First Encounter / The Asius Army
Just as he had said, a crude encampment had been set up not far away.
There was no fence, no fortification of any kind — a place that felt as if it had been thrown together solely for the purpose of this meeting.
"Please wait a moment."
The messenger of the Asius Army spoke those words and disappeared into the tent.
I stood at Airen's side and whispered carefully to her.
"You don't need to be nervous. From her perspective, there's no reason to refuse our surrender."
Instead of answering, she slowly nodded.
In the way she looked at me, I could already read her trust.
And after some time had passed—
At last, from within the tent, the person who would become our new lord stepped out, accompanied by a single woman.
Long, elegant black hair that fell free down her back. Two eyes of different colors — one the deep blue of the sea, the other a bright sky-blue that stood in stark contrast. Her nose and lips sat in their places with the precision of a finely carved statue.
She was not the type whose presence as a woman announced itself through sheer physical force the way Airen's did, standing beside me — but every curve that should recede did, and every line that should emerge did. It was a beautiful figure that unmistakably carried a feminine grace. If one considered balance alone, I suspected more people would prefer her type.
Wow… she's gorgeous.
The moment I saw Baranga Yuuri Asius — Yuuri — I could not suppress my admiration. She was far more beautiful than I had imagined.
I already knew Yuuri's face. I had even chosen her and played through the game as her before. But just as it had been with Lin and Airen, the gap between the pixelated in-game graphics and a real face was considerable. Honestly, I found myself wondering whether she had ever been this beautiful.
And the woman beside her.
I recognized her without difficulty. In this game, there was only one general who always wore her teal hair in a ponytail and carried a bow wherever she went.
Epinel Rosencross.
One of the founding heroes of the Asius Army, and an S-Class General outstanding in both Martial Force and Command. Even among the subordinate officers of the "Asius Army — small territory, S-class officer pool," she was a face-of-the-faction general whose stats stood out. Looking at her in pixels, I had never noticed — but in person, a distinctly feminine allure radiated from her with surprising intensity. In terms of sheer exposure alone, her midriff and thighs were completely bare, with only her chest covered. Worldbuilding allowances or not, I had to admire the sheer nerve it took to wear something like that onto a battlefield.
Airen timed her movement to the moment Yuuri's footsteps stopped before her, dropping to one knee and bowing her head. I matched her pace as best I could and did the same.
"We present ourselves before Lady Baranga Yuuri Asius."
At Airen's words, Yuuri nodded and spoke.
"You're Airen Juliette?"
"I am."
"I've heard the rumors, but this is the first time I've seen you in person. To meet the red-haired lady knight Airen face to face — it's an honor."
Yuuri smiled, then turned her head slightly and looked down at me.
"And this one?"
"My name is Swen. I wish to defect to the Asius Army together with Lady Airen."
"…"
She regarded me in silence for a moment, then spoke in a tone like a girl who had just found something interesting.
"You… your hair is white, isn't it? For a young man, that's not a color you see often around here. Could it be… are you the 'White-Haired Mage' who split the sky and worked a miracle at the Brans Army fortress up north?"
…
That day when a meteor had fallen instead of lightning. Given how many eyes had been watching, I had naturally expected rumors about me to spread — but hearing the slightly cringeworthy title "White-Haired Mage" spoken to my face left me feeling oddly awkward.
But so what? As long as I held this title, if it made her want me, that was a good thing for me.
"It's embarrassing to admit, but yes, that's me. Though calling myself a mage is a bit of a stretch."
"Oh my. Is that so?"
Yuuri said this and covered her mouth with a small laugh. Not a mocking laugh — more the sound of someone who had found something genuinely interesting. She was a completely different type of person from Lin Brans, whose irrepressible undercurrent of something dark would occasionally seep through. If I were setting out to manipulate someone, Lin's style might actually have been easier to handle… but I couldn't stay under her if I wanted to save Airen.
