War (2)
The Carnival King moved.
The being that had hidden behind the stage, scheming in the shadows, finally stepped onto it. So would call it sudden, and others would think she had grown impatient... but those who truly knew the Carnival King thought differently.
They knew.
The Carnival King only revealed herself the mont she was certain of victory.
She was not a warrior who enjoyed head-on duels. Nor was she a gambler who leaped into fights with slim odds. She was a scher and a hunter. And like hunters often do, the Carnival King could wait as long as it took for a guaranteed kill.
A hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years.
She dug traps. She prepared weapons. She drew in enemies and strengthened her allies. In that way, she spent an age preparing to hunt a single prey.
「Latua, Zantium, Balvidia, Gobel.」
She planted clowns in human kingdoms. Over generations, those clowns quietly word their way into royal families. Before they even noticed, they had beco the Carnival King's puppets.
「Dark mage Kefalon.」
She unleashed demon contractors and threw the continent into chaos. The Demon King was the lord of all demons, and those demons beca the Carnival King's eyes and ears, gathering information. The demon contractors hidden across the continent were her spies.
After investing that much effort, what she ant to hunt was the Empire.
And beyond that, the entire continent.
The ruler of the Outland was not satisfied with the Outland alone. She dread of advancing into the continent, the land Arthur had driven demons from a thousand years ago. The preparations to make that dream real were complete. The Carnival King rose from her throne.
「Carpe Diem is bait.」
「Lure in the Empire's pillars, including the First Horn of the Empire.」
「Kill them all in one place.」
Eliminate the First Horn of the Empire, the Annihilation Horn, and Karan, master of the Order of the Sword, all at once.
If that happened, the Empire would lose three pillars, and the five Transcendents it prided itself on would be cut to two in an instant. The Empire would urgently ask the three orders for aid, but that too would be pointless. She had already prepared for that.
「Completely isolate the Empire.」
Once that happened, it was over. Attacks would continue from both inside and outside the continent, and the Empire, stripped of its pillars, would fail to hold and collapse.
The plan was perfect. The calculations were perfect. There was no room for variables to interfere.
So there should have been no way for the plan to fail.
「......」
There should not have been.
「The Star of Dawn.」
A variable appeared. Staring at the star that had suddenly shown itself, the one that had ruined her centuries-long plan, the Carnival King smiled. Still smiling, she raised her arm.
As if to say, try blocking this too.
As if to ask whether soone who had not reached Transcendence could stop the tide raised by a Transcendent.
The stage curtain rose.
On a stage filled with laughter, where only laughter had value, the Carnival King pressed her mask into place.
"My lovely clowns."
At the edge of the Outland, the Carnival King raised her arm.
At exactly the sa ti.
In the center of the continent, the Emperor raised his arm.
"Knights who know honor."
Two emperors spoke at once.
"Laugh, applaud, and sing."
"Kill the demons."
They swung down their raised arms. Their goals, races, beliefs, everything about them was different, yet they spoke the sa word.
「War begins.」
2.
The stars blazed fiercely.
Under starlight bright enough to hurt the eyes, Gerd stroked his chin. The Empire's First Pillar narrowed his eyes and assessed the situation.
As he sorted the reports pouring in from his close aides and the stars aligned with the Empire, Gerd clicked his tongue.
The situation was bad.
Nations surrounding the Empire had declared war, and the Transcendents belonging to those nations were marching on the Empire. No country had as many Transcendents as the Empire, but each had at least one.
Four Transcendents were heading for the Empire.
If the Five Pillars of the Empire were still intact, they could handle that and more. But two pillars had already fallen, and Gerd, the central pillar among them, was away from his post.
This was bad.
Gerd's brow furrowed.
'So this was the goal from the start.'
Had Carpe Diem been bait from the beginning? The mont Gerd saw the board the Carnival King had laid out, a chill ran up his spine.
'If, by any chance.'
Gerd's gaze shifted to Najin. If that boy had not intervened, if everything had unfolded exactly as the Carnival King planned... it was not hard to imagine what kind of situation they would be facing.
'How far did this plan go, exactly?'
Gerd frowned and spoke.
"The situation is bad."
"......"
"An army containing at least four Transcendents is marching toward the Empire's capital. We can stop them, but not for long. And they are not the Empire's only enemies."
The demon contractors hidden across the continent.
The Carnival King's clowns and the armies she commanded.
"Everything is aid at the Empire."
"Is that so."
"I am heading to the Empire's capital. For now, stopping the invaders we can see cos first."
Gerd looked around. The other Transcendents seed to have reached similar conclusions. Their own orders were under threat. Everyone had to put out the fire at their own feet first.
"You."
Gerd looked at Najin.
"What do you plan to do?"
The old man's eyes were cold and still.
"We can still recover. In the Carnival King's original plan, Sir Karan and I were ant to die here, but we are both alive. That ans a variable entered her plan, and a result outside her calculations has appeared."
If Karan and Gerd intervened in the war, the tide would tilt in an instant. It might take ti, but the Empire could still be kept from collapsing.
"...But."
"Yes."
Najin answered.
