Fate
After an ink-dark aura carved a line through that world of blue, a hush fell over the arena so complete that not a single voice rose. The longsword that had endured to the very last against those crashing waves of sword-light shattered into pieces.
A dry, crumbling hiss. Reduced nearly to powder, the wreckage of the blade scattered through the empty air. Watching the fragments glitter and fan outward like a shower of falling stars, I swallowed a quiet pang of regret.
So its life had finally run out.
It was the sword I had used ever since I came to this world, the one upon which I had piled memory after memory. Because I had thrown myself into training with it day after day, I had been able to save Liliana, meet Luke, and even compete in the Sword and Magic Festival.
With a silent thanks for lasting as long as it had, I gazed at the remnants a moment longer. Then I called to the knight in blue armor lying cold upon the stage floor.
"Gawain. You alive?"
"..."
"Rest."
"..."
I spoke, but no answer came. Only warm, red blood pulsed in thick gouts from the severed planes of his upper and lower body.
Gawain, Knight of the Blue Shield. Had he ever imagined he would end like this? He had lived as a blue shield for his lord, and in the end that shield had been split by a line of black.
The spectators stirred as they looked upon Gawain's cooling corpse.
"Sir Gawain is dead..."
"I-is this even real?"
"Wait—hold on. He was wearing a Protective Artifact. How could this possibly happen? No matter how powerful the aura, this shouldn't be possible!"
Someone in the stands shouted it loud enough for the whole arena to hear, and the man was right. The Protective Artifacts used at the Sword and Magic Festival had been crafted by the Magic Tower over long years of painstaking work, and they were built to stop a single fatal blow. In all the festival's history, no competitor had ever died. If a man had lost his life to one strike, it meant the artifact itself had been defective.
Tens of thousands of spectators erupted into a roar of shock and confusion. High in the upper stands, where the stage lay in full view below, Albireo let out a scream.
"No!!!"
"Sir Gawain... this can't..."
"Y-Your Highness, what should we do?"
The nobles under Albireo's banner milled in panic beside their shrieking prince. Gawain had been, along with the Magic Tower Master, one of Albireo's greatest military assets, and the weight of his death crashed down on them all the harder for it.
Albireo stared at the stage with a face gone white with horror, then turned on the Emperor.
"Your Majesty! This cannot be allowed to stand! As if it weren't enough that he hid his identity to enter the Sword and Magic Festival, he has now committed murder! Grand Duke Behirith must be thrown in the dungeons this instant!"
"..."
"Your Majesty!"
The scathing cry carried from the upper stands all the way down to the stage. It was rare for Albireo to raise his voice like this before his own father—but the Emperor, by contrast, remained perfectly composed. Perhaps he had already tasted the bitterness of kin-strife in his own succession struggle years ago. Or perhaps he had simply been born a cold man.
Even in the face of Gawain's death, his expression held a strangely mineral stillness. His gaze settled on me for a moment. Then, at last, he spoke.
"I shall ask Swordsman Licht. Are you, in truth, the Grand Duke?"
"I am."
"Why did you conceal your identity to enter the Sword and Magic Festival? And why did you kill Sir Gawain? Speak."
"That is..."
Emperor Aragod looked down at me with eyes emptied of all vitality. Tens of thousands of people in the arena leaned in to hear what I would say.
Hah. So this moment has finally come.
With every gaze in the coliseum fixed on me, I swallowed against a dry throat. I had not intended to reveal myself like this—but in a way, this was the very hour I had been waiting for. I cleared my throat lightly, and opened my mouth as I had prepared.
"To set right what was wrong."
"What was wrong. Speak plainly. What do you mean?"
"His Highness the Second Prince commissioned the mages of the Magic Tower to assassinate Her Highness the Princess."
"!"
Perhaps because no one had seen the words coming, the arena went still in a single breath. Succession struggles were one thing—but to attempt the assassination of an imperial scion at a tournament as storied as the Sword and Magic Festival was a scandal that would send shockwaves through the entire Empire. And when the target was Eustia, the Treasure of the Empire, the spectators found their voices only with difficulty.
"It can't be... His Highness the Second Prince tried to kill Her Highness? The Treasure of the Empire?"
"Someone as kind as Her Highness Eustia... why would he...?"
"Just what is going on at this festival?"
