Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: To the Cradle of Stars (3)
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“Stay out of my sight.”
Navian Gaznae sentenced Haitrin and Guillaume to exile on the spot.
One might think being banished from the city was hardly a severe punishment, but a sentence delivered by the Black Knight was not so simple.
At the very least, she was the first Zodiac Knight; at most, she was the head of the House of Gaznae, which considered itself the foremost of the Eight Families, and the de facto master of the Imperial Arsenal.
The knights who admired her would not only refuse to accept Haitrin as a comrade but would treat him with hostility, and none would take Guillaume as their squire.
Nor would any of the Empire’s martial families, hoping to maintain good relations with House Gaznae, ever take them in.
The two, who had lived in luxury as retainers of a great house, were now reduced to the status of wandering freelance knights with no place to go.
If that were all, they might have been able to live a somewhat knightly life by taking on requests from the Guild as freelance knights, but the Crown Prince did not let the matter rest.
The Crown Prince immediately delivered a letter to the Freelance Knight Guild, expressing his regret while simultaneously requesting their names be struck from the Imperial Knight Registry.
And the Guild expelled them from the registry.
The Guild, which would normally have pushed back against pressure from the Imperial Family, meekly accepted the Crown Prince’s request this time.
It was an unprecedented move, one that would never have happened if the Guild hadn’t already been plagued by the pair’s villainy.
Now, Haitrin and Guillaume could no longer receive requests from the Guild, let alone a modicum of assistance.
The only option left for them was to leave the Empire.
But even if they left, their dishonorable past would dog their steps in one way or another. The two were, for all intents and purposes, socially dead.
“Hmm.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if it was too harsh, dragging a grudge from a past life into this one and settling it so thoroughly.
But that thought vanished the moment I heard about their other crimes from the Guild.
Those bastards were serial offenders.
Countless mercenaries and freelance knights heading to the Guild had fallen victim to them.
Their reason was just as preposterous.
They had planned to build up victories by picking off easy targets, create a plausible song about their deeds, and then officially join a respectable knight order.
Gunther and I, in my past life, were merely victims of their shallow plans for the future.
The knight and his squire were both more vicious than the mages of the Blue Tower.
In the end, their current situation was a disaster they had brought upon themselves.
In any case, now that I had briskly shaken off the grudge from my past life, other things began to come into focus.
Things I hadn't seen before.
Like Gunther, the Beggar Knight, the Paladin with a story.
“Master.”
“…?”
“I’ll do better now.”
“Tsk. You must be embarrassed, causing trouble so soon after boasting so grandly.”
I simply smiled at Gunther’s words, even though he had completely misread my intentions.
I planned to repay him, one way or another, for having cast aside even his knightly pride for a nobody squire.
Once I entered the Cradle, Gunther, who couldn't even properly beg for alms, would need a patron to provide him with food and shelter.
As it happened, the perfect candidates were right here.
For the Empire’s next heir and the head of House Gaznae, the foremost of the Eight Families, feeding one beggar knight would be no trouble at all.
The only problem was that the future awaiting these two was anything but bright.
The former was slated to be assassinated in two years, and the latter was destined to go mad and unleash a catastrophe.
Either way, it was a grim, grim future.
But.
“If I didn’t know, I didn’t know.”
But knowing, there was no reason I couldn't prepare.
I steeled my resolve.
Not long ago, I was a mere bystander.
I thought it was enough to just take care of myself.
Not anymore.
Changing my perspective changed how I saw the world.
That terrible war I believed was inevitable.
I could see an opening, a chance to stop the coming storm.
Just preventing the Crown Prince’s assassination would change so much.
If I was lucky, I could delay the Empire’s fall. If I was luckier still, I might prevent it altogether.
Of course, it wouldn’t be easy.
A plot to assassinate an empire’s crown prince wouldn’t be clumsy. If it had been easy to stop, it never would have succeeded in the first place.
Still, I believed that with time and thought, I could prevent at least one event from my past life.
Once, just once, would be enough.
If I could stop it once, the Imperial Family would become vigilant.
They would look after the well-being of their own kin to prevent such a pointless assassination and, by extension, look after the entire Empire.
The same went for House Gaznae.
It would be enough to take measures to keep the Black Knight from going mad.
Of course, this too was not easy.
In fact, preventing the catastrophe that would befall House Gaznae was the more daunting task.
This wasn’t a problem that could be prepared for simply by knowing it would happen.
That would be the case under normal circumstances.
But my case was different.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] Everyone…!
Those who had successfully ascended and become stars in the sky.
[Curious Idler] ?
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] ?
[The Elegant Left-Hand] ?
I asked them directly.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] How did you ascend?
I firmly believed the answer lay in their experiences.
But I was wrong.
[Curious Idler] It just kinda happened~~
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] Yeah. I kept putting it off, but they insisted, so I finally came up.
[The Elegant Left-Hand] I was in the middle of a fight. Next thing I knew, my opponent and I were up here, all friendly-like.
Their answers were strikingly similar to what a certain genius knight used to say all the time.
*It just happened. Suddenly. I was just doing it.*
Words that were of no help to ordinary people.
