I Will Sit Upon the Throne
From that day forward, Seriel was changed.
The smile vanished from her face completely. The easygoing, cheerful Seriel was nowhere to be found — as if she had gone missing right there, on that very day, in that very place.
"We march for the Northern Grand Duchy."
Gathering her remaining followers, Seriel spoke.
"I will win the Northern Grand Duke's support and end this war. The road ahead will be harsher than any we have traveled. Those who do not wish to follow may leave now."
Not a single person rose to go.
A year of flight. Everyone who was going to leave had already left. Only the few who had sworn her their loyalty remained.
The old Seriel would have worn a satisfied smile. Instead, she spoke with a face emptied of feeling.
"Good."
It was a full month later that the Third Imperial Princess and her followers reached the Northern Grand Duchy.
Among the Five Grand Dukes, the Northern Grand Duke was the sole power that had shown no interest in the succession war and maintained strict neutrality. Lord of the rugged northern territories, and the strongest military force among the five — that he would become the keystone of this war was self-evident.
A year earlier, in the immediate aftermath of the Emperor's sudden death, princes and princesses alike had scrambled to claim him first. The Northern Grand Duke had held firm: he would side with no one.
And now the Second Prince was leaving him entirely unwatched. If they could take the Northern Grand Duke's hand, they might overturn the entire board in a single stroke.
"I have not yet asked him."
At the border of the Northern Grand Duchy, Seriel looked down upon those who followed her.
"If the Northern Grand Duke takes my hand—"
To draw him in meant only one thing.
It was as good as a declaration of war against the Second Prince — the brother who had slaughtered his own siblings.
Seriel, the Third Imperial Princess, declared that she would run no longer. That she would stand and fight. That she would claim the imperial crown and rise to the summit.
At her resolve to enter the war, the dimming light in her followers' eyes sharpened into clarity. Perhaps they had been waiting for this all along — for the seed that had slept through winter to endure the killing cold and finally put forth a shoot.
"Hail!!"
"The North swears its loyalty to Her Highness Seriel Adelin Acilion."
Without any particular negotiation, the Northern Grand Duke knelt before her. The reason, he said, was simple: until now, every offer had come by letter alone. No one else had set foot upon this harsh land in person.
"How do you find the North?"
"It is fierce."
Seriel and the Northern Grand Duke spoke as they gazed upon the vast mountain range that hung across the north like a curtain. Snow piled on the terrace railing, scattered by the knife-edged wind, then piled again.
"And a beauty without equal."
"Hahaha. Is that so."
At her frank and unadorned impression, the stern-featured Northern Grand Duke laughed — a laugh as pure and white as the snow itself.
A month after our arrival in the Northern Grand Duchy, winter came.
The northern knights liked to joke — the kind of joke that wasn't really a joke — that if we'd set out even a little later, we'd have frozen to death in the snowfields by now. That was how brutal a northern winter was. The base I'd served at in Cheorwon didn't even begin to compare.
"…Ricarton."
"Yes."
In the training grounds of the Pure White Knighthood, Seriel's hands were trembling. That was the signal that something very bad was about to happen.
To me.
"You've… advanced again, have you?"
"Wow~ Isn't that wonderful news?"
"Hold your tongue."
"Yes, ma'am."
This is exactly why I keep my mouth shut most of the time.
Thud! Thud!
"Ow! Aaagh!"
"Why! Why are you already ahead of me! A boy who's only been training for four years — how!!"
Beating me with her fists wasn't enough. Seriel drew her sword.
"Hoo—. Today we spar with blades. A duel to the death. Your Cores are restricted to one."
"Cough… Excuse me??"
"Here I come."
You're a two-Core knight.
Even in a life-or-death duel, I couldn't wound Seriel. That would be a capital offense.
…This was so goddamn unfair.
Nothing to be done about it. I was a commoner of unknown origin, and she was an imperial princess.
I barely managed to dodge every swing of her blade — and then she hit me again, because she didn't like that I was only dodging.
Her punches were not to be avoided. Last time I tried, she sulked so hard I went five days without a meal.
Crack!
"Gahk! It's broken! It's actually broken!!"
"You're still talking so freely — clearly you're fine!!"
One day in the depths of midwinter, Seriel issued an order to me and the other knights.
"Thousands of magical beasts are reportedly moving south near the great northern range. Assist the Pure White Knighthood and eliminate the threat to the territory."
"Hail!!"
I started to follow the knights out, then glanced back at Seriel. Her face was as expressionless as ever — but my eyes, those of a four-Core knight and fourth-Class mage, did not miss the faint tremor in her slender fingertips.
"Will you be all right without me?"
Thud.
A pure-white fist connected with my side. It didn't hurt.
"You are ten years too early to worry about me."
I drew a carefully folded scrap of paper from my coat and held it out to her. Not a love letter — a simple scroll with a formula inscribed in my mana.
"If anything happens, tear this paper. I will come at once."
"Such pointless fuss."
She narrowed her brow as if displeased, yet took it and slipped it into the pocket over her heart.
