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Although the meeting with the princes took less than an hour, many people were inside the waiting room when Joshua returned.
“Captain!”
“Oh my god, it’s really Captain Sanders.”
“I’m truly glad to see you again, Captain!”
A hundred men were packed inside the waiting room. As anyone could have predicted, they were the Auxiliary Battalion knights who had been waiting for Joshua.
“Quiet!” Cazes was quick to shout using mana. “The Captain is already busy, so you aren’t all seriously going to bother him, are you? Because I don’t see you helping him.”
A silence descended on the room for some time, until Cazes broke into a joyful smile.
“Didn’t I tell you?” he mumbled.
The knights raised their heads, surprised.
“I told you the Captain would return, and look who’s standing in front of you.” Cazes pointed at Joshua with his chin, prompting the knights to turn their heads and look at Joshua again.
Most of them were rubbing their eyes in disbelief, but the man that they had been waiting for still stood in front of them.
Unable to hold down his excitement, a knight clenched his fists and shouted at the top of his lungs. “Wowww!!!!!
“Woaaahhhh!!!!” The other knights followed the first knight and fervid shouts arose from here and there.
“Knights of the Auxiliary Battalion, listen!” Cazes shouted.
The knights energetically held their fists against their chests.
“As the current Captain of the Auxiliary Battalion, I will give you my last order!” Cazes shouted with a little smile.
“We are ready to obey!” the knights yelled back.
“Salute to our forever captain, Joshua Sanders, who has returned as the new leader of the Auxiliary Battalion!”
Cazes drew his sword, letting the clear ring of metal resonate in the air.
“Salute!” the knights exclaimed, grinning.
Dozens of swords rose into the air as one, their wielders all looking in one direction with fervent eyes. They paid homage with every fiber of their body to show Josuha how long they had been waiting for him just by their actions.
The knights took a deep breath, and a hundred voices shouted at once:
“Loooyalty!
Cain and Icarus had stepped aside and looked at them with mixed emotions. Some might insult them and call them fools for acting that way since their superior had disappeared without even saying goodbye. After he had disappeared, they had been pressured by the higher-ups and couldn’t even be sure if Joshua was going to return.
Critically, Despite everything, the fact was that they had waited persistently for Joshua. Aside from Icarus and Cain, no one else would be able to understand those knights.
“Are you crying, Chorper?” Dave asked Chorper.
“N-no, I’m not!” Chorper turned away.
“Yes, you are,” Dave teased. “Man up, don’t cry over—”
“Dave, speak after you finish wiping off your snot!” Another knight chuckled.
“Look! Ranger is crying AND sniffling!” The knight standing next to Dave pointed at Ranger.
Ranger looked away. “Shut up, you bastard!”
“Bwhahahahaaha!”
The waiting room became instantly noisy. No knights blamed Joshua, they just sincerely welcomed the return of their superior.
Joshua, however, remained silent, even as Cazes took one more step toward him.
“A warm breeze blows after a storm passes, and we believe it’s time for us to feel the warm breeze again. Captain, don’t try to do everything on your own since we’ll always have your back, even if you lead us to the fiery pits of hell.” Cazes’s voice echoed throughout the room, touching the heart of Cain, who had been listening to everything.
“We’ve heard the whole story!”
“We’re not scared of the higher-level battalions if we’re with you, Captain!”
“You know, we haven’t been staying idle!”
“Well, putting everything aside, what can they do against the great prince?”
“Let’s crush that group battle!”
Although the knights eagerly clamored, Joshua couldn’t say anything because he couldn’t find the right words to answer them with. Should he thank them for waiting for him? Or, should he apologize for leaving without saying anything?
“Captain.” Cazes looked at Joshua.
Joshua’s head jerked up.
“Please give your order.” Cazes smiled.
When Joshua met Cazes’ eyes, he could feel the strong trust in them and realized that he didn’t say anything else to these knights.
‘They’re truly fools. I’ve done something horrible to them.’ Joshua bit his lower lip.
If he told them he’d had no time to say goodbye, then he would be just making an excuse. So he should never disappear from them again.
Joshua stared at his battalion for a long moment.
“There will be no group battle.”
“…Pardon?” Several of the knights tilted their heads in confusion upon hearing the seemingly random remark.
“It seems a war is about to take place,” Joshua abruptly revealed.
The knights could only respond with wide-eyed stares.
“Wh-what do you mean?” Icarus asked in shock, quickly closing the distance between her and Joshua.
“I just finished talking with the princes,” Joshua explained. Each word brought fresh changes to the knights’ expressions. “…So I’m going to head to the border right away. Of course, I would have to stop by Duke Agnus’s mansion…”
“You mean your childhood home?” Cain asked. “Why…?”