Though whether Navian Gaznae, hailed as the greatest knight in the Empire, belonged in the category of “ordinary people” was another matter.
Anyway.
[Curious Idler] But why do you ask~~? Hmm~~? You want to help someone ascend~~?
[The Elegant Left-Hand] Who’s helping whom?
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] Rich, coming from the guy who face-planted on his way up.
I had sought advice only to get teased for something I didn't need to be.
Still, every cloud has a silver lining.
[The Elegant Left-Hand] But it’s true that ascension will be difficult for her as things stand.
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] You think he knew that? It was pure blind luck.
[Curious Idler] Not at all~~ Even if he didn't make it all the way, he's got half a foot in the door~~
The stars confirmed that the future awaiting Navian was not much different from the one in my past life, and at the same time, they told me there was a reason she was bound to fail her ascension.
[The Elegant Left-Hand] She has no goal. Her innate talent and vessel are too great for her to strive fiercely.
[The Elegant Left-Hand] Someone who has never overcome a wall cannot ascend. It’s a pipe dream.
[The Elegant Left-Hand] In her case, her prodigious talent became her poison.
In short, she was too good for her own good.
I was speechless.
The fact that she became the Empire’s greatest knight through talent alone, without fierce effort, was absurd. That such a person would fail to ascend and become a madwoman was just as absurd.
[Curious Idler] This isn’t something that can be fixed by human effort~~ The problem is she was born in the wrong era~~
[The Elegant Left-Hand] If she’d been born in our time, it would have been a different story.
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] Right. Back then, there was no time for such self-indulgent worries. Survival came first.
[Curious Idler] Wow~~~ that sounds like something a real old-timer would say~~
It seemed that to ascend, one needed adversity or some kind of wall to overcome.
[The Elegant Left-Hand] Your Majesty is already a fine old-timer. But besides that, saying survival came first is a bit funny. Your Majesty, you never really experienced true hardship, did you?
[Curious Idler] And there’s another old-timer~~
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] I find it difficult to just let that comment about me not experiencing hardship slide.
[The Elegant Left-Hand] Your Majesty, hand on your heart. Were you well-off compared to the others, or not?
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] In my own way, I…
[Curious Idler] Hahahaha. I really can't watch this anymore~~ As I see it, there's no difference between Your Majesty and Lefty~~
As I watched the stars, who had quickly forgotten my question and gotten lost in their own chatter, something occurred to me.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] Excuse me?
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] Hello.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] Hey!
A moment of silence.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] By any chance.
Lest their chatter start up again, I quickly threw out my question.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] Does a worthy rival count as a wall?
To get straight to the point, the stars’ answer was ‘yes.’
A worthy rival, they said, was the best nourishment for self-reflection and taking a step forward.
On the other hand, they added that finding someone who could serve as a rival to Navian Gaznae, who had reached the pinnacle of knighthood on talent alone, was next to impossible.
[The Emperor Who Abandoned His Country] If such a person existed, that Idler who does nothing but stare at the mortal world all day would have known already. That one will even steal information from the highest echelons if it’s for something interesting.
If the Curious Idler was silent, they said, then such a person effectively did not exist.
The stars advised me to find another way.
But I didn't listen.
Someone came to mind immediately.
「The Successor Knight」
An unparalleled genius who had never known defeat since revealing himself to the world.
「The Dragon Slayer」
The superhuman who slew a fallen Dragon Lord with a single sword.
「The Knight Who Fells Stars」
The knight who proved himself by striking down a star that had descended upon this world.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] There is one. There really is.
Such a being had existed in my past life.
[Eternal Squire (2nd Playthrough)] I know him.
And I knew of such a being.
And not just knew of him.
I had followed and served him like a shadow for ten years.
「10-Star Knight Roman」
Roman, who had obtained the title of 10-Star Knight—a rank that didn't even officially exist—would surely be a worthy rival for the Black Knight.
In my past life, people often posed such questions.
‘Between the Black Knight and the Successor Knight, who is the true genius?’
‘Of the two knights, who is stronger?’
Everyone had their own opinion on who had the upper hand, but no one knew the truth.
Their active periods had been different, after all.
By the time Roman made his debut, the Black Knight had already failed her ascension and gone mad. By the time Roman began to make a name for himself, the Black Knight was no longer of this world.
But it seemed that in this life, the public’s curiosity would be satisfied.
“This’ll be fun.”
If Roman at this time was a lion cub yet to fully mature, then Navian Gaznae was a lioness in her prime, fully grown.
“Let’s see you struggle a bit.”
I was determined to make them face each other.
* * *
From that day on, I hovered around the Crown Prince and the Black Knight.
It wasn't difficult.
The Crown Prince summoned me almost daily, and the Black Knight was a frequent visitor to his chambers.
Every day, I watched for an opening.
A natural opportunity to warn of the assassination attempt, or a pretext to have her postpone the ascension ceremony and meet Roman.
Either way, I waited and waited for the right time.
And then, the moment I had so eagerly awaited arrived.
Far sooner than I had thought.
And in a form rather different from what I had expected.