I'll Be Off Now
The last banquet I ever attended.
I hadn't gone to the ball at the Imperial Palace in order to cut ties with Elina, that social butterfly.
But neither did I, a man who loathed banquets in general, attend to wallow in that vulgar display of wealth. I stepped out that day to collect a seed I had planted there.
"...We have been waiting for you, Young Lord Debert."
My body had warmed up nicely, so I'd half expected them to come looking.
Looking at the single attendant who had waited for me and now bowed with impeccable courtesy, I gave a listless nod.
"From the palace, are you?"
"Yes, my lord. We have been waiting. If you would follow me."
I hadn't expected them to swallow my words at face value.
Truth be told, if they had believed me outright, I would have been the one disappointed. It would have amounted to the same dish served on different leaves, after all.
But judging by their bearing, they were still wary of me. That alone was enough to please me.
Following the attendant, I climbed into an unmarked carriage and exhaled a long breath as I gazed at the window. It was sealed shut, and unless I smashed it, there was no opening it. Probably a measure to keep me from learning my destination, but I decided it wasn't worth worrying over.
This rotten empire was already festering from within.
One of the men fawning after Elina was the Crown Prince himself—that said everything that needed saying.
The Emperor was old. The Empress kept her mouth shut out of blind devotion to her son. And the Crown Prince was love-struck beyond reason.
Run like this, there was no way—not a chance in hell—they would repel a full-scale invasion.
The North, pressed closest against the Demonic Beast nesting grounds, would fall first. Then the collapse would roll from the North straight toward the heart of the Empire, one region after another.
Only after the North lay in ruins would the imperial leadership finally grasp the gravity of the situation.
And that was not something I could hold back alone.
"We're departing."
"Right."
The attendant's voice carried through the thin wall of the carriage. I closed my eyes, answered flatly, and let my thoughts drift.
What if.
What if the negotiations fell apart?
I didn't hold every piece of information in my hands, nor did I carry any certainty about the future. The original novel of this world was a romance fantasy, not a dark one—things had never needed to go this deep.
Plans going sideways was nothing new. That happened once or twice a week.
I couldn't speak for the protagonists of other stories, but that was how it went for me. So even if the talks collapsed—
I'd just have to make it work somehow.
Because if I couldn't, death was all that remained at the end of the road.
That was the only reason I had run this far, and the only reason I kept running now.
Nothing more.
Simply that.
Nothing but that.
"We've arrived."
At the voice that roused me from my thoughts, I slowly opened my eyes and straightened my clothes. Judging by how briefly we'd ridden, the place couldn't be far from the city.
The door, which had refused to open from the inside, swung open, and I stepped down from the carriage with dead eyes.
The carriage had brought me to a mansion tucked away in some remote corner of the countryside. Though it looked poorly tended from the outside, two men stood at its gates like sentries—suspicious-looking to any passing eye.
"The Young Lord Debert."
When the servant who had escorted me announced me, the men looked me over from head to toe before their gazes settled on the sword at my hip.
"My apologies, but weapons cannot be brought inside."
I met the knight's eyes for a moment, then let out a small laugh and nodded. I unbuckled the sword and handed it over, and only then did they step aside from the door.
For a knight, being stripped of his weapon was a fatal disadvantage.
Then again, whatever happened inside, there wasn't much these men could actually do about it.
Well. So long as they didn't lay a hand on me first, I had no intention whatsoever of moving first myself.
Despite its weathered appearance, the door slid open without a sound, smooth as silk. I glanced at its hinges, then withdrew my gaze and stepped inside.
The interior was pitch dark—not a flicker of light anywhere.
Even for a building in a secluded corner with poor exposure, the darkness pressing in from every side was unnatural.
The moment I crossed into that lightless interior where I couldn't see a hand before my face, I breathed out softly.
An artifact.
If artifacts that gave off light existed, then naturally, so did the opposite kind.
I despised these petty little tests, but for now, I decided to play along.
"I've heard a very interesting rumor."
A voice.
Yet it reverberated through the building so thoroughly that I couldn't tell whether it came from ahead, behind, or beside me. Swallowing at the thoroughness that bordered on excessive, I swept a calm gaze around the room.
