Why Does No One Mourn?
No matter how hard I thought about it, he just seemed like a thug.
“You… you…!”
The Second Prince jabbed a finger at Amelia and ground his teeth.
“What the hell did you do to our elder brother…!”
At those words, Amelia tilted her head.
Elder brother?
She drew a steadying breath and sorted her thoughts.
Then the empty seat belongs to the First Brother. The First Brother is dead?
Her fingers tapped her throat out of habit—tap, tap.
It could have been someone else who died, not a successor. Why jump straight to the First?
Amelia’s eyes locked onto the vacant chair.
Has the seat been empty for a long while? Perhaps the reason everyone gathered today was to discuss the First Brother’s absence… maybe.
Once she had the pieces arranged, Amelia nodded with the clean, satisfied look of someone who had just finished sweeping a room.
A strong contender is gone.
“Wait—does that mean you took down the First Brother’s knight?”
“How could anyone bring that knight down….”
Only then did their gazes finally settle on Kairon standing behind Amelia.
A sword hung at his side; he stood there, solemn and still.
Of course, every pair of eyes saw only Daywin.
“…So it’s that man.”
They began freely leaping to the conclusion that Daywin had murdered the First Prince.
“Looks like you do have a backer after all… Amelia….”
One of the princesses even pointed Daywin out to the escort at her back, asking whether the man was known.
The escort only shook his head.
An unknown powerhouse had appeared; the royal siblings plunged into fresh confusion.
After Amelia’s noisy proclamation of her return—
The palace garden.
“Not bad. I might actually have missed this place a little.”
“…Amelia.”
Kairon muttered the name, voice almost too quiet to catch.
“Hm?”
“…Why did everything end up like this.”
“Ah—you mean the First Brother dying.”
Kairon gave a slow nod.
“They seem to have decided I killed him and stole the ring… Well, works for us. We’ll use it. Hasgard said it himself, didn’t he? From here on is the real beginning.”
“…No one.”
“No one?”
“Why is no one sad…?”
Only then did Amelia understand what he was asking. She stopped dead.
“…Elder Brother is dead.”
Wearing Daywin’s face, Kairon pulled a pained, on-the-verge-of-tears expression.
If the helmet had still been on, no one would ever have noticed.
Amelia’s heart, utterly without tact, lurched hard at the sight of “tearful Daywin.”
It flopped like a freshly landed tuna.
She shook her head at once.
“Steel yourself.”
Thump—
Her small fist rapped against Kairon’s chest.
“Demon.”
“….”
“For someone they call that, you’re far too soft.”
Amelia gave a short, crooked smile—the same tone she had used as a child.
Kairon drew in a long breath.
“…Yeah.”
“It’s fate, isn’t it.”
“Nothing we can do… about it.”
“Right. We’ll take it with our heads high.”
And we will win.
If only for the person who handed us this chance.
Amelia’s letter.
Out of nowhere she asked whether I had killed the First Prince.
As if I would.
Even if I could kill someone, it was the sort of thing that demanded caution.
Royalty or Death God Cult—same rule.
I wrote back that I had not, and I attached a map.
A map marking the tombs where the war heroes slept.
On the spots I noted as “highly likely targets for the Death God Cult,” I inked little stars.
In truth it was not merely “highly likely.” It was all but certain.
I simply could not say so outright, so I scratched the notes as if they were clever deductions.
If they took my advice, they would arrive in time.
“Brother.”
Amelia lifted the helmet that had been left lying on the floor.
“You don’t need this anymore, do you? We have the ring.”
She spoke to Kairon, yet he snatched the helmet and jammed it on deep.
“…Mana.”
“Hm? I never heard that. The ring needs mana?”
Amelia asked while shrugging into her coat. Kairon only nodded in silence.
“I had no idea. Nothing comes free, then. Hasgard wore it so casually I assumed there was no cost….”
“…Needs a lot.”
“Well, I suppose no magic tool is without its drawbacks.”
Another quiet nod answered her.
“Wait. That means… Hasgard already knew Brother had enough mana to power the ring….”
Amelia checked her reflection in the mirror.
“Hmm. He may know far more than I guessed.”
She fell silent for a moment, then drew a folded map from her coat.
“The map that came with the letter.”
Kairon took it and spread it open.
He glanced at the tiny comments Daywin had left and nodded twice.
“What do you think?”
“…Closest ones first.”
“No plan to pick and choose?”
“…I’m… fast, so….”
“You’ll have no rest at all.”
“…I’m fine.”
Kairon drew the battered sword from its scabbard, inspected the edge, and slid it home again.
Then he took his place beside Amelia, who had finished arming herself and was ready to leave.
Whoosh—
The ring flared; Kairon’s form shifted.
When the mirror caught the new face, Amelia startled.
“Damn it—why does it have to be my brother inside that thing….”
“…Heh.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“….”
Kairon wordlessly pointed at the glass.
Reflected there was Amelia herself—cheeks already pink, the corner of her mouth lifting the instant Daywin’s face appeared.
A girl stood in the mirror.
“…I’m glad.”
“Glad of what?”
“You’re still…….”
Kairon closed his mouth.
It was not his usual thrift with words.
He simply could not find the right ones and spent a long moment searching.
“Still…… human.”
“O-of course I am. Of course I look human. I am human.”
Kairon gave a small shrug of the shoulders.
“W-well… let’s just go already.”
Amelia straightened her clothes, seized her weapon.
