idola

But that wasn’t what Ryner got out of it. Instead, he blamed himself for killing and called himself a monster. He went to prison willingly for his crime of living.

“His eyes… So you’re going to research the Alpha Stigma?” Sion asked.

“Yeah.”

“To save Ryner?”

Kiefer nodded, pleased to hear it from him. “After all… that’s the only reason I can find to be alive right now.”

She said it so easily.

“So answer me, Sion. Will you free Ryner from prison?”

Sion nodded. “I think I can probably manage it.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“Then I’ll leave it to you,” Kiefer said.

“……”

“I’m leaving Roland, then. Ah, but Sion! Don’t tell Ryner about this. I’ll tell him the next time I see him.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“I understand…”

“Then that’s that,” Kiefer said. She turned to leave, but only took a couple steps before she turned back. “Oh, and… Sion?”

“Hm?”

“Your complexion looks terrible. Are you okay?”

Sion smiled. “I haven’t been getting much sleep.”

“Are you working nonstop just like you used to?”

“Yeah. I just love working so much~!”

“Ahaha. But that’s no good. You’ll never get anything done right if you try to do it all at once.”

“Is that so.”

“Yeah. If you can’t do it all yourself, then you should rely on other people for help.”

Sion smiled. “You’re the one to talk. You never talked to us about anything.”

“Ahaha. I know because I have personal experience. And the worst part of it is that Ryner’s the one who taught me!”

“I see.”

But even if they talked big, back then, none of them had any power at all. Nobody could save anyone. They were powerless, just like always. They never had any power in the critical moment where it’d make a real difference.

“So, Sion. If you’re ever having a hard time…”

“I have lots of friends,” Sion interrupted. “I have lots of allies and girlfriends, too. Unlike Ryner, I’m super popular.”

Kiefer laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you’re the king now!”

“Yeah, that’s right!”

“But you won’t open your heart to any of them.”

“……”

“That’s why I’m offering to lend you an ear now,” Kiefer said. “It’s a limited time offer. And I won’t help you solve anything.”

“Ahaha. You’re horrible!”

“Your face is the most horrible thing here. You look exhausted.”

“Well, I’ve only just become king. Succeeding the throne isn’t supposed to be easy, but it’ll get better.”

“Mm.”

“So there’s nothing I can do about being tired right now. But I’ll work as hard as I can to expand my influence.”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll get Ryner out of prison… and go to him with my problems.”

Kiefer’s eyes shone. “Oh, that’s great! Ryner’s always thought that he’s a monster who nobody wants, after all. It’ll be good for him to feel useful.”

“Haha, yeah.”

“Alright, I’ll leave him to you. Take care of him until I get back…”

“Yeah. I understand. And Kiefer…”

 “Hm?”

“Take care.”

Kiefer nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m a first-rate spy, after all.”

A first-rate spy who blew her cover, let her sisters get killed, betrayed her allies and caused everyone’s deaths, and got Ryner thrown in jail.

She was carrying all of that on her conscience. But it wasn’t her fault. And nothing that Ryner was carrying was his fault, either.

They blamed themselves for things that were completely out of their control.

“Ahaha… well, that’s all. See you again sometime, Sion.”

“Yeah. See you someday,” Sion whispered.

Then the throne room returned to absolute silence.

He needed more power to save Ryner from prison. He needed to capture more and more human hearts. He needed to get rid of some of the influence the anti-monarchy party of nobles had.

“……”

---

Every day was a struggle for power.

His political views aimed at bettering his country started and ended as dreams.

Countless people killed. Countless people were killed.

It was normal.

The darkness inside of him slowly but surely spread. He could feel it as he killed. As he stepped on the lives of others.

“……”

Before he realized it, people were calling him the Hero King.

His hands were dirtier than ever before, they said that the way they were governed was better than ever. They said that they had a wonderful king.

People began to say that the revolution that led to the change in kings was a bloodless one. They said that even though the last king had died.

That was proof of how many he killed, both friend and foe.

The darkness - the curse inside of him - swelled as if trying to swallow him entirely. It was hard to stay himself. It hurt everywhere. He could feel the curse in every pore of his body, every nerve in his body, encroaching on the person he was supposed to be.

There were nights where he thought about how much easier it’d be to just give in and stop being human. He thought about how much easier it’d be to lose it completely and let the world pass by him, just as his father had, as he writhed on the floor in agony, all alone.

“……”

But on a hard, pain-filled day, just like the many that came before it— 

Sion finally gained enough power to get Ryner out of prison.

And… he was a little worried. What kind of expression should he greet Ryner with?

His hands were so much dirtier than they were the last time they saw each other. They were stained red with blood. Yet he still worried about tiny, insignificant things like what expression he should make when he saw Ryner again.

“……”

Even after everything, this was something important to him. He really did want to save his friend from prison.

---

It was a place where light couldn’t reach, oblivious of the lights of the sun and the moon, of day and night. It was impossible to tell if it was noon or midnight the second he stepped inside of the cruelest prison in the country.

A normal human would go mad after a couple months in there. It was a terrible environment for Ryner to be cooped up in.

“……”

Sion was paying a visit in the dead of night to avoid prying eyes. If it got back to the nobles that he’d been in here, they’d almost certainly interfere with his goal. Their meddling could very well put Ryner in danger.

That was the extent of his powerlessness even now.

Why was he king? Only because the last king died. It wasn’t like the country had held out both hands and beckoned him into kinghood or anything. But… it was fine for now. It was enough for now.

“……”

His eyes narrowed as he stared into a small cell with three stone walls and one of iron bars. It was so full of books that it was almost impossible to see the floor, and even the walls in some places. According to the jailor who managed this prison, Ryner had been researching something the whole time he was here.

For two entire years, he sat in here, researching as much as he could given his circumstances.

He’d always been such an unmotivated guy. What could someone like Ryner possibly be so passionate about that he spent two years researching it?

When Sion looked up at the bookshelf, he understood. When he looked at the titles, he understood. Ryner was fighting his own battle here, all alone.

“……”

He could hear Ryner’s relaxed breathing as he slept.

From the other side of dirty iron bars, he could hear Ryner inhaling and exhaling slowly.

Two years ago, his presence alone would have woke Ryner. But he continued to sleep.

Two years had passed. Ryner’s senses had probably dulled in that time.

Sion slowly, quietly raised a hand through the bars to take a messy bundle of papers from on top of one of Ryner’s piles. Unrealistic, idiotic delusions lined the pages. Words like ‘hero,’ ‘demon,’ and ‘demon king’ appeared often.

A normal person might take one look at it and deem it madness.

It was a childish thesis. An idiotic thesis.

It said that if they managed to find the power that heroes and demons left them, they might be able to spread some light on the dark world they lived in. The feeling that the pages conveyed was past the point of being child-like ambition and diving into more of an earnest hope for something good to happen, almost like a prayer that things would change.

“…Ha, hahah…”

It was all Sion could do to laugh at the words Ryner had written. He wasn’t laughing because it was stupid, though. It certainly wasn’t stupid.

As he flipped through the pages, he found one that encapsulated Ryner’s will for the future.

He knew that reading it might take him off of the path he was on. He felt like it might offer a simpler solution, one where they could stop fighting.

He wanted something simpler because the curse was horrible. He could feel it burning through his veins. He wanted something simpler, a way to make it easier, make him lose his sanity sooner.

So he read it.

When he did, the person he’d been trying so hard to throw away came back full force.

When his eyes read the words Ryner had written… when he read the words Ryner had worked so hard to put on paper. When he read Ryner’s unbelievably childish paper… 

I hate it when people die.

I also hate killing.

I hate crying and I hate being made to cry.

What’s the feeling called when you know you can’t choose your life? When your family dies? What about when the person you love dies?

Nobody wants those things to happen, and yet this world wishes for pointless sadness, laughing all the while.

I’ve never wanted to change things. I know it’s futile. But I’ll keep being sad if things don’t change, and I don’t want to lose anything else… 

This is a pain to write, but… I think it’s about time to move forward. I’ve averted my eyes from the past until now, but if it’s necessary, I’ll look at it. For the sake of making a world where nobody will lose anything anymore.

A world where that kid and Kiefer don’t have to cry, where Tyle, Tony, and Fahle don’t have to die, where Sion doesn’t have to torment himself over the state of things.

To a world where everyone smiles and it’s okay if all we do is nap.

Ryner Lute

“……”

Ryner… that Ryner.

In the midst of an ugly, horrifying world where all he could do was push others away out of fear, Ryner had written this. And in the midst of their ugly, horrifying world, Sion had read it.

“……”

Sion swallowed the urge to cry.  “I see,” he whispered with a trembling voice. “So this is the path you chose.”

His sense of self had come back to him. He felt the will to fight again. He didn’t know how long he could keep his body and heart alive, but… he decided that he’d try to do all the things he set out to do.

Let them call him the Hero King. He’d do something that made praising his name worth their time.

He’d fight earnestly for a little longer. So… Ryner also had to… 

“…I told you that this wasn’t going to be somewhere that you could just nap your life away. I told you that it’d be hard… but it wasn’t. I won’t forgive you for being the only person in the world who likes being in a place like this. I won’t forgive you for making me alone worry. You’re mine, so I’m going to use you.” Sion smiled meanly through his tears. “Even if you don’t want me to.” 

That was the start of a legend. It was the start of their new legend. It was the story of an impossible darkness and the two who still managed to see light.

It was the story that tied the Dark Fallen Hero and the Lonesome Demon together.

---

Table of Contents

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Chapter 2: The Never Ending Revolution

Table of Contents

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---

The battlefield was in a terrible state. There were so many bodies that they were starting to look like a rug on the ground.

The revolutionary army had lost its commander. They’d lost their moral support. Claugh Klom lay dead.

“……”

But the battle wasn’t over yet.

The private armies they’d been fighting had begun to fight themselves, so the battle wasn’t over yet.

It was a strange sight. Why on earth did the killing continue when one of the two sides’ commanding officers was dead?

“……”

Luke Stokkart stood wearing the blue uniform of a nobleman’s private army. His eyes narrowed. 

People died and died. He heard one shout - “I hate doing everything the nobles tell me to do! I can’t live like this anymore!”

He heard another scream - “I-it’s exactly like what Claugh Klom said! If we, if we do everything we can here, then we might be able to change things! So I-I’m going to join the revolu—”

He died before he could finish. But his hopeful scream was contagious. It reached the people around him.

There had always been a possibility that this might happen hidden away somewhere. This country’s situation was terrible to the point of absurdity. For a long time, the only emotion it was capable of bringing anyone was despair. It was the kind of country where it would’ve been stranger if a revolution wasn’t brewing than if one was. It was the kind of place where it would’ve been natural for the people to rebel against the nobility. But they never did. Why, he didn’t know.

The only explanation he could think of was that some terrible power that far surpassed what humanity could do had a hand in the way things were. It must have been like that forever. And that was why… 

“…That’s why Miller decided to use Sion, who has royal blood, for this…”

Perhaps Miller had made the right choice, as things were finally happening differently than they had been. The people’s anger had finally overflowed. Their sadness, despair, and hope had finally lit the flames of revolution. Yes, their revolution was without a doubt failing in this moment, but watching the battle now, their side was still managing to hang on.

“It’s thanks to Claugh, isn’t it…”

Luke gazed at Claugh Klom’s body, crouched to the ground. His back had been pierced by a sword.

“Or perhaps it’s due to Sion Astal’s power.”

 Either way, Luke couldn’t help but think that they still had a chance of winning. The rules of their world were changing. The chains that forced their people into submission to the point that it almost felt like brainwashing were finally loosening. 

“Though I don’t think there’s much we can do with such a strong disadvantage.”

A man wearing the same uniform as Luke turned to him. “The hell are you doing just standing there? Kill the revolutionaries!”

“Ah, I apologize. You see, I’ve just been so busy with the special mission that Marquess Tenglon entrusted me with.”

“Special mission? What did he say?”

Luke took a step back, then turned to look behind himself. As he did, he threw a knife towards the man who was questioning him’s neck. “It’s a secret. From you, anyway.”

Luke began to move through the soldiers. The revolutionaries were doing their best to kill him, but he evaded their efforts and stealthily killed the private noble army men instead.

“Wh-what’s happening!?” Luke said for good measure as he cut through the noble army’s commander. “Why are you helping the revolutionaries!? If we betray the nobles, they’ll kill us… Shit! We’ll lose at this rate!”

Of course that wasn’t true. The private armies still had a significant advantage. He just wanted to make it clear to everyone that the nobles wouldn’t be kind when they returned after fighting with traitors in hopes of more people switching sides to fight with the revolutionaries.

Most likely everyone here hated the nobility. Many had friends and family who had been slaughtered by the nobility at some point in their lives. It was more common now than ever before, after all… 

But that didn’t change the current situation.

“We’re still far overpowered… Overpowered to the extent of wondering if this isn’t just expending pointless effort. But— if a miracle were to occur here, which side would it favor?”

It would have to be a miracle made by Rahel Miller. That or one made by Sion Astal.

“…Claugh is an idiot. I wish he could see the interesting end to this,” Luke said to himself, a sad expression on his face. But it only lasted for a moment. Claugh’s subordinate, Shuss, ran into his line of sight. He’d changed into the uniform of a different noble’s private army at some point.

Shuss was running towards Claugh with the full intention of helping him up. But Claugh wasn’t moving. He really wasn’t moving. So he had to be dead—

But Shuss’ eyes widened. He yelled something to one of his men.

“…What, he’s alive?” Luke whispered and smiled. “He’s so stubborn.”

  Then someone spoke from behind him. “Claugh was brought to the verge of death on Rahel Miller’s orders—” 

“And Claugh was ordered to pretend to be dead?”

“Yes.”

“He did well. Have you received our next order?”

“No. We’d been told that we ought to retreat once Claugh was down, but seeing the current situation…”

Luke turned around to see a man older than himself, wearing a private army uniform. He looked at him, puzzled. “What’s going on?” Luke wondered. “Normally Miller would have us retreat. This situation is just too much…”

That was as far as he got.

An enemy soldier ran up to Miller’s subordinate and beheaded him with ease. Then he turned to Luke. “You’re with the revolutionary army, aren’t you?”

“……”

Busted.

But Luke smiled anyway, then raised his voice to a scream. “Th-this guy’s a traitor! He’s with the revolutionaries! Kill him!”

“Wha—”

Countless Lightning Flash magic circles surrounded him. Luke didn’t even have to raise a finger.

“Y-you bastard…”

With that, the magic hit him all at once and he fell to the ground. He was dead.

This was a horrible battlefield. Nobody knew who their allies or enemies were for sure. They just killed.

Luke took a step back and looked to his fallen comrade’s head on the ground. “It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t let your death be in vain. We’ll manage to make this revolution work somehow…”

He felt a knife pierce his back. When he looked back to see who had done it, it was a soldier from the revolutionary army. Luke smiled at the pain as well as his own foolishness.

“You’re a dog of the nobility!” The soldier yelled, a frantic look on his face. He was a boy of only fourteen or fifteen.

To think that a kid like that was out on the battlefield. That was how they did things here in Roland. It was a country that ran on values that never should have existed.

Luke grabbed the boy’s arm. “You’re struggling, aren’t you? I’m your ally.”

“Huh?”

“And I have something to ask of you. You’re an excellent soldier to have gotten that knife in my back so I need you to do something for me, alright?”

“I-I stabbed my own ally in the back…”

“It’s fine. Take a second to look behind me - carefully, so that nobody follows your eyes. Claugh Klom is alive. Shuss Shirazz made sure he’d be okay. That being said, I need you to gather a number of our allies together. We’re going to use magic as a distraction so Shuss can bring Claugh back to headquarters.”

“A-ah, so Sir Claugh is—”

“Got it? We’ll win this. What’s your name?” 

“L, Lach… Velariore.”

“Okay, Lach. Everything will be okay. We’re on the side of justice, so we’ll definitely come out on top.”