"They say you made a remark that, mishandled, could have landed not only yourself but your entire house in irons for treason. It gave me quite the fright."
"I'm glad you found it interesting."
"So then—does the traitor have any final words to leave behind?"
In an instant, the voice turned glacial.
That chill carried a warning: one wrong word and my head would leave my shoulders. Exhaling softly again, I took a step forward.
Tap. Tap.
The sound of my shoes rang out crisp and clear in the darkness. Walking with unruffled composure through a blackness that offered no hint of what lay ahead, I found the chair positioned before me and sat down.
"If I'm a traitor, Your Highness the First Princess, then so are you. We share the same goal, after all."
"...And what goal would that be?"
Startled? Or intrigued?
For whatever reason, the answer came a beat too slow. Reaching out with unhurried ease for the teacup resting on the table before me, I continued.
"Changing the heir to the Empire."
Truthfully, I didn't particularly care who became the next Emperor.
The current Crown Prince, the fragile and docile Fourth Princess, the savage and degenerate Second Prince—or the First Princess sitting right in front of me.
What mattered to me was which of them would be useful.
And among them, the most fitting candidate was the one who hungered ceaselessly for the Emperor's throne—the First Princess, who played at being a gentle puppy while coiling a serpent beneath her skin.
"...What makes you so certain I want that?"
She was trying to hide it, but her voice trembled, little by little.
Smothering the smile that threatened to bloom at the sound of her true nature laid bare, I glanced around the room once more.
"The one who trains knights without end. Who is recruiting nobles to fold into her faction. Who quietly spreads word of the Crown Prince's sordid dealings throughout society."
"..."
"There is only one such person in this Empire. You, Her Highness the First Princess."
I'd struck the gap in her armor dead center.
Now—how would she come out of it? Would she go for my throat?
Or would she—
"You already know the method, don't you?"
—reach for the rope I was offering, whether it be a rotten cord or a golden one?
Grinning at the question I had seen coming a mile away, I leaned back against my chair.
"There is something I need you to do."
The day of my departure for the front lines drew near.
Having dressed myself in layer upon layer against the cold of the far North, I stood before the gates of the estate.
"...Brother, are you really sure this will be enough?"
Zik, who had come out to see me off, stared at my luggage with a worried face.
Coming from a man who had never once worried about me in my past life, the display was unexpected. I answered with a hollow laugh.
"It's not like I'm off on holiday. Pack too much and it just becomes dead weight."
"Wouldn't it be wise to bring at least a few house guards with you?"
"Enough. This body of mine, I can protect with my own two hands."
Frankly, hauling baggage and bodyguards along on the road to the front lines struck me as the behavior of a man with no intention of surviving. The only ones who traveled that way were incompetents with no faith in their own abilities.
And I had zero desire to become one of those useless wrecks.
Thumping Zik's shoulder a couple of times for his pointless fretting, I exhaled quietly and turned my gaze toward my father, standing a short distance away.
"I'll be off, then."
"...Allen."
"Yes."
I'd thought there wasn't much to say between my father and me.
Apparently, he thought otherwise.
He looked down at me for a long moment with his usual unreadable eyes, then let out a small breath and spoke.
"The picture you're painting, the future you're looking toward—will we be of use in it?"
"...Of course."
I nodded with a faint smile at my father's needless worry. Zik, and now my father too—everyone seemed to wildly overestimate me.
There was nothing I could accomplish alone.
Which was exactly why I had been preparing since long, long ago.
"The only people I can trust to cover my back are family, aren't they?"
"...Then that is enough."
"I'll be counting on you."
At the front lines, I would do everything within my power—but that didn't mean there was nothing for the rear to do either.
Bowing my head briefly to my father, I turned away without lingering regret and mounted the black stallion the household had prepared for me. Calmly stroking the mane of the horse as it snorted and tossed its head, I allowed myself one short look at my father, Zik, and the rest of my family gathered there.
"I'll be off now."
"Right. Take care out there."
With a small smile at my father's silent nod, I tapped the black stallion's flanks—the signal to move. With a whinny, we surged forward, and I began my ride toward the front lines.
Roughly two months remained until the invasion of the Demon King's Army and its hordes of Demonic Beasts.
And I rode for the front.