If You Understand, Nod Twice
I smashed through the front gate. The dust settled, revealing the soldiers beyond.
A dozen or so blocked the entrance itself. Another twenty or so lined the walls, arrows already nocked and trained on me.
With Grand Duke Oscar so close by, they looked thoroughly drilled for instant combat response.
Even as I watched, the alarm bells pealed for reinforcements, a deafening clamor.
The duke’s men not only looked well-trained—they had cannons mounted on the battlements as well.
Not a pushover, then.
If I had sent Houndry instead of coming myself, I never would have gotten near Julian.
Good thing I came in person.
Not that they would have stormed the front gate the way I just had.
Even if Julian was a man I would have to kill someday, I had no desire to slip inside, cut his throat, and vanish again.
Everyone insists I am nothing like a proper holy knight, yet in that one respect I suppose the church has rubbed off on me after all.
“Who the hell is that?”
The soldiers ahead tightened their encirclement and advanced a step.
“Who sent you?!”
“You alone? What do you think you’re going to accomplish by yourself…?”
They scanned the area for companions. Naturally, there were none.
“Ha. This one’s just plain crazy.”
Once they realized that, the soldiers clicked their tongues in pure disbelief.
Even I had to admit it: no one but me would charge a place like this alone.
They were snorting and closing in when—
Crack—!
Storm clouds boiled overhead. Lightning flashed inside them.
The light that always appeared when I donned my armor.
Only this time, thanks to the ring’s power, black lightning danced through the thunderheads.
Even the soldiers who had been aiming at me all looked up as one.
“What is that…?!”
“Black magic?!”
“Attack!”
They finally lowered their gazes and readied themselves to strike.
Rumble!
A pillar of light slammed into me, wrapping armor around my body.
The armor itself was purest black from head to toe.
Amelia’s bond skill was called Black Knight, wasn’t it?
I finally looked the part.
Clack!
A sleek black helm locked into place. I lifted one hand, casual as you please.
A single spirit that had been hovering behind me—a black flame—shot forward and detonated right in front of the soldiers.
BOOM!
“Gyaaah!”
A warning shot.
The blast tore up the ground at their feet; they staggered back in pure shock.
Exactly the reaction I wanted.
The men with spears in front of me flinched, but the ones on the wall apparently decided it was no threat to them.
Fwoosh—!
A cannonball came screaming straight at me, eager to crush me flat—
Crash!
A black flame leapt up and intercepted it mid-flight.
The spirit snatched the shell out of the air; fire engulfed it, and it clanged harmlessly to the dirt with a hollow thunk.
“Wh-what?!”
Shouts rose from the battlements.
I sent another spirit their way and returned the favor in kind.
KA-BOOOOM!
A section of wall shattered. Soldiers plummeted with the rubble.
Hum—
The flames that had vanished in their self-detonations re-formed at once.
Just as I had told the fox: five in total.
As I started walking, the flames orbited close around me, bristling with vigilance.
Spears thrust from every angle, arrows raining in sheets, more cannonballs from the walls—every one of them was intercepted mid-air with effortless speed.
Compared to the fox that had swallowed the First Prince, this was child’s play. They swatted the attacks aside like flies.
The clash of steel and flame rang out as I walked.
Slowly.
I simply walked, and the path opened before me.
In the distance I spotted Julian fleeing from a towering keep.
There you are.
At the same moment one of the flames latched onto my back.
Whoosh!
With the spirit’s help I glided the remaining distance in a single bound and reached the keep.
Thud!
The heavy armor made the landing on the bridge between towers boom like thunder.
“H-huff… hahh…”
Julian sucked in a ragged breath. A single escort knight stepped between us.
We had met on a single plank bridge.
Though it wasn’t wood, of course.
“Stand aside.”
I spoke in Karma’s voice. Naturally the knight had no intention of obeying.
No choice, then.
I shifted the flame from my back to my right leg—
CRACK!
—and lashed it out like a whip of fire.
The knight caught it on his sword, but the blade itself shattered. He toppled from the bridge and vanished below.
“Wh-who are you?! Who sent you?!”
Julian’s voice shook.
Who should I claim?
Amelia. Oscar.
Plenty of justifications.
His continued existence was a nuisance in every respect, and above all he had tried to have Amelia killed.
One of the heroines I needed if I was going to stop this world’s end.
I had been turning Laward into a holy knight, strengthening the heroines one by one.
He had tried to wreck the plan I had painstakingly built.
If even a single heroine is missing—if even one of them falls—my entire scheme collapses.
If Amelia had not been at the Academy, the Lowcat gang that once kidnapped her could have finished the job any time they liked.
And the decisive point:
There was no guarantee Julian would not try to assassinate her after she became queen.
He would not be content as the queen’s man. He would want the throne himself.
“Was it Oscar? Yes—Oscar must have sent you! That damned bastard!”
“…….”
There were many reasons, but in the end the decision had been mine alone.
I had sent myself.
Snatch—
I seized Julian by the collar and hauled him forward until his face was inches from my helm.
Crash!
I hurled him back the way he had come, straight through the wall of the keep.
Bricks exploded. We landed inside his private chambers.
Opulent furniture, lavish lighting—and above all the large crate I had seen him unload from the train earlier. That settled any doubt.
I flung him to the floor and strode to the box.
“What’s inside?”