Justice.

They were just.

‘Justice’ as a concept had absolutely no value in Roland, but that was precisely why Luke said it.

The boy’s eyes shined with hope. “Wh-what’s your name?”

“Haha.”

Luke didn’t introduce himself. There just wasn’t a point in doing so. He didn’t know if he’d live or die here, after all. He didn’t know if this would become a country worth living in or not either.

Even so, he ran back into the battlefield to try to help their revolution succeed. 

If they couldn’t protect themselves now, the scales would tip far into the nobility’s favor. But if they could prove that they were the better army of the two, then onlookers would decide that they were the ones worth following instead of the private armies and might enter the fray on their side.

They only needed a little more. Only a little, tiny bit more.

“…It might end up being for nothing, but what’s the harm in dreaming?” Luke whispered to himself as he drew a magic circle. 

---

“You look like a girl,” Ferris said as she stared at Sion.

They were sitting together inside of a carriage, and Sion was combing the rainwater and blood out of his hair. He’d already changed clothes into Lucile’s. He’d chosen something high-class but simple.

He hadn’t had much time to tend to his wounds, so he’d cauterized his shoulder and hand with magic to stop the bleeding. Now he was tending to his hair, the last step in being presentable.

Sion smiled at Ferris as he combed through it. “I can’t help it. I’m an ultra-noble prince through and through.”

“Ridiculous. Aren’t you just a dango delivery boy?”

“I’m that too. Dango delivery is my part-time job,” Sion said with a tired smile.

They were currently heading towards Count Newbell, who had been his goal for a long time now.

Two of Roland’s nobles compromised the majority of power within the country - Duke Abaaz and Duke Staelied. Marquess Wahti and Marquess Tenglon fought for power a step below them, and after that, it was basically a free-for-all.

Among the rest of the nobles, there was a dependable man who didn’t participate in the power struggles - Count Newbull, a man of better character than other noblemen. In fact, Sion was already in contact with him, since he seemed awfully tolerant of him.

If Count Newbull accepted Sion even in the midst of the Roland Empire’s present unrest, they might really be able to take hold of the future.

“…At least, I hope so,” Sion mumbled self-derisively.

He opened the carriage window and looked out. The dark and cloudy sky was still spitting rain down on them. It lit up here and there, but he couldn’t say if that was due to natural lightning or magic at this point.

“Sion.”

He didn’t turn to face Ferris who had called out to him. They’d probably arrived at Count Newbull’s residence. He looked down from the sky to see numerous carriages lined up. Not just carriages, either. Countless men stood defending the mansion. They must’ve been Count Newbull’s private army.

If they were his enemy, everything ended here. Even Ferris wouldn’t be able to pull through if that many soldiers came at her at once.

“Sion,” Ferris repeated.

This time, Sion turned to her. “Hm?”

“You never answered my question.”

“Question?”

“Mm.”

“What was it?”

“What are you doing?” Ferris asked. “What’s happening here and now?”

He couldn’t answer.

What was happening?

That depended entirely on if he was able to make a miracle happen. If he couldn’t do it, then nothing was happening. Nothing at all. It’d just be another day in their usual dark and gloomy Roland. It’d be another day where the nobility laughed and crushed commoners under their feet like bugs.

“…We’ve arrived at Count Newbull’s,” the carriage’s driver said. 

If they attacked, then this was the end of it all. Every single scenario they might lead to their success would stop, unable to continue. He’d let himself be killed so Ferris could get away, and that’d be that.

“…Guh.”

He was shivering from anxiety. At the same time, he wanted to laugh. Why did it take him this long to feel sick from worry?

He supposed it was because he was so hopeful now.

“……”

They didn’t attack.

Count Newbull accepted him.

Sion smiled. So there was still a path for him to walk, was there? There were still things he had to do. Difficult things.

The carriage stopped. “We’re here.”

Sion nodded, then turned to Ferris. “Sorry, but could you get out first and hold the door open for me? I need them to think I’m noble enough for this.”

Ferris made a face like she really didn’t want to, but thankfully opened the door anyway.

A noble stood on the other side. A blond, unrealistically beautiful man. Ferris looked at him, shocked, and stood in a hurry. “B-brother!?”

It was Lucile, Ferris’ older brother.

“What are you doing here?” Ferris asked.

Lucile didn’t respond. He just smiled. Then he turned his attention towards Sion. “Lord Sion Astal. Your hand, please,” he said, almost as if he were a servant… no, a guard.

Sion smiled. “What are you doing? You said that you wouldn’t offer your hand until I made a miracle occur.”

Lucile continued to smile. “By chance, you were saved by my sister. Not once. Twice. My sister has Eris blood, too.”

“So you’re saying that I was chosen?”

“Who knows. But you haven’t done too bad in getting here. It seems to me that the heavens like you.”

“…The heavens? Isn’t it demons who are fond of me?”

Lucile smiled enticingly and raised his hand closer. “Come on. Show me a miracle. It doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you move forward, right?”

Sion moved to accept his hand, but Ferris grabbed his arm before it could reach. “I said it before too, but you shouldn’t do things how my brother wants you to,” she whispered.

“It’s too late,” Sion answered without meeting her eyes. “I can’t stop now. But you don’t need to have anything to do with it now that Lucile is here.”

“Ah…”

Sion shook Ferris’ hand off and got out of the carriage.

“Hey, Sion,” Ferris said from behind.

“……”

“Sion.”

He turned back and smiled at her. “I understand that you’re worried about me. You’re a kindhearted person, aren’t you? But this is something I have to do.”

“It’s a foolish path to take.”

“I understand that,” Sion said.

“It’s a stupid path to take.”

“Yeah, it is,” Sion agreed. “So you don’t have to come with. In fact, that’s why Lucile’s here, isn’t it? It’s so that you don’t have to see the rest.” Sion looked at Lucile, who smiled.

“Go home, Ferris,” Lucile said. “It’s time for kids to go to bed.”

“Don’t mess with me. It’s not even evening yet, Brother.”

Lucile opened his eyes to look at his sister. “Ferris.”

“……”

Ferris didn’t argue. It was hard to tell what the relationship between them was, but some understanding came from that gaze. Ferris closed the door without getting out.

Sion smiled. “She has a pretty early curfew, doesn’t she?”

“It’s out of love,” Lucile said. “Besides, what you’re about to do isn’t something that she needs to see.”

“…And what exactly am I about to do?” Sion asked.

“Ah. Weren’t you going to show me a miracle?”

“……”

“Miracles don’t come as easily as you seem to think. You can’t expect miracles to pour from the sky by relying on mere coincidence and fate. You won’t gain a miracle without dirtying your hands or selling your soul. So I’m sure that whatever you do to make one happen won’t be anything that I want my sister seeing,” Lucile said.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Sion said. “But can I say something?”

“What is it?”

“That’s a little past the point of being brotherly, isn’t it?”

Lucile looked a bit surprised, and laughed dryly. “Hahaha.”

Their conversation ended there. Dozens of private soldiers had marched up to Sion. But Sion wasn’t scared anymore. He wasn’t scared of these guys with Lucile here. Though it’d all be for nothing if they killed these soldiers. He had to captivate their hearts if he wanted a miracle, and he’d need as bright and beautiful of a miracle as he could get if he wanted to change Roland for the better.

Several nobles approached, protracted by his army on both sides. Sion recognized one of them as Count Taurus. But he wasn’t the most important of this group. The most important of them was the man in the center - a noble in his mid-thirties, Count Newbull. He had clean facial hair and exquisite posture. He looked to Sion and spoke.

“Prince Sion Astal… Never did I dream that the day would come that a prince would seek me out for a visit—”

Newbull was increasing the distance between them, and Sion didn’t have the time to close it again. So he interrupted. “Raise your head, Count Newbull. You must understand my present situation, Count. Presently, Roland is…”

Newbull nodded. “A revolution has taken root… correct? A battalion of your supporters is skirmishing with Marquess Tenglon’s private army, and it’s not a gentle skirmish, either - one could even call it a war. I cannot say that I agree with your methods… You have sacrificed many for a small chance of victory.”

Sion smiled. “Why do you think I have come to see you? Do you think I’ve come just to hear your opinion of if I’ll win or not?”

“I apologize, but we are a peaceful lot. We have no intention of aiding in military efforts—”

The private army suddenly got bigger. Sion could feel their bloodlust. He looked around. It looked like a few hundred soldiers had been hiding among Newbull’s gardens. “Do you intend on capturing me and handing me to Marquess Tenglon?” Sion asked.

“No. I am ultimately a neutral party.”

“So?”

“I was thinking of keeping you here for a while.”

“You’re taking me prisoner?”

“No, no. You are a valuable guest and will be treated as such.”

Just as he said, he was neutral. If he kept Sion in wait, he’d be able to sell him to whoever won with ease. If Sion won, he’d side with Sion. If he lost, he’d side with the other nobles.

“…Please be frank with me. Which side do you believe will win, Count Newbull?” 

Newbull shrugged. “Do you think asking me that will change anything?”

“Could you tell me?”

“‘Winning’ here is impossible. Someone always wins in matches like this, and someone else always loses. But in the end, nothing changes. It’s as if this country is cursed. Nothing ever changes, no matter who comes out on top. That’s why I believe that sacrificing the lives of many civilians and soldiers for this is foolish at best.”

Sion narrowed his eyes. Newbull was right - it was possible to play games like that. If he never fought, he’d never die. He lived as a member of the nobility, so that choice was open to him.

But that choice wasn’t open for everyone.

Regular people were still dying. Women, children, and the powerless were still dying.

Newbull was different.

He was a noble. He was capable of protecting the people dear to him even without participating in this battle. So neutrality was a position he was capable of taking.

“……”

Sion’s allies weren’t like that. They were overwhelmingly regular people as opposed to nobles. They lived every day at risk of being killed for some selfish, meaningless, and absurd reason.

If this country could change.

If they could just change this country— 

“……”

Newbull probably wouldn’t see eye-to-eye with him because his perspective was coming from a completely different place. He lived as one of the strong. He turned his attention to protecting those around him more than anyone else.

So Sion asked him once again.

“…Count Newbull. Which of the two sides out there fighting today do you think will win?” 

“As I said, the winner is of no particular interest to m—”

“It’s me,” Sion said. “I will win.”

Newbull looked at him like he was an idiot for a moment, but that expression was soon replaced by a smile. “Is that so. As expected of a prince. Will you stay here at my manor and rest as you wait for victory to bless you?”

“I believe the conflict is between two armies - one in support of Marquess Tenglon, and one in support of me,” Sion said.

“Yes, that’s true.”

“I have many noble supporters, just as Marquess Tenglon does. In other words, this is a fight between the nobles on my side and the nobles on Marquess Tenglon’s side…”

Newbull tilted his head in confusion. “It is quite insolent to act as though you have noble supporters when it’s so plainly unlikely to be true.” 

Sion turned his gaze to Count Taurus behind Newbull, who had already pledged his support to Sion. Taurus averted his eyes. So that’s how it was.

Sion didn’t blame him, though. His claims of supporting Sion were meaningless from the start. He always knew that. Anyone would change their opinions the second that having them put themselves in danger.

“…It seems to me that you still do not understand your position, Prince, so I will enlighten you. Duke Abaaz has begun to move.”

Duke Abaaz was one of the biggest powers in their country. Duke Staelied alone was capable of going against him.

“Duke Abaaz allegedly annihilated the revolutionaries who attempted to appeal to him in order to protect Duke Staelied,” Newbull continued.

“……”  

“Duke Abaaz was originally part of Duke Staelied’s faction. It is natural for them to band together in incidents like this. If that should happen, then naturally their army would be the strongest, correct? If it is between Duke Abaaz and you—”

“So you support Duke Abaaz, do you, Count Newbull.”

“That is not the case.”

“But you will capture me because good things will befall you should Duke Abaaz win. You want that outcome as it will allow you to sell me to him. Correct?”

“…No. Ultimately, I would like to stay neutral. Don’t misunderstand.”

What a coward. Sion had the urge to laugh.

Still, he understood Newbull’s position. He was trying to ensure his own safety by not getting involved as long as he could help it. He might not understand the value in fighting here in the first place. And yeah, it wasn’t like his family would die in the conflict or anything, so he might be right. It might be absolutely meaningless to him.

“…Count Newbull, have you no ambition?”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, haven’t you ever wanted to be more influential than Duke Abaaz, or possess great power?”

“No, not particularly. Who would I even expect to bestow me with such power?”

“Me.”

“Hahaha. You are quite the joker,” Newbull said. It was obvious that he thought of Sion’s claim as no more than a madman’s mumbling.

Sion didn’t let it get to him. “It isn’t just nonsense. I must ask you the same as you asked me - haven’t you grasped your situation?”

“Oh?”

“I did not come here to beg you to save me,” Sion said.

“Then why have you come?”

“To give you orders.”

“…Orders from who?”

Sion took the golden pin he stole from the king from his pocket. It held Roland’s crest-of-arms, two snakes circling a lance. He spun it around in his palm. “Orders from my father, the king of Roland—naturally.” 

Newbull paled, but kept his mouth shut instead of making a dumb noise out of surprise like many might. That ability was probably what allowed him to live neutrally for so long. When he finally spoke, it was quiet. “I was under the impression that His Majesty was not taking visitors…”

“I met with him not long ago. You are welcome to verify this fact.”

It was the truth, so anyone ought to be able to figure it out by looking into it briefly.

“My father named me his successor.”

That part was a lie, but one that was impossible to disprove. They had met, but their conversation was private, so Sion could fill in the gaps to his liking.

“He gave me this crest to prove it. As such, I am giving you an order as my father’s representative.”

Another lie. He hadn’t been given any orders at all. But again, it’d be impossible to disprove.

Count Newbull stared at the crest intensely, as if calculating probabilities in his mind.

Sion couldn’t give him time to think too hard about it. He continued. “I must ask you once more, Count Newbull. Have you no ambition?”

“……”

“Certainly Duke Abaaz and Duke Staelied are extremely powerful men. But do you intend to live and die infinitely less powerful than they are?”  

“……”

Newbull paled.

Just another push. He needed another push in the right direction and he’d earn Newbull’s support.

And if he could obtain Newbull’s support, tons of nobles would back him as a result. Even that wouldn’t be enough to stand up against Duke Abaaz and Duke Staelied, but still. Sion’s faction - the humans who wanted to see him succeed - would get stronger, and their belief would make him stronger as a result. He had to capture the hearts of many in order to succeed.

“…Prince. May I ask a question?” Newbull wondered cautiously.

Sion nodded. “Of course. But know that with each question you ask, your beliefs are challanged in turn, Count.”

“……”

Newbull tensed. Obviously - anyone would tense knowing that their beliefs were being tested like this.

But it wasn’t his belief in Sion that was being tested here. It was his belief in Duke Abaaz and Duke Staelied. His belief in his fellow nobles. His words would change his place in the world and decide in this moment who he would take as his enemy forever.

Abaaz, Staelied, and Sion Astal.

People couldn’t stay neutral forever. They could spend eternity running away from conflict. If they refused to make a decision, they’d end up losing everything that their options could have offered them, just like how Sion had lost what made him human, just like how Kiefer lost her sisters, and just like how Ryner lost his freedom— 

Even the nobility, who had lived impossibly tranquil lives inside this world that catered to them, now had to decide what they were going to do about the battlefield that was rapidly approaching their doorsteps.

Sion smiled and held his hand out. “So what will you do? Will you ask?”

He did, in the end. “I have just one question to ask you.”

“One… alright. What is it?”

“The king… no, His Majesty. What did His Majesty order you to do?”

It was an excellent question. He’d definitely understand Sion’s intentions if he heard the answer to it.

What did the king order him to do? What special order was Sion carrying out?

It couldn’t be anything plain. Their king didn’t participate in politics, so for him to finally step out onto the stage, it had to be serious. His humanity had long since crumbled, so he never gave any orders or made any indication of what he wanted to happen. That was how the nobility ended up doing whatever they pleased, without any checks or balances on their greed.

