68 — Episode 45

The house that had been used as a hideout by the rebel elements was under guard. Several soldiers took turns watching over the dwelling whose front entrance had been destroyed.

“Nothing unusual, huh…”

“Yeah, no way they’d come back here when it’s this locked down.”

Soldiers were posted in a ring around the building, and others inside kept watch as well.

“That crest hasn’t given them any progress yet, right?”

“Seems that way. Apparently there is some kind of magical mechanism in it, though.”

An analysis team was still on-site investigating, but they had yet to produce any promising results.

“I wonder what kind of mechanism it is. I can’t even begin to guess.”

“Same here. …Hey, doesn’t it sound noisy underground?”

They heard something like shouting. At the same time, they felt a tremor of some sort. Clearly, something abnormal was happening.

They barked orders and formed up. At the signal to charge, the soldiers rushed in—only to come flying back out again. It was as if something had slammed into them and hurled them away; they hit the walls and stopped moving.

“Do not set your filthy mongrel feet in here.”

“Y-you’re Hofran!? Where did you come from!?”

Hofran and the others who had been seized in the forest near the border and escaped from the holding cells now all stood there together.

“What happened to the soldiers already down in the basement…?”

“Don’t you think that thing over there is your answer, hm?”

They were not dead, but they were badly injured. They needed treatment immediately.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but your identities are already out in the open. A surprise attack only works once.”

During the skirmishes near the border, they had been wearing the neighboring country’s uniforms, which had made the army hesitate to attack. Now, however, there were no such shackles on the soldiers.

“You’re the one who is mistaken. We will restore things to how they ought to be… with the power of the Water God!”

“The Water God? —!? What is that!?”

Hofran and his men shone with blue light. The abnormal surge of mana, beyond anything a normal human could produce, made the soldiers falter.

“This power boiling up inside me… I tested it on some mongrels, and the output was more than sufficient. In that case, how about magic…?”

“!? What are you thinking!? If you cast magic in a confined space like this, you’ll blow everyone away!”

“That may be true for you mongrels. But we, the people of the Principality, have a blessing! Now, let us wash away this filthy legacy. —Evil Storm!”

The malice-soaked torrent of water swallowed the building and everything around it whole.

---

After a long day of investigation, capture, and interrogation, Zeke had finally gotten some rest. The next day, he was in a certain room of the army dormitory.

“Are you out of your mind? Why are you wearing armor even indoors?”

“…Because that is part of what I wanted to discuss. Let me explain step by step.”

Zeke was currently in the private room that had been assigned to Blood. He had been summoned for a personal consultation.

He had had no obligation to listen, but he had nothing in particular to do today. Hiroto had decided it was a good way to kill some time.

“…You have probably already suspected this, but I am not from this country.”

“Obviously. There’s no way someone as suspicious as you would be common around here.”

(If a city that lives off tourism had someone like this walking around, it’d be a disaster…)

It was a fair point, but what Blood wanted to say was something else.

“…I came from a country far from here, a nation called Anishing. I lived there as a noble.”

“In that appearance, you were a noble? Sounds like a pack of savages.”

(You too, huh!? Why are there so many nobles in this story…)

Ignote was unusual in its own way, but Blood’s family had prospered as a noble house much like those of other countries. Blood had once believed it would be something eternal, lasting from then on into the future.

“…But reality is rarely that kind. Apparently, our house was not very well liked. Looking back, it was a common story.”

From his commoners and subjects to his household retainers, from nobles of other houses to members of his own family—by the time he realized it, the coup had reached his throat.

“…We fought as hard as we could, but it was only a matter of time. The difference in military strength was obvious at a glance. We had no choice but to flee.”

(This is starting to sound very familiar. Is he bad-mouthing the Lagias family by proxy or what?)

Hiroto broke into a cold sweat inside. It was all too easy to imagine that his own future might unfold the same way.

“…If I had just kept running, things might have turned out differently. But I refused and resorted to a taboo. That is this armor…”

The black armor that covered him from head to toe, its surface stained an overwhelming red like dried blood—it truly made him look like a demon. It was no mystery why people called him Yaksha.

“So you got swallowed by power? If it doesn’t suit you, then throw it away.”

“…That is exactly why I am consulting you.”

The air in the room changed. From the outside, the scene had already looked bizarre, but Hiroto sensed that something truly serious was about to be said.

“…Once you equip this armor, it can never be removed until the day you die.”

(That’s a cursed item!)

Hiroto screamed inside his head, but Zeke’s face did not change. To him, this was business as usual.

(There wasn’t anything like a cursed item in the game. Was this from cut content or something…?)

“…You’re not surprised by that?”

“So that’s why you’re always in armor. How pointless.”

“…They say it once belonged to a lancer whose name echoed across the land for his martial prowess.”

Driven mad in his pursuit of strength, he had fought until his life burned out, slaughtering countless people. In the Kingdom of Anishing, he was famous as a great criminal.

“…The responsibility for maintaining it changed hands every few years. The year of the coup, it happened to be in my family’s care.”

“And you grabbed it without thinking of the consequences. Serves you right.”

The vengeful spirit that craved battle had nested in the armor, influencing whoever wore it. In exchange for supernatural power, Blood had taken on a heavy burden.

“Wait. Then how do you even eat?”

“…As unbelievable as it may sound, there is one condition under which this armor can be removed.”

(Why does this setting have to be so convoluted…)

“Spare me the preamble. State the condition.”

“…When I am outside anyone’s line of sight. That is the condition.”

No special movement or incantation was required. The armor itself detected whether it was being watched and donned or shed itself accordingly, Blood explained. For scouting, it was an excellent ability.

