Oh, You're Here?
“Ah, you're here?”
Lily had come and gone, and the five remaining Archangels around the round table were still reeling from the bombshell she'd dropped on her way out.
Sword God and the Eight Swords.
The idea that such powerhouses would exploit the Siege Warfare to swallow the entire continent had never crossed their minds. To think that Lily — so famously difficult to even get an audience with — hadn't merely offered to help them, but had committed herself in the name of the Angel Guild against the Empire itself...
“Yeesh.”
“What the hell just happened?”
Uriel and Sandalphon exchanged a hollow laugh. Barely thirty minutes ago they'd been floating on cloud nine, and now it felt like they'd plunged off a rollercoaster straight into the deepest trench of the sea.
“...So what do we do?”
Uriel turned the question toward their leader. Michael held his silence for a moment before answering.
“It's already been decided.”
“I know Lily gave her answer before she left — I'm asking what we do next.”
Lily had walked away from that table with her proposal accepted, her terms confirmed. From now on, the moment the siege began, she would fight under the Angel Guild's banner as their mercenary, against the Empire. Ideally they'd hold the line and do nothing more, but knowing what Lily had said — and knowing her temperament — there was no chance she'd settle for defense alone.
“She warned us about the Empire's invasion, and she agreed to stop it. That deserves nothing but gratitude. Because if everything she said is true, we were going to be ground down and used up completely.”
No matter how proudly the Angel Guild trumpeted itself as the strongest, the best, no one knew the limits of their own power better than they did. From the instant they learned that Sword God and numerous members of the Eight Swords were coming, defeat had already been assumed. Even if the enemy came at them head-on rather than by ambush.
“I just... ah. Look, I love Lily, but this is honestly...”
“Uriel. Calm down.”
“...Sis.”
Gabriel poured holy light over Uriel, whose hair she had clawed into complete disarray. Slightly clearer of mind, Uriel gradually recovered her usual self.
“Whew... Right. Nothing we can do about it now.”
“Lily's proposal was more than reasonable. We were fated to lose, and thanks to her, we've been given hope.”
Lily was stronger than Leo — and by most people's reckoning, likely stronger even than Sword God himself. With someone like her at their side, even the Empire would find it impossible to take the Angel Guild down easily.
“We've received help. Now it's our turn to help her.”
“You mean we march on the Empire too?”
Sandalphon asked. Apart from the newly arrived Raguel, the Seven Archangels spoke casually among themselves — but there was exactly one person to whom that informality did not apply: Gabriel.
The eldest member of the Angel Guild, and its only Saintess. Her penalty might have been mild, but this was a restriction Michael had put in place out of consideration for her.
“......”
Of course, Michael never bothered honoring it himself.
Gabriel shook her head.
“As Lily herself said, she will call on us separately if she needs help. All we have to do is hold our own defenses.”
“Then I'm rewriting the entire plan. Every offensive operation is cancelled, effective immediately.”
At Michael's words, everyone nodded. Originally, the Angel Guild had intended to declare siege battles against other kingdoms' guilds as well — not for conquest, but simply to farm score and resources from the event. But with a large-scale invasion looming, they needed every scrap of fighting power they could spare.
“Should we call Raphael in too?”
Raphael was one of the Seven Archangels, but he was also a pro gamer on one of the DCK's top three teams.
At Uriel's suggestion, Sandalphon and Michael both shook their heads.
“Nah. The kid's on a roll lately. Calling him away would be a bit much.”
“Agreed. The guild comes first, sure, but he's got things that matter to him too. We should respect that.”
To the Archangels, nothing mattered more than the guild — but the Angel Guild, at its core, respected each member's personal affairs as well.
“Besides, going by what Lily said, it won't even come to that. Unless the Empire is actually trying to conquer everything.”
“Haaah... how did it ever come to this?”
“Maybe it was always inevitable.”
The Eden Federation — intimately entangled with the Empire, yet still the second-greatest power on the continent. The collision between these two may have been written in the stars from the start.
“By the way, what the hell is Metatron doing?”
“If he shows up, I'm locking him in the punishment room.”
“Lock him in for real. Or better yet, just kill him. We're at this point and the man still won't show his face.”
“......”
The days after I secured my promise with the Angel Guild passed in a blur. Before I knew it, the siege was only a day away, and people spent every waking hour waiting for it to begin.