“My weapon Lucifer—no, Lugia—is there,” Joshua explained.
“Lugia… the fucking spear?” Cain dumbfoundedly mumbled.
“Are you with me?”
Joshua was asking the Auxiliary Battalion, not Cain.
Of course, the room fell into deep silence.
“Oh, wow,” a knight eventually mumbled. “I’ve been forgetting the fact that our Captain was the famous Hero King.”
After the knight broke the suffocating silence, the other knights started to chuckle helplessly one by one.
“It would be really interesting if it turns out we’re going up against the whole continent.”
“Anyhow, the news of the Empires forming an alliance is too sudden.”
“Who cares? We’ve all been lamenting over how we weren’t there when our Captain earned the title of ‘Hero King.’”
Cazes shrugged. “…That’s why they say, Captain.”
Joshua looked to Ranger and Viper, who stood beside Cazes, and asked, “Are you… all on the same page?”
Cazes, Ranger, and Viper broke into smiles at the same time.
“We’ll follow you anywhere, Captain.”
* * *
Inside the Imperial Palace, there was a warp gate that only high-ranking figures could use, and it shone brilliantly for the first time in a long time.
“Mmm…” Someone groaned as a group of people wearing robes walked out from the gate.
A blonde man who had been waiting for quite a while smiled faintly and took a step forward.
“Welcome to the Avalon Empire, truth seekers of the Tower.”
“You’re…?” a person standing in front of the group asked.
The blonde man slightly bowed. “I’m Kaiser ben Britten.”
“If your surname is Britten, then you’re surely…” The person gaped.
A petite person who was standing next to the speaker quickly approached and whispered, “He’s the Fourth Prince of the Empire.”
Although the group’s leader didn’t expect a prince would welcome them, he took off the robe without hesitation, revealing the pale green-haired man’s beautiful face. However, his beauty made the fact that he had only one eye stand out. Regardless, he bowed back at Kaiser.
“I’m Thetapirion Whitesox,” he said.
Kaiser's smile deepened. “I heard a lot about you. It’s an honor to meet the Tower Master who is famous around the continent.”
“I never thought you'd be the one who welcomes us, Your Highness,” Thetapirion replied.
“Of course I should,” Kaiser answered, as if it was his job to greet them.
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“Let’s not just stand here,” the prince politely—almost subserviently—suggested. “Why don’t we move to the drawing room?”
Kaiser immediately tried to take the lead with a smile on his face, but he came to a halt when he heard a voice.
“Wait.” The voice was strikingly clear and as beautiful as if a goddess were speaking, instantly baffling Kaiser and the welcoming committee.
“A woman?” someone mumbled.
The petite person ignored the comment and came forward.
“Would it be possible to check the imperial seals first, as you’ve requested?” she asked. “From what I heard, we have to authenticate two imperial seals.”
Kaiser finally pulled himself together.
“She’s…?” he quietly queried.
“She’ll be taking charge of authenticating the imperial seal, and I can guarantee her ability, Your Highness.” Thetapirion nodded.
Thetapirion’s introduction only increased Kaiser’s curiosity. Although he couldn’t believe the Tower Master’s most trusted wizard was a woman, Kaiser knew he would mess everything up if he continued to question them for no reason, and he wasn’t that kind of an idiot.
“…Just like you said, we asked the Magic Tower to authenticate the seal because two imperial seals suddenly showed up after the seal had disappeared.” Kaiser turned to the petite woman. “There is only one real imperial seal… which means that the other one is fake—”
“Isn’t there a chance that both seals are fake?” the petite woman quietly interrupted.
The bystanders’ eyes widened as the conversation took a sudden turn.
At that point, even Theta couldn’t hide his bafflement.
“What are you talking about…?”
“Isn’t this the perfect situation for us to take the fall?” the petite woman said, shrugging.
Theta frowned. “What do you mean?”
“They say that one of the imperial seals is definitely the real one, but if both of them turned out to be fake after we authenticate them, then they’ll say that no one else touched them and that we were the first ones to hold the imperial seal in our hands…”
Only a fool wouldn’t understand what was going on when the petite woman had explained that much.
“Just what do you think of us?!” one of the nobles snapped. “Can’t you see how serious we are? Look at how His Highness Kaiser himself came to welcome you!”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said with another shrug, “but I’m saying this because we’re with His Highness.”
“Wh-what?” the noble stuttered.
“Besides…” The petite woman’s eyes turned cold underneath her hood. “...My best friend has the real imperial seal of Avalon, as I recall.”
All the other people flinched in shock.
“So I won’t move an inch until you tell me the whole story,” the woman declared.
And as soon as she finished speaking, a deep silence descended.