1

The underground tunnel was dark and cramped, as memory foretold. Not quite high enough for an adult to stand upright, but maybe wide enough for two to go side-by-side. The smaller the tunnel, the easier it was to conceal, and it was never intended for heavy traffic. There were, now and in the past, people with unusually complicated backgrounds, who had to be moved from a holding place to another safe from prying eyes, and it was for the sake of their transportation that such secret passages were made and preserved. Though they had other uses too.

The darkness was nearly perfect, but Miragrave didn’t start a light. She followed the path by feeling the coarse wall. Slowly, step by step, depending on her ears rather than her eyes. Her feet wouldn’t stumble on the familiar floor. She could still recall the placement of each crack and bump.

How long had it been since she had last used this passage, anyway? Ten years? Eleven? So much had happened in that relatively brief span of time, so much had changed, her days as recruit were as from another life.

This had been a convenient way to slip out of the garrison at night, for a quick visit to the nearby tavern. Although the commanding officers had to have known about the passage, it was never guarded nor the adventurers punished. As with everything in the army, all was well so as long as no one was clumsy enough to get caught.

After about a hundred and sixty feet of cramped, bumpy dampness, the tunnel connected with a larger, stone-walled corridor. It served no practical purpose today. It was only the remaining stub of some ancient network, of which the rest had collapsed. There had been temporal plans to connect the pipe with the city’s sewer system, but those plans were abandoned by the time the garrison was built.

Perhaps the army had set up a base here specifically for the presence of that useful passage, or perhaps the connecting tunnel had been added after the larger one’s coincidental discovery, or perhaps neither of those things had anything to do with each other, and it was all but a random sum of people’s blind fumbling through life.

At any rate, it was much easier to walk in the more spacious corridor. There was even some light coming in from the other end, allowing one to better perceive her surroundings and the faint, flaking patterns on the walls, painted by hands long gone.

The tunnel went on, straight as an arrow, for about nine hundred feet, and ended in a rectangular room. Across the room, another tunnel started upward, reaching back to the surface again, outside the badly worn perimeter wall of the Gralia district. Right outside the tunnel’s mouth ran the river Thuleios, which had once encircled the entirety of the capital, filling this underground area with water. But the drought of more recent times had caused the river to withdraw far from its former boundaries, making this link between the garrison and the outside world accessible.

Up ahead, freedom awaited.

The exit was never guarded or blocked, as there were no houses or people in the vicinity, and the steep riverbank with its overgrown bushes helped conceal the cavity.

The room along the way was bare and simple, about forty feet wide, sixty long, with dried, hardened mud for a floor. Pillars of stone supported the ceiling, three in a row, four in a line, work of the tunnel’s past, unknown constructors. There were four narrow platforms on both sides of the room, next to low, barred holes in the walls, possibly to drain rainwater. Rusted, bent ladders took up to said platforms, some of them completely bent and broken. Old, rotten junk, like broken crates, barrel frames, tattered sacks, and ropes were left lying here and there in the room, uniformly covered with dirt and filth. No one had ever thought of clearing them out.

There was a drop of nearly seven feet from the corridor’s exit down to the room. Considering the unreliable footing and the lack of ladders or stepping stones, shorter and less agile soldiers would need a companion to get back to the garrison again, giving them an incentive to share the secret of the hidden path. On rainy days in particular, the edge tended to turn slippery, the climb next to impossible.

Pausing at the mouth of the tunnel, Miragrave surveyed the room.

The daylight coming from the exit’s direction allowed her to see the space clearly enough, and it appeared to be empty. Not that she trusted her eyesight for a second. There were too many spots hidden from her point of view, behind all the pillars.

Dropping down, Miragrave readied herself and called out,

“Show yourself, Zaxon. You didn’t come here to play hide and seek with me.”

Shortly after she had said that, lights appeared.

Old torches hung high on the walls on rusted holders and they now all burst into flame at once. The sharp increase of lighting made the woman narrow her hurting eyes, but she resisted closing them.

From behind the pillars further back in the room, several figures stepped out to block her way. Five armored soldiers of the garrison—as well as the missing champion of Tratovia’s fabled Guild...Shivgried of the Sable Spear, the Impaler.

“Forgive the theatrics,” Shivgried told her with a smug grin. “I simply couldn’t resist. I felt our reunion earlier was a little lacking in glamour. This is much better, don’t you think? Could there have been a more fitting place?”

“Leave here,” Miragrave told him. “Or it is your own funeral you’ve decorated.”

Shivgried’s humored smile vanished.

