughly.

“Sir Carlos. Was Grey Gibraltar present here?”

“No. He was not.”

“What about the Chief Elder of the elves allied with Gibraltar, and the knights from the Gibraltar delegation?”

“They were not here.”

“Right. We were not the ones who killed them.”

The conclusion was that someone else killed them, but we are not the culprits.

“Within the hour, or by 10 a.m. tomorrow at the latest, if that woman doesn’t report it, someone from headquarters will sense the absence of the instructors and send someone to investigate. And they will find it. A massacre.”

There was no more meaningless action than trying to attach significance to something without meaning.

“The investigation will begin. People are dead, but the students won’t know. Why, you ask? Because every action committed by those men has been ‘recorded.’”

I pointed toward the villa and mimicked the action of filming with a projector.

“They seemed to have tried to film something on a video stone after handling people in some way. If that comes to light, it’ll be a fatal blow even within the Golden Dawn.”

People had died. The instant anger that arose at the deaths, they’d want to know how it happened.

“What judgment will Marquis Barcel make, I wonder. About the traces of knights who messed with a girl supposedly sent from the Baronet’s estate. And if it turns out that she wasn’t even the baronet’s servant, but a courtesan called by the baronet?”

“…….”

“Will it be seen as misconduct of the entire Golden Dawn Knight Order? Or as misfortune for knights killed under such disguise? I wonder if that’s where they’ll choose to focus.”

Everyone would know that it wasn’t a human that died, but rather a beast.

“Those who wish to cover up the incident will keep silent, and those who want to attach meaning to it will weave entire fantasies out of a few pieces of evidence.”

“Traces of the Empire’s swordsmanship left on the corpse. Conversations of the assassins recorded in broken Kingdom language on the video stone. And….”

“A witness.”

Just then, a woman in ragged, hastily torn-off curtains dashed outside.

“Assassins who killed the Kingdom’s knights used magic on their own abdomen, then pretended it was nothing, debating whether to kill me or not before leaving. Yes. This much is just right.”

From the Empire’s perspective, every method available would be employed to investigate this massacre, but it was different for the Kingdom.

“Magic doesn’t exist for no reason.”

Scene Reconstruction Magic.

By tracing the flow of mana, it was a magic used to analyze past events based on the remaining traces of mana’s movement.

“Even with the Kingdom’s proud magic, the evidence won’t change.”

Even with all those miracles, the outcome remained the same.

“Assassins appear, said to be descendants of a fallen kingdom from the Empire.”

That’s all that’s needed.

“The culprit isn’t Gibraltar.”

“…….”

“And there’s no one beneath Saint Gio capable of discerning the truth.”

Close to midnight.

Whooosh.

A drake folded its wings and landed in a nearby clearing, where a knight in golden armor dismounted to the ground.

“Commander… Commander Zelos…!”

One Golden Dawn knight, face flushed and smelling faintly of alcohol, saluted and greeted Commander Zelos with a pale expression.

“Report.”

“Th-that…”

“Report.”

“…The entire Golden Bird squad, including Hernandez, has been killed.”

“Sigh….”

Commander Zelos covered his face with his hand and headed straight into the villa.

“Commander….”

“What’s the situation?”

“No one knows yet. Only we have confirmed it.”

The Golden Dawn knights inside looked as though they were ready to draw their swords at any moment.

If the culprit was revealed…

“Is that so….”

Traces of battle. Scattered bloodstains. And bodies, still not collected.

“Stand back. I will use magic.”

As Commander Zelos pulled out a large, spherical mana stone from his pocket and infused it with mana, a golden aura flowed forth.

Click, click, click. With sounds like winding gears, the golden mana streaming from the stone began to take human form.

“Ugh…!”

“Oh no….”

Several people were attending to a person left on the sofa, in a state too foul to describe in words, so no one dared speak.

Then, one large figure carried the person upstairs, while the others gathered around the dining table, eating and drinking.

Clink. The moment their glasses touched mid-air—

“!!”

An alien, dull white light, different from the golden one, appeared and began moving its hands here and there.

“Two adult men, one adult… woman. A group of three.”

The Golden Dawn knights rose from their seats, each preparing to face the attackers, but they started falling one by one in quick succession.

“That’s…!”

“Is that the Empire’s swordsmanship…?”

Slash, slash.

The golden figures were cut down one by one by Imperial-style swords, each collapsing precisely over the bodies scattered on the floor.

“Ha….”

The last one, Knight Hernandez, tried to fight back, but his chest heaved heavily, and he fell to his knees and collapsed.

“Any other evidence…?”

“…There shouldn’t be any. We already confirmed everything through the reconstruction magic.”

A subordinate knight pointed solemnly to the area where the corpse had been struck.

“They died by Imperial swordsmanship. What does that imply?”

“Are you suggesting two senior knights and the rest of the intermediate knights were killed by Imperial assassins?”

“What I mean is….”

“It would’ve been better for them to die quietly without a trace.”

Commander Zelos clenched his jaw, his face flushed with anger.

“For so-called Golden Dawn knights to be defeated in combat by assassins who came at them openly, not even poisoned?”

“…….”

“But we’ll find them. This is a challenge to Golden Dawn. Whether the culprit is an Imperial assassin, an Empire soldier posing as a student, or a third party masquerading as an Imperial assassin to kill us….”

The commander gripped the sword at his waist tightly with one hand.

“We will kill them. No matter what.”

Lemveri Camp, Day One.

And so, nothing happened.