People muttered in a daze, stunned into fragments of speech. In the upper stands, the nobles under the Second Prince's banner paled as their own rot was laid bare, while correspondents from newspapers across the continent scribbled furiously, desperate to record every beat of what was unfolding.
"Grand Duke. Whether those words are true or not, there is a matter we must address first. You have, in any case, slain the Commander of the Second Imperial Knight Order. What do you intend to do about this?"
"Sir Gawain did not die because of me."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Strictly speaking, Sir Gawain died by His Highness the Second Prince's hand. If the artifact sabotaged to assassinate Her Highness the Princess had not found its way to Sir Gawain, he would not have lost his life to a single blow."
"What kind of nonsense is this?! Your Majesty, there is no need to hear another word from this man! To insult the imperial blood without a shred of evidence—execution is the only answer left!"
Albireo's face twisted into something monstrous as he roared. He was burning with fury. Whatever filth he spat, I kept my composure and studied the Emperor's expression first.
He's withholding judgment, then.
The Emperor sat in silence. Fair enough—without evidence, there was no reason for him to take my word as truth.
But did he really think I had come unprepared?
While the two sides traded claims of truth and lies, I waited for the people who would pull the entire situation over to my side.
And a moment later—
Click. Click.
"?"
Cutting through the vast uproar of the arena, three women appeared in the upper stands.
"Her Highness Eustia has arrived!"
"And beside her—isn't that Countess Gremory, last year's champion of the mage division?"
"Dame Melissa, Third Seat of the Magic Tower, is with them as well. Why are those three together?"
Nobles blinked question marks at three women who, on the surface, shared no obvious connection. Through that air thick with bewilderment, Eustia walked toward the Emperor, and Raphaela and a woman in a grey witch's hat followed at her side.
These were the cards I had prepared for today's plan.
Under a hail of stares sharp as arrows, Eustia came to a halt before the Emperor and spoke.
"Your Majesty. We shall vouch that Grand Duke Behirith's words are the truth."
"Eustia. And those beside you?"
"Vice Tower Master of the Magic Tower. Raphaela Gremory greets the great sun of the Empire."
"Third Seat of the Magic Tower. Melissa Lindiote greets the great sun of the Empire."
The violet witch and the Grey Witch each sank to one knee before the Emperor in a light, precise show of respect. Watching them, Albireo's face flooded with a dismay so raw it left nothing else.
Look at that. The bastard's properly rattled.
And he had every right to be. The Grey Witch standing there—Melissa Lindiote—was a talent Albireo himself had once recruited. From his seat, her appearing at Eustia's side would make no sense at all.
I nodded faintly, recalling the conversation I had held with the Grey Witch during the preparations leading up to the festival.
Recruiting Melissa had been surprisingly easy.
Perhaps it was the Absolute Monarch trait. I had offered her the seat of the next Magic Tower Master in exchange for betraying Albireo, and she had come over to my side without much resistance. Raphaela would be coming to the Demon Archduchy anyway, so she had no attachment to the Tower Master's chair—and I intended to dispose of the current Tower Master together with Albireo. At this rate, Melissa would likely take the tower in the near future.
In any case, I had gathered the people who would deliver the decisive testimony. With that, I could finally press Albireo and the Tower Master to the wall.
But where the hell has that old man Bahamut gone?
Even with the situation running this far, the Magic Tower Master had yet to show so much as the tip of his nose. Had he actually run?
I was still turning over the Tower Master's vanishing act when the Emperor addressed Melissa.
"So. How do you intend to prove that the Grand Duke's words are true?"
"I will stand as witness. His Highness the Second Prince ordered me to sabotage the Protective Artifact that Her Highness the Princess would wear, and further instructed that if I were to face her in a match, I was to kill her without fail."
"Th-that's absurd! Your Majesty, you must not believe a word that bitch says!"
The moment Melissa testified in person, Albireo scrambled to throw up excuses. The crisis must have been at his throat. He strained with everything he had to sway the Emperor, but His Majesty did not answer that desperate cry.
"Continue."
"Furthermore, all of this was carried out with the cooperation of Magic Tower Master Bahamut Wizardros. In ordinary times, he has regularly received young children from His Highness the Second Prince and made a practice of Mana Drain upon them."
"......"
"That's impossible. The Tower Master committed such an atrocity?"
"The trafficking of children is strictly forbidden under imperial law. If that is true, this cannot be overlooked!"