Yena had been sulking about the fact that I wasn't affiliated with the -Ye- Guild, but when I gave her a small preview of what was coming, her expression twisted into one of utter horror.
‘...Are you serious?’
‘I am. Your guild is in the south, so you'll be spared the worst of it — but just in case, be prepared.’
Sword God would strike the north, where the Eden Federation stood. Leo would attack the west, where the notably powerful kingdoms were clustered. Yena's guild, by contrast, sat in the south — squarely outside the Empire's targets.
If the Empire's plans went off without a hitch, Yena's guild would eventually be in danger too, but...
‘They promised it wouldn't go that far.’
Leo and Arne had given firm assurances: unless something went catastrophically wrong on Sword God's end, their advance would end in the west.
On top of that, Leo had made her position unambiguously clear — even if everything fell apart, she would never attack Yena's castle.
‘Even if the Empire pressured her, she said she'd betray them?’
It was an open declaration of treason against the Empire — but then again, when one of the Great Dukes, the Spirit Deity Duke herself, had been plotting to strike a fellow Great Duke from the very beginning, nothing about it felt particularly surprising.
Who to betray, who to use...
For a kingdom claiming to be the mightiest on the continent, they were one thoroughly crumbling coalition.
Anyway, Yena had taken it on the chin and thrown herself into her streams and siege preparations, while I quietly ran my usual Daejeon broadcast.
“...Anyway, the siege is finally tomorrow.”
“Who knows? Spoiling it in advance would ruin the fun, so you'll find out on the day.”
I hadn't made any major statements about the siege over the past week. I never drove a stake through the ground saying I wouldn't participate, but I never confirmed my involvement either.
Of course, that had nothing to do with hiding my intentions from the Empire.
‘It's not like I could hide it anyway.’
I was a streamer, and the moment I joined the Mock Siege Battle, my participation in the real thing was all but settled. The Siege Warfare was the core content of DeoEn, and last year's broadcast had drawn a 41% viewership rating — a roaring commercial success.
From the viewers' perspective, my participation was probably a given. The real question mark was: whose side would I fight for?
“Heh heh. Everyone's got such interesting theories.”
After taking a good long read of their reactions and guesses, I smiled and launched into my sign-off.
“See you all tomorrow, then. I might stream a little early?”
“Whew...”
After ending the stream, I looked around at the quieted room, then turned my gaze to DeoEn's dark night sky. Truly, an achingly beautiful night sky.
“...Now that I think of it, Black Moon is in the west, isn't it?”
The west was home to quite a few guilds, but the strongest among them was, of course, Black Moon. A top-tier guild led by Vlack, Rank 8. Led by a sizable roster of rankers, they boasted influence in the west rivaling even the Eden Federation.
And much like Sword God's objective, Leo's first target was Vlack's castle.
I mulled over the two of them — both of whom I was on friendly terms with — for a moment before looking back up at the night sky.
‘It shouldn't be an issue, right?’
I had a personal friendship with Vlack, but not with his guild. If anything, the opposite.
‘Taebaek.’
Black Moon's vice guildmaster, who'd stared at me with those unpleasant eyes during the mock battle. Unpleasant looks I could tolerate — I was used to them — but the Mythic-grade Flute of the Abyss, with its stat-crushing debuff, had left a considerably worse taste in my mouth.
It had dredged up memories I'd deliberately sunk beneath the surface.
‘Honestly, I hope they get smashed to pieces.’
“I suppose... it's time to get ready.”
The dawn of the day the siege would begin.
An early-rising bird snatched its breakfast and soared off into the sky, while across the continent, castles bustled with preparations for war. In the real world, it was just now the hour when broadcast crews began setting up their coverage.
I visited the Marquis's residence one last time before the siege started.
Slipping into the estate undetected through perception obstruction, I made my way to the office just as Leo had described, and pulled a single book from a shelf well beyond the reach of her small frame.
Grind... grind... graaand...!
The bookshelf slid sideways, revealing a dark staircase leading down into the underground.
I descended the stairs slowly. The underground, pitch-black at the top, gradually filled my vision with pale brown walls and row upon row of adorably quirky little spirit statues the deeper I went.
A cozy burrow.
“......”
Even the stairs are cute down here.
When I reached the bottommost floor, a small child was absorbed in something, utterly engrossed. Her concentration was so endearing that I simply watched her for a while — until she finally sensed a presence and turned her head.
“Ah, you're here?”