The Envoy, or the Death God
"I'm weally not gonna do thaaat~"
'The Empire has sent an envoy.'
Right from the start, the statement was a contradiction in itself.
The Empire was famous for never sending envoys to other kingdoms — it would receive them, but it would never go. The Empire was already the overlord of the continent. From the position of a power that got whatever it wanted, there was simply no reason to dispatch envoys to persuade anyone or request cooperation.
Of course, if you asked whether envoys existed only for persuasion and cooperation, the answer was no. They could request trade, or deliver an ultimatum — surrender if you'd rather not have war visited upon you.
But that was not how the Empire thought.
'Why should I?'
If others truly wanted exchange, if they truly feared war, then they were the ones who should come. Why should the property and manpower of the Empire — of the Emperor — be spent on such trivialities?
It was an arrogant way of thinking, but the Empire had arrogance to spare.
If the Empire ever did send someone abroad, it was for one of two reasons. The first: imperial administrators dispatched to govern a kingdom that had become a vassal state or had been annihilated outright.
And the other...
"It's been so long!"
The kind that arrived not as an envoy, but as the Grim Reaper.
Contrary to what so many had predicted — an invasion, an infiltration — the Empire crossed the border openly and brazenly, under the name of an Envoy Delegation.
Stopping them would have been pointless. The Empire's knights were several times stronger than the knights of any other kingdom, and more than that, the force marching now was a match for an entire nation on its own.
"Aww, she's adorable!"
"She's just a little kid?"
"The Empire sent a child?"
"Shh! That's a Nymph!"
"I know, I know. That's the otherworlder called Leo..."
Crowds pressed in around the Envoy Delegation as it walked boldly through the capital. The reason the imperial presence carried none of the expected menace was the small child at its center — an appearance far too cute to belong to a powerful 'enemy', far too young to be feared. Her beaming smile drew smiles from everyone who saw it, and her bright laughter lifted the mood of everyone who heard it.
"Make way! You mustn't block the road!"
"Do you actually want to die? Move aside, I said!"
But the knights of Talikal, who knew precisely how strong she was, were sweating as they struggled to control the crowd.
The otherworlder Leo. An undying immortal, the great spirit mage who had single-handedly annihilated the Proton Kingdom — the sword of the Empire. And one of her many epithets was the infamous Knight Slayer.
The nightmare of knights everywhere, one who had ground countless of their kind into dust with blades of wind. The knights threw themselves into crowd control, terrified of needless casualties, but the throng refused to thin easily. Talikal's capital was swollen with far more than its own citizens — people of rank and political sensitivity whom no knight could simply shove around. Without force, there was no holding them all back.
Then a ball came bouncing and tumbling into the delegation's path.
And chasing after it, pitter-patter, a small child. The crowd was so thick that no one could stop the little girl as she wove between people's legs.
"Mi– Mina!"
"Hm?"
The girl named Mina tripped over a stone and went sprawling — right in front of Leo, throwing her whole small body across the delegation's path.
In an instant, the air around Leo went cold.
"Oh..."
Their opponent was the Empire. A power whose prestige and authority reached the heavens, one that could invoke imperial law anywhere, anytime, at will — and refusal would change nothing. Refusal would simply mean the kingdom turned upside down. And Leo was a Marquess of the Empire, arrived here bearing its name and its will. Which meant, technically, this child had just committed the crime of obstructing the Empire.
The moment a golden knight at Leo's side reached for his sword, Leo looked back and forth between the girl and the knight — and then burst out laughing, bwahaha!
When that innocent laughter rang out across the frozen street, the knight stopped mid-draw. Leo bent down and picked up the ball.
"Playing ball here is dangerous, you know."
"I-I'm sorry..."
"No, no! It happens!"
Grinning, Leo stretched out her other hand and helped Mina to her feet. Then, with a soft vwooom~, a wind spirit swept over the girl, healing the scrapes on her arms and legs — even the little old ones that had been there before.
Leo handed the ball back, then used the wind to carry Mina safely through the crowd, waving her hand vigorously the whole way. Mina stared blankly for a moment before giving a small, solemn bow of her head.