"Let's see. Both of you want to surrender to our army?"
"Yes. Myself, Swen here, along with authority over the fortress and the thirty-eight thousand soldiers inside it."
Yuuri nodded, then asked carefully.
"Airen, and Swen. Listen carefully. Your proposal is such a good deal for us that we'd almost have no choice but to accept it. But people who drag their soldiers along, fortify a position, and then surrender the whole thing wholesale? That doesn't happen often. Think about it. If you're going to surrender, it's a lot less trouble to just get your own body out somehow and come over to our side. Sure, if you're surrendering mid-war because the battle's going badly, you might come in with your troops — but we're not exactly at war right now, are we? Relations aren't great, I'll grant you that."
Her words were entirely reasonable. The fact that things had gotten this complicated was largely because I had maxed out every possible benefit I could extract from the act of surrender, all in service of my goal of "shaking up the board in the central continent, where the Brans Army held the majority."
"So what I'm saying is… hmm."
As Yuuri hesitated, Epinel spoke for the first time.
"What Lady Yuuri is saying is that she cannot fully trust you. What if this is a deception dressed up as surrender? If the soldiers you've brought rise up from within, we would be in serious trouble. A fortress, soldiers, outstanding generals — this all sounds a little too convenient for our Asius Army."
In other words, they were afraid this surrender itself was bait — something that could become a Trojan horse. Well, the suspicion itself wasn't particularly strange. Here, I thought, the correct move was to honestly explain why we had to surrender.
"The truth is—"
At that moment, Airen gently placed her hand over mine as I was about to speak. It seemed to say, Leave this to me.
Right. In the end, she was the principal party to this surrender. It was only proper that she be the one to speak.
"I…"
Airen slowly closed her eyes. Then, opening them at the same measured pace, she looked up at Yuuri and spoke.
"From my lord… that is, from my former lord, Lady Lin Brans, I have been sensing an intense killing intent directed at me."
"Killing intent…?"
At Airen's confession, both Yuuri and Epinel looked startled. Of course they did. It was rare for anyone to harbor murderous intent toward their own subordinate general. But everything she said was the truth — and the powerful aura that truth carried was the kind of thing that could move people.
"Yes. She… dislikes me. She has passed the stage of mere hatred and resentment. She wants me dead."
"…What? I don't… really understand. You're Airen, right? The red-haired lady knight. Specialist in siege warfare. I know your name, at least. Most of the feudal lords probably know your name. Why on earth would she want to get rid of a general with that kind of reputation?"
"…"
Exactly. Why hate her this much? There was no reason needed to hate someone, people said — but Lin Brans was a woman who, across every worldline, killed Airen Juliette with absolute certainty.
"It is deeply shameful, but it is the truth. And so… in order to live, I am defecting to the Asius Army."
"Hmm…"
At that, Epinel turned her head toward Yuuri.
"Yuuri. Doesn't seem like she's lying."
"Hm?"
A newly learned fact: Epinel spoke to Yuuri in casual speech. It might have seemed minor, but it carried considerable weight. Her standing within the Asius Army was clearly very high.
"I told the spies we sent into the Brans Army to report everything, even the trivial rumors. And sure enough, that kind of talk does come up. Lin Brans hates Airen Juliette."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It didn't seem important enough to bother telling you. I mean, it was just gossip about another country."
"If we truly had some scheme behind this surrender, we might be able to inflict damage on the Asius Army — but the two of us would not survive it either. And just as the rumors say… Lady Lin Brans hates me. I want to live. I have no intention whatsoever of risking my life for her sake by ambushing Lady Yuuri's army."
"Hmm… so, surrendering to our army because you want to live…"
A person only had one life. Once you died, everyone met the same end, equally. There were few reasons that granted a surrender more legitimacy than simply not wanting to die.
"…All right. If that rumor is true, then Airen makes sense. But."
Yuuri turned her head and looked down at me.