So what had the king ordered?

Newbull figured that he’d be able to determine if Sion’s words were truth or lie by hearing Sion’s answer to that one simple question. It also wasn’t a question that’d betray Duke Abaaz, Duke Staelied, or any of the neutral nobles. It was mere confirmation - a very appropriate thing to ask, no matter what angle one looked at it.

It was the perfect question. It was clear how Newbull had managed to survive while upholding his neutrality for so long.

Sion smiled. He’d thought of an answer to this before arriving. “He gave the order for Roland to go to war with Imperial Nelpha.”

The nobles’ eyes went wide. They all wore matching expressions of disbelief.

“B-but, but we went to war with the Kingdom of Estabul just last year, and its former territory still remains ungoverned due to their resistance. How can we possibly find the power to invade Nelpha—”

“…Can I take your words as opposition… no, as a rebellion aimed at His Majesty?” Sion asked.

That shut Newbull up.

“Let me clear things up with you,” Sion continued. “The fight at the military headquarters is between the army supporting me, Sion Astal, and the armies supporting Duke Abaaz and Duke Staelied, correct?”

“……”

“In other words, Duke Abaaz and Duke Staelied are rebels who are presently fighting against His Majesty’s decree, and the battle at the headquarters is them trying to further their own agendas. Correct?”

“E-even if you ask me, I…”

“But Count, here we are at your manor, where you stated that you intend to hold me hostage. Is that still your plan?”

“Prince, this is a bit dark—”

“Quiet, Lord Newbull. You are a man who claims to take no risks. So what do you intend on gaining from this?”

“……”

“Make a choice or stay out of this,” Sion said. “Tonight I will kill Duke Abaaz. You can choose to die along with him or choose to follow me. Those are your two options.”

Newbull was silent for a moment. Then his shoulders fell. “I will follow you, Prince.”

That was Newbull’s choice. From now on, he would be the enemy of other nobles.

Sion smiled and took Newbull’s hand. “Haha, of course. I trusted that you would say that, Count Newbull.”

“……”

“Then I will order you at once. First, I need you to convey this to all of the nobles: Sion Astal has undertaken the king’s order to prepare for war against Imperial Nelpha, and you will assist in doing so. But before that, you must kill the rebel Duke Anorita Abaaz as well as his closest confidants in the night.”

Newbull shivered. So did the nobles behind him. Sion had ordered them to kill another noble so easily. But Sion ignored their fear and continued.

“I will give Duke Abaaz’s position to whoever brings him to me first. If one of Duke Abaaz’s followers should sell him out, then I will give his position to them.”

“I-if I told everyone that, blood would rain upon this entire country—” 

Sion interrupted him with a smile. “It’s already falling. Roland has always existed under bloody rain, hasn’t it?”

“……”

“This country is mad. It’s absolutely insane. And if the king is the one who leads this country down the path it’s on…”

“……”

“I don’t need sanity either. I’m prepared for what lies ahead. I’m prepared to face what the king faces—so Count Newbull. Will you follow me?”

Newbull inhaled sharply as he came to a decision, then sighed. “If you win, then—”

Sion smiled. “You won’t regret it.”

Then Sion turned back towards the carriage.

“Where are you going?” Newbull asked.

“To my allies fighting on the battlefield, of course.” Sion said as he opened the door to the carriage. Ferris was long gone. It was past her curfew, after all. A pretty girl like her didn’t have to see the terrible things that could happen inside of this mad world. 

He stepped inside and ordered the driver to go.

Lucile, who sat quietly in the seat facing him, laughed. “Heh, heheh, in the end, you didn’t have to use my name, did you. Even though I only came because I thought you might need the Eris name.”

“I’ll use it if I need to.”

“Will you?”

“I will.”

“But I think that names like mine might end up being pretty unnecessary,” Lucile said as he looked out of the carriage window.

“What do you mean?” Sion asked.

“…Your words from a moment ago are already having a major effect on this country. Amazing. They’re spreading fast like greed and self-satisfaction usually spread. This country really is amazing.”

“……”

“Before long, countless people will die for this” Lucile continued. “Those who followed Anorita Abaaz and lived powerful lives until now will flee because of the lie you told of the king’s will. You’ve begun to kill with words alone.” Then he turned to face Sion. “Isn’t that impressive? From now on, your path will be bloodier than anything you’ve ever known.”

Lucile laughed. Sion didn’t.

He’d decided to continue on this path no matter what, so there was no need to worry about how bloody it was. The revolution had already begun.

Maybe this was the shortest path to where he needed to be. But it might also be the bloodiest.

“…And what about you?” Sion asked. “Do you even understand how many people will die for this?”

Lucile nodded easily. “Duke Abaaz is someone who your father trusts greatly, after all. I understand what will happen when his people die. The blood of nobles is especially thick. It’s thick because of the curses tightly wound inside of every blood vessel within.”

“Hmm. So nobles are special, are they?” Sion asked sarcastically.

Lucile smiled.

“…So how much stands between me and my father now? How much more do I have to do before I can become king?”

Lucile looked like he was enjoying this conversation. “There’s still an overwhelmingly huge gap. It’s undoable, but it’s not like you can stop now. At least it’ll all be over soon. So what will you do now?”

“……”

“Nothing will change even if this marks the end of Duke Abaaz. You may become a potential successor to the throne, but you won’t become king.”

“……”

“You’ll need a miracle. So what will you do?” Lucile asked.

“……”

“Where will you go from here?”

With that, Lucile disappeared.

Sion stared at the seat Lucile was in until a moment ago as he thought. But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t find an answer. It wasn’t like he could move forward slowly while carefully considering his options, either.

“…There’s not enough time.”

His allies were dying as he sat here thinking.

It wasn’t like he had real orders from the king, either. The king was so far gone that he probably didn’t remember Sion at all.

Someone could figure out that he lied about orders from the king, and if that happened, Duke Abaaz would instantly regain his status. If they could form an alliance with Staelied before then, they might have a chance, but…

“…Will anything change even if the nobles begin to fight each other?” Sion mumbled to himself.

Even as he sat here thinking, the same shit that always plagued this country continued.

The nobility always used the princes they backed to fight each other for power. It always started and ended with that.

“…I need a miracle,” Sion whispered to himself, his voice low. “I really need a miracle.”

 The door to the carriage suddenly opened. A man soaked to the bone jumped in. “Sion Astal. Explain what’s happening.”

It was Rahel Miller, the man who single-handedly planned and fought to revolutionize this country.

“You’re soaked,” Sion said.

Miller ignored him and sat down, soaking the seat. “I don’t need your small talk. Tell me what’s going on.”

“What’s been happening on your side?”

“Terrible. The plan to make Duke Abaaz surrender was a failure.”

It had seemed like his plan was progressing well before. He had been leading a straightforward mission to break the relationship between Marquess Tenglon and Duke Staelied, but it failed. Marquess Tenglon was more loyal to Abaaz than expected. If this all got around to Count Newbull, a new game among the nobles would be born - a game Abaaz made to bring Staelied down.

But that game had already failed. The lie Sion had just told changed everything.

“You don’t need to worry about Duke Abaaz anym—”

“Abaaz is keeping me like a pet right now,” Miller said. “And he already knows. He knows about the lie you just told. He’s already clearing his name.”

“……”

“But tell me your side of things. What are you thinking? What are you trying to do? Isn’t there some miracle that only you can do, with Roland’s blood running through your veins?”

“……”

“If not, then back off. I’ll let Abaaz use me, get rid of Staelied with him, then restart the revolution at my own pace.”

That meant that Miller was abandoning Claugh and Luke, who were currently fighting for them at the headquarters. He was abandoning everyone there.

“Alright?” Miller prompted, a strict expression on his face. “Think about it, but respond quickly. Is there anything that only you can do?”

“……”

“Don’t you have anything that’s at least good enough to excuse the damage we’ve taken to our lives? To the revolution?”  

There was nothing. Sion had nothing.

He had no allies, and the orders from the king were a lie, too. There was no way that he could take responsibility for everyone’s lives like this. And for that, he had to apologize. But couldn’t they just believe and follow him despite that— 

No… the last allies he’d enticed with those words all died. They were murdered at the hands of Estabul’s Magical Knights. Brutally murdered.

“……”

There was no way that he, the guy who got them all killed, would have the confidence to take lives into his hands a second time.

Tony died.

Fahle died.

Tyle died.

Kiefer cried.

Ryner fell into despair.

His actions affected all sorts of people, but all in the same way - negatively.

Time and time again, he let his arrogance get the best of him and used his baseless self-confidence to convince people that he was going to save the world. Time and time again, people died because of him.

“……”

How could he possibly have any confidence left after everything?

Nobody could be crazy enough to stay confident after everything that’d happened to him, right?

So Sion looked to Miller and spoke. “Hey, Miller.”

“What?”

“I’m a useless guy.”

“……”

“The thought of being responsible for the lives of others is so scary that I could shiver. It makes me so scared that I might cry. I really do shake like a leaf.”

His legs were shaking now. So were his hands. Obviously, right? He couldn’t hold the heavy weight of other people’s lives very easily.

Miller narrowed his eyes. “You’re a coward.”

“Haha.”

“So what’s a coward like you want to do? Run away?”

Sion shook his head and smiled. His legs were shaking. His hands were shaking. His heart itself was shaking. “No,” he answered. “Today… today, I’m going to make a stand. I’ll change the world. If I can’t do it, if I’m a good-for-nothing, then this country will stay terrible forever too. So Miller. Believe in me.”

His declaration probably wasn’t something to reply to lightly. But Miller’s response came without hesitation. “Fine. I’ll leave it to you. I’d been thinking the same thing. I’m no good for this job. I can’t get deep enough into this country to change it, can I?”

Sion nodded. “Yeah.”

Miller laughed. “Ha, you admit it so easily. Give me your orders, then. What do you want me to do? I’ll get you anything you want. I’ll do what you need when you need it. So… Show me who wasn’t chosen by this country the new world you’ll create, Sion Astal.”

So Sion gave his orders.

They were probably useless, meaningless orders that were impossible to follow. But Miller took them without question.

“If that could bring us a miracle, then we might as well try, right?” Miller asked. He jumped out of the carriage as fast as he’d entered. The door slammed closed behind him.

The inside went quiet.

Outside he could hear the wheels of the carriage turning and the rain falling.

He was headed towards the battlefield.

“…A miracle,” Sion whispered. He raised his head. “I kinda want to run away.”

His lips turned up in a self-deprecating smile. 

---

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Volume 8

Prologue: Ryner and Sion

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It was raining.

“…It’s about that time of year, huh?” The jailer said.

Ryner looked up from the thick book he’d been reading. “Huh? What?” He asked the jailer who’d come to bring him his meal. 

“I mean, I just looked out the window, see, and it was raining.”

“…Rain?”

“Yep. So I said it’s about that season.”

“Hmm.” Ryner looked up at the jailer with sleepy eyes. Then he looked around his dark and depressing cell. He didn’t have any windows, or really any light at all. “It’s already that time of year, huh…”

“Suuure is. I’m not a fan, personally. Plus it was sunny earlier, so I didn’t think to bring an umbrella.”

“An umbrella… yeah, that’s right. You’d want to have an umbrella for the rain,” Ryner mumbled. Because he hadn’t seen the sun the entire time he’d been in here, it felt extremely strange thinking back to such ordinary things.

Roland was in the far south of Menoris, so even though it had twelve months in a year just like any other place, the seasons passing weren’t all that hectic. Instead, it was warm year-round. But it didn’t rain year-round. There were two distinct rainy seasons - the one that came just before summer and the one that came just before winter.

The rainy season in question here and now was the latter.

“…I thought it was getting cold,” Ryner said as he slouched his shoulders forward.

The jailer nodded. “Yeah, it has.”

“But you shouldn’t worry about the umbrella. Last time your wonderful bride brought one for you.”

“Yeah, but we had a fight yesterday!”

“Again? What, are you guys having problems with affairs?” Ryner asked.

“I’m not having an affair, dumbass.”

“Yeah, you don’t really seem like the popular type.”

“I could send you flying, y’know.”

“I didn’t mean you were the one having an affair,” Ryner said. “She is.”

“Huh!? W-whoa, my wife isn’t that kind of person!”

Ryner smirked. “So our head-of-house says, but she’s already lost the spark and is making a run for—”

“Is this your way of telling me that you’re prepared to go without food today, Ryner?” 

“Noo, I was kidding! Just kidding!! It was a cute joke, right? Even just a little?”

“There’s two types of jokes - the ones that are okay to make and the ones that aren’t. Apologize if you want to eat today.”

“Nooo…”

“Then you’re not eating!”

“Aww, okay, I got you,” Ryner said. “Sorry. I’m sure your wife is worrying about how you’ll fare with the rain this very moment.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. Your daughter’s worrying about daddy, too.”

“She sure is a good kid!” The jailer said, smiling with pure happiness.

Ryner held his hands out. “Okay, now gimme food.”

The jailer nodded. “Alright, you can have some. I’m in a good mood now so I’ll bring you some bread for a snack later, too.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking about going home early because of the rain. That way I can eat with my family.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Ryner took his meal from the jailer. It was a simple meal with nothing but a bland soup and chunk of bread, just like always. But he was already used to it.

Actually, he hadn’t been interested in this food since the beginning. Even before he was jailed… he’d already lost his interest in food.

“……”

He didn’t mind. This wasn’t a hard life, after all. He could eat, sleep, and exist like someone’s forgotten pet with an empty mind. It was easy.

But the jailer looked down at him, sad. “It must be tough for you.”

Ryner looked up. His cheeks were full of bread. “Huh? What is?”

“You’re here all the time… You’ll be here for the rest of your life, unable to eat anything but bread and stew.”

Ryner looked at the rest of the dry piece of bread in his hand and smiled faintly. “It’s easier to get used to this than you’d think.”

“So that’s what it’s like, huh?”

“Mm.”

“I see… But listen. Tomorrow, I’ll bring another lunch for you. A homemade lunch from my wife.”

“Ohh, nice. Your wife’s a great cook, huh?”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m so happy.”

“You admit that that’s why?”

“Ahaha. Anyway, look forward to tomorrow!”

“I will. I’ll pray that you two get along so that I can have my lunch tomorrow!”

“Huh?” The jailer said, and for a moment he looked surprised. Then he pressed a hand to his head. “Ah, right. We were fighting…”

“You already forgot? You two sure get along well.”

“You know how it is. Anyway, I’m heading home. Sorry if I can’t get you that lunch.”

“Oh, alright. I’ll wait without expecting too much. Do your best to get along with her.”

“Yeah. I’ll try to get back on her good side,” the jailer said. Then he left.

Ryner pushed the rest of his bread into his mouth, then looked back down at the book he’d been reading.

“……”

His surroundings quickly became eerily quiet. He was surrounded by absolute silence. Absolute stillness. He was in the midst of solitary confinement, a special kind of emptiness resolved for only the most heinous of criminals. How long had he been here now?

It was enough to make a man go crazy from loneliness, but… Ryner was already painfully used to being alone. Because that’d always been his reality, ever since he was born.

The closer he got to someone else, the more he’d hurt them. So the further he stayed from others, the less he’d hurt them.

“Ah… but I kinda…”

Just a little… 

“…Have too much free time.”

 He looked up at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes. Because there was nothing to do here, he ended up thinking of all sorts of things that’d already happened. Stuff like the smiles of his friends who’d died on the battlefield used to have, or Kiefer’s tears.

Stuff like how Sion took responsibility for everything himself, and how he was probably forcing himself to smile through his anxiety even now, even if came out looking stiff.

“……”

None of that meant anything here. It was too detached from the outside world. So it didn’t matter what face Sion was making right this second, or what was happening outside of his cell. He didn’t have access to any of that information either way, after all.