"Let's move out!"
"Marquess. That child obstructed the Empire all the same. A fitting punish—"
"Oh, who cares? It's not like she'd wear out."
Strict and stuffy just isn't my thing.
"Besides, I think this time might actually be fun!"
A dragon bearing the power of glaciers. And the Professor — no, Lily.
The whole world was full of interesting things.
One by one, the dignitaries of each kingdom and the otherworlders filed into the lavish royal audience chamber. Under normal circumstances, this would have been the moment everyone threw themselves into final preparations for the raid beginning tomorrow.
But the arrival of the Empire's Envoy Delegation had thrown one enormous variable into every subjugation force assembled there.
'Leo. And the Empire.'
A dragon had just barged into the lions' hunting ground. The entire board would have to be swept clean and rebuilt from scratch.
Cre-e-eak...
And now, the heavy doors of carved hardwood groaned open, and the dragons entered.
Leo in magnificent robes, flanked by four golden knights standing guard around her. She swept her gaze around the room — and when it landed on me, she waved.
I gave a small wave back, and Leo nodded in return. Then, facing the whole assembly, she spoke.
"It's been so long, everyone!"
A sunny, beaming greeting. You can't spit on a smiling face, as the saying goes, so nobody actually cursed at her — but the reception was decidedly chilly. Naturally. Leo was a servant of the Empire, an outright enemy, and the chief culprit about to wreck the entire raid.
King Dria, master of this hall, returned the greeting.
"Welcome, otherworlder Leo. It seems this time you've come under the Empire's banner."
"That's right!"
"Given that you've arrived as an Envoy Delegation, I doubt this is a mere social call. What is the will of the Empire?"
Dria cut straight to the heart of the matter. And Leo, in turn, wasted no time on pleasantries either.
"It's simple! Our Empire 'has resolved to subjugate the dragon that will bring about the continent's destruction.'"
"What?"
"The Empire is joining the fight...?"
"Absurd! This is nothing but a scheme to invade our kingdom!"
Leo's nuclear-bomb of an announcement plunged the chamber into instant chaos.
The Empire did not speak falsehoods. When the Empire declared itself the strongest, it was the strongest; when the Empire said it would do something, it always did. And it possessed more than enough power to back every word.
"Objections will not be entertained! We will actively subjugate the dragon, and — ah — the additional forces that have yet to arrive will be entering Talikal as well."
"Just a moment! Who gave you the right to decide that?! You intend to march soldiers onto a foreign nation's territory?!"
"Well, you see—"
Leo turned her head toward the noble who had shouted. His hair blanched snow-white.
The moment Leo, one with the spirit of light, revealed her true form, the confused chamber was overwhelmed in a single breath.
"It's the will of the Empire."
"......"
"And... um, of course we won't just go barging about willy-nilly. The Empire isn't here to conquer anything."
The Empire is a sovereign overlord, not a pack of cowardly sneaks who stage false-flag ambushes, after all.
The Empire did not speak falsehoods. Which meant Leo's parting remark had to be true as well.
But still...
'Does that mean we should simply let the Empire in?'
Dria and the kingdom's high officials sank into grave deliberation.
'If it comes to force... no, could we even hold them back with force?'
Their opponent was Leo, counted among the very strongest of all otherworlders — the monster who had annihilated an entire kingdom alone. They had considerable forces of their own, Lily included, but if those additional troops arrived as promised, the equation changed entirely. And if even one of the Eight Swords were to come...
'Even if we held them off, this place would be left in ruins.'
Leo, noticing the frost settling over the chamber, fidgeted with her hands for no particular reason.
"I'm weally not gonna do thaaat~ Fow weal."
"...I shall choose to believe you."
"Yay! Oh, and Professor Lily!"
"...Me?"
At Leo's words, every gaze in the chamber swung toward me. Leo's eyes sparkled, wide and bright, without a trace of malice in them — pure, guileless eyes.
"Can I come see the Baby Hatchling later?!"