"Go."
"Yes."
Whoooo—.
"It's so goddamn cold…"
I had wrapped my entire body in fourth-Class heat magic, and the chill still punched straight through. Just how many degrees below zero was this?
"Princess's escort knight, lad. Can you still walk?"
The commander of the Pure White Knighthood, walking ahead, dropped back beside me. I was clearly the youngest and the smallest, so he must have been concerned.
"I think I'm going to die."
"Hahaha! Spirited, aren't you! So even at that age you're the princess's escort knight!"
"No, I really think I'm going to die."
"Hahaha! Your lips are still working just fine — you're clearly all right. The central troops could stand to learn from you. Hahaha!"
He clapped me on the back a few times and returned to his place.
No, I was genuinely about to die.
Why did people in this fantasy world never take what I said at face value?
…So I decided to shut my mouth again.
We pushed through snow that swallowed our legs for days on end, until we reached what had once been grassland. It was far too white to call a plain. Perhaps this was what the bedchamber of the earth goddess looked like — pure white hills for a pillow, an untrodden pure white meadow for a blanket, a scene that seemed to wait for someone to come and sleep.
"Whew. Do the northern knights get to live looking at scenery like this every day?"
"Hahaha! Look at this every day and you'd freeze to death! Where are you from, lad?"
"The West. Right next to the desert regions — it never snows."
"Heh heh. A desert, eh. I'd like to see one sometime."
While the knights rested among the rocks on the hill, they traded their various poetic impressions. To me, of course, it all looked like garbage — the kind that poured from the sky and had to be shoveled every single day.
Why was our unit the only one without a snowplow.
I heard the unit right behind us even got snowplow support from the transport corps.
I zoned out for a moment and slipped straight into old memories.
This isn't the time for that.
I shook my head, scattering both snow and thought. Crossing my legs, I focused my mana and turned my gaze inward.
The path leading to five Cores and fifth Class. I felt as if I could reach it with just a little more — and that almost-but-not-quite was driving me insane. Like walking a mountain trail at midnight with a blindfold on.
"Oh ho. Already peering into the next realm, are you."
The knight commander who had clapped my back earlier came and sat beside me.
"Hrm."
He watched my breathing in silence, then rose again.
"Listen here, princess's escort knight, lad."
"…It's Ricarton."
"Ricarton, lad. How about a spar?"
I understood his intent and opened my eyes.
"Gladly."
Just the two of us faced each other in the middle of the plain.
"Whew, getting a personal lesson from the Pure White Knight Commander himself. I'm jealous."
"Our commander's a genius himself, you know. Seeing a genius boy like he was in his youth must have him itching for a fight."
"Youngest knight ever, wasn't he?"
"Aye. And youngest Sword Master, too."
"What?"
"Is that all! Why leave out that he's a fourth-Class mage!"
"What!?"
True to their knightly nature, they packed mana into their voices, so even idle chatter carried all the way over here.
"Oh ho. You handle magic as well?"
"I do."
"I am Rubellion Graham Nostalgia, Commander of the Pure White Knighthood."
He gripped his sword in both hands at attention — hilt before his belly, tip pointed to the sky. A knight's salute.
I returned it in kind.
"I am Ricarton, escort knight of Seriel Adelin Acilion."
In age, experience, and skill, he stood above me in every way. But in one thing alone — the one we served — I stood higher. So I addressed him without deference, and he paid me his respects. That was also why I had not given my name first.
"…Even if I lose, I will not bow my head."
He laughed and nodded readily.
"I know, lad. Those who serve the Imperial House do not lower their heads to any other."
He lowered his gripped sword in a smooth glide. The motion was clearly slow — and yet I failed to catch it. When the tip touched the snow. When a snowflake settled upon the blade — or whether he had bloomed it from mana.
I missed it.
Why?
"Why, I wonder?"
He spoke as if reading my thoughts.
"What did you just miss?"
Or perhaps he was posing a question.
"Why could you not see it, lad?"
"…I don't know."
"The eyes."
Tap-tap—. He rapped his own temple.
"You're performing two acts in sequence — seeing with your eyes, then seeing again with the eye of mana. Highly inefficient. Or is it that you confirm with your physical eyes what you've already seen through the Mana Eye?"
"…Then shouldn't I have seen what just happened? I looked twice."
"Hahaha! That, we'll figure out from here on."
Ah, right — I hadn't mentioned it. The Northern First Sword, Commander of the Pure White Knighthood. His realm:
Six Cores.
"Lad."
From the very start, he opened four Cores.
KRAAAAAA—!!
A volume of mana and a crushing pressure I could not believe belonged to the same four-Core opening.
"Come at me with everything you have."
…If I asked him to go easy on me now, would he?
I was afraid. How much would it hurt to take that sword, that mana, head-on? I already knew: even at this distance, if he wished it, he could take my head. His mana alone set my hands and feet trembling beyond control. Sweat soaked the winter gear beneath my heat magic.
And even so—
"Hahaha! That's a fine look on your face."
I was having fun.