Chapter 214 : Meryl, the Second Daughter of Praha (7)
A sharp cry of surprise and delight escaped me. “Kai!”
I hadn’t expected him back so soon. His training to become the next Veilmaster should have taken months longer.
“What are you doing here? What about your training?”
“I finished,” he said.
“All of it?”
He just nodded. Then, without another word, he channeled Aura into his dagger.
A low hum vibrated through the air, and a profound chill swept over me, raising the hairs on my arms. The air grew heavy, thick with the promise of death.
It was a pressure, a physical weight, as if the word itself had gained substance.
Such a monster.
A dry laugh escaped me. The feeling was like a scythe blade pressed to my throat.
So he wasn’t lying about his training.
I reached out and laid a hand on his arm, disrupting the flow of his Aura. The pressure vanished.
“Welcome back,” I said, a faint smile touching my lips.
Another powerful ally was always welcome. But this was Kai. Even without his newfound strength, just having him back was more than enough.
“Yes,” he said. “From now on, I protect you.”
“I’m counting on it.” I gave his head a single, fond pat.
Lancelot swaggered over. “You’ve gone soft, brat. Lost your edge?”
“…You haven’t changed at all,” Kai noted flatly.
“Hey, I’ve gotten stronger too, you know!”
“I think you haven’t aged mentally at all.”
“Why you little…!”
Kai ignored Lancelot’s sputtering and turned his head. “It’s been a while.”
“Aye,” Roxen rumbled. “It’s good to see you well.”
“…You’ve gotten stronger.”
“It is all thanks to my liege.”
Kai nodded. Having confirmed Roxen’s loyalty, he didn’t press further.
Instead, he asked, “And the others?”
He meant the rest of the Special Taskforce.
“Still in the North. A lot has happened.”
“So no one died.” It was a statement, not a question.
“…That’s right. No one in our unit. But Hans… he hasn’t woken up.”
“Ah.” Kai’s expression faltered.
Hans had been left behind in the North, still unconscious. He wasn’t a warrior, but he had been one of them on the road.
Kai’s eyes grew somber. “Hans was always frail…”
“Is that your way of saying you hope he gets well?”
“Yes.”
“Me too,” I said, my own voice tinged with bitterness as I turned my gaze forward.
A colossal wall loomed ahead. The great wall of Hoilon, the Imperial Capital.
I clapped a hand on Kai’s shoulder. “That’s why we need to end this war and get back to him. If we take too long, we might not see him again.”
“…Yes.” Kai nodded, his jaw set.
With Kai back among us, we turned our eyes to the capital and marched on.
* * *
The capital greeted us with desolate streets.
War. Less than a year of conflict with the Demonkin had reduced the Empire to this.
“…It’s horrible,” Lancelot muttered, his brow furrowed.
The avenues were overrun with vagrants. The maimed, dragging shattered limbs. Women selling their bodies for a mouthful of food. Men ready to kill for a crust of bread.
The city was a theater of human misery.
“Shouldn’t we do something?” Lancelot asked, his voice low.
“Leave them,” I said. “This isn’t a battle between the weak and the strong. It’s the weak preying on the weak.”
If we intervened, we would only crown a new tyrant of the gutters, one who could claim our authority as his own.
Besides, weakness is no guarantee of virtue. If we truly wanted to help them, ending the war a day sooner was the only real answer.
“…To think this is the Imperial Capital,” Lancelot grumbled. “The slums would be an improvement.”
“The First Prince was likely too busy fleeing to notice,” I said. “He probably has no idea it’s this bad.”
“How could he not know something so obvious?”
“It’s easy to remain ignorant when your retainers build walls to shield your eyes. The First Prince is clever, but he’s no prodigy of war.”
He was the same man I remembered from before my regression: clever but craven, always the last to grasp the reality of a crisis. That was the First Prince.
“I feel sorry for the late Emperor,” Lancelot said, his words bordering on treason. “He had two sons… one a traitor who sold his country, the other a weak-willed fool.”
In peacetime, his head would be on a pike for such an insult. Even now, lèse-majesté was a grave crime; it was fortunate no one else was near enough to hear.
“…Watch your tongue. From this point on, we’re under the Imperial family’s gaze.”
My eyes swept over the street ahead. The squalor began to fade, replaced by a different kind of presence. Knights now outnumbered citizens.