Ryner narrowed his eyes and looked at the bars of his cell. He was able to see countless magic circles meant to nullify spells. This was a prison meant to keep all potential escapees in, no matter what spells they tried to use to escape.

When he looked at those bars, Ryner felt reassured. Even if his eyes made him go berserk, he’d be deep inside of this prison, unable to hurt anyone.

“……”

He felt that slight reassurance right alongside the loneliness of being here in the first place— 

“Ah, wait. Uncle just went home without getting that extra piece of bread he promised, didn’t he?” Ryner mumbled to the empty cell and laughed softly.

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Chapter 4: The Era of Revolution

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Blood was flying. The sky was turning red. The explosions were deafening. And with every light, people died. His allies died.

Claugh Klom watched it all.

“Ahh, this for real?” Claugh said to himself with a laugh, even though this really wasn’t the time for laughing. See, their noble enemies had paid 2,000 soldiers to come fight their battle, all elites. Claugh’s soldiers were a measly four hundred in comparison. A bunch had already died, though, so he was probably working with closer to three hundred right now, and they sure as hell weren’t all elites. The enemy’s soldiers were way more threatening.

It was unquestionably a hopeless battle, where Claugh could expect his soldiers to be routed. And yet… 

“…I’m not gonna run from these guys,” Claugh whispered to himself. He looked around. He was in the middle of the battle.

It was an odd sight. His allies were killed one by one. There were far more enemy soldiers than they could ever hope to fight against. But nobody ran, nobody sold out, and nobody surrendered. They all fought until the moment they were killed. And the moment before they died, they screamed.

“L-lieutenant Colonel Claugh! Please, change Roland!”

The second after the words were out of his mouth, an enemy’s Lightning Flash sent his head flying.

Then another guy started screaming. “Shit, shit, shit, we’re not gonna let you fucking nobles wiiiinn!!”

But he was killed just as easily.

Nobody ran. It was to the point where Claugh wanted to yell about how stupid they all were. “This sure has gotten interesting~!” Claugh said and smiled, even though it really didn’t look like he had the room to stand around and smile.

It was because they couldn’t give up. If he stopped supporting everyone here, everything would be for nothing.

He was the reaper of the battlefield, Claugh Klom. He was Crimson-Fingered Claugh Klom, arms dyed a deep red from his enemy’s blood. As long as he was there, his allies could believe that they’d turn this battle on its head and overcome all their disadvantages.

“…What should I do to keep everyone who believes in me alive? Is there a right answer?” Claugh wondered to himself. He ran through various tactics in his mind.

The enemy was strong. Obviously. These were soldiers who supported the nobles that made up the core of the Roland Empire. Plenty of them were confident enough to approach Claugh, and that didn’t usually happen on the battlefield. And to top it off…  

“We’ve killed tons of ‘em, but their ranks aren’t getting any smaller at all,” Claugh said, his exhaustion reaching his voice. He peered far into the battlefield to check their progress.

Shuss had said there were about 2,000 of them, but they just kept killing and killing, and the battlefield was still swarming with their enemies. If anything, it looked like there were more of them now… 

“Shit, are we at the point where we gotta retreat to earn a little more time?” Claugh whispered. Then he looked to Shuss, who was on standby beside him. “Hey, Shuss.”

“Yes, sir?”

“We’re gonna need to stand and fight for a while yet, huh?”

“Yes. It’s already been three hours, and we’ve only lost one hundred and twenty men.”

Only one hundred and twenty… 

They were trapped in the small area surrounding the military headquarters and didn’t have anywhere to run, plus they were fighting against an opponent more powerful than they were for the past three hours. All things considered, one hundred and twenty men were probably a fairly minor loss.

But that was still one hundred and twenty lives that’d ended here. That meant that their remaining forces were 280. The enemy had over 2,000.

The gap between their armies was growing, and Claugh’s side was getting more tired by the minute, fighting against such overwhelming odds. They wouldn’t be able to put up a fight if they lost another 120 men in the next three hours… and it might end up even worse than that. They might lose everyone in the next three hours.

So what should they do? What was their best move?

He didn’t expect Miller’s help - an army sent by Duke Anolita Abaaz to help them sandwich the enemy in - to come at this point. If Miller had been successful, they would’ve come forever ago… 

“…The hell’s that old man doin’…”

Just then, a messenger appeared. “Lieutenant colonel​, over here!”

A knight acting as a messenger handed Claugh a letter from Miller. It was written in code, so it wasn’t easy to read. “Hey, Shuuuss~!” Claugh called, then handed it off to his subordinate.

Claugh then killed seven enemy soldiers who were trying to get a hit in on him, then ordered ten of his men to start casting some large-scale magic. Then he personally stood in front of them as a shield. They wouldn’t be able to protect themselves as they worked on their spell, so he’d do the protecting for them.

Claugh became the center of attention by standing there on the battlefield. After all, his enemies would win if they just killed him, and the battle would be over. So they flocked to him.

“Though I don’t plan on dying!” Claugh said. He grabbed a man who was trying to knife him by the arm and twisted. At the same time, he punched him in the face with his other hand, then let go to allow him to sail through the air and onto the ground. Then he stomped on his stomach.

Claugh turned his attention to a new enemy - a man on his left who was in the middle of casting Abstract Phosphorescence. Claugh grabbed him by the neck and moved him so that his now-complete spell became friendly fire.

That was all it took to kill eight men.

“M-monster!” Someone screamed at Claugh.

“How the hell’s he fighting like this!?”

“R-run! He’s gonna kill us all!”

And so everyone started yelling and screaming. Incidentally, the last guy was on Claugh’s side. But it had the intended effect. The enemy army, thinking that one of their own had suggested it, wore pale and fearful faces as they considered it. It was clear that they’d suffer greatly if they didn’t regain control of the situation now.

Someone who looked like an enemy chief began to yell something, but one of Claugh’s allies killed him before he could get it out.

“Ah, good one! Listen, you’re getting promoted if you survive this battle, so do your best to make it out of here ali—”

Claugh’s words were cut off by the sight of an enemy shooting a whole in his brave soldier’s chest with Abstract Phosphorescence.

Claugh clicked his tongue. “Tch. Dumbass. You were supposed to go all out so that you’d definitely live through this,” Claugh whispered, then made his way over to the enemy soldier who murdered that man to avenge him. Wherever Claugh went, the enemy broke formation as a swath of them fell all at once.

But that alone wouldn’t change the course of this battle. The fear of Claugh’s existence only reached the enemies in his immediate area. It didn’t spread across the whole army. There were too many of them for that.

“Shit. We won’t be able to take this forever,” Claugh muttered to himself.

Then he felt a presence from behind. “Sir Claugh!”

“Aah?” Claugh turned around while twisting an enemy soldier’s neck.

It was Shuss, who wore a troubled look on his face. “I’ve decoded the letter.”

“And?”

Shuss took another step forward and spoke quietly, so that only Claugh would hear. “Sir Miller failed his mission.”

“Aaaah?”

“Reinforcements won’t be coming.”

“Whaaaat!?”

“But since the revolution has already begun, we’re moving to Plan B. He ordered us to break through this using our own strength.”

Claugh’s scowl deepened more with every word he heard. “What the heeellll,” he said, losing a bit of his cool. Then he looked back up towards the sea of enemies. His objective up until now was to hold his ground against Duke Tenglon’s army and Prince Kestalus’ supporters until reinforcements arrived.

Miller was supposed to be gathering up an army from other nobles who would fight Tenglon. That was supposed to give relief to their tired soldiers as well as avert the people’s eyes from the fact that it was a revolution by giving it a noble-on-noble conflict finish. But it sounded like the nobles Miller had planned on convincing wouldn’t work with them.

To top it all off, Claugh didn’t even have what the other side wanted from him. Miller had Duke Tenglon captive, and Sion already killed Prince Kestalus, so Claugh couldn’t get out of this by handing them over.

The enemy could ask them to surrender and hand over Tenglon and Kestalus all they wanted, but Claugh was unable to meet their conditions, so he couldn’t surrender, either.

“So what’s the old man want me to do?” Claugh wondered. “Is he telling me to run away, or expecting me to rout our enemies who outnumber us ten times over? Ugh, what a joke…”

Another soldier threw himself at Claugh, so he grabbed him by the neck, broke it, then threw him down to the ground. 

“Ugh, god!” Claugh yelled.

For every soldier he killed, another seemed to be added to their enemy’s ranks. Meanwhile, Claugh’s soldiers were starting to decrease dramatically.

“Sir Claugh!” Shuss said. “Shall we withdraw?”

That was impossible. If they tried to run, the enemy would give chase and rout them. No, actually… they were already surrounded, so they couldn’t even begin to run.

If it were just Claugh… no, Claugh surrounded by a shield made up of his soldiers… then yeah, he might be able to escape. But if the soldiers who had come here believing in him saw him throw their lives away like that… 

“…That would be pretty boring,” Claugh mumbled. “And I’m not someone who could do that, anyway. So what should I do?”

Claugh looked up. Magic flashed and exploded before his eyes. One of his subordinates was torn in half, and his blood rained down across the battlefield as only half of his body flew away.

Enemy soldiers smiled as that blood covered them. “What’s this, Crimson-Fingered Claugh Klom? Weren’t you supposed to be covered in your enemies’ blood? It looks like it’s all from your allies.”

Claugh’s allies were dying. Everywhere he looked, they were dying. But he couldn’t think of a way to save them. He stood still, deep in thought, even ignoring the enemies who tried to hurt him. Shuss took care of them for him.

“Sir Claugh!” Shuss yelled.

But Claugh ignored him for a moment longer to finish his thoughts off. “Round everyone up and get them inside of headquarters!” Claugh ordered.

“Inside? But if we’re all inside, they could wipe us all out with a single large-scale spell—”

“Shut it! We’re all gonna die if we stand around here anyway, so let’s do this instead!”

Shuss looked at him, a spark of happiness lighting his expression. “You have a plan? In this situation? Then I’ll believe in you. I’m happy to be fighting with you here, knowing that you’re strong enough to plan even when it looks like the end is before us.”

“You makin’ fun of me?”

“No. I really do respect you from the bottom of my heart,” Shuss said with a smile. Then he ran to give Claugh’s orders to their soldiers.

Claugh watched Shuss off, then turned his attention to the enemy soldiers. They were becoming more confident and stronger as a result. Their formation included an elite vanguard, so Claugh’s side could suffer extensive casualties as it moved into headquarters. They needed to be able to hold out for as long as possible.

“We’ll use headquarters as a fort and let it take the attacks for us for as long as it’ll last…”

“Die!” A man who looked like another enemy chief jumped at him. Claugh hadn’t noticed him until he yelled. He held a sword up to take Claugh’s neck. He felt it touch his skin. Claugh pressed his fingers into his flesh to dig the skin it’d touched out to remove it to prevent any poison it might’ve been coated with from entering his system. Then he kicked up and crushed the man’s neck with it.

Once the man was dead, Claugh threw his poison sword aside. “Ughhhh, god! You guys are too fucking weak! You could end this if you killed me, but how many people have died instead of me!? And how long has it been!?” Hours!! He yelled.

The enemies all looked at him. Claugh stared back as they all began to draw magic circles in simulation. Good. Now they’d all be focusing on taking Claugh down, so his allies could get inside of headquarters. He’d buy them some time… 

At least, that’s what was supposed to happen… 

“Aww, shit. They noticed me a little too much.”

He was surrounded by a blinding amount of magic circles.

“I might really die,” Claugh said and grimaced.

Then someone jumped through the crowd at him. Claugh didn’t know what noble’s personal army he was from, but his uniform was blue. And he had white hair. And eyes that’d nearly squinted shut from his smile.

“Wait, Luke?”

Luke raised a knife up and thrust it at Claugh. He was fast.

But not as fast as Claugh, who managed to dodge. “What’s up with that outfit?”

“Oh, this?” Luke asked as he lunged with his knife over and over again. “I was hiding with the enemies until you got in a real pinch…”

“Haah? So you’ve been here. You should’ve come out sooner,” Claugh said.

 “Aww… But I only got here four or five minutes ago… And my help alone can’t very well change the course of the fight, right?”

“Yeah, you’re pretty weak, after all.”

“Then please let the weak me die here. If you don’t, you won’t be able to get out of all this magic,” Luke said.

Claugh looked past Luke to the magic circles surrounding them. It looked like they were complete now. They weren’t firing because Claugh was fighting Luke, who looked like a noble’s soldier. They were waiting for Claugh to kill Luke to shoot. Then Claugh would be turned into a pile of meat by their magic, because no matter how strong he might be, nobody could withstand that much magic. “So you’re saying that you came to save me?” Claugh asked.

“Truthfully, I wanted to wait for a better time to come out. But it looked like my too-assertive friend might die, so…”

“Whoa, did you just call me your friend?” Claugh asked. “Even though I don’t think of you like that at all.”

“Ahaha. Maybe I should give up on saving you after all,” Luke laughed. “Anyway, that’s enough… Pretend to be killed, okay? They’ll stop their magic to check.”

Luke shoved his knife at Claugh again. And Claugh dodged again.

“Hey, why’d you dodge!”

“I’m buying time,” Claugh said. “I need to give everyone time to get inside headquarters—”

“—And from there, they’ll take the bodies of their fallen enemies and change into their clothes, correct?” Luke asked as if he had predicted the way Claugh was going to end his sentence. “Then, little by little, they’ll be able to join the enemy army. I like it. You don’t have any other options in this situation. You may not have realized it yet, but your subordinate… Sir Shuss, I think it was? He should be about done guiding them in. So it’s okay to ‘die’ now.”

Luke raised his knife again. Claugh dodged again.

“I just said—!”

“Yeah, but what happens after that? Even if I do that, what happens when they come to check and see if I’m really dead?”

“I wonder.”

“What should I do then?” Claugh asked.

Luke tried to stab him again and again as he spoke. “Make a mad dash for it, I suppose?”

“Dash? Really?” Claugh asked. He glanced up at the enemy soldiers, who were gradually drawing closer to them. And they were surrounded, without an ally in sight. It’d be tough, that was for sure. They probably wouldn’t make it, which meant they’d die and everything would be over.

Claugh hadn’t told Shuss the details about their plan yet. He didn’t know that they were supposed to change into the enemy’s clothes and join their ranks, then cause chaos when the time came… if the time ever did come.

“…Hey, Luke.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s pool our info. First of all, old man Miller’s failed his part,” Claugh said.

“I see.”

“We’re supposed to move onto Plan B. Do you know what that’s supposed to be?” 

“…If the plan to convince Duke Abaaz fails, we had talked about perhaps using Duke Staelied, who is similarly powerful… That would mean that Miller is alive, right? Amazing. He’s really doing his best out there.”

“But no one’s gonna come save us out here, huh…”

“That’s not true,” Luke said. “Reinforcements are coming. I set a trap so Duke Wahti would send an army.”

“When will they be here?” Claugh asked.

“In about two hours.”

“We’re not gonna make it two hours though, are we,” Claugh mumbled.

Luke shot him an exasperated look. “Ahh, I understand what you’re trying to say, but…”

“Hey! I’m not so simple-minded that you of all people can read my mind, you know,” Claugh said, even though he knew that Luke probably really did understand exactly what he was thinking. There weren’t that many options for them to choose between in a situation as overwhelmingly bad as this, so it wasn’t exactly hard to guess.

First, Claugh had to tell Shuss what their plan was. Their commander had to return to the headquarters unharmed to keep their morale from tanking. But it was probably impossible for Claugh to get back unharmed as things were now. Even if he got out of this mess, everyone knew that the battle was over if they killed him, so they might have large-scale magic elsewhere waiting for him to show.

If Claugh couldn’t avoid it, then… 

“…Luke, you should—”

“Take lead of the troops and lead them to safety, correct?”

Claugh nodded. “You use your head, so you can definitely find a way to sneak out of there. That stuff’s your specialty, right?”

Luke smiled. “I won’t deny it.”

“Then I’m counting on you.”