"Where is Sir Bahamut now?"
The nobles seated around the Emperor reeled at Melissa's testimony. Among them were more than a few who served the First Prince, and they seemed quietly eager to seize this chance and wipe out the Second Prince's faction in a single stroke.
Good. Right on plan.
This was more than enough to drag Albireo out of the succession. Afterward, if I used Goldman's capital to dismantle his remaining power completely, I could finish him for good. So far, everything had been unfolding exactly as designed.
And yet.
...What is this unease?
Something had been jabbing at my back for a while now. The plan was landing. It was working. So why did this unbearable sense of wrongness keep gnawing at me?
Then, as if a dark curtain had been ripped aside, a crawling presence revealed itself behind me.
"Heh heh. Magnificent, Grand Duke. This old man is truly impressed."
"!"
The voice I had heard yesterday in the arena corridor. Where had he been hiding all this time? The instant I registered the presence, I turned.
"Tower Master."
"To drive us into such a corner. I see now—we should have targeted you first from the very beginning."
Even with the situation collapsing around him, his tone never lost its ease. Boundless mana, its depths unknowable, poured off his entire body. Magic Tower Master Bahamut Wizardros hung in midair as he spoke.
"Sir Bahamut!"
"To target Her Highness the Princess—what in the world is the meaning of this?!"
The First Prince's nobles, noticing him at last, tore into the Tower Master as if they had been Eustia's champions all along. The intent to drag him down completely while the iron was hot was written all over them. Bahamut looked at their faces and burst into a peal of mad laughter.
"Heh heh heh. You all seem rather delighted that this old man has been driven into a corner."
"How dare a criminal run his mouth! You who have broken imperial law and commissioned the assassination of Her Highness the Princess—imprisonment is too good for you. You should prepare yourself for execution!"
"Well now. Since I must leave the Empire anyway, if any insect among you is so eager to die first, by all means, keep talking. Come—who wishes to die first?"
"......"
Bahamut let out a booming laugh and drew up his mana, and every noble shut his mouth at once. In a single breath the arena went silent. At the center of the stage where the finals had been fought, he studied Gawain's corpse, and I watched him without blinking.
This old man has well and truly lost his mind.
I had wondered what he was plotting, staying out of sight for so long. Was he about to appear like a lunatic and try to stage a massacre?
Not while I was here. I would never allow it.
When he had apparently seen enough of Gawain's body, he straightened slowly, and I spoke.
"Sir Bahamut. Accept your fate quietly."
"Hmm. Fate, you say?"
"That's right. You said you'd leave the Empire? You can neither leave this Empire nor kill me. Being captured here and now—that is your fate."
"Heh heh. How confident. And you possess the strength to match. As I thought—I cannot allow you to live."
Even after my warning, the Tower Master did not surrender an ounce of that leisurely composure. What was this? His escape should have been cut off. Why was he so unshaken from start to finish?
...Had he been hiding all this time to prepare something?
Ah.
In that instant, a single thought flashed through my mind, and I understood the true shape of the wrongness. I had to kill him now. I began to draw up my aura in a single surge—
Bahamut spread his arms wide.
"You're too late."
Killing intent deeper than the ocean floor glinted through his smile. Vast mana erupted from his body and rolled out in every direction.
"Intercettamento Spazio."
⟨ Spatial Interception ⟩
A colossal roar of unfolding power. The instant the Tower Master completed the chant, a vast magic circle rose from beneath the stage. A hemisphere large enough to swallow half the arena took shape, and with a sensation that stuffed the ears, the flow of the air itself turned wrong.
Damn it—a spatial isolation spell!
I manifested ink-dark aura in a single breath and wrapped it around my entire body. A spatial barrier of this scale should have been beyond even Bahamut to cast so easily. Had he been invisible all this time because he was preparing this?
I swept a look around. People were stumbling over themselves in panic.
"What?"
"S-spatial magic!"
"We've been completely cut off from the outside!"
The stands dissolved into chaos in a heartbeat. Amid a landscape that looked like hell itself had opened, the Tower Master stroked his long beard and surveyed the people trapped inside the space.
"Hmm. Roughly ten thousand, I'd say. If the Grand Duke does not take his own life, I shall kill every last one of them over the next hour."
The tone was as calm as if he meant to step on ants. Watching the chaos woven from screams and shouts, Bahamut wore a chilling smile.