“N-none of your business!”
“Hmm. Is that so? I should think I have every right to know. Of all people.”
Step—
I took one step closer. Julian’s face darkened further.
“I-I haven’t done anything wrong! There’s some misunderstanding… a misunderstanding!”
“We’ll find that out right now.”
I sat in front of him while he propped himself up on both arms, staring straight into his eyes.
“I’ll give you one last chance.”
Flick—
Five black flames attached themselves—one to his chest, one to each limb.
The stacked buff was Heightened Perception.
“From this moment you will answer every question I ask. I strongly advise against lying. These flames will sense even the tiniest change in you.”
The fists supporting his weight clenched white-knuckled.
“If you lie…” I pointed at the flame on his chest. “That one detonates immediately. One chance only. Your body will be blown into so many pieces they won’t find a scrap. If you understand, nod twice.”
Nod. Nod.
Julian’s head bobbed frantically.
“Have you ever sent assassins after the princess?”
“I-I would never—”
He started to protest. I simply pointed at the flame on his chest without a word.
“…Yes.”
Terror finally forced the admission out of him.
The spirits—loaded with detection buffs—registered no tremor in his pupils, no change in his heartbeat.
Truth.
“Y-you… did Amelia send you? Th-then please listen to me. We can still understand each other…”
He still called her by name.
And—
“Who said you were free to speak?”
“…….”
“Answer only what I ask. Why did you try to sabotage Oscar’s support?”
“If Oscar distinguishes himself on the front lines… my own position becomes precarious.”
The moment the words left his mouth he glanced nervously at the flame stuck to his chest.
“Then you could simply have sent soldiers of your own.”
“If I did that, Oscar would obviously turn on me!”
They had been thinking the exact same thing.
The only difference was that Oscar had been so ready to commit troops that he had even given Julian advance warning.
And according to the spirits, that answer was also truth.
Knowing he could not lie, Julian had the gall to spout nonsense so brazenly.
Time for the final question.
“Do you believe Amelia will become king?”
“Of course she will—”
“And if she does… will you try to kill her?”
“No! Absolutely not!”
Julian’s eyes flew wide as he shouted the denial.
In that instant every spirit reacted at once.
Lie.
“I see.”
“I-is that all? Then you’ll spare me—”
Clank!
I removed the helm and looked down at him again.
“You…!”
The moment he saw my face Julian scooted backward while still seated.
“Why… why are you…?!”
“I believe I already told you.”
I rose and let out a long breath.
“I said I would finish the mission quickly and return.”
“That mission… you mean this…?”
“Please understand that I tried to believe in you until the very end. I feel I have shown every courtesy due the fiancé of the one I serve. In the end, however… it seems you were never meant to be her consort.”
“W-wait!”
He clung to my leg, face twisted in desperate pleading.
“Daywin! I beg you! Just hear me out a little longe—”
Shhhk—!
That was enough.
I had wanted the truth, not sniveling.
I had no desire to listen, so I drew my sword and struck at once.
Black armor was painted red with blood.
Fwoosh—
The flames that had clung to his body returned to me.
I left the headless corpse where it lay and walked back to the crate.
One swing of the sword split the wooden box open, revealing the gift inside.
A statue.
A statue modeled after Amelia.
It had been carved from a black gem that glowed with an eerie translucent light from within.
The mysterious luster was captivating, yet there was one problem: like a Venus, it was nude.
Whether concealing the important parts counts as art or not is apparently still debated, but at least this statue did cover what needed covering.
What on earth had he been thinking?
Was he equating Amelia with a goddess and trying to exalt her?
Whatever the intention, the idea that Amelia would have liked something like this was simply absurd.
Still, it was clearly a gem. Better take it.
In the past I would never even have considered it, but now I had the subspace pouch.
I reached out to stuff the large statue inside—
Crack!
The statue made a bizarre sound of refusal.
Some property of the gem it was made from, I suspected.
Oscar or Veronica would know for certain.
In the end I simply slipped the pouch over one of the statue’s fingers without touching it directly; it vanished inside with a soft pop.
The next day I brought Veronica with me to see Oscar.
“Ah, it’s you. Forgive me for not receiving a guest properly, but something urgent has come up. You’ll have to come back another time.”
Oscar spoke the moment he saw my face.
I had completed the quest and gone out of my way to bring Veronica so we could finally discuss the mines and the gems… only for this.
“What sort of urgent business, if I may ask?”
“Julian died last night. The same Julian we spoke of yesterday. Naturally his people will suspect me first, so I must prepare a response…”
“Ah. Julian, is it.”
“Hm? Do you know something? Wait—surely you didn’t…?”
Oscar stopped dead in the middle of his hurried movements and stared at me.
“Surely you…?”
“Who can say.”
“Surely you wouldn’t have gone that far. No—you couldn’t have. I take the rumors for nonsense, of course, yet someone claims a lone man forced his way into the duchy and did the deed. Who could possibly manage such a thing?”
At those words Veronica whipped her head around to look at me.
She had no idea what was going on, yet she clearly assumed that if anyone could have done it, it would have been me.
Such was the reputation of Karma…
“I’m not certain myself. I do seem to have passed by that area by pure chance, though.”
Thud.
For some reason Grand Duke Oscar’s fur mantle slipped from his shoulders and hit the floor.
“How in the world did you…?”