“Are you mocking me? What does that have to do with the killer’s grudge?”

“…I would like to know that myself. No information was left about it.”

As long as he was alone, he could eat, sleep, and take care of everything else without issue.

“…In the end, the only thing the Maria Church could do was suppress it with their warding arts.”

“Those church people really do crawl out of the woodwork everywhere.”

Normally, they would have destroyed such a thing on sight, but when they tried to approach or showed hostility, the armor’s will jumped to another host. Those who lost consciousness became demonic wraiths and attacked everyone around them.

“…There are other bizarre restrictions too. My manner of speaking changes. It’s as if the armor is trying to recreate the original owner. And my real name is not Blood.”

(That’s literally the same as me!)

Whenever he tried to say his name, a different one came out instead. His first-person pronoun became “I,” and a curt, unfriendly tone became his default.

“…But that is trivial. The truly terrifying part is when it seizes my body and consciousness. The first time I put it on, I lost my memory partway through.”

Perhaps he was staying lucid thanks to his mental fortitude. Or perhaps it was simply because the demonic armor had not yet found the kind of battle it craved.

“…I’ve talked long enough. What I wanted to ask is this: can the Kingdom of Diabalet’s holy arts do something about this armor?”

“…You certainly are full of yourself.”

(A dead man’s grudge, huh… Holy arts might be able to do something, but…)

Hiroto could not see Blood’s situation as just someone else’s problem, but from Zeke’s position, there was only so much he could do.

“You truly know nothing about Lagias. In my position, there’s no way I could drag the royal family into this.”

“…I had heard you were a noble, so I thought you might be part of the core if you had that much sway.”

“How optimistic can you get? Try telling them the truth. They’d execute you on the spot.”

“…What in the world did your family do?”

Even through the armor, Blood was clearly stunned. Hiroto, however, was just as shocked. In the capital, he had been treated like a villain just for walking through the streets.

(There’s no way Ciel would listen to a request from me. Not after all the abuse I hurled at her.)

“The royals in that country don’t move out of pure goodwill.”

“…Seems every country has its own shadows.”

(Should I threaten Aktor and force him to do it? No… I don’t owe this guy that much, and I don’t have the leeway for that.)

“…My apologies. I have wasted your time.”

“You certainly have. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Zeke left the room.

He headed for the city to pursue his original objectives, but someone stopped him before he could get far.

“A-a raid! Everyone, gather up!”

“…Is everyone in this world conspiring to mock me?”

Hiroto’s hardships continued, even abroad.

---

“Ha-ha-ha! What’s wrong, mongrels!? Is that all you’ve got!?”

A fierce battle was unfolding in front of the military facility. Hofran and the other escapees had launched an attack, plunging everything into chaos.

“What’s with these guys!? They never had this kind of power before!”

A soldier who had commanded during the border skirmish stared in disbelief at the sudden increase in their strength.

“No matter how many mongrels you pile up, the result is the same! Why not surrender quietly?”

“Don’t let them get cocky… Surround them and push back with numbers! They’re just desperate because they’ve been cornered!”

The army tried to use their knowledge of the terrain and numerical superiority to turn the tide, but they could not halt the rebels’ momentum.

“You cannot stop us without blessings! Unleash the waters!”

“Evil Storm!”

“Evil Storm!”

“Evil Storm!”

They unleashed wide-area water spells all at once, not even caring that they were caught in the radius themselves. Soldiers were swept up in the maelstrom and thrown aside, but the noble faction stood unfazed. A barrier-like shell surrounded each of them, shielding them from their own magic.

“…Cleaning up garbage really is satisfying.”

“I agree. You’re the next trash on the list, though.”

“! So you showed up after all, you damn brat!”

Zeke walked forward without sparing a glance for the fallen soldiers.

His calm demeanor in the face of Hofran’s apparent advantage filled the noble faction with unease. They could feel that there was something about him they could not grasp.

“He’s just a foreign outsider! Kill him, I don’t care how!”

Empowered by an external source, the nobles unleashed everything they had—swords, spears, and magic without restraint.

“All defense, huh, brat!? No more room for that bravado of yours?”

Zeke continued to evade, not attacking even once. His roving gaze made it look as though he were studying something.

“…How pitiful.”

“Begging for mercy now? Fools like you are guilty simply by existing!”

Globes of water-formed bullets hurtled toward him, but he slipped past every shot. It was as if he had eyes in every direction, and his movements disoriented them.

“…What are you doing!? This is no time to play around! Finish him off already!”

“But Lord Hofran! None of our attacks are landing!”

“Idiots, that’s not even the problem. Look at reality.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Wh-what is… this…?”

The blue light that had been wrapped around Hofran’s group—once a sign of their dramatic surge in power—was now fading.

“That strength of yours… It seems to lack staying power.”

“That’s impossible! We received a blessing! We will restore the glory of the Principality…!”

They strained, trying to pour more mana into it, but the Water God they spoke of did not seem inclined to answer.

“So you turn to your god only when it’s convenient? …You’re nobles, aren’t you? Then die with some dignity for once.”

“Shut uuup! You lowborn mongrel!”

Ignoring everyone else, Hofran’s clique lunged at Zeke all at once. They turned the very water that symbolized Wartel into their weapon, determined to reclaim their lost pride. It was all, they believed, for the sake of the Principality.

“Mongrels, huh… From where I’m standing, this whole world looks warped. …Time to sink.”

An icy storm roared outward from Zeke’s position. The water magic they had created as their weapon was turned against them, becoming the very thing that tormented them. Before the freezing tempest, the glory they clung to proved utterly powerless.