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War Luck Flows (3)
I promptly woke up from my nap. Even though I had just woken up, my head felt strangely clear. I hadn’t known that my agitated mind would soon lapse into sleep, and this caused an unreasonable irritation within me. It seemed wrong to sleep like this.
With these thoughts swirling in my head, I stood up.
“Waaoh-” I groaned. Arms, legs, shoulders, and back: there was no place that was not painful, no limb that did not creak. I looked at my faintly scarred body and threw a cloak over it. Then I immediately left the room.
“Your Highness?”
So late was the night that the palace knight who saw me opened his eyes wide.
“I can’t sleep, so I’m about to go for a walk.”
“But why are you going armed…?”
Only after listening to the palace knight did I realize that I still had Twilight in my hand.
“If I can’t sleep well after taking a walk, then I’m going to train.”
I was quick to come up with a rough excuse.
“I’m going out alone, so I want no one following me.”
“The wind is cold. Please don’t stay out in the cold for too long.”
The palace knight did not hesitate when he opened the door for me. I greeted him and went out to the garden of the palace. I walked like I was possessed.
I just walked and walked past the terrible scene where trees and chunks of grass were scattered all over the place. When I woke up, I found myself standing on the highest spire of the royal palace.
‘Thuck,’ a thick fur cloak was draped over my shoulders. As I turned my head, I saw that Adelia had followed me, looking at me with the same face as always.
“I hate nights like these.”
She looked over my shoulder, nodding her head with a somewhat constricted face.
I turned my head, following her gaze. It was a night sky wherein the moon hadn’t even risen, and the starlight couldn’t be seen. I looked at the absolute darkness, then turned my gaze back to the far end of the palace — tightening and loosening my grip on Twilight’s hilt without pause.
I had been there for a while when a small cloud of dust emerged from the other side of the dark plain. There was a rider with a red flag fluttering behind his back, a messenger riding to inform about an emergency. A long time passed, even though the messenger galloped across the plain without halt before he went through the gates and disappeared among the buildings of the capital.
A bit later, there was a sudden commotion beneath the spire.
“I heard that his Highness the Crown Prince is here!”
It was Carls’ voice. Soon after, I heard thumping footfalls as someone ascended the stairs — and Carls appeared on the top of the spire.
“Your Highness! By order of the king, you are to go to his hall right away!”
As I heard Carls’ voice, as hard as ever, I grumbled a little.
“Really — I hate nights like these.”
* * *
By the time I arrived in the hall, all the prominent figures of the kingdom had already been gathered. They had clearly been summoned in a hurry; everyone had messy clothes.
“Sire.”
“You have come?” the king greeted me with a rock-hard face. He gave me a small nod and looked around. All of those gathered had dark faces, yet only Vincent was angry.
“As always, the defense of Winter Castle is perfect,” Vincent declared.
“So, you say we can not doubt your readiness for winter?” the Marquis of Bielefeld replied, sweating, and in a tone of suppressed anger. “I have to ask you this. Please calm your mind.”
Even after the marquis’ request, Vincent’s face remained cold.
“I only want to say that it is necessary to check if there are any minor problems while you are absent, count.”
Unlike usual, Vincent’s face was livid, and I started to look for someone who could explain the situation.
“It’s a trivial matter.”
While my eyes scanned the hall, the conversation between Vincent and the marquis continued.
“Do you know what it means for Winter Castle if a monster has appeared in the middle of the north?”
Vincent’s face looked as if it would soon explode.
“That is no different from saying that Winter Castle keeps its gates open for them to pass!”
No, he actually exploded right away.
“Do not shout at me like that, count! Did I not ask you to calm your mind!”
“How can I, hearing your insinuations!” Vincent screamed at the marquis.
“If it’s not the truth, then how did this come to be!”
The marquis’ tone of voice also increased in volume, frustrated by Vincent’s unwillingness to withdraw. Vincent started shouting without pause. Only then could I grasp the situation.
“Why the hell do you keep misrepresenting my words! Listen-”
“Marquis.”
And when I finished judging the situation, I interrupted without hesitation. The marquis looked at me, and I shook my head quietly. Then I turned and looked at Vincent. With a single glance, I asked Vincent to calm down. He stared at me, muttered, and turned his head away.
His insides were boiling, and he could not meet my gaze, so he struggled to marshal his anger.
“Let’s hear it then. There seems to be a monster in the north. Did I hear it properly?” I asked Siorin after clearing up the situation, for he was the only one among all the people gathered there who had a calm expression.
“There has been an urgent report that three of the villages of Count Brandenburg have become desolate. In response, Count Brandenburg dispatched an investigation team, and they reported that the tracks and signs there did not seem to belong to humans,” Siorin explained after nodding at me.