“Enough!” he shouted. “What is it that you’re fighting against!? Can you do nothing but deny and reject now, embittered and paranoid? The you of old would weep at the sight of what you’ve become! Cease with your fantasies of dispassionate chivalry! Even if you hate me so much, you should understand where you stand. Not even a knight anymore, you are but an outlaw and a villain! No honor awaits you out there, where you are a witch and an abomination to the masses! Only misery and death are your part! You’d have to be a fool to bite a helping hand when it is offered in such a peril! Take my hand, and I will guarantee your safety. Refuse, and again you will face the demise that you only just eluded by a miracle. Be reasonable! This shouldn’t be a choice you need to mull over!”

As convincing as Shivgried saw his own argument, Miragrave only shook her head in answer.

“There’s no reasoning with you, Zaxon,” she said. “Becoming yours could save my body, but the person inside would have died instead. Come, if there is no other way. I’ll put an end to your heart’s torment. As a favor to an old friend.”

“MIRAAAAAAAAA—!”

Letting out a powerless roar of frustration and regret, the spearman shrieked at his men,

“Take her!”

As commanded, the knights raised their swords and cautiously stepped forward to corner and capture their lone target. To break the line of sight and buy herself a moment to plan, Miragrave took cover behind the nearest stone pillar. Even in this desperate situation, her mind was quickly in search of a way out, if any existed. Subduing the primal fright of a cornered beast, with only the cold mind of a soldier, she went over the information she had gleaned.

Firstly, there was no shunning the facts.

There was only one way out of the room. So long as Shivgried lived, guarding it, escape from this predicament was unthinkable.

One way or the other, the opposition had to be eliminated or at least severely crippled. There were six enemies—no, seven of them. As a straightforward man of war, Shivgried wasn’t well-versed in magecraft. Rather, he openly despised it. Then who had lit the torches? Mages didn’t wear plate armor because iron interfered with their abilities. In other words, there had to be one more unseen enemy hiding in the room with them. Eliminating this support figure had to be prioritized, or else they could turn the tables on her at any moment.

So Miragrave would have done, had she still been the cadet from years past. Yes, she would have arrived at that conclusion faster, and reacted sooner. However, experience soon extinguished the youthful urge to leap into action that this nostalgic place had lit within her. Shivgried knew all that she knew, and would therefore anticipate her movements. To overcome this foe, Miragrave had to take not one but two steps beyond the expectations.

Easier though it was said than done.

Predictable or not, to find any room to maneuver in this disadvantageous situation, a diversion had to be created first. Crouching, Miragrave drew swift letters onto the ground with her finger, and named them in succession,

“Thessíl. Sanáat. Omér.”

The characters glowed faintly and the combination spell began to emit a thick, dull green smoke that expanded and spread, rapidly filling the whole underground room.

The use of smokescreen was one of the tactics that the cirelo guerrillas had taught the Imperials. It was quite ineffective against daemons, but indispensable in more conventional warfare. Officers had tried to teach the required runes at the Imperial Military Academy, but the mastery of them demanded a somewhat marginal potential for obfuscation which not many possessed. Using alchemical compounds was, while not as effective, a great deal faster and easier way to achieve the same result.

Yet, Miragrave had been among the early generations to import this know-how, and now applied it with a steady hand. Under the cover of the smoke, she left her hiding spot. Her bare feet made no audible sound on the soft ground, unlike the knights’ heavy boots and clanking armors. Still, even as she was aware of her opponents’ general positions and they remained oblivious of hers, she couldn’t afford to strike without a plan. One mistake, one careless sound, and they would trap her.

The irritated knights took blind swings, as if trying to cut down the magical mist, or perhaps hoping to reach their target by chance. The deadly whistling of steel slicing through the air echoed from the walls of stone. Going anywhere near them came at the risk of dreadful wounds and capture.

But, listening to those sounds, Miragrave soon spied an opening…

“Stop it, you idiots!” Shivgried shouted at the knights. It appeared he had remained behind to guard the exit. “You could kill her by accident! I told you, I want her alive!”

“Alive?” One of the searching knights spitefully murmured, sweat dripping down his brow. “I’m not about to get gutted for your love affair! It’s the Red Fiend of the Stohenkartes! It’s either her or us, for fuck’s sake...Agh!”

Suddenly, the knight felt something forcefully pull at his head. His helmet was violently yanked off his brow, and before he could react, the thief disappeared back into the smoke with it.

—“Hey!”

“You left the strap too loose,” a critical voice carried from the fog. “I could hear the helmet shifting on your head.”

“Damn it! Get back here and I’ll show you what’s loose!” The angry soldier pursued the voice. As certain as he had been that the prisoner was right in front of him, only a few steps away, he found nothing. The accursed smoke kept twirling around him, getting in his face. It smelled like nothing, felt like nothing, yet it kept clinging to him with almost deliberate persistence. The man paused and tried to listen, but there was movement and noise everywhere around him in the mist.

Which of those sounds were his comrades and which the target…? No matter how he pried his ears, it was quite impossible to tell.

