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Tremblin was leading the Avalon Empire’s army of one hundred thousand soldiers to the Great Plain of Kraden during the second campaign.
“Your Grace!” someone yelled.
Tremblin, who was leading in the front, pulled his reins. His horse neighed for a moment and stopped moving. When Tremblin turned back, he could see his aide approaching him.
“What’s wrong?” Tremblin asked.
“We’ve just received a message from the people in the palace,” his aide reported.
“Give it to me.” Tremblin gestured at his aide.
Once he had it, he quickly unsealed it and read the paper. Shortly after, Tremblin’s lips trembled.
“The Thran Kingdom…” he mumbled, “was conquered by the Swallow Empire?”
The aide, who stood silently nearby, raised his head in surprise.
“Only two weeks have passed if I include today…” Tremblin bitterly muttered.
“Wa-Wait… Did the Prince lose?” the aide asked disbelievingly.
“It looks like it,” Tremblin affirmed, nodding.
“Wh-who could have…?”
Tremblin eyed the paper.
“First, the Swallow Empire ambushed the border area of the Kingdom of Thran on June 5th, Year 725 of the continental calendar. On the same day, the Emperor of Hubalt won the civil war.”
Tremblin’s aide also knew that.
“Second, the Swallow Empire instantly forced their way into the center of the Thran Kingdom and occupied the Kingdom’s capital on July 10th, Year 725 of the continental calendar. It had only been a month since they started their conquest. The Prince of Thran managed to survive and fled to the Hart Kingdom with some of his subjects .”
“The border of the Hart Kingdom… Wait, are they thinking about forming an alliance with other kingdoms…?”
“On top of that, the commander of the Swallow Empire, the man considered to be the biggest cause of the Thran Kingdom’s defeat, is… the Grand Duke, Crimson Sky Lucifer.” Tremblin closed his eyes.
Tremblin’s aide was appalled, but the Duke paid him no mind.
“Third,” he continued, “right after the great army of Swallow conquered Thran, their movement towards the Great Plain of Kraden was detected on August 1st, Year 725 of the continental calendar. Judging from their course, it is assumed that their destination is Reinhardt, the nearby city, and their goal is to join the army that the Swallow Empire previously mobilized.”
“Oh, my god…” The aide covered his mouth.
“Fourth, the so-called civil war of the Hubalt Empire came to an end on August 3rd, Year 725 of the continental calendar. The details are still being investigated, but it is assumed that the Emperor won by holding the Pope and high-ranking priests hostage. Fifth, the Hubalt Empire belatedly heard the news and mobilized their army on August 10th, Year 725 of the continental calendar. It’s expected… that the Avalon Empire, who successfully conquered Reinhardt, is going to directly take on the two empires on the Great Plain of Kraden.”
After Tremblin finished reading the message, he crumpled up the paper.
“What date is today?” he asked his aide.
“It’s… November 23rd,” the aide blankly answered.
Tremblin looked at him and sighed.
“It took less than half a year?”
It only took half a year for the dozens of years of peace on the continent to be broken. The continent was being ravaged by the storm of war.
“How long will it take for us to get to the Great Plain of Kraden?” Tremblin asked.
“This noon at the latest,” his aide immediately replied.
Tremblin bit his lower lip. “Did we hear anything from Duke Agnus?”
“Nothing… yet,” the aide reported.
Tremblin smiled bitterly.
“Do I have to trust the saying that ‘no news is good news’?” he quietly muttered. “I have no choice but to join him as soon as possible…”
He flinched as a ground-shaking sound touched his ears. He was the only one who heard it.
“…Get ready to fight,” the Duke ordered.
The aide froze up. Although he was not sure why Tremblin gave such an order, his body responded right away—he was not allowed to think in this war.
“Get ready to fight!” the aide loudly shouted. The knights on standby simultaneously pulled out their swords, filling the air with the clatter of metal. That was just the beginning: next, one hundred thousand soldiers pulled their bowstrings as if the knights drawing their swords was a signal.
After some time, Avalon’s soldiers could see a group of people approaching.
“Everyone,” the aide was about to command, “ fi—!”
“…Wait.” Tremblin had been closely observing the group that was approaching them. His eyes slowly widened.
“Lower your arrows,” he shouted, “they’re one of us!”
The soldiers and knights stopped moving as soon as they heard Tremblin’s words. Meanwhile, the group approached close enough for them to recognize. The aide scanned the group.
“They seem to be part of Duke Agnus’s spearhead unit!” the aide exclaimed.
“I already knew that,” Tremblin said, examining the newcomers intently.
“…Ah! Someone in the front is running toward us!” the aide noticed.
As soon as the aide finished speaking, a knight holding high the flag of the Avalon Empire quickly came up to the army.
“I salute Your Grace, Duke Tremblin.” The knight stopped right before Tremblin and saluted.
“You’re…”
“I’m Armstrong, His Grace, Duke Agnus’s aide.” Armstrong raised his head. A golden man was proudly embroidered on his chest.
Tremblin nodded. “We’ve met before.”
Armstrong looked anxious for some reason, so Tremlbin waved his hand.
“Let’s omit the formalities. Why are you alone? Where is your master?”
“He… stayed behind, alone, in the Great Plain of Kraden,” Armstrong bitterly replied.
“Wh-What?” Tremblin’s eyes bulged at the unexpected answer.
“We should get out as soon as possible because there is no time. A barricade has been formed around the area, and they even installed a Jamming Barrier, so our communications are entirely cut off.”