“The residents of the villages have disappeared as if they had evaporated, and the investigation team searched all over. They finally found someone who they supposed to be a villager.”
“If they look like a villager, it’s a villager. What else can they be?” I asked.
“They found the person, but not alive — it was a corpse. However, the body’s condition was so terrible that it was hard to determine whether the remains were even human,” Siorin said, and his face became slightly aggravated as he added, “It seemed more like something that had been eaten and discarded…”
“And Earl Brandenburg thought it was a monster’s work? So he became worried that there were problems with the defense of the northern pass and dispatched a messenger. Do I understand the matter properly?”
“No more, no less. It is just as your Highness says.”
I frowned at Siorin’s answer. It seemed that the ceaseless premonitions I had as of late were not in error. It was such a damnable situation… I looked at Vincent again. His anger was yet to subside, and I sympathized with it.
While I stayed in the sun-warmed palace and reminisced with the king about past times, Vincent was contending with the monsters that assailed his harsh fortress, always facing the horrors of the past. Vincent’s feelings toward the royal family and other nobles have not changed since those early days I had met him.
If I hadn’t been staying at the royal palace, if I wasn’t set to bestride the battlefield against the Empire, Vincent would never have come to the capital to express his intentions of joining the war. He was the type of person who did not hold the rest of the kingdom in such high regard, so when the marquis spoke of a monster that had appeared in the north and questioned the defenses of Winter Castle, it was natural for him to become angry.
The king also knew this; otherwise, he would never have allowed Vincent to raise his voice in his presence. The marquis was oblivious about Vincent’s nature, I surmised.
However, because the matter at hand was a serious issue, it was necessary to proceed with caution, and I was forced to step forward and calm Vincent’s anger. If I did not, he might come to blame the king, who owed much to the Balahards.
“Marquis. It is forbidden to mention Winter Castle from now on.”
While I understood the concerns of Bielefeld, I had no choice but to side with Vincent.
From now on, it was best to keep the marquis’ mouth shut and so prevent Vincent’s simmering anger from invading his mind again.
“Your Highness- This is an important issue concerning the kingdom’s security. I know of your Highness’s trust in Count Balahard, but when I see the importance of this issue-”
“I won’t say it twice. If there is anyone who doubts the efficacy of Winter Castle from now on, I will not stand for it. In the first place, Winter Castle’s defenses were not lax,” I said firmly, cutting off Bielefeld. “The monsters that attacked Count Brandenburg’s lands didn’t flow through the northern pass.”
Those gathered in the hall all looked at me at once.
“Neither will the villages of Count Brandenburg be the only ones decimated in such a fashion.”
I was sure – this was just the beginning. What happened in the villages of Brandenburg will be reenacted everywhere. All manner of inhuman beings will appear and consume the flesh of the weak, drink their blood. Beings that are stubborn and cunning enough to be incomparable to humans will destroy entire castles and burn down cities. And they shall forge their own kingdom atop the piled corpses of humans, inhabiting their ruined cities and strongholds.
“How…”
The kingdom’s people all looked at me with horrified faces.
“I regret this. If I had a little more time, we would have been more prepared.”
The arrival of the non-humans came far earlier than I had expected.
I had only gathered the champions and the Templars thus far, and their swords were only now beginning to become refined.
It was unfortunate and quite sad, but not all was lost.
“The monsters that have lived in our lands four hundred years ago have been hunted to extinction.”
I looked at Vincent. The blood of the Balahard clan, which they had shed for hundreds of years, had seeped into the walls of Winter Castle, making it a fortress that could not be broken by anything.
“The surviving monsters were driven north, and they are now blocked by a single fortress barring their entry to the south.”
We had to honor their dedication and sacrifice.
“Relatively recently, we slew the Warlord and the Overlord, who could have become greater threats.”
We had to honor their victories. Locking eyes with me, Vincent spread his shoulders, his face filled with pride. Upon seeing that, I continued talking.
“Thanks to this, our kingdom will now have significantly fewer entanglements compared to other realms.”
This land, which was once the most dangerous place in the world, was now the safest, and I almost burst into laughter as I considered the terrible irony.
“In other areas-”
“In the Empire, and wherever else, there will be chaos.”
Seeing everyone stiffen, I told them of the laws of this newly-dawning world.
“If you don’t fight and win, you will die. If you can’t stop them, you will perish.”
Leonberg’s people looked at me — some with sharp eyes as if wanting to sort between truth and falsehood, some faces filled with concern, and others with eyes that held only solid faith. In short, everyone was looking at me.
I met their gazes and then turned to the king, looking straight at him as I said, “Send messengers to all the nobles in the kingdom so they can be prepared for the danger. Please allow me to leave.”
Then, I added another request.
“Unleash me so that I can tell the mischievous beings who have dared to invade this kingdom who the true ruler of this land is.”