“But what will you do?” Luke asked.

Claugh smiled. “You already know the answer to that, don’t know?” He slammed his fist into Luke’s chest far faster than he’d be able to dodge.

Luke watched Claugh swing, dull expression on his face. “This is… goodbye then, isn’t it, Claugh?”

“I won’t die.”

“Haha. Then I’ll pray that we’ll meet agai…”

Claugh’s fist made contact. Luke’s body flew back, far out towards headquarters. But Claugh didn’t watch him go. Instead, he looked at the enemies surrounding himself. Dozens of stupid soldiers who had called off their spells at some point surrounded him. “I’ll make you guys regret making an enemy out of Claugh Klom! Those of you who wanna die, step on up!!” Claugh yelled.

Then Claugh sprinted forward, into the heart of enemy territory.

“And just so you know,” Claugh continued, “the revolution’s not over even if I die! It’s just getting started! This country will change! This shitty, rotten country will change! So if any of you are unhappy with the way things are now—”

Claugh struck the soldiers in front of him, killing them one after another.

“—If you don’t like the way things are, then join us! Stand up against the rot! The age of the crazed nobility is coming to an end! From now on, a commoner king, Sion Astal, will take the throne—”

A successful attack stopped him in his tracks. Someone had managed to hit him in the head with Lightning Flash. The force of it knocked him down, but Claugh soon stood back up. But that was the last stand he could make. Knives and swords pierced him. They pierced through his back, his chest, his stomach. None were fatal wounds. But they were making him lose a lot of blood, and energy drained from his body along with it.

But they couldn’t shut him up. He continued to scream what he needed to say. “We can change this country, you guys! If you move now! If you start working for it now, it’ll change!! What don’t you understand!?”

The sword in his back pulled out. Another sword stabbed through his stomach. He knew that he’d taken too many attacks to vital organs.

Claugh couldn’t move. He fell to the ground on his knees. “Ah, shit…” 

An unfamiliar man stood in front of him. “Hm. So this is Claugh Klom, the rumored monster of the battlefield. Just how many lives has this man taken? Still, in the end, he will die for opposing the nobility… A fool’s fate is a pitiful one, isn’t it.”

Claugh looked up… and laughed. “Ha. You’re the pitiful one. You’re just a lapdog for the nobility.”

“True, I am nothing but a dog to the nobility. But that means that even a dog is fit to kill you.”

“You can’t stop this even if you kill me,” Claugh said. “This country will change.”

“Nonsense.”

“It’s not. It’s already begun. This country will…”

A knife made its way inside of Claugh’s flesh. He immediately understood that it was poisoned. He could feel the sharp and uncomfortable feeling of poison getting picked up in his veins and beginning to circulate.

He felt his consciousness fade. So this was the end. Claugh Klom’s story ended here, collapsed on the ground, surrounded by enemies.

He heard his enemy’s victory shout as he faded.

“I killed Claugh Klom! With this, our victory is sealed! Round up the remnants and…”

Claugh didn’t hear the rest. His consciousness had faded entirely.

---

He could hear victory cheers from outside. They rose up  after Luke had finished explaining the first part of his plan and transitioned to deciding their next move, so their forces were carrying out the first stage, running around and changing clothes with corpses. About thirty percent of their men had already changed clothes and joined the enemy. Would the remaining sixty percent be successful if they attempted to escape…?

“…Sir Claugh…”

Claugh’s right hand man - Shuss, was it? - whispered from beside Luke.

Luke looked at him, but remained silent.  He didn’t know what had happened to Claugh. A normal human could never live though what he was doing.

He’d heard Claugh screaming earlier. That idiot screamed stupidly loud about his childish dreams so everyone would hear. He was so loud that everyone inside of headquarters heard him. There were even those who shed tears. That was how strongly Claugh’s subordinates idolized him. Claugh had an amazing power to cause others to follow him, so Luke wouldn’t be surprised if he’d even managed to strike a chord in the hearts of some of their enemies, too.

Luke gazed out a window, towards where Claugh ought to be.

“…He must have died,” Luke whispered. “You managed to survive those experiments many years ago, so… I thought you might make a miracle happen and live through this, too. But I suppose it was impossible.”

He stared at the mass of enemies swarming one spot. Claugh ought to be there, but Luke couldn’t see him. Of course not… but he kept staring regardless.

“Thanks to your flashy fight there, retreat won’t be an option for us. We can’t just run after that. We have to keep moving forward…”

Luke’s eyes suddenly widened. Because something strange began to unfold outside.

The opposing army’s forces began to attack each other. He didn’t know why, but the soldiers who had been attacking Claugh until just a bit ago were now turning on each other, drawing magic meant to kill.

“What could be happening out there?” Luke asked Shuss. “Could those be our soldiers who changed clothes?”

Shuss shook his head, but kept his eyes on the battlefield, a mysterious look on his face. “It’s because of what Claugh said…”

So he had managed to reach their hearts.

Of course there was always a possibility that something like this would happen. Claugh didn’t need to tell them that their country was a terrible place. Resentment over the way things were had already settled inside of everyone. But that dissatisfaction had never mounted in a rebellion until now.

The revolution wasn’t strange. The fact that it had taken so long for one to take hold was. Perhaps their country was cursed and that was why no one had ever managed to change it. But now… 

“…Maybe something huge has finally slid into place?” Luke whispered. In any case, it looked like the fires of the revolution they worked so hard to light wouldn’t die here. “Move forward, huh? Alright. I will. Claugh worked so hard, after all. I’ll stay with him a little longer.”

Luke put his hand on the windowsill. 

This battlefield was a horrible place. It was impossible to tell who was an enemy and who was an ally. But that was obvious. They were all wearing the same uniform now.

There was no way to escape the chaos in this time where Lear was still at Duke Wahti’s making preparations for reinforcements and Sion was trying to find something that would allow him to stand as a king.

“Now it’s my turn to take charge of the situation here,” Luke said and leapt from the window.

---

Table of Contents

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Chapter 2: The Assault

Table of Contents

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---

He’d been here for a while now. He could tell that even from inside his dark cell. His hair had gotten long and the piles of books he kept laying around kept getting taller and taller. So he could tell that he’d been here for months and months.

“…Though I don’t have a clue what time of day it ever is,” Ryner Lute said absentmindedly. He had unkept black hair that stayed messy from sleep no matter the time of day and lazy black eyes. A scarlet brand floated atop his eyes. It was a cursed symbol, proof of his Alpha Stigma, which meant he was feared and loathed by all.

He was locked up in jail because of those eyes. Because he was a monster, and monsters shouldn’t roam the human world.

“……”

He was alone now. Alone inside his cell. So he could use his power without worrying too much about other people seeing. He let the scarlet pentagram come to the front of his sleepy eyes… and looked at the iron bars of his cell. When he did, he saw layer after layer of anti-magic piled up on them to prevent the prisoners from casting spells.

He was in a high-security prison for only the most dangerous of criminals, after all. It had to be well-protected.

Of course, with enough time, Ryner might be able to counteract the anti-magic thanks to his eyes - they let him see and completely understand how any given spell was constructed as well has how it worked. Not only that, but he had an outstanding talent for the study of magic. Those two things put together meant that he used to be known as Roland’s strongest magician.

And yet.

“……”

He didn’t do a single thing about it.

“…Mmhh… I’m like, kinda hungry,” he mumbled.

He wouldn’t have anything to do even if he escaped. He was a cursed monster. Even if he left, he’d just hurt people. So he had no reason at all to leave.

He went berserk a year ago, see. His eyes made him go mad and kill everyone on the battlefield. The only survivors were Sion and Kiefer. All of their other classmates died there. As usual, Ryner failed to save anyone. He even just about killed Sion and Kiefer, the people who were important to him.

So he shut up inside himself here. Because he was sick of himself. He was sick of his eyes doing this to him.

But that was why he thought he should face it here.

If Kiefer was crying and Sion felt like he had to shoulder everything himself, then Ryner should at least face his eyes head on.

“…Man. Even if I say that, I don’t have any clues on them at all…”

His cell was cluttered with books and documents to the point where he couldn’t really move around. Even so, he didn’t have any books on his eyes here. It seemed like Roland had purposefully purged information on the Alpha Stigma from the public. So he decided to start from the heroic legends and stuff about the demons and evil spirits and stuff, but either way… 

“…I can’t think when I’m hungryyy,” Ryner groaned. He looked past his bars. “Hey, Unkie Jailer. I’m awaaake. And I’m hungryyy.”

“……”

No reply.

“Unkie, Unkieeee.”

No reply again.

“Huh, is it the middle of the night or somethin’? I don’t get any light here so I’ve got no idea… Okay, Unkie, gimme my midnight snaaack. C’mon. I’m literally starving.”

Once again, no reply. Obviously. The jailer was only here during the daytime. That was the only sense of time this place would give its prisoners. It was the kind of place where they could decide to give someone the death penalty for whatever bullshit reason they came up with first, after all. They could treat the violent prisoners here however they wanted.

Although for some reason, the jailer in charge of Ryner was pretty fond of him, so he’d bring him books and stuff.

“…The food still sucks, though,” Ryner whispered and laughed. Then he spotted a piece of bread he’d tossed on the floor at some point and picked it up. “It’s haard,” he whined, but nibbled at it anyway.

He grabbed an ancient document and opened it. He was slowly learning to read the ancient texts, and he’d been working through this one in particular for the past two weeks. Right now he was on a story about a knight called Halford Miran who stole a ring that could control shadows from the dark emperor. He read some despite his sleepiness. 

“Huh, ahh, so by then… the world, eternity itself, was wrapped in an everlasting darkness— man, this stuff’s so circular.”

Ryner continued to mumble and complain as he read through it. And then his stomach grumbled and his mind went blank. He looked up, dissatisfied.

“I’m gonna die of starvation here, Unkie.”

Once again, no answer. Ryner sighed and returned to the documents.

“……”

Ryner shot up. Because a sharp pain suddenly ran through the depths of his eyes.

“Uogh!”

He pressed his hands to his eyes, but it didn’t help. His eyes felt like they were going to rupture.

“Th, the hell…?”

He didn’t know why they hurt. He didn’t even know what his eyes were. So why would he know the cause of their sudden pain? All he knew was that something was happening. Something strange that had never happened before. Because he’d never felt this pain before.

He’d tried to remove his eyes with a knife before. He’d tried to burn them out with magic before. Nothing harmed them. So he didn’t think anything could harm them. He’d tried so many times, after all. Because he hated being a cursed monster that nobody wanted around. Because he hated himself for hurting others. He just wanted his eyes gone. So he tried to destroy them again and again and again. But he could never get them out. They never even hurt when he tried. It was like his eyes alone weren’t even part of his body, so he was unable to feel their pain.

And yet now his eyes hurt so badly that he was curled up on the floor in pain. He accidentally kicked out at his surroundings, causing some of his piles of books to crumple down on him.

The pain just wouldn’t go away. No, instead it was getting worse.

“…Gh, aah, fuck. The hell’s…”

And then the pain vanished.

“Uough!?”

It was so sudden that he yelled out.

Ryner turned over to stare up at the ceiling. The jail was the same as always - dark, quiet, and dusty. “Geez, what even was that~”

He sat up. Then pressed his fingers to his eyes. Hard. A normal person would feel pain from it. But he didn’t.

“Seriously, what was that?” Ryner mumbled. Of course no one was there to respond to him. He was just talking to himself. “I’ve never felt that before… What changed?”

Ryner looked around to see if he might be able to find something that could have caused his pain. But all he saw was the same little cell he’d spent the past several months in, complete with dust, books, crumbs, and a pervasive loneliness.

He stared at the room for a while, then smiled bitterly. “I see. You eyes are complainin’ cause you hate dirty rooms like this. All I can is laugh at that. Well. I guess you’d hurt every day if that was true. ‘Cause I hate cleaning.”

With that, Ryner picked up what he’d been reading before. He skimmed it to find the part he’d been reading a minute ago when his eyes started to hurt and read from there, but nothing happened this time.

“…Maybe I’m sick?” Ryner wondered. “Or maybe the eyes change as the bearer ages.” He went through the theories in his mind. “Only thing for sure is that the pain I just felt isn’t normal. Man, what’s wrong with me. I finally got a new clue and I’m not even searching the room right.”

With that, Ryner looked around the room again. Yeah, the cell was definitely the same as always. Dark and lonely.

He activated his Alpha Stigma and tried to look past his cell. Through the wall. But he couldn’t see through it even with his Alpha Stigma. He felt that something must have happened out there. He just didn’t know what.

Still, he was sure that nothing had changed. It was still a mad country that stole people’s lives for no reason. They just had those stupid wars and then everyone ended up dead.

Kiefer’s sisters died. Sion felt responsible for everything, blaming himself while on the verge of tears.

“……”

Even so, there was no way the world would change. The darkness went too far. It seemed too far gone to be saved.

But that was why Ryner was researching his eyes now. Well. Why he was researching powers that were like his eyes. Though his research had yet to bear fruit... 

Ryner put the documents he’d been reading on his lap again and looked back down at them, tired. Then looked up one more time. To the wall past the bars of his cell.

“…I wonder what’s going on in the outside world now,” he mumbled to himself, then shrugged.

---

He looked up at the wall.

It was tall and dark, built with innumerable spells to prevent the prisoners inside from ever escaping. They’d all committed horrible crimes, after all. War criminals, serial killers, that sort of thing.

“……”

Sion Astal narrowed his eyes.

The prison he was looking up at now was under the king’s jurisdiction. He’d spent several months now as Miller’s ally, advancing through the military’s ranks. But even he couldn’t enter this prison. It was proof that the king was still powerful. Because the mad king was strengthened by the power of the hero.

Sion just stared up at the black wall of the prison. “I wonder how Ryner’s doing,” Sion whispered. It was the name of one of his few friends who survived from the battlefield. Ryner had been in prison for seven months now. He didn’t know if he was alive or not. He didn’t even have the power to figure that out now.

“……”

Even so, he continued to stare up at the prison’s exterior.

“Sion, sir,” he heard someone say from behind.

Sion turned to see a teenaged boy. He had soft and wavy blond hair and cute blue eyes. He was thin and had a sort of delicate image about him. He was a little younger than Sion - sixteen or seventeen, perhaps? He was one of Rahel Miller’s notable subordinates, Calne Kaiwel.

Calne smiled innocently as he followed Sion’s gaze. “You’re here again?” Calne asked. “This building is a prison for the most violent prisoners, right?”

Sion nodded. “Yeah.”

“Is someone you know inside?”

“You guys already researched everything there is to know about me, right? So why are you asking me that?”

Calne shrugged. “Miller and Luke might’ve done that, but I’m not that interested in other people’s business.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m telling the truth, you know? Oh, but if you were a woman I might’ve done it. I’m pretty sure you’d make a beautiful woman, after all.”

Sion finally looked at Calne, at the frivolous smile on his face. Then he lowered his gaze to what Calne was holding in his right hand. It was a head. A human head.

If he recalled correctly, Calne was currently tasked with assassinating Baron Lotus. So that was probably whose head it was.

“You’re already done?” Sion asked.

“Sort of. If we throw this head to the leader of Marquess Tenglon’s private army, we should be able to incite Prince Kestalus to lead an attack in reaction to the serial noble murders, then arrest Marquess Tenglon for it… so those are my current orders.”

Sion nodded. Marquess Tenglon had significant power within the military. He was a marshal of Roland. He appointed his blood relatives in various other positions of power. By now they were even tied to the royalty. Also, Prince Kestalus always tried to get in the way when people like Sion who rose up through the military rather than via lineage appeared.

That was why Miller and the others had spent the past six months working on a trap to catch Marquess Tenglon. If they managed to crush Tenglon’s power from within, then the crown wouldn’t be able to defend itself adequately against the army.

Today was the day the pieces would fall into place. The revolution would advance leaps and bounds with Tenglon’s arrest.