A short distance up ahead, another knight sensed a sudden presence behind him. Right as he thought to turn around and check if he was imagining it, someone indeed patted lightly on the right pouldron.

“Just a bit to your right,” an effeminate but chilling voice whispered close to his ear.

Freaked out, the knight quickly spun around, swinging his sword sideways at the same time. And he felt the tip of the blade connect too. How foolish had the enemy been, to play with fire!

However, the results were dramatically different from the expected.

“AAAAARRRRRRRGGHH—!”

A hair-raising scream, which by no means belonged to a woman, filled the room.

Instead of the escapee, the knight had ended up slashing his own comrade—the one who had lost his helmet and strayed from the formation. The blade cut across the soldier’s face, from temple to nose, only a bit below the eyes, slicing skin and muscle. The agony had to have been terrible.

Realizing his mistake, the offender was momentarily paralyzed by a mixture of guilt, shame, and confusion. A moment too long. In that brief time, someone had slipped behind his back, swiped the utility knife from his belt, and cut his neck from ear to ear, under the helmet’s rim.

“A—gl...!” The upcoming cry of horror was replaced by muffled choking, as he sank to his knees.

The remaining three knights were quickly drawn to the noise and now gathered to find two bodies. In the limited visibility, one had to kneel close to examine the condition of the downed troops. Not that there was anything that could be done for them. Both were undeniably dead or short of it. The one cut in the face had been finished off by a stab in the neck as well.

“Sir, they’re both dea—”

BANG. Turning to report the facts to his companions, the crouched knight was interrupted by the metallic clang of a collision close by.

Someone had dashed from the fog and tackled one of the nearby soldiers from the side, pushing him over. After this seemingly random act of mischief, the assailant kept running and disappeared again, the shifting smoke veiling her path.

“Aw, shit!” the fallen knight swore. He tried to get back up again, but a nasty flash of pain from his side made him drop back down. “Aaargh!”

The wounded knight tried his lower back and retracted his gauntlet to find it stained red. It hadn’t been simple harassment. The knife stolen from one of the deceased, was sunken in his flesh, forced through the chestplate's back seam by the full-body collision.

“Shit, shit, I’ve been hit!” he shouted, swallowing the sense of panic climbing up his throat.

“Sergeant, hold on, we’re coming to you!”

The other two turned to regroup with their downed comrade.

“No!” he shouted back at them. “Don’t move! Stay right where you are and keep your eyes open! She’s coming—”

—“AAAAH!”

His warning came too late.

They had moved exactly according to predictions. Miragrave wasn’t going to wait for them to realize their mistake. She sprinted past the knights again, and, as she passed, cut at the back of the other's knee with a sword claimed from the dead. The slash across the uncovered part above the boot rim crippled the soldier on the spot. Gripping his torn leg with both hands, he fell groaning on the ground.

Miragrave didn’t repeat the hit-and-run maneuver from the beginning, but simply turned around after the successful assault, and faced the last standing troop head on. As soon as he turned around to aid his fallen ally, he faced the flash of steel cleaving through the green fog. A muffled sound of torn metal rang out, like from a can being opened. The sword was stopped by his chestplate collar, after slashing open the side of his neck.

In short order, Shivgried’s squad had been taken out, and their prey slipped back into the dense mist. Instead of running into the net in an effort to eliminate the ranged support, the enemy had chosen to confront the superior numbers head-on—who could have anticipated such a suicidal approach? But in light of this turn of events, what good had that ranged support been, anyway?

“What are you doing you mage bastard!” the downed sergeant called out in anger and despair. “Get rid of this fucking shit already or we’re all going to die down here!”

“No!” Shivgried heard him and shouted instead. “Don’t show yourself, you fool!”

But the panic of the dying knights was infectious.

Feeling responsible for the unfolding tragedy, the Magic Corporal hiding on a platform by the east-side wall made up his mind. He had been ordered to stand still until he had the target in his sights and use spells to capture, but that order seemed only senseless now. He had to help his comrades, somehow. The situation had changed, surely he had to depend on his own judgment. What good was his power, if all he could do was watch! Therefore, though the nature of the odd fog was unknown to him, the mage valiantly stepped out from behind the rubble, and spread his hands.

“Ilomené! Tae propesto ilomené—!”

The Magic Corporal was still young, inexperienced. He had assumed that just as he couldn’t see into the mist below, he couldn’t be seen or attacked through it either. On top of that, he was the only one with ranged attack capability in the room. So he had assumed. Such false sense of security was regrettably common among troops specializing in the seemingly all-able arcane arts.

But the mage’s clear voice was all that was needed for the enemy to pinpoint his position in such a limited space. Before he could finish his incantation, a sword came flying from the smoke and hit him in the face. The wound wasn’t fatal, only the handle part connected, but mauled and stunned nevertheless, the mage stumbled over the ledge and further hurt himself in the fall.