"Swen. Why are you surrendering? If you just stayed with the Brans Army, you'd be on a rocket ride up the ranks. You're the mage who worked a miracle — they'd treat you well, wouldn't they? For someone like you to leave a reasonably large force like the Brans Army and come to a minor power like our Asius Army… doesn't that seem a little strange?"
In other words, she was asking me: Why are you doing something that only hurts you?
I had more or less expected a question like this, so I pulled out the line I had prepared.
"I came to the conclusion that Lin Brans was not a lord worth serving. That is — I judged that she did not fit the image of a sovereign who could take the world."
"Is that so?"
Her reply was ordinary enough, but I noticed it. The corner of Yuuri's mouth had lifted, just slightly, at those words.
"Yes. Just look at Lady Airen beside me. How could someone who treats a general of Lady Airen's caliber according to petty personal feelings, and fails to employ her properly, ever become the unifying sovereign who binds the continent into one? I want to serve the person who will become that unifying sovereign. Achieving great things only has meaning after you've chosen the right lord."
"Really? Then, turning that around — you're saying you think I am the one who will become the unifying sovereign?"
"I am."
She looked at me as I answered without hesitation, and a leisurely smile spread across her face. That should have been enough. But she still had another question for me.
"Really? Is that the only reason? Nothing else?"
"…?"
What was this? That look in her eyes, as if she were expecting something…
Until just a moment ago, what I had felt from Yuuri was the aura of a sovereign — different in texture from Lin's or Lunarien's. Their tones, their personalities, the way they treated me were all different, but each of them clearly carried the will of others on their shoulders. That presence had been unmistakable. But right now… she was looking at me not with a sovereign's eyes, but with a girl's.
…Don't tell me.
I carefully offered the answer I estimated she wanted to hear.
"I want to stay by Lady Airen's side, and protect her."
"…!!!"
At my words, Airen — still kneeling beside me — looked up at me in startled surprise. Her face flushed deep red as she floundered, not knowing what to do with herself… and honestly, it was rather cute.
And Yuuri, too — only after hearing that answer did she look satisfied.
"I knew it. Of course. What other reason would a man have for following a woman around? That makes sense. Heh heh heh."
"…"
"All right. Both of you, stand up, would you? Epinel, get that ready."
As we rose to our feet, Epinel went into the tent and came back carrying something. It was a basket containing two cups, liquor, and something that looked like a silver dagger. Epinel skillfully filled the cups while holding the tray, and Yuuri beside her took up the silver dagger, opened it—
"…!"
—and lightly cut her own finger. Then she let several drops of blood fall into the liquor.
"Here."
Airen and I accepted the cups. The clear rice wine was growing cloudy as her blood mixed into it.
"Drink it. With that, you become our family — people who have shared my blood."
…What a bizarre ritual.
Not that I had any right to talk, having once performed a sacrificial rite under the pretense of calling down lightning. But I was reminded, once again, that this place was real. Everything I knew about Yuuri from the game amounted to a few lines: "exceptional leadership that draws many people to follow her," "extremely close bonds with her companions," "a mid-tier lord with a weak foundation but a strong talent pool, suited for intermediate players." But of course — without meeting her in person, a few lines of character description could never fully capture who Yuuri really was.
I drained the cup lightly. Only then did Yuuri speak, her tone a little more solemn.
"Airen Juliette. And Swen. Welcome to the Asius Army. I, Baranga Yuuri Asius, will protect your lives with my own. Anyone who has shared my blood is my family."
Then she looked at Airen and said,
"I look forward to working with you, Airen."
"Yes! I will strive to live up to your expectations."
"…And I look forward to working with you too, Swen?"
Yuuri tilted her head slightly as she asked. I gave her a confident smile.
"I will make certain you never regret this decision."
And so Airen and I became members of the Asius Army.
In the end, I had succeeded in saving Airen Juliette. For that alone, I felt that passing through the Brans Army had been worth it.