“Sir, I can’t help but wonder why you needed a walk today?” Calne asked, bothered.

Sion smiled. “Miller’s an outstanding guy, so no one will notice whether I talk a walk or not.”

“That’s true, but we’d be troubled if you died at a time like this.”

“Yeah, but Miller’s already calculated that I’d come here anyway.”

“Ah, really?”

“Yeah,” Sion said.

“I guess it’s fine, then. But what are you doing here?”

Sion just smiled.

“Oooh, are you meeting someone here?” Calne asked. “A girlfriend, right?”

“I don’t have one.”

“But you seem like you’d be so popular. You’re a young Major General of Roland. Also, you’re going to be the next era’s super elite marshal—”

“That’s just the fake me that Miller made up,” Sion argued.

“But the girls won’t know that. I meet lots of girls who are big fans of you lately. I sure am jealous,” Calne said with a grin.

Sion was a little fed up with this. “I don’t think so. I heard that you only dabble with women when it comes to noblemen’s wives.”

Calne shrugged, smiling in good humor. “It’s for my job, I tell you. Miller’s horrible. He told me to use the women to get in with the nobles enough to kill them. You only get one body so it’s hard for me, you know?”

“Hmm. Claugh said you look like you’re enjoying yourself so much that it pisses him off, though?”

“Whaat!? Everyone always misunderstands me… anyway, it’s about time I go. Want to come with? I’ll guard you.”

Sion shook his head. “It’d be bad if anyone saw me with a guy swinging a noble’s head around in his hand.”

“Oh, that’s true.”

“I have something I still need to do anyway.”

“Meet a lover?”

Sion smiled. “Let’s go with that.”

“I’m so jealouuus.”

“Haha. Come on, head on back. Otherwise Claugh will knock you upside the head for being late again.”

Calne nodded and set off.

Sion turned to face his back. “Ah, wait. I have something I want you to tell Miller.”

“What is it?”

“Tell him to nominate me for marshal before he leaves tomorrow.”

Calne laughed, waved with the hand that wasn’t holding a head, then left. Soon he was out of sight.

A dark night like this during a new moon was perfect for assassins and other sinister designs. That was probably why Miller chose it.

Miller would destroy Marquess Tenglon. Doing so would cause Prince Kestalus to come out from behind the marquess.

Prince Kestalus, who had the king’s blood running through his veins just as Sion did. The same cursed blood.

They were monsters cursed by the Fallen Mad Hero’s poison blood.

None of Roland’s royalty were human now that Aslude Roland’s blood had woken up. Their insides were overwhelmed by his power, and no longer looked like a human’s insides might. A monster was rising up from within them. Normal humans would be unable to cope.

That was why Sion was here now.

So that the monster wouldn’t kill Miller, Calne, or Luke. So it wouldn’t kill anyone.

“…Will Prince Kestalus really come?” Sion whispered.

A clear, but cold voice answered him. “Yeah. Because he wants your flesh. He’ll follow your scent here. He’s already nearby. You can feel him too, can’t you?”

Sion was past the point where he might’ve bothered to look for the person speaking to him now. But he called the name of the monster who was always by his side nonetheless. “Hey, Lucile.”

“Mm?”

“I wonder if we can really win this time. Before… six months ago, that masked man - Lieral Lieutolu - had to save us.”

“Whether we win or not depends on you.”

“Well, we’re in trouble then. I mean, it’s not like I can tell how popular I am with the people. It’s not some number I can check to see how strong I am. All I know is that Miller’s been working to get my name out there…”

Sion took a moment to recall the events of the past six months. He’d been promoted from Lieutenant Colonel to Major General. He’d been doing the smallest amount of fighting possible with the largest amount of publicity possible.

It was exceedingly simple. All he did was face every day with a smile, travelling Roland for the sole purpose of increasing his popularity. He was an approachable prince born from a common woman and a hero of the Roland-Estabul war. He bowed to the nobility, borrowing their power to help his name echo through the country.

The nobility had always looked down on Sion. They always sneered and called him the son of a common mutt. They said that he didn’t have the right to talk to the nobility - he was defective goods. A failure. Trash. But they’d still use him. After all, if he wasn’t getting in their way, why bother killing him?

Of course there were nobles who hated how influential Sion was becoming, too. They were nobles who supported different members of the royal family. Sion avoided confronting them. He wouldn’t fight them. He wouldn’t show any signs of ambition. He just spread his name. Nothing more, nothing less. As he did, the power of the hero within him got stronger and stronger. He could feel it through the pain shooting inside of him.

That was probably just his anxiety, though.

The people had always bowed to the royalty and nobility, after all. Their hearts had long since given up to their fate.

“…You’re anxious. Do you want to stop?” Lucile asked.

Sion smiled. “Come on, it’s too late for joking around. We’ve already started. They’ll know what I’m doing after today. I won’t be able to go back to how things were before…”

Sion’s voice trailed off. Because he could feel Prince Kestalus close by. He turned to face him.

“Hey, big bro,” Sion said. “It’s been a while.”

A man stepped out of the darkness. He was a little more than ten years Sion’s senior - either in his late twenties or early thirties. He had brown hair and golden eyes - the same golden eyes as Sion’s. Sion’s vague memories of his father from long ago had the same eyes, too. Their mad father had passed them down to both Sion and Kestalus.

Sion glared at his half-brother with those same golden eyes.

“Why are you here?” Kestalus asked. “You’re the son of a common bitch, and you have the nerve to stand here before me?”

Sion had heard that same remark time and time again from his siblings. They even said it on the day his mother died. They called him the son of a dirty, lowly mutt on days they killed his friends, lovers, and allies, too.

It was their fault that Ryner was in jail now, too. It was their fault that Kiefer left the country with nothing but the knowledge that her sisters were dead.

Then they looked down on Sion like he was the one causing them pain for having the nerve to be born to a commoner.

“Why am I here?” Sion repeated. “That’s simple. It’s because I’m a dog. I came to eat you.”

“Haha, hahaha. You, eat me? You’re going to eat me? Haha, hahaha, hahahahahaha.”

He laughed madly. Probably because he was actually mad.

Roland’s nobility had all gone mad the moment Sion opened the final door at the deepest point of Roland’s darkness half a year ago. And yet the country hadn’t changed. The fact that they went mad didn’t matter in the slightest. The nobility were the ones with all the power, after all.

Marquess Tenglon used Prince Kestalus for his name, but he was the more powerful of the two. Yes, Sion had opened a door that had caused Prince Kestalus to be destroyed from the inside. But that didn’t mean anything to Marquess Tenglon. It didn’t matter if a puppet was shaped like a human or not, after all. It was a puppet.

The king had been mad for a long time now, too. The nobility were used to dealing with the insane by now.

Honestly, it was kind of pitiful. The royal family were puppets used as dictators in the nobility’s place. They had no will of their own. They were mad puppets who lived to be taken advantage of.

“……”

Even so.

“…I can’t control the anger I feel when I see you,” Sion said.

Kestalus had raped and killed Sion’s first lover before his eyes. He had sent Sion a dog’s head on the day his mother died.

Sion glared. “Why am I here? Ha, hahaha, where’s Tenglon? And me? Where am I? Ha, hahaha.” He laughed as he glared. “Lucile.”

“What is it?”

“Kill him.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Lucile appeared before Sion’s brother in a split second. He had glossy golden-blond hair, and a face so beautiful that it was sincerely disturbing. His skin was pale and his eyes remained closed. 

Lucile reached out a hand to touch Kestalus’ neck. That was all it took for his neck to rupture. His head went flying. That’d normally be the end of a fight. Because humans couldn’t live with a severed head. But in the very instant that his brother died… 

“……”

…His body took its true form.

A black blade rose from his body. It twirled in the air for a moment, then found his head and pierced it. Then Kestalus’ mouth moved. “A, a-a-a-a-a, w-we’ve awo-ken, we—”

The voice didn’t come from his head. It came from the sky, from the air itself, and revertibrated inside of their minds. If Sion had heard it months ago, he might’ve been rendered unable to move due to the strength of its curse. But he was different now.

“…So you were only this strong… Let’s end this, Brother. I’ll close the curtain on your ugly life story.”

Lucile moved his hands. He cut Kestalus’ limbs up first, then minced his body. As he did, dark blades shot from Kestalus’ open flesh. Aslude Roland’s cursed blood turned to blades to escape its weak vessel to search for fresh royal blood.

They flew for Sion, aiming to take him. But he stopped it with a hand on the blade that tried to wedge its way into his chest. “The one who’ll come out on top… the one who’ll devour the other… is me,” Sion said. “Monster.”

Sion gripped the sword hard, to the point where he felt it might cut his hand straight off. But as he did, the sword began to erode. It was being devoured, and with it came a horrid, burning pain. It felt like his cells were boiling, his viscera melting.

But Sion didn’t let that get to him. He was the son of a lowborn mutt, and he didn’t care about pain anymore. He was just so used to it by now. Everything he saw since the day he was born was painful.

The people he cared about were always killed right before his eyes. No one would save them no matter how much he screamed. His mother, his lovers, his friends, his allies.

Sion was the only one left now. He was trash, incapable of saving anyone. Nothing scared him or hurt him more than that knowledge.

He heard a voice in his mind. The voice of a monster.

“Wh-what?” It said. “Why am I being… devo…”

Lucile didn’t give it the chance to finish. He waved his hand one more time, and Prince Kestalus’ body and the blades both broke into pieces.

Sion felt the monster’s presence fade as it lost the ability to resist him. Its pieces all flew to Sion to be absorbed.

He became stronger, and with it, the pain got worse. It was the pain of Aslude Roland’s power making a home out of his body. The pain flooded every inch of his body so strongly that he almost felt that he’d die.

But he ignored the pain and smiled.

“…Winning was actually pretty easy.”

Lucile looked at him. “You did your best… do you want me to praise you?”

Sion grimaced.

Lucile smiled in turn. “This is proof that more people want you to rule over them,” Lucile said. “Though you hardly compare to the king in that regard.”

That was why he had to keep at it. He had to increase the number of people who were devoted to him. Doing so would increase the power of the Fallen Mad Hero, Aslude Roland, inside of him.

Sion had no idea how it happened, but that was how this country functioned. It existed solely so that the monster they called a hero could devour it. The monster was what made his siblings go mad. His father, too. And someday, Sion… 

“……”

Sion gazed into the darkness of their country. He felt that there was something off about it.

“I guess Calne was right. I better become more and more popular,” Sion said with a smile.

Lucile nodded and responded without hesitation. “But you’re the most attractive of the royal family so it should be easy.”

“…Is that supposed to be a joke?”

Lucile smiled faintly. “Who knows. But really, you’ve still got a ways to go. You need every human in this country to submit their heart to you. Your power will never reach your father’s if you don’t.”

“He’s that strong?”

“Yeah. So strong that you can’t even touch him.”

“……”

Sion looked towards Roland Castle, which towered about the darkness of Reylude. “Every human’s heart… wait, is that even possible?”

“I don’t need you if you can’t do it.”

“I guess not,” Sion said. “I’ll work hard, then.”

“Will you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then perhaps I shall hope for it,” Lucile said. He disappeared as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

But Sion wasn’t paying attention to Lucile anymore. He was looking back up at the black wall before him. It was hardly visible in the dark night. One had to stare to make out the building’s edges. “It seems like it’s begun, Ryner,” he whispered. “Our revolution has begun. So wait just a little longer, okay?”

Sion turned to leave. His path was as dark as always. It didn’t help that today in particular was a cloudy, lightless night. Darkness was all that existed in Roland now. But if that was the case… 

“…I’ll just have to light a fire for us all.”

---

Several days was all it took for change to ripple through the world.

Claugh and the others managed to pin the blame for the recent string of noble disappearances on Marquess Tenglon, who was apprehended and charged. It was, to Sion’s knowledge, the only case of a noble ever being arrested.

Naturally, Tenglon’s supporters reacted vehemently. 

“This is a trap.”

“He has nothing to do with those disappearances.”

“Release Tenglon at once!”

They all directed their displeasure towards the military.

Sion rose his head. He’d been reading the nobility’s complaints. He was in a military room that’d been assigned to him, since he was a major general now. His allies were gathered there. Well, calling them ‘allies’ might be a little strange. They were the people who had gathered under Rahel Miller’s banner of revolution.

Captain Rahel Miller, Sergeant Luke Stokkart, Major Calne Kaiwel, Lieutenant colonel Claugh Klom, and Sergeant Shuss Shiraz.

Their ranks were all over the place. So were their roles.

“So?” Sion asked.

“The hell’re you doin’ sitting down and looking so full of yourself?” Claugh asked. He was a well-built redhead with sharp red eyes to go with his hair. “You’re not all that,” he said with a glare.”

Sion smiled. “Then why am I the highest rank out of all of us?”

“Who gives a shit?”

“Bow to me.”

“Aah? You want your head in the wall?”

Sion laughed. “I was just joking. But I will be the representative for when we deal with the noble’s complaints from now on. Won’t I, Miller?”

Miller turned his usual bitter face towards Sion. He was calm despite his impeccable stiff posture. “That’s right. This’ll be your first time going against the nobility. Use your royal title for it.”

Sion stood from his chair and nodded. “We’ll be coming on strong. People will start to notice our ambitions. I’ll need monsters for guards to get through the threats that are about to come my way…”

“Well, doesn’t that fit Claugh to a T~” Calne said. “He’s the grim reaper of the battlefield. He’s famous for being a monster whose brains are even made of muscle—”

Right then, Claugh’s fist connected with Calne’s face and sent him flying. Then he turned to address Sion. “So do I have to like, sound like I respect you when we’re doing negotiations?”

Sion nodded. “I know you’ll hate it, but it’s for the best.”

“……”

“Alternatively, you could try actually respecting me—”

“Shut it.”

“Haha. Well, you don’t have to call me Lord Astal or anything. You could say Sir Sion like Calne does?”

“……”

Claugh scrunched his face up over that, too. Sion smiled bitterly. “I guess you can just call me Sion.”

Luke spoke next. He was around Claugh’s height, but he was so calm and approachable from his constant smiling that no one really minded his how tall he was. He had white hair despite only being in his twenties. “But Claugh, you’ll likely be followed wherever you go. Don’t you want to remind the masses about how Sir Sion, who was born to a common woman, managed to reach a rank even higher than your status as a lieutenant colonel​? I know that your brain’s too full of muscle for any nerves, but—”

“Who’re you callin’ a musclehead! I got top marks in magic, y’know!”

Luke paused at Claugh’s interruption, then glanced at Sion before looking back at Claugh. “At least wait until people are finished talking to speak, Musclehead. I don’t care about your preschool achievements—”

“Hey!”

“People think you’ve got some nerve. They’ll think you’re responsible for kidnapping nobles, and they’ll eventually think to kill you. We want the nobles to believe that you, Claugh, are important enough for Sion to appoint you, a commoner through and through, to an important position. Doing so will move the nobles’ anger from Sion to you.”

Claugh grinned. “So they’ll all just attack me until they get bored?”

Claugh’s trusty subordinate Shuss smiled. “You must know that it won’t be that easy, Sir. Well, sure, it’ll be easy enough for the nobles to hate you. But they’ll end up seeing us all as a rebel army then. We need to make criminals out of Marquess Tenglon’s circle of nobles too if we’re going to have any leverage here.”

Miller nodded. “We’ll need to get serious about getting the families of the killed nobles to see us as the just party here. We don’t want them to end up going for Prince Kestalus instead—”

“Prince Kestalus died yesterday,” Sion interrupted.

Everyone looked at Sion.

“What do you mean?” Miller asked.

Sion shrugged. “Exactly what I said.”

“He was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“……”

Miller was silent.

Normally people would be angry about something like that. But Miller didn’t say a thing. Because he was an incredibly detailed person who thought of everything before setting his plans in motion. A small gear slipping loose could cause the whole machine to stop functioning, after all.

Miller met Sion’s eyes with a piercing gaze. It was like he saw the darkness that settled around him.