“I-it’s true,” Tremblin’s aide stuttered after examining the mana crystal ball he’d pulled out.
“Explain it in a simpler way!” Tremblin yelled.
“I’ll get to the point.” Armstrong straightened up. “The Hubalt and Swallow Empires have temporarily formed an alliance and we continued to battle intensely against them. That’s how we lost Reinhardt to them.”
“Wh-what?” Tremblin and his aide became petrified as they realized that things had gone really wrong. Those two empires were practically enemies, so how could they form an alliance?
“That’s ridiculous…” Tremblin said in disbelief.
“My master said,” Armstrong interrupted, “that it looked like the Martial Emperor and the Crimson Sky made a secret agreement.”
“The Martial Emperor!” Tremblin came to a realization. “Did he show up?”
“…Yes, the commanders of the alliance army are those two and the Darkness Emperor, whom they hired.”
“Shit…” Tremblin unwittingly cursed.
The situation could not be worse. Three of the Nine Stars themselves had united—and besides, Grand Duke Lucifer was considered to be as skilled as Tremblin himself or Duke Agnus. If everything was true, then how long could Duke Agnus stand on his own, even if he was called the Dark God?
“That’s why we need to go back to the Empire as soon as possible,” Armstrong asserted.
“What are you talking about? That’s all the more reason to ride as possible to the Great Plain of Kraden,” Tremblin angrily growled. “How can you suggest we flee on our own—!”
“My master told me! My master told me that he feels that His Majesty’s life is being threatened! The heart of our Empire is in danger!”
A suffocating silence descended as soon as Armstrong’s shocking revelation left his lips.
* * *
After Tremblin finished recollecting, he looked at Icarus, Cain, and Joshua one by one.
“I needed to check. If Armstrong was right, then we couldn’t waste the time that Duke Agnus had struggled to buy us. In the end, we turned back…”
The room was utterly silent except for the sounds of Tremblin’s voice.
“When we finally got to the Imperial Palace, it was too late. The knights that were supposed to remain nearby His Majesty to guard him had vanished, and the rest of the Imperial Knights didn’t even know that His Majesty had gone missing. The knights from every battalion were constantly checking His Majesty’s status… so did everything happen in a moment’s breadth?”
“I understand how you feel,” Cain mumbled. Tremblin chuckled.
“…Anyhow, I’ve been looking for His Majesty for a long time. Only recently did I hear the rumor that you…” Tremblin trailed off and looked at Joshua. “...were at the Great Plain of Kraden. Are you saying that you’ll tell me what happened afterward?”
Joshua nodded. “Yes, just like you’ve expected, the first thing I saw was the grand army of the Empire Alliance when I arrived. ”
As the hidden history was about to be revealed, Cain unwittingly held his breath.
“But I couldn’t see my father from anywhere, not even his corpse…” Joshua trailed off.
“What?” Tremblin’s eyes widened.
“The world thinks the Dark God was killed in the battle against the three allied Stars,” Joshua said. “I couldn’t even find a trace of the great Superhuman.”
“What are you talking about…?” Tremblin dumbly mumbled.
“Soon, the grand army of the Empire Alliance surrounded me, but I couldn’t take on a million soldiers alone. Thus, I was hunted and harried to the Great Plain of Aiyas,” Joshua recalled.
“Hmm…” Having heard this much, Tremblin had a million questions since many parts of Joshua’s story were different from the story that was known to the public. However, one thing was clear: he could fabricate a story, but he couldn’t hide the revealed truth.
Countless heroes must have chased persistently after Joshua in search of fame, and Joshua would have slain all of those heroes to get to where he was right now.
“Of course…” Joshua said, bringing Tremblin back to reality, “the enemy commanders—the Martial Emperor and Crimson Sky—were with the million soldiers.”
“Bu-but you still managed to escape?” Tremblin wondered, but Joshua answered him with silence.
After a moment, Joshua continued:
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“There was another problem because the Darkness Emperor, who we knew had joined forces with the other two Stars, was nowhere to be seen.”
“Wha-what are you talking about now…?” Tremblin stuttered.
Joshua’s eyes turned cold. “You said you’d received a report that His Majesty was in danger, fight?”
Finally coming to a realization, Tremblin trembled weakly.
“There is one person who is already a Master, and stronger than all in the Empire but a few,” Joshua reminded Tremblin. “Even in such a state, that person could penetrate the security of the Imperial Palace, despite the numerous Imperial Knights on guard, and easily murder His Majesty.”
“Are you suggesting that the Darkness Emperor… murdered His Majesty?” Tremblin shakily asked. “But even he—”
“It’s not really impossible if my father, the Dark God, helped the Darkness Emperor.”
Tremblin’s breath caught.
“Unbelievable!”
“You were leading tens of thousands of soldiers, and my father was on his own. Who do you think would return faster?” Joshua asked.
“Then three Stars—no, four Stars are in this together?” Tremblin mumbled.
A series of shocks hit Tremblin, but he didn’t bother asking why Duke Agnus had united with the other three Stars—Tremblin already knew the fact that the rest of the people in the world didn’t know. There had been the Nine Stars, the practical leaders of the continent, but the Star of the Magic Tower had fallen, meaning there were eight Stars now. From that moment, the balance of the continent had already ended…
“They must have thought it might be possible for them to take over the continent,” Joshua concluded on Tremblin’s behalf.