A disorienting silence spread in the underground cavern.

The squad was down, the opposition reduced to one man.

Yet, judging the battle concluded now would have been no less deadly a sin than the arrogance that had killed the soldiers. No, it was only here and now that the real showdown could begin.

Freedom or death—the line between the two was drawn by a night-black spear.

Shivgried Zaxon stood at the entrance of the ancient tunnel leading outside, at the green fog’s limit, listening to the disconcerting concerto of sounds coming from the room, his frown and dejection worsening by the minute.

Somewhere within, he had anticipated this outcome. He had wished for a different result, of course, but was hardly surprised to witness that groundless dream boil down to nothing. Even though he had been blessed with great luck himself, that luck could not be shared with others, as he had learned so many times in the past.

Shivgried knew he should have brought more men, more skilled ones, but the fear of his target perishing in their hands had made him decide against it. Not that more capable reinforcements could be acquired on such short notice either. Only the elite could be counted on to take down elite, but there was no way to ascertain which knights he could depend on, and which were liable to join the Colonel instead.

In short, this conclusion had been nothing short of unavoidable.

The pawns had failed him.

But the man himself wasn’t defeated. He never could be.

“So, this is how it ends, Marafel?” Shivgried spoke to the smoke, gripping his weapon. “This is how you want it? Your sword against my spear? Your blood or mine, which will be spilled? You cut me down and you walk free? If that’s what you thought—just how foolish can you get, woman!”

There came no answer. The room ahead was quiet and still.

“You should realize your smokescreen only works in my favor,” Shivgried continued. “Should I cast Lanhglid here, it will fall upon you by a divine necessity. And then you will die, your life running out of you, while you could’ve been filled by it instead. Is that the ending you wish for? The reward for all your troubles? Come out!”

—“You needn’t shout, Zaxon. I’m right here.”

Unexpectedly, Miragrave stepped out from the already fading smokescreen of her own volition. She had picked up a new sword for herself and faced the remaining enemy, not allowing a hint of her pain and fatigue to show on her countenance. Looking at her upright figure only made the bitterness within Shivgried grow sourer.

“Would it have been so awful?” the spearman asked her. “Becoming mine? Or did you already swear yourself to another man? With whom is this oath that binds you? Who stole your heart, while I wasn’t looking? Tell me, so that I may slay that nameless coward and prove myself the better man, beyond any sliver of a doubt.”

“Defeat me and I will tell you,” Miragrave raised her sword before her face, nodded in a formal bow. Then, swinging the blade down, she stepped forward and charged.

Foolish, Shivgried thought as he watched her advance, dejected.

Doing something so incredibly stupid wasn’t like her.

Beyond his unnatural luck and weapon, the champion held the advantage in speed, strength, reach, stamina, and raw combat experience—she had to have known that.

Miragrave’s chances of emerging victorious in a straightforward duel were nonexistent. Perhaps she was counting on the magecraft she had learned in the elven colony to protect her? Perhaps she would depend on another mischievous trick, try to distract him, and then make her escape? Or was she simply counting on his personal feelings to become his undoing, spoil his timing at the crucial moment, allowing her to narrowly overcome him?

Never. It wouldn’t happen.

The difference in their ability wasn’t that slim.

A part of the man did indeed wish for such a romantic weakness to exist in him. He wished his heart would allow him to give up his life for the sake of an unrequited affection, perish for such a poetic reason, and never walk another battlefield again.

But—it truly was impossible.

His body itself, forged in the crucibles of total war, could never accept defeat for such a trifling, simple reason. He would fall for no other cause but being thoroughly outclassed in earnest feats of arms. Regardless of even his own conscious will, his hands would respond to any threat, counter any blow, claim the life of the enemy, and then deliver him to another day of battle.

Because such was the only life that Shivgried had known.

As soon as she would step into his range, his spear would take her life—there was no question of it, no way this destiny could be overturned.

Even as rage and regret tortured his spirit, the cursed spear felt light in his grip, his muscles relaxed. With a light, playful twirl, he picked up the spear, brought it up to grip with both hands and lowered his stance. And, as if completely oblivious to the danger, to her own inadequacy, Miragrave dived within the reach of that cruel barb.

His keen eyes followed her, anticipated her.

Knowing the killing blow would come from the left, Miragrave would attempt to deflect it and evade to the right, then to slash at his exposed neck. Exactly like they taught at the Academy. Like they had rehearsed in training, countless times. Miragrave Marafel had been an exemplary soldier for all her life, and even her end would be exemplary, a classic. The mistake of living by the book. Her only flaw had been her inability to rise above her role, therefore becoming trapped by it. Whereas Shivgried had abandoned that duty, to transcend the limits of chivalry, of humanity.

The counter would not come to where she was now—but where she was going to be.

Impossibly swift, irresistibly deadly.