“They’ve set up a perimeter.” To divert this much manpower to guard duty… a move perfectly befitting a coward.
As we advanced, a line of knights stepped forward, blocking our path.
“Halt.”
“Kai, on my signal,” I murmured, holding him back. I had no doubt he would cut them down without a second thought.
I walked forward alone.
As I closed the distance, the guards leveled their spears.
“You’re not refugees,” one of them called out. “State your origin.”
“We’ve come from the North.”
“The North?”
“Yes. Did His Highness not summon aid? We are here to help you crush the life from the Duchy of Artezia.”
“…What are you talking about?” the guard asked, confusion all over his face. His grip on his spear tightened, readying for a fight.
Kai’s eyebrow twitched.
He’s become a proper hound.
I patted Kai’s shoulder to calm him and raised my voice. “Go and announce the arrival of Baron Louis vinn Berg. Tell His Highness I have come, as he requested, to crush the dogs of Artezia.”
“…What?”
The guards stared, their faces a mixture of shock and disbelief.
I had no need to answer their silent question. I simply met their gazes, my expression unreadable.
Just then, a man emerged from behind them. “Go. Inform His Highness.”
It was Sir Raym, Commander of the Second Imperial Knights. I had met him once before, when I delivered the Mithril to the Emperor.
“It has been a long time, Sir Louis,” Raym said with a broad smile, greeting me like an old friend.
* * *
Though Raym smiled, he was reeling.
He’s returned as a monster.
The last time Raym saw him, the man was a mere Aura Expert. Now… he wasn’t just a Master, but a Grand Master.
And at a state of complete mastery, no less.
Was there anyone in the Imperial Palace who could stop him? Even Sir Karlo, the Captain of the Guard, hadn’t reached that level. If Louis willed it, the Imperial Family would crumble.
And the warriors he brought with him… they are of another caliber entirely.
The famed Grand Master archer, the “Divine Archer,” and two other knights who felt just as powerful.
And then… the boy.
That one… he’s something else.
He looked like an assassin, a youth among seasoned warriors, but instinct screamed that this boy was the most dangerous of them all.
Raym felt like a mouse staring down a viper. If I let my guard down for a moment, my head will fly.
To call the boy a Grand Master felt like an understatement. It meant every person Louis Berg had brought was a warrior of that caliber.
“…Are they planning to conquer the continent?” he muttered under his breath.
Louis glanced at him. “Did you say something?”
“…It’s nothing,” Raym said, forcing a weary smile as he waved the guards aside. “I was just relieved to know you’re on our side.”
By now, the Prince would have been alerted.
“Follow me. His Highness will be waiting.” Raym suppressed the rising tide of anxiety, his smile fixed in place.
He prayed the Prince wouldn’t be foolish enough to offend these people.
* * *
“You’ve come.”
When we reached the audience chamber, the First Prince greeted us. His eyes were weary and sunken, but for a man I’d dismissed as a coward, he looked surprisingly composed.
“We greet the Rising Sun of the Empire.” I had the others bow as I offered the formal address.
“Enough,” the prince said, his voice raspy. “What’s the point of courtesy for a scarecrow prince? You’d be better off bowing to a stray dog.”
He continued, “You must have seen it on your way here. The countless subjects starving to death. I wouldn’t normally have looked, but knowing you were coming, I forced myself to inspect the capital. And I saw…”
The First Prince dragged a hand over his face and sighed. “…just how pathetic and cowardly I have been.”
“…Your Highness.”
“No empty flattery. If not for you, I would have lived my entire life that way. My retainers would have fed me lies for my own comfort, and I would have been content, believing them. I might have even rejoiced at taking the throne.”
The prince spoke with a cold self-loathing that stunned me.
The man sitting before me was completely different from the one I remembered. He had been weak-willed, but this man was capable of self-reflection—a man who knew shame.
…Has this changed, too?
He was nothing like the man from before my regression. I couldn’t tell if the grief of losing his father had forged him anew, or if the endless war had finally awakened something inside him.
But I knew this change was to my advantage.
“What do you ask of me?”
“…I will grant you the title of Marquis. Whatever you do, whatever you desire, it will be your payment. In return… I have only one request.”
The First Prince looked at me, his eyes filled with bitter desperation.
“Please… won’t you save the people of this Empire?”