“…Then we don’t need to worry about the nobles banding together strong,” Miller finally said. “We have justice on our side. They’ll trust our opinion over that of the royalty’s, and most importantly of all, Duke Philip’s daughter is among the dead. The nobles will stay quiet as long as we gain his backing.”

“Though we’re the ones who actually killed his daughter,” Sion said.

“……”

“Miller. I know that I’m not nearly as powerful as you are, but I can’t accept moving forward with methods like this,” Sion said.

“Is that so.”

Sion glared and nodded. “It is.”

“Then build the world you want to see once you become strong enough,” Miller said.

“I will.”

“But you’re still one of my pieces. Do as I say until the game’s over,” Miller said. He kept his emotions out of his voice. That was the type of person he was - he only ever said what was necessary.

“I will.”

Miller nodded. “That’s fine, then.”

Miller tore his eyes from Sion, then moved the stack of documents on the desk to reveal a diagram of the Roland Empire’s military ranks. He pointed to the single opening for a marshal’s position. “We’re going to reorganize the military. Marquess Tenglon died and left his seat as a marshal open. We’re going to fill it. Doing so will have many of Tenglon’s old men move to our side. We’ll seize complete control of the military, then the country…”

Miller raised his head again to look at Sion. For some reason, he was smiling. It was rare to see on his stern and frown-marked face.

“…It’s starting,” Miller said quietly. “Faster than expected, too, thanks to you killing Prince Kestalus on your own time. That drove the nobles into a corner sooner than expected, too.

A thunderous sound echoed behind him. Sion tried to look back, but Luke stopped him.

“This way,” Luke said and pulled Sion up, then pressed his back against the wall.

The wall right Sion had just been exploded. The cause was most likely magical in nature. Someone was using magic to attack the military, and everyone here seemed to have expected it.

Claugh grinned. “Amazing, right? They’ve got some nerve usin’ large-scale magic here in the middle of town. What kind of idiot’s havin’ them do this?”

“…Someone acting in secret,” Shuss said. “It’s illegal to use offensive magic within city limits, after all.”

Luke, who was protecting Sion from behind, replied. “But it’s already perfectly apparent who they are. That’s Count Eckel’s private army. Count Eckel was in cahoots with Marquess Tenglon with the shared goal of using Prince Kestalus. He’s almost certainly here to rescue Marquess Tenglon… and if what Sion says is true, then he’s likely also planning to find where Prince Kestalus has disappeared to while he’s here. They have no way to oppose us without the Prince, after all. I am sure that he is prepared to die over this.”

“That’s fine,” Miller said. He sounded happy. “Kill every soldier in Eckel’s private army. They’re the ones who started this, and we can use that aggression to pin the blame on them for Prince Kestalus’ death.”

“Should we really be killin’ all of them?” Claugh asked.

Miller nodded. “We can’t leave room for doubts in this fight. The nobility aren’t weak. Can you do it?”

Claugh smiled. “I’ll get ‘em good.”

With that, Claugh leapt through the hole that the explosion had blown in the wall. He yelled his orders back once he was outside. “Gather my division up, Shuss. We’re protecting the building. We’ll make ‘em regret ever laying a hand on the military.”

Shuss nodded and ran off in the opposite direction of Claugh to carry out his orders. 

Calne stood from the corner. “They’re way flashier than I thought they’d be. Was Count Eckmal’s private army always this weak?”

Luke shook his head. “No. Haven’t you heard the rumors? They say that Count Eckmel’s army is even more outstanding than Count Emeril’s, where you and Claugh joined from?”

Calne’s expression subtly changed from his usual frivolous one. “Hmm. That’s pretty annoying. It’s not that I have any pride as one of Emeril’s old soldiers, but…”

Just then, two men in black jumped in through the hole that Claugh had left through. They were fast. They were thrusting knives at Sion before he could even think of reacting.

But they ended up with knives to their own necks before ever reaching Sion. They were dead in seconds. Calne watched their bodies crumple from behind. “See? Aren’t we stronger~? But that kind of pisses me off too~!” Calne then glanced down through the hole in the wall. Magical explosions were going off one after enough, each just as loud as the last. “Geez, Claugh sure is having fun down there. I guess he hasn’t gotten the chance to go crazy for a few months now. What should I do, Miller?”

“Stay here and guard the prince.”

“Huh? You mean Sir Sion?”

Miller ignored him and looked to Sion instead. “It’s about time you did something useful.”

Sion nodded. “You want me to gather the nobles who are loyal to us up, right?”

“Yeah.”

“There are quite a few who—”

“I know,” Miller interrupted. “I pretty much understand your situation by now.”

“I see.”

“We’ll take advantage of it and use it to move forward,” Miller said. “We’ll take the nobles who won’t cooperate with the likes of Count Eckmal or Marquess Tenglon and make them our allies.”

“I know.”

“We’ve put a lot of effort into setting up a clean playing board. Don’t mess up now, alright?”

Sion smiled. “Well, I’ll do my best.” He turned to leave.

“Oh, wait, sir,” Luke said. He was calm as always, his eyes a slit as he watched everything happen around him.

“Hm?”

“You can ignore the people who’ve devoted themselves to Marquess Wahti out there. My army will soon kill them all anyway,” Luke said.

Marquess Wahti was a man with approximately the same amount of influence as Marquess Tenglon. Killing his supporters meant killing an unbelievable amount of people.

“…Understood,” Sion said with a nod.

They’d move forward through murder.

Sion knew that it wasn’t right, but it wasn’t like they had any other choice to make. He couldn’t think of a better plan than Miller’s when he thought about how to best change the country. So he was following it for the time being. He tried to keep casualties to a minimum, but— 

“……”

Another explosion. 

It was the sound of magic made only to destroy.

Their enemies were fighting their hardest, using large-scale magic here that the military wouldn’t use. They were competing to see who was strongest here with their statuses at stake. So they were doing their best to pull ahead now, while they still had a chance.

They didn’t have any time. Minutes at the most. Because the fire of the revolution had already been lit.

The plan that Miller had spent so long preparing was already running, and Sion had already brought the ambition he’d been hiding for so long now to the center of the stage. They couldn’t stop now.

They had to do this before the nobility learned who their enemies were or what exactly they were fighting. They had to do it while the nobility were still busy stealing the spotlight from each other. They’d use that greed inherent to the nobles to end them, and then Sion would rise from the gaps they left to grip the country by its core.

“……”

Even now, the sound of his enemies dying outside was ringing in his ears. It was the sound of his allies dying, too. Of people dying. They laid down their lives here like it was natural.

Sion thought inside the sound of death. He continued to draw the path ahead of their plan in his mind. The fact that influential nobles were attacking here meant that they ranked Sion as more meritorious than the other princes, and expected him to soon occupy the marshal’s seat, then proceed to becoming the next king.

He couldn’t destroy the nobility as a whole if he wanted any of that to happen. Miller and Sion’s combined troops weren’t enough to fight against the private armies of the nobility as a whole. So they had to climb even higher in the ranks, until the nobility felt that they’d be good pawns instead of good enemies. Then they could use the nobility’s power to change the country.

So they had to trick them.

“……”

Sion left his office, deep in thought.

---

It was like a battlefield outside.

Countless spells were destroying the military headquarters, one sparking after the next.

Claugh Klom glared at the scene with his burning red eyes.

“……”

The enemy army was strong. Fast, too. And there were lots of them. Miller’s army was at a clear disadvantage. His allies were dying all around. They were burnt alive by Lightning Flash and burst into pieces from Abstract Phosphorescence. Before long, countless assassins had slid past their line to make their way inside the building.

“…This is worse than I thought it’d be,” Claugh said. “Guess that old man Miller was right to ask if I could do this…”

Claugh mimicked Miller’s stern expression as he recalled his words. Then he turned to see another assassin trying to sneak attack him. Claugh defeated him, then raised his voice.

“Alright! Sion’s men who’re out here protecting the line, listen up! I’m Lieutenant Colonel Claugh Klom! You guys are under my command now. Reinforcements will arrive here in a minute, so hold the line—”

“Surrender, rebel army! We’re Prince Kestalus’ army here to save Marquess Tenglon, who had been kidnapped by Sion Astal—”

Apparently that was supposed to be one of their commanders or something. Claugh kicked off the ground to head for him. None of their enemies could follow him at that speed. Most probably didn’t even notice him. Claugh fastened his right arm into something of a blade and moved to plunge it into the commander’s chest the moment he reached him. 

“I won’t let you.”

Another man flew for Claugh and grabbed him by the shirt. He was strong. Claugh turned to get a look at him. It was someone he recognized - Colonel Ohdo Seele. He had long and disheveled black hair and dark skin. He was a guy who gained the nobility’s favor by his numerous achievements in battle during his teens. So the nobility stole him and his power away.

Seele tugged Claugh closer with strength one wouldn’t expect from his thin arms. “Demon of the battlefield… Crimson-Fingered Claugh Klom. I’ve always wanted to fight you to see which one of us is more of a monster.”

“There’s no point in doing that. You’re not my enemy,” Claugh said. He brushed Seele’s hand off, then turned to kill the commander again, ignoring Seele entirely.

Seele pulled a knife out of his pocket and threw it at Claugh. He was fast, and the knife was dripping with poison. “You’re so annoying,” he said.

Even then, the probably-the-commander-guy was yelling orders. “Surrender at once! What you are doing is nothing short of rebellion! We will slaughter you all if you continue to put up resista—”

He stopped there. White hair flashed behind him as the always-smiling Luke Stokkart pressed a hand against the commander’s neck from behind. That was all it took for him to break it. Then he ripped his head clean off, all with a smile. “Shall I lend you a hand, Claugh?”

Claugh wrinkled his nose. “Don’t need it.”

“You’re always acting tough and getting yourself into these situations,” Luke said. “Count Eckel’s army is a strong one, you know, and you’ve run right up to their commander. Colonel Ohdo Seele is here, too, and he’s about as strong as you are—”

Claugh moved before Luke could finish, putting his full power into his fist and aiming it right for Seele, despite the knife in Seele’s hand.

Seele grimaced and moved to dodge. “You’re slow and easy to follow—”

“Shut it, small fry!” Claugh yelled. Seele tried to dodge, but Claugh grabbed the arm he hand his knife in and snapped it.

“Guah!” Seele cried.

Claugh pressed his thumbs through Seele’s eyeballs and twisted his neck next. He collapsed to the ground, dead.

“So who’s about as strong as I am?” Claugh asked, triumphant. But Luke was already gone.

That bastard. He never even intended on saving Claugh from the beginning, did he?

“…Fucker… I’m gonna give him a real good punch in the face one of these days.”

 Claugh turned back. He figured morale was going to drop from the enemy commander’s yelling, so maybe he should yell, too. But before he knew it he was surrounded by enemy troops and had to focus on that instead.

The soldiers surrounding him all began to draw magic circles in unison. He recognized the pattern as Abstract Phosphorescence, even though it was a high-level spell that only a few soldiers should know. Twenty people here were circling him, and they all knew it.

“…Whoa, this is bad,” Claugh said. He forced himself to smile. Honestly, he couldn’t fight twenty soldiers if they all used Abstract Phosphorescence. Sion’s army, which was out here protecting the building, probably didn’t have thirty men capable of using it. Claugh’s subordinates were about the same. Even if Shuss’ reinforcements came soon, they’d probably still be the weaker army overall.

This wasn’t a fight with some throwaway assassins under the cover of darkness, after all. This was a serious fight against a noble who wasn’t afraid of brandishing his name. They kept excellent soldiers in frightening numbers.

One or two exceptional fighters wouldn’t be able to change the country forever.

That was why even Miller, who was so incredibly smart, had to take so long to plan this. And now after all that time, it was starting for real today. They finally could raise the flags of revolution they’d been hiding until now up above their heads.

Once something like that started, it couldn’t be stopped. It would either succeed, or they’d all die trying. Those were the only two possible results. Claugh knew that.

No one had been able to change their country yet, but that idiot Miller devoted the past couple decades to trying. Sion was devoting his life to the cause, too. He’d definitely die if things went sour.

They seriously said shit like ‘I’m gonna change the world~’ and really set out to do it even though no one ever asked them to. They bet their lives on that shit.

“……”

Claugh turned around. He saw Sion and Calne leaving the building. They were headed off to go butter up the nobles in the military to try to get them on their side. They had to, for the sake of the revolution. So Claugh had to keep the enemy army away from them.

“Surrender, Claugh Klom. Your master Sion Astal is finished. The second you chose to make enemies out of Marquess Tenglon was the very second you all lost your chance of survival.”

Claugh raised his head. Yep, still surrounded by twenty Abstract Phosphorescence circles.

The enemy army just kept getting bigger, too. It wasn’t just Eckel’s private army. It was Marquess Tenglon’s followers, too.

“We can guarantee your lives if you hand Marquess Tenglon and Prince Kestalus over,” another soldier said.

The enemy was definitely strong. The reinforcements were almost certainly all well-known soldiers in the same vein as Ohdo Seele.

“You could even come to serve in Marquess Tenglon’s army,” the enemy soldier continued. “I’ll put a good word in to the Marquess for you. So join our side. The Marquess is a much better lord than Sion Astal. If you—”

“Is that fun for you?” Claugh interrupted.

The man glared at Claugh for interrupting him.

“Seriously, do you enjoy having the nobles look down on you and laugh at you all the time?”

“……”

“Me, join you? Ha. I should be asking you to join me. It’s a whole carriage full of fun things here. We’ll all die if we lose, but we might also be able to see a world we’ve never known before—”

“It appears that you’ve misunderstood something. That’s stupid.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty dumb. Everyone on my side’s a real idiot. Pretty interesting, right?”

“Enough of this. Kill him,” the commander ordered.

Claugh gazed at the deadly odds before him… and smiled. “This kind of thing’s my specialty. Alright, let’s do it. You’re gonna regret it if you don’t kill me with your first shot.”

Claugh tore his right sleeve off to reveal an arm covered in red tattoos. Each tattoo was engraved with a curse. He activated them.

He was the demon of the battlefield, Crimson-Fingered Claugh Klom, because his arm was always covered in the fresh crimson blood of his enemies—

“Sir Claugh!” Shuss shouted from far away. So the reinforcements had arrived. But they were too late.

“Kill him!”

Dozens of Abstract Phosphorescence spells shot at Claugh at once. 

But when Claugh next raised his voice, it was happily. “You guys are the ones who’re gonna be killed!”

The light threads of Abstract Phosphorescence all headed straight for him. Claugh dodged back and forth at an inhuman speed. But he couldn’t dodge them all. One pierced Claugh’s shoulder. Another scraped his flank. A third gouged his thigh. But they didn’t kill him. Claugh moved his cursed arm. Magic circles soon surrounded it. They shot currents that built up into a twister, then moved to capture his enemies inside of its winds, tearing their bodies at the seams as it did.

Claugh’s arm was soon red with their blood. He tried to grab the commander with his crimson fingers, but the commander was fast. He dodged easily. Just as Claugh expected, he was stronger than Ohdo Seele.

“…Ha. You’re a monster,” the enemy commander said. “But you’re just one person, in the end.” He stood back. Soldiers ran in front to protect him. This time the spell they prepared for was Lightning Flash. The commander did the same.

But then Claugh noticed a light from behind him. That too was the light of Lightning Flash. It was Shuss’ army here to protect him.

“Who’s ‘just one person?’” Claugh asked.

The enemy commander’s spell finished. It shot a lightning spear straight for Claugh. But Claugh grabbed an enemy soldier and used him as a shield. He used his other hand to draw a magic circle for Abstract Phosphorescence.

“I wish for a rainbow of annihilation - Abstract Phosphorescence!”

The commander wasn’t his target. Because he’d definitely dodge with how Claugh timed it. So Claugh aimed for below the man. He looked down to follow Claugh’s spell with his eyes, shocked. That was all it took. Claugh grabbed a knife from his pocket and threw it. It gouged his neck. He could move his shocked eyes back to Claugh, but that was all. His wounds were fatal. Claugh had no reason to pay attention to him anymore.