Sensing the correct timing by experience, Shivgried’s arms moved. The black spear bit through the air with almost playful lightness, like a hunting viper, as if to belittle the negligible weight of life. There was no way human eye could follow the spear’s course at this distance. It was nothing but a blink.

As soon as the attack was initiated, it was already over.

The subtle, revolting sound of metal piercing soft flesh—with that, the outcome of this confrontation, set to stone well before the combatants were in place, was enacted in full. However—

“What——?” Shivgried’s frown deepened still.

It went exactly as he had foreseen. He had been correct yet again. But…

“There was a time, when I would not have minded becoming yours, Zaxon,” Miragrave spoke with effort, dropping her sword. “I was hardly picky. But I am no queen either. Nor do I want to be. I could never imagine happiness in being taken for a trophy, to be won and flaunted. Before a woman, I am a soldier. And I happen to take great pride in my work. It was only to be rated for my ability before my looks that I yearned. Yet, because of that...it seems my career is the only spouse I will find in this life.”

“Why...?”

Shivgried had clearly won. His spear had pierced clean through the woman. It was her blood being shed, while he remained perfectly uninjured, in control. But she wasn’t dead.

At the same time, for some inexplicable reason, the champion of Tratovia was overcome with the crippling sensation that he had lost.

Her heart.

In both body and spirit, he had failed to reach Miragrave’s heart.

Somehow, he had miscalculated. The spear had stabbed through the side, an inch or two below the ribs. Death wasn’t instant.

“You never had any intention of dodging it!?” he gasped. “You resolved to die!? You—you madwoman!”

“...How to evade the spear that pierces anything it hits, wielded by a man who never misses?” Miragrave reflected. “The answer is obvious: ‘you cannot’. But I could decide where it will land. Being unable to see that, thinking I only cared about my own survival, there was your mistake.”

Grabbing the spear, resisting the abominable pain, Miragrave dragged herself closer to her foe.

Shivgried could still win. All he had to do was let go of the weapon and retreat. But at the same time, he felt it—were he to do so, if he retreated but one step from here, then what he had fought for all his life would be obliterated. And once lost, it could never again be reclaimed.

After that, what would he have left to live for? Nothing. Not one thing.

He had bet everything he was, all that was his, on this one strike, and with its failure, his defeat was sealed. All he could do now was face his end, as much as he abhorred it, lest he be left but a hollow, soulless shell of a man.

“Here. My souvenir to you from Ledarnia. Take it and be free of your heartache, old friend.” Reaching forward, Miragrave held her hand against Shivgried’s chest and drew a pattern onto his body with her blood-stained finger, then naming it.

“Yodith.”

The rune glowed faintly. Shortly after, green flames spread from the eerie letter, engulfing and devouring the form of Shivgried, whom they called the Impaler.

——“AAAAAAAIIIIEIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...!”

There was no heat from those flames to be felt. They gave off no smoke either. Nevertheless, with ferocity far above ordinary fire, it consumed the sacrifice down to the bone, down to the soul. Shortly, the thoroughly incinerated hand clutching the spear broke off and crumbled away. Where one of the champions of Tratovia’s infamous Guild had stood was now only a shallow pile of pure white ash.

Miragrave looked up along the ascending tunnel ahead, at the end of which shone comforting daylight. She was too tired to think about how close she had been to escape. No, she had never seen a way out in the first place. Her only goal had been to clear the path for the one coming after her. Whether she died now or tomorrow or ten years from now, it made no difference at all. With this, her final duty was done.

Miragrave thought about dragging herself outside, to the banks of the Thuleios, to see the sky above her home city one last time, but the climb looked unreasonably long and she felt immeasurably tired. Quietly falling to her knees, tasting blood in her mouth, Miragrave made a self-deriding smile and closed her eyes.

“I’ve kept you waiting, Thalinn...”

Relaxing, the woman let herself sink limply forward.

——But before she met the ground, her fall was stopped by someone’s outreached arm.

“Hey, hey, that’s not how you hold a weapon!” An alarmed voice spoke next to her.

“...Faster than I expected.” Miragrave forced a grunt and slightly opened her eyes. “Nothing ever goes as planned with you, does it…?”

“Um, I’m no medical professional,” Izumi said, crouching next to the woman, trying to keep her upright. “But you probably shouldn’t talk much right now. Save your strength! I should...er, what should I do? They don’t teach about swallowing spears on First Aid!”

Ignoring her, Miragrave continued with a muffled chuckle,

“Come to think of it, it was the same when we first met. It seems all you ever do is betray my expectations...Not that I can blame you. No, if anything, I’m grateful. For giving me the chance...to go out...like a soldier.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Aah, after how hard I tried to avoid this...! You and I are going to have to have an in-depth discussion about this thing called ‘teamplay’ after.”

“No...I don’t think there will be an ‘after’...”