"That is assuming the Starlight Order stays out of it, correct? Isn't that right?"
"You are correct."
"Beneath the Starlight Order, in Underground City Artman, a court jester with nine stars is hiding. The mont that Constellation intervenes in this war..."
"The battlefield will tilt. It will beco a difficult fight."
Even now, Gerd was receiving reports from his aides. According to them, the Starlight Order was not under attack and showed no movent.
「At present, the Starlight Order has been swallowed by light. It is cut off from the outside, and we cannot obtain any information. Contact with the knights dispatched to the order has also been lost.」
They had simply isolated themselves.
Completely cut off from the outside.
No one yet knew whether they were allies, enemies, or bystanders.
"If, by any chance, not only that unidentified Constellation but the entire Starlight Order has fallen into the Carnival King's hands... then even the Lighthouse Keeper may have turned against us."
"We cannot rule out that possibility. I also think it is likely."
If that guess was true, the situation beca even more complicated. The Lighthouse Keeper, Eurypylus, was soone who could face all of the Empire's Transcendents at once alone. If soone of that level started moving, things would spiral out of control.
'We lack information.'
Gerd thought. They did not have enough information. They needed to understand the Starlight Order's movents. They needed to know how it would act.
But how?
Soone had to break into the Starlight Order, sealed off from the outside, and bring back information. And the light surrounding the order was almost certainly the Lighthouse Keeper's work.
'To break through a Transcendent's barrier and infiltrate it...'
You needed either another Transcendent of equal standing.
"The information is lacking."
Or a being comparable to a Transcendent.
"Soone has to go in and bring back information."
Gerd watched Najin in silence.
"Are you saying you will go?"
"Who else is there to send?"
Najin shrugged.
"It is dangerous."
"I know."
"The opponent is the Lighthouse Keeper. And if what you said is true, there is also a nine-star Transcendent hiding in the underground city. Forget fighting, even gathering information will be extrely difficult."
"I know that too."
"I can only call this reckless."
Gerd said it plainly.
"You will die."
"That is not set in stone."
Najin smiled.
"Every path I have walked so far was a path where I might die. Places others called certain death."
It was true. Every path the boy before him had walked was a death ground. He had simply survived again and again. He had simply overco trials by surpassing his own limits.
"If soone has to do it."
Najin said,
"there is no rule saying that soone cannot be . Personally, I also have a reason I must go there."
Gerd looked into Najin's eyes. There was no wavering in them. They were the eyes of a knight who had already decided. Gerd no longer tried to stop him.
He simply acted as the First Horn of the Empire.
Gerd quietly raised his sword. What he gave was a sword salute, and at the sa ti, a salute to a knight. The First Horn of the Empire was one who, aside from the Emperor, did not need to salute anyone.
But Gerd saluted Najin.
A knight who, of his own will, walked into a death ground with little chance of returning alive deserved respect. Gerd tore off his cloak and handed it to Najin.
"I entrust this to you."
On the cloak was the Empire's emblem.
And the symbol of the First Horn of the Empire.
Without a word, Najin tied it to the Lance of the Crossed Star. The cloak bearing the Empire's emblem beca a battle standard and fluttered.
No more words were needed.
Gerd and Najin began moving toward their own destinations. The other Transcendents did the sa. They promised to regroup once each had stabilized their own front, then stepped toward the places they had to reach.
On the board laid down by demons, they moved.
In directions the demons did not want, in directions they had not expected, as if refusing to dance to a demon's tune.
3.
Najin walked.
He walked and walked again.
The mont the Transcendents left his side and he was alone, Najin spoke.
"rlin."
-Yeah.
He did not need to turn his head. She was always there, the guide who had walked with him. Facing her, Najin said,
"Now that I think about it."
-Yeah?
"It took a long ti."
-Really? It doesn't feel that long to . It's only been two years.
"It feels like several tis that much passed for ."
-Well... we did spend a lot of ti inside a Constellation's dream, right? Maybe more ti passed than we think.
rlin shrugged.
-It was two years, but so much happened in those two years. There was no ti to get bored.
"That is definitely true."
-So?
With long strides, rlin moved one step ahead of Najin and looked back. She tilted her head slightly as she looked at him. Blue hair fell down.
-Are you worried?
"I would be lying if I said no."
-Then are you afraid?
"A little."
A faint smile touched rlin's lips.
-Do you regret it?
Najin shook his head.
"Not at all."
He was afraid. He was worried. But he did not regret it. Najin believed this path was the right one.
-Then that's enough.
That's enough, she said.
rlin grabbed Najin's arm and tugged.
-Let's go.
With his guide, Najin headed forward.
To where he had been born.
To where his story had begun.
-Oh, right.
rlin looked back at Najin. As if she had just rembered, she smiled at him.
-Happy birthday, Najin.
The boy who had stepped outside the underground city at eighteen had beco twenty. The boy, now an adult, kept walking.
Across the Outland and toward the continent.
Across the continent, toward where the Starlight Order's main church stood. Lower than that place, toward the underground city where starlight did not reach, Najin walked.
To let them know.
To let them know he had returned.
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