The soldiers they were fighting were drawing back by the second. Shuss ran to Claugh’s side. “You’re hurt!”

Claugh grinned. “‘Cause you’re late.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So how many do we have?”

“Four hundred.”

“And them?”

“Two thousand.”

“Hehhe~” Claugh laughed. “Sounds fun. Miller and Sion are gonna come back with armies from other nobles. Let’s get these guys to come closer. Cautiously, though.”

Claugh glanced back at his troops and thought about how to best fight their enemy. They had to maintain a line while preventing as many deaths of their capable allies as possible. In that time, Sion and Miller would work their magic by manipulating the nobility’s view of the events to make their own army look just.

But if Claugh failed to hold the enemy back for that long… 

“…Then that’d be the end of us,” Claugh said to himself and smiled. “The atmosphere here’s getting pretty festive, isn’t it?”

Shuss nodded. “It is. You can’t die here, alright?”

“Same goes for you.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Alrighty, Shuss.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s do it.”

Claugh stopped. Shuss did too and raised his fist. All four hundred men in Claugh’s army stopped with them. Then Shuss moved his arm to the side. Everyone began drawing a magic circle. “My lord, Lieutenant Colonel Klom, please order us!”

Claugh nodded, then spoke. Against their enemy who was so much stronger than they were. “Go all out! Kill every piece of trash you see!”

The enemy started to draw magic circles of their own. There were far too many to count between the two sides.

“Fire!” Claugh yelled.

The whole world was enveloped in the light of magic.

And so the revolution… no, their mutual killing… began.

---

Time passed and their location changed.

They were currently in the largest, most conspicuous building in the noble’s quarters.

“Have they made their move?”

Captain Rahel Miller nodded. His posture was intimidatingly perfect, and his face was the type that one couldn’t imagine spouting jokes. He raised his head to answer. “Yes.”

They were currently inside Duke Anorita Abaaz’s estate. Miller was standing at attention, surrounded by a group of nobles who sat at ease in the parlor. They were all people that Duke Anorita Abaaz gathered and raised under his name, as well as the duke himself.

“Heheh, so that means that Marquess Tenglon is done for,” one of the nobles said.

“He became too confident when it came to pressing his luck with the military.”

“It’s about time someone taught him who really makes this country work.”

Then Duke Abaaz himself, who sat in the center, spoke. “So?” He asked. “Where is Marquess Tenglon?” The duke was a man in his forties. He had thin, cunning eyes and a slim body. There were seven major factions within the nobility, and Duke Abaaz was the head of the most influential. He supported Prince Triffua, the eldest of Roland’s princes, and maintained an impressive noble backing as well as influence with the royalty. “Have you already killed Tenglon?”

Miller shook his head. “He is on his way here. A commoner like me is unable to raise a hand against a noble for any reason.”

Duke Abaaz nodded. “Hm. I find that most likeable.”

“I am honored.”

“However, you are mistaken in bringing him here. Wouldn’t it be rather dire if the royalty learned of this all? Have you thought of the consequences?”

“…I apologize,” Miller said and lowered his head.

Abaaz smiled. “Heheh. You aren’t going to protest? I already understand that you must have changed your route here many times to avoid pursuit. Though my subordinates did manage to tail you regardless…”

With that, Abaaz’s gaze moved to behind Miller. When he did, Miller turned, too, finally realizing the faint presence there behind him. Six beautiful women stood there, with hair ranging from blonde to black, each with a very different image to her. How beautiful they were hardly mattered, though. The problem was the fact that they’d managed to get right there behind him without Miller noticing. That meant that they were all capable of killing Miller.

So that was the kind of person who served Duke Abaaz.

“……”

Miller turned back to Duke Abaaz.

“These were my tails?”

Abaaz smiled. “Have I hurt your feelings?”

“…No. I feel that you have only acted naturally. I didn’t expect for you to trust me without reason.”

Abaaz’s smile didn’t reach his sharp eyes. “I already trust you. Your restraint is impressive.”

Miller bowed. “I am undeserving of your—”

“But your plan is too clean,” Abaaz interrupted. “It lacks flaws to the point that it’s frightening. I really don’t like that. I really don’t like having subordinates who are too smart. I feel threatened by them… So I’ll tell you how this is going to work. Gina.”

Miller turned. A fearsome murderous intent sprouted up. He couldn’t react to it. He couldn’t even move. He felt something stab his shoulder. It was most likely a knife. At first it just burned. Then he felt a sharp pain race through him. But he didn’t take his eyes off Duke Abaaz.

“I admire your strength of will. I want strong subordinates like you.”

“…But you intend to kill me because I’m too smart?” 

“No. I won’t kill you or anything. I just thought it’d be best to make sure you know where you stand - below me. I’m glad that you’ve come here to me. You’re sharp, popular with the people, and even aspire to change this country. You haven’t messed up a single time until now. There are people in this world who are mistaken, though; they think they can do anything they want and have it go well.”

“Are you referring to me?”

Abaaz shook his head. “I never said that. I researched everything about you, but you’ve led a surprisingly clean life. You flatter the nobility and are hated in return. Despite being a commoner, you’ve managed to become a captain through appraising the nobility’s wants. You’re a genius. There’s nothing for me to suspect about you. And yet…”

Abaaz looked behind Miller once more. He felt the knife pull out of his flesh. It appeared that the duke was telling the truth about not killing him.

“I am a man who follows my own principles,” Abaaz said. “And it is one of my principles to not trust people too easily.”

“……”

“I think your plan to crush Marquess Tenglon has been wonderful. You make him and his army look like they’ve gone mad, then use my army to crush them. Then everyone will think that you’re incredibly powerful. You’d be letting the people know that you have the power to take hold of all Roland. And with Prince Kestalus out of the way, with Marquess Tenglon dead, you’ll avoid any unnecessary resistance; the other nobles will keep themselves in check after seeing it, too. Your plan is very interesting. Even so…”

Abaaz made another signal with his hands. This time, the knife plunged into Miller’s stomach. 

“Even so, I hate playing parts in other people’s plans. So I say we change the plan a bit. I won’t kill Marquess Tenglon. I’m actually going to save him instead. Then we’ll be able to defeat your army. Lieutenant Colonel Claugh Klom is one of your subordinates, isn’t he? The monster they call the demon of the battlefield? I know how many times you two have met behind closed doors.”

“……”

“I want to have him die today. I want all of his followers to die, too. If that happens, then I’m certain that this will stop being your plan and become my plan instead. You won’t need to get up to no good anymore if you’re stripped of your power and allies.”

“……”

“Of course it’s possible that you wouldn’t have done anything anyway. That’s fine. If I kill your allies and you still ask me for this favor, then I’ll happily trust you. But I can’t listen to your plea otherwise.”

“……”

“So will you still ask for my help, Rahel Miller?”

“……”

“Will you let me kill your allies in exchange for my help?”

“……”

“Or would you rather die here? Choose, Rahel Miller.”

The nobles glared at Miller with careful, but deep mistrust. The duke was challenging Miller to a clear battle of wits. Who would come out on top? Miller desperately needed to prove that he would.

“…Let’s have Lieutenant Colonel Klom die then,” Miller said. “It’s fine as long as it earns me your trust, my lord duke.”

Abaaz smiled meanly. “This must be difficult for you.”

“Of course. He’s my ally, after all.”

“But you’d still sell him out?”

“I would.”

“Ha, you’re just like the rumors said. You’d betray anyone for a noble.”

“Yes, that is how I am. But I have never before betrayed a noble.” With that, Miller crouched to the floor to bow properly. “Please, lend me your trust. I will definitely return the favor.”

Abaaz looked down at Miller. His expression was the same as someone looking at a piece of stinking garbage on the side of the road. “Fine. I’ll make good use of you.”

Miller raised his head. “Thank you. Please, allow me to do something for you here and now.”

“What is it?”

“If you allow Marquess Tenglon to live, then we will need to have another culprit replace him… I have put so much effort into this plan until now, and it has come quite far, all for the purpose of taking power from my enemies. If we allow Tenglon to live, then it would be best to shift the plan to another enemy.”

“Who are you thinking?”

“How about Duke Staelied?”

Staelied was the noble with the most power after Abaaz, and they had been in competition for some time now. Abaaz should want him dead. So he looked down at Miller. “That’s fine.”

Miller nodded. He stood, bowed his head once more, then turned his back to Abaaz, to look at the six girls who’d been behind him. They were strong enough to kill Miller, which meant they were also strong enough to kill Abaaz. But they wouldn’t do that. They wanted the power Abaaz granted them, and they might have other reasons, too. So they wouldn’t kill him.

Miller looked at them, but they wouldn’t meet his eyes. They stared right through him, like none of them had any interest in him at all. Miller passed by them and left the estate.

His subordinates who were waiting for him outside with the carriage asked what happened with the knife in his back. Miller didn’t respond. He looked in the direction of the residence he’d granted Sion. Marquess Tenglon’s soldiers were there doing their best to get their master back as they fought Claugh. Abaaz’s army was supposed to come to relieve Claugh. But they wouldn’t. The icing on the cake was that they wouldn’t even kill Tenglon. They’d release him to make Abaaz more favorable to the other nobles.

Miller had already considered that this might be the result of their meeting. That was why he’d been able to quickly suggest an alternate path. If Abaaz wouldn’t kill Tenglon, then he’d stir the coals of a fight between Abaaz and Staelied.

And for that… 

“……”

Miller climbed into the carriage.

“Let me tend to your wounds.”

“Later,” Miller said. “Tell the coachman that we’re heading to Duke Staelied’s.”

“Stael… er, what about the relief army for Lieutenant Colonel Claugh Klom?”

“It’s not happening. We need to free Marquess Tenglon, too. Be polite when you’re letting him go.”

“Wha, but… but—”

“We’re abandoning Claugh and moving to our back-up plan.”

“But—”

“Shut it. We’ve already started. We can’t stop now,” Miller said. He reached back to pull the knife out of himself. His blood gushed down onto the floor. That shut his subordinates up. “Get this carriage moving.”

His subordinates nodded and conveyed Miller’s orders to the coachman. The horses broke out in a run.

---

Sion got out of the carriage, then looked back. He was enough from the fighting now that he couldn’t see or hear it. But he was sure that it was still going on. But there was nothing there for their enemies to fight them over. Both Sion and Tenglon had left the premise. Now the fighting would continue until Claugh’s entire army was decimated. Well, maybe if Claugh died, the enemy would put their energy into searching for Sion instead.

They needed to end the fighting before that happened. They needed the power to defeat Tenglon.

Sion didn’t have that power now. He didn’t know about what was going on on Miller’s end, but few nobles had agreed to lend Sion their help. But they could still use this whole affair to make the nobility look at him. He needed to give them the image of a prince far more vigorous and able than his siblings.

He’d come here for that purpose.

Calne came out behind him and looked around. “Uwah, is this where I think it is?”

Sion turned to nod. “Yeah, it is.”

“You can’t be planning on trespassing?”

Sion laughed. “We’re entering normally. I mean, isn’t this the best place to show people that I’ve become strong?” He raised his head to look up at the biggest building in all of Roland, which housed the most powerful man in all of Roland - the king. Sion’s father.

Sion had never seen his face. He’d abandoned Sion’s mother before he was born, after all, leaving them to live a hard life. So he’d never wanted to meet his father, either. He’d thought of how much he wanted to kill him, yes, but never wanted to just see him. 

However… 

“…If I meet with my father, the nobility will change their opinions of me. So…”

This was the fastest way to gain the nobility’s support. That was why he came here to meet the man he least wanted to see in the whole world.

His father wasn’t human, either. He was the man the people most recognized as king, and as such, his body was home to the power of the Hero. He was a monster.

“…I’m going to see him.”

Calne looked confused. “Were you on bad terms with your father, Sir?”

“I’ve never met him before.”

“Wow.”

“But meeting him now should make things a lot better. So I’m going to do it.”

“You don’t think you’ll be killed here?”

Sion shrugged. “Who knows. No one’s managed to kill me yet, so I think I’ll be fine… I mean, I might as well give it a try.”

“What’ll you do about a guard?”

“I don’t need one. There are some delicate feelings between us as father and son, so do you mind waiting here?”

Calne nodded. Sion nodded back, then started to approach the castle. Entering was simple. He was a major general of the Roland army, a hero in the war against Estabul, and a child of the king. No one even questioned if he might have been invited or not.

Someone spoke to him as he headed up the path to the entrance.

“…Delicate feelings between father and son?” Lucile said.

Sion responded without bothering to turn around towards the voice. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“It’s two monsters trying to steal power from each other. And you won’t win.”

“Really?”

“You already know that you won’t, don’t you?”

 “But I still need to meet him now.”

“You’ll just be killed, you know?” Lucile said.

Sion stopped, then turned back. Lucile was standing there. “Then protect me,” Sion said.

Lucile shook his head. “The hero has chosen the king, for the time being. So the one I will protect is the king. Not you.”

“You had a rule like that?”

“……”

“I see. Guess I’d better do my best alone then,” Sion said, and continued to walk forward.

“Stop. This is suicide.”

“Maybe.”

“The king can’t think like a human anymore.”

“Okay.”

“If you meet him, he will certainly steal your power and kill you.”

Sion didn’t listen. He just continued to walk forward. “I just need to see him. All I need is to stand by him and be acknowledged as his son. I’ll run before he can kill me.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I wonder.”

“It really is.”

“Then—”

Sion couldn’t turn around and couldn’t stop moving forward. But he continued to address Lucile.

“Then if, by chance, I manage to live, I’m going to need you to start respecting me,” Sion said.

With that, Sion continued until he reached the throne room, uninterrupted. He didn’t actually need to be on his guard here. Because he knew that Lucile would protect him. Because he’d never been human in the first place. Because it was so easy to get here.

“……”

Sion gazed at the throne room’s door. This was the king’s domain. Just as soon as he reached out to touch it… 

“…I warned you,” Lucile said.

Sion ignored him and pressed his hand to the door. Lucile was already gone by the time it cracked open. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to see the tragedy that would soon happen here, or maybe it was because he really left to stand by the king to protect him. Sion didn’t really care either way. He just pushed the door open slowly.

And on the other side of the door— 

---

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Chapter 3: The Consequences of Devouring God—

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---

Several years passed, according to the calendar. But he couldn’t feel it. He had no perception of time. He hadn’t, not since that day when he first entered the demon’s lair. But the fact that his sister got taller and prettier every day meant that time was passing. He was changing, too, always just taller than Ferris. But he didn’t feel that what he saw in the mirror was really him anymore. Maybe it was because of all the wicked things he’d devoured, but he couldn’t really tell what he was supposed to be anymore.

He could feel his own existence become hazy, and felt that he’d disappear entirely.

But she stopped him. His sister stopped him. Because she pulled him towards his humanity. In that way, whether he would eventually lose sight of himself and disappear depended on her.

And then one day, she said something. She said it with her blank face hiding the light inside her, and with her pretty, monotone voice. “What’s this ‘love’ they speak of? Brother.”

Lucile forced himself back to reality when he heard her question, pulling his mind out of whatever haze it was wandering in, and faced her. She was a beautiful girl with long, golden hair and clear blue eyes. She was, if he recalled correctly, fourteen now. So she was already at the age where she could bear a child. But despite that fact, she had never gained the single power that their parents cared about. She’d probably never stood before Eris at all. Basically, she was disposable. She was a tool to be used by either their father or by Lucile in order to have children with.

And she asked him a question. Asked him what love was.

Lucile’s eyes lowered to the book in her hands. It was a poetry anthology. He couldn’t recall its specific contents. But she’d asked about love, so there was probably something about love in there.

He smiled faintly. “Ferris, you don’t know what love is?”

He said it slowly, carefully, to make sure that he was really talking.