“Shush. Zip it!” Izumi berated the woman, while frantically trying to think. “I’m not giving up on you that easily. That’s right. The party members that are the hardest to recruit are always the best. But what am I going to do…? I can’t carry you like this and neither can I leave you here...Okay. There’s no choice. Don’t need a surgeon to tell it’s a really, really bad idea, but it’s clear I’m gonna have to pull this thing off, as is. It’s probably going to hurt a whole lot too. You might wanna bite something other than your tongue. Let’s see...”

“Don’t bother.” Miragrave closed her eyes and said. “You’ve done enough. You should go now…before it’s too late...”

“The first thing we do after we get out of here is find you a therapist. Seriously.”

“Hnh. Did I ever tell you you’re pretty amusing, for a woman...Had you been born male, I might have even...”

“Tell me later. Chew this for a sec.”

Izumi took off her leather belt and stuffed it between Miragrave’s jaws. Then, supporting the woman upright with her let arm, Izumi gripped the spear with her right hand and double-checked the angle.

“Alright. Here goes nothing. Hold your breath. One...two...”

In one unhesitating, lightning-fast yank, Izumi drew out the spear and tossed it away. Fortunately, the weapon was smooth all around, without irregular edges or barbs that might have torn the wound wider. Nevertheless, a rather startling amount of blood gushed immediately out of the opening, which Izumi hurried to cover with her hand.

“There, it wasn’t so bad, was it?” Izumi pressed the wound and asked the patient.

In vain. Miragrave had passed out.

“How much red stuff is there in the human body, anyway...?”

They had to get away from the garrison area, before Izumi could attempt to contact Carmelia. But while carrying the prisoner was now easier, it was quite likely that Miragrave was going to bleed out long before they could reach safety. Any forceful motion would only worsen the damage…The situation seemed hopeless.

Giving up then and there could have been the most humane option. Still, leaving without even trying wasn’t something Izumi could accept. The wealth of rather questionable movie know-how, which took up her memory space in place of more useful ideas, offered at least one ready solution for the emergency.

Quickly weighing her options, Izumi gave the unconscious woman an apologetic look.

“Oh, you won’t thank me for this when the beach episode airs...”

2

Yuliana carefully avoided looking in the windows’ direction. The room she stood in was located on top of the westernmost tower appendix of the Imperial Palace. It was so high up that from her position in the middle of the room, she could only see clouds drifting in the blue sky, and not a single other building. Why such a place? Only for more needless ceremonies? The princess had never been fond of high places, despite being a resident of a castle herself. Simply picturing the drop awaiting beyond those thin walls made the floor sway in her vision.

Taking her attention away from the heavens, Yuliana gazed sternly ahead instead. A step away from where she stood was a small, white, stone table, perfectly circular in shape, with a single document placed on an ivory stand.

Detailed on that paper were the specifics of the oath she was to take. From the moment of that contract’s signing, the princess would devote herself to converting her own parent as the ally of a foreign state—or else overthrow him and take his role by force.

There was a third option as well.

Perish away in the failure of the attempt or the outright refusal of it, becoming reduced to a lingering spirit of wrath and remorse.

If she declined the gias, it would mean the death of Miragrave Marafel, and a war between Langoria and Tratovia, which would mean tens of thousands of casualties, masses of homeless refugees, poverty, famine, and the eventual enslavement of her people. The crown princess of Langoria had left her kingdom with the sole objective of saving it. And yet, everywhere she went, powers were compelling her to bring ruin to it instead.

From the beginning, had she perhaps misunderstood what it meant to save nations?

What was a “kingdom”, anyway?

Was it her people?

Was Langoria where the Langorians were, even if they were to be chased out of their homes? Would the nation follow wherever they went, to be re-established in the new place of their choosing? Was the kingdom in their blood, to be inherited by their descendants?

Or was it the land?

Was anyone who settled within Langorian’s geographic constraints eligible to be called a “Langorian”? Even if they were foreigners, even if they were enemies, even if they weren’t humans at all, could they still, in so choosing, claim the nation as their home, and become its representatives in the world?

Or was the answer something more abstract?

An identity, a formless impression? Something that borrowed from both of the preceding ideas, tied it together, without ultimately being restrained by either?

In the end, what was Yuliana trying to save?

Her people? Her land? Her identity?

Or just herself?

Through her decision here, she could still save human lives. Langoria would at least be given more time before another war would scorch its green pastures. And the person she had idolized since youth would escape a horrendous death. Wasn’t her own personal freedom a small price to pay for that?

“Your highness,” the Emperor of Tratovia spoke to her, standing by the table. “I trust that you have read the contents of this document by now. Once signed, it is binding until the end of the current cycle. Beyond death, but not further than that. For what comes after this age, not even the Lords may know. Though the effective time isn’t long, I expect that you take this contract with the level of seriousness it commands.”