A hammer taller than she was dragged heavily at her heels.
“I simply cannot believe they are the same person.”
Amelia stared blankly at Kairon.
He flicked his long arms, weaving aside from the undead that lunged after him with fluid ease.
Yet he was not merely dodging.
Between every evasive turn he threaded a cut, stacking wounds along the undead’s arms.
He moved so swiftly Amelia’s eyes could scarcely keep pace.
As if the creature had taken offense, it began to thrash both arms even faster.
Kairon simply stepped back, sliding outside its reach.
Before the undead could close again he sheathed the sword and settled into a stance—
the same low, coiled crouch he had used when he cut down the twins.
In the next heartbeat he uncoiled.
KWA-JIJIJIK!
Sword-light burst like fireworks, spearing both arms and detonating the skull.
Srrrk—
Yet the things regenerated.
Like a film run backward, every piece simply returned.
“….”
Facing undead for the first time, Kairon froze in place, briefly stunned.
“Need help?”
Amelia asked, already closing her fingers around the long hammer haft. Kairon thought for a long while.
“If you say you don’t need me, I won’t sulk. Exactly what do you take me for?”
“Then…… no need.”
He answered at once, as though he had been waiting for permission.
Then he gripped the sword properly.
“Ah, Brother.”
“…?”
“I’ve been thinking something felt off from the start.”
His focus shattered; he whipped his head around.
“This.”
Amelia tapped the air above her own head with a fingertip.
“If it were the real Hasgard, this would be here.”
She was pointing at the Holy Knight’s halo. Kairon understood at once and his mouth fell open.
“Even if the missing armor can be excused, that would make him far more Hasgard-like, no?”
Kairon agreed and lifted the ringed hand a fraction.
Pajik—
A dull red light flashed above his head.
Only for a moment. Then he clutched his brow and staggered.
The light he had forced into being vanished without a trace.
“…It hurts.”
“Hmm… is that so. Imitating even that is something the Goddess will not tolerate, then.”
Amelia’s mouth curved like a child who had just uncovered a delightful secret.
“Can’t be helped. Better this way, actually.”
“…?”
“I am not saying it’s better that you’re in pain. Do not invent reasons to feel hurt.”
She clicked her tongue.
“A Holy Knight who wins with pure swordsmanship and never once uses holy power—that rumor would be rather….”
Her gaze slid back to the undead that had risen again.
“Rather useful, I think.”
Kairon checked the creature for himself.
He closed the distance in a single bound and cut once more.
Tseok! Tseoreok!
Rotten flesh and bone sprayed apart.
He already knew they would knit back together.
Shwik!
So he did not stop.
Until the mass became fragments.
Until the fragments became powder.
Until even the powder was gone.
He poured out an unbroken chain of strikes.
Srrrk—
Unable to regenerate any longer, the undead dissolved into the wind.
After Kairon felled the first of them, the news reached the other succession candidates and stunned them all.
The brothers—Amelia excluded—gathered once more around the round table and spoke in low, secretive voices.
“Undead… so Amelia was telling the truth….”
“Weren’t they all wiped out a hundred years ago when the Necromancer was killed? Grandfather always said—”
“You’re claiming that woman has returned? Impossible.”
“Impossible? It’s already happened.”
“Uh…? If the people learn undead have appeared again, what then? The previous king took the throne precisely for the merit of destroying them….”
Everyone talked over everyone else; no real conversation formed.
Then—
Thud, thud!
The Third Prince slammed the table.
“This is not the time!”
At least their eyes all fixed on one place.
“Did we not gather to decide what to do about Amelia!”
“Th…at’s true.”
“The fact she is moving this boldly means she… knows something. She has a backer.”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
One of the princesses spat the words.
“She’s keeping the man who killed the First Brother as her personal escort. The one who just wiped out those undead-or-whatever is almost certainly the same man!”
Everyone heatedly demanded to know whether the others had not seen Daywin’s face.
One by one the remaining siblings nodded.
“I have no idea where she found him, but he is clearly no ordinary man.”
“It is not ‘that man.’ Have you still not investigated?”
The Third Prince’s face hardened as he cut in.
“Daywin Hasgard.”
The name landed in the center of the round table like a thrown blade.
“Daywin Hasgard?”
Word that Amelia had reclaimed her succession rights reached every lord who held a vote.
Among them was the bishop who, in the previous life, had taken Daywin in.
Archbishop Romeo hummed under his breath while leafing through papers.
Isn’t this the fellow Commander Blash spoke of?
He had heard that the Knight Commander himself had offered a place in the Holy Knight Order—only to be rejected to his face.
An act so outrageous it should have wounded Blash’s pride, yet—
He said simply walking the same road was enough.
Romeo could not understand it.
What possible charm could make even Blash acknowledge and shield the man?
No matter how I turn it over, he just seems like a thug… yet somehow that is exactly the feeling I get….
While reading on with that thought, his eyes snagged on one corner of a report.
First to discover the undead and first to destroy them.
And not common corpses—remnants of war heroes.
Even when no one else believed such things still existed, he had fought alone.
Hmm….
As an archbishop, his arm could only bend inward.
A king needed many virtues, but how had the previous king taken the throne in the first place?
By annihilating the Death God Cult.
Simply by placing a talent skilled at hunting undead under her banner, Amelia possessed something a bishop of the Goddess Church could not dismiss.
…Not bad, I suppose.