“Of course,” Yuliana replied and took a step forward. “And I expect that you will do the same. Call off Colonel Marafel’s execution. Stall it, postpone it indefinitely, whatever you do, save my dear friend. And keep your word that the civilian population of Langoria will not be harmed. Otherwise this document is null and void, and your majesty a renegade without honor.”

“You have my word,” the man replied, as if the feat was indeed nothing to him. “As you can see, my signature is already there. All the gias requires is your mark to complete it and become instantly binding.”

He was telling the truth, by the looks of it. Another name was written above the line beside the one Yuliana was to write hers. The oath was meticulously prepared, all in all, and unexpectedly fair. As far as Yuliana could see, there were no obvious loopholes that could have allowed an immediate betrayal of the stated goals.

If not for just one: it being highly stylized, the Emperor’s signature was illegible. There was a chance that she was being deceived...But did she really have a choice?

The oath he was trying to bind her with, she already carried. All she was doing was buying time, to keep him from realizing—to change his mind, before he would rule hers.

Had her struggle all been in vain...?

Yuliana picked up a fountain pen left near the stand.

There was no need to sign in blood, the correctness of the spelling was unimportant as well. The gesture was all that mattered. So long as she would leave an identifying mark—any kind of a mark—as a token of her voluntary agreement, the gias would be sealed.

Yuliana briefly hesitated before bringing down her hand. The fear of what should follow gripped her. The fear of the unknown.

But what can I do? There is...no...other...way...!

“Hm?” At that moment, an odd sound caught Yuliana's attention, halting her pen hand once more. There was strange noise coming from the staircase just outside the room. As if someone clad in heavy armor was climbing up in a great hurry, tripping and stumbling along the way. Even the oak door was powerless to hide the rustling and clanking. Before the princess could imagine the cause, the door was already rashly thrown open, and a knight officer pushed his way in.

Drawing only a quick breath, the frenzied knight started his message,

“Your majesty, a mutiny! There’s been a mutiny! Knights’ve rebelled at the execution grounds, with several casualties, and a number of prisoners has...es...huh?”

Seeing the people in the room, the knight trailed off. As if he had found himself in the wrong room altogether, he looked helplessly from side to side, dumbstruck.

“Did I not say we aren’t to be disturbed!” The Emperor hollered at the soldier and his enraged countenance was terrible to look at.

“What—I...Ah...”

The knight wavered in the doorway, his gaze shifting between the Emperor and the princess, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fresh fish on the cutting board.

Too late. The damage was already done.

By what little he had spilled, Yuliana had already surmised more or less the whole course of events and all it implied. Even while she was being coerced to prevent it, the executions were already underway. But not everything had gone according to plan, it seemed.

So very nearly she had been tricked. Yet at the last possible moment, the treachery of her opponent had turned against him.

Slowly, Yuliana faced the Emperor, unable to hide the spiteful smile making its way on her tired face. In one instant, their roles had been reversed, his hold over her broken. Raising the fountain pen up before the helpless man's face, she let it slide through her fingers and fall onto the floor with a light click.

A winner this day, the princess marched out of the room, the confused knight scrambling to make her way.

3

The sun was already on the verge of sinking beyond the mountains of Abserym, under the deep red hue of the eastern sky, when Court Wizard Carmelia finally emerged from the chamber set up as an ex tempore operating room. Waiting in the hallway where shadows cast by golden lamps danced on the wildly patterned walls, Izumi and young Benjamin Watts stood up from their chairs to meet her.

“The operation was successful,” the cirelo sorceress reported in her unemotional tone. “Her condition remains critical but stable for now. The rest will depend on her will to live, I suppose.”

Carmelia had been unwilling to use up the last remaining vial of the priceless Red Serum, and the rare gift of healing magic she had traded away when taking the path of a cursed oathmaker. Instead of depending on the arcane arts, she had operated the badly wounded Colonel using more conventional methods, by herself. Considering for how long the cirelo had studied humans and their anatomy, however, she was doubtless more skilled in the craft than any local practitioner of medicine.

Understanding this, Izumi could voice no complaints.

For once, her good faith had been rewarded too, it seemed.

“Thank goodness for that,” Benjamin sighed. “Who would’ve thought Marafel was compatible with my blood type? After making me donate such a shocking amount of it, she had better recover quickly. Now, if you excuse me, I shall celebrate her survival with a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep. Hyawn!”

“Don’t forget the herbal medicine I prepared for you,” Carmelia reminded him.

“Must I drink it?” he asked. “The smell is—I don’t feel all that bad, I should be fine without...”

“Drink it, or you will regret it in the morning.”

“Doctor’s orders,” Izumi nodded.

“You two never miss a chance to make my life difficult, do you?” Benjamin grimaced and left, unusually brief with words. Maybe he really was a bit upset.

Forgetting about the man, Izumi then turned back to Carmelia.

“I’m sorry to bring you more work, but...thank you,” she said with a bit pained smile. “I’m sure Yule will give you a big thanks too, when you see her. She might even go for a hug, so watch out.”

“Save your gratitude,” Carmelia shook her head. “I had my reasons to help the Colonel, and she is not out of death’s shadow just yet. Even in the event that she pulls through, she will be bedridden for weeks, if not months. And need I to remind you that we are far from saved ourselves, playing this dangerous game behind the Emperor’s back. The tide could turn on us at any moment, and by then, all our noble efforts will have been in vain. You would do well to consider this the next time you choose to act on your own and meddle in other people’s lives.”

“Let's worry about that when the time comes,” Izumi dismissed the sorceress’s warnings. “And even if things do go south one day, it won’t undo the good deeds of here and now. So I’ll make you take my thanks, whether you want them or not. I’m grateful! Really, really grateful. If I weren’t too scared of being turned into a frog, I’d totally give you a kiss!”

Carmelia averted her face, unusually awkward before Izumi’s happy smile.

However, her mood then changed and she shortly faced the woman again with a rather intense look in her gleaming eyes.

“Setting our dark future aside, there is another matter of grave importance we need to discuss.”

“We do?” Izumi tilted her head. “It’s not about me acting without orders, is it? Can’t you just let me off the hook this once? It’s not like I’m some rank-and-file trooper, or at least, I never agreed to be such. All’s well that ends well, wouldn’t you say? I know I shouldn’t have, but I’ve no regrets.”

“While your irresponsible behavior is indeed problematic and against better judgment, that isn’t what I mean,” Carmelia replied. “Rather than what you did today, it’s about how you did it. About the things that were revealed in the process, about yourself.”

“Me?” the woman pointed at herself, oblivious.

The cirelo stepped closer and leaned over, close enough to force Izumi to bend back to avoid their noses touching.

“Marafel’s wound—you burned it close with the Rune of Ignition. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? You never told me you were able to use magic. Why did you withhold such crucial information from me?”

“Eeh?” Izumi shifted uncomfortably at Carmelia’s accusing words, avoiding her stare. “I didn’t mention it before?”

“You did not.”

“M-must’ve slipped my mind! Ahaha! Well, strictly speaking, I can’t use whatever magic. Just runes. And I’ve only learned one rune so far, so I didn’t think it was worth bragging about. I mean, you can’t call yourself a chef, if you barely know how to cook rice seasoned with soy sauce, right? I know how to make tamagokake rice, at least!”

“Don’t change the subject. I was under the impression that those summoned from the other world were entirely unable to cast spells of any variety. How come you are an exception? When and how did you find that you had such an ability?”

“Aaaa, that’s...” Izumi squirmed, unable to answer.

Was it okay to tell the truth?

The truth, that within Yuliana’s body lived the spirit of a Divine Lord, who had granted Izumi the arcane potential? But it had also been mentioned that possession of humans was considered a taboo, a violation of the ever-important Covenant...True enough, the Lords of Bhastifal had broken this rule themselves, but referring to their poor example was perhaps not a good excuse.

Could this revelation bring more trouble for Yuliana in the long run? How would other people react if they learned that the equivalent of a goddess lived within the girl? Moreover, one that was a sociopath bent on subjugating the known world?

How would the sorceress react? Even if they were allies now, trusting Carmelia unconditionally with every matter didn’t seem very smart. Worse yet, Aiwesh herself probably wouldn’t be too happy with Izumi’s loose tongue either. The Divine hadn’t expressly prohibited Izumi from telling anyone about her existence, but neither was she all that reasonable with her expectations in general.

Of all the people and entities in this world, Izumi was most dependent on the Lord of Light. Not only did Aiwesh have the power to kill the woman on a whim, she could make Izumi’s daily life on Ortho extremely difficult simply by removing her blessings—literacy and runes.

It was better not to risk angering her.

“...I can’t tell you how I got this power—if I were to answer so, would you take it?”

Not answering, Carmelia continued to stare at Izumi.

Skilled magicians were able to peer into people’s minds...Izumi swallowed nervously and looked away, wondering if she would unwittingly betray the answer. Or how she was habitually trying to imagine how the sorceress looked naked. She was in big trouble either way.

However, to Izumi’s fortune, Carmelia wouldn’t probe her further.

“I already know you are not one to hide things out of malice,” the sorceress said, pulling back and turning away. “We shall return to this topic another time. For now, I am going to have a long night ahead of me—as this abrupt revelation changes everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. Return to your chamber and rest. And rest well. For starting tomorrow morning, I am going to shape you into a blade that will cut off Heaven’s Hand.”

“Eh...what?”

Leaving only those portentous words, unwilling to explain them further, the sorceress departed down the hall.