Two Days to War
Training continued in the shadow of the Northern God's shrine.
Simon wore Pier, gripped the Greatsword of Ruin, and closed his eyes.
“!”
Then his eyes snapped open, and he swept the greatsword in a wide arc.
⟨ Karl Original – Venom Yaksha ⟩
Khwang! Khwang! Kwe-ang!
Hounds wrought of lethal poison erupted skyward along the path of Simon's swing, then came crashing down.
Simon spun his body through another full rotation as if linking the move into a combination, and swung a second slash timed to meet the descending hounds.
⟨ Karl Original – Venomous Blast ⟩
This time a crescent of sword energy shot outward, and the descending Venom Yaksha shattered against it. Poison sprayed in every direction, and trees across the field could be seen melting into hideous, twisted shapes.
“Ngh.”
Simon lowered the greatsword.
“Harder than I thought.”
The Managers bound to a legion by direct contract did not possess any special Geheim. What Pier had instead was the power of Karl the Plague Beast, absorbed into the Greatsword of Ruin — and so Simon was training to master that power.
[Khehehe! Don't be so impatient, boy! Even Karl himself needed time to perfect this technique.]
“Yes, sir!”
Simon raised the Greatsword of Ruin once more and brought it up with a grunt. After several more swings, the training came to an end. Wiping his damp hair with a towel, Simon looked up at the sky.
I'm still not enough. More. More.
The Northern God possessed no combat ability of its own. There were those who claimed that with the Three Brothers gone, the Northern God was nothing — but Simon thought differently.
In the past, there had been Grand Dukes who defeated the Three Brothers, but never once a Grand Duke who defeated the Northern God itself. And in the end, his father Richard had settled not on destroying the god, but on simply defending the North.
This would be no easy fight.
I have to get stronger.
Just as Simon steeled himself with that resolve—
-Kiririk!
A Corpse Spider came wobbling toward him. Simon looked down, wondering what was the matter, and it shuffled sideways step by step, wiggling its rear end.
Recognizing the signal, Simon removed Pier's helmet.
“Looks like a messenger's arrived. I'll go check it out.”
Since he had already reported their presence here to the butler Godric, there was no need to keep pretending to be the Grand Duke. Simon stepped forward to wait, and before long a mounted messenger came galloping in.
“Report! I bring a report! Ah — disciple of the Grand Duke!”
“The Grand Duke is training inside. If you have a message—”
“It's a disaster!”
The messenger's voice rose, sweat streaming down his face.
“The Kingdom army struck first! They've already marched out for the Frost Field!”
“!”
Simon's expression hardened in an instant.
“I'll go at once!”
It was a catastrophe large enough to shake the entire North.
In the dead of night, while everyone slept, frontline commander Romario had marched the Kingdom army out. Chronos had laid illusion curses across the entire camp and the marching route, and Count Boldmont had secretly opened the castle gates.
Everything had slipped away in the blink of an eye. The merchants who first discovered the scene confirmed a trail of footprints leading out beyond the gates.
The North erupted, and an emergency council was convened at once in the Grand Duke's castle.
Generals and elders, administrators and cadets, even a handful of residents — nearly a hundred people packed the council chamber. Simon, of course, sat beside the Grand Duke, reading the room.
The atmosphere was a complete mess.
At the news that the Kingdom army had stolen a march on them, the warriors glared at one another with reddened faces, veins bulging in their necks as they roared.
“We have to catch up to those damn bastards right now!”
Grand General Ganiro, the second-most powerful man in the North, raised his voice.
“They're after the Northern God, without a doubt! We bled to kill the Three Brothers and paved the way, and now they mean to steal the credit for themselves!”
Crash!
Ganiro slammed his fist on the round table, his blazing eyes sweeping across those around him.
“If the Northern God is destroyed at the Kingdom army's hands like this, vast authority over the northern territories — the Frost Field included — will fall into the Kalos Kingdom's lap. We must rally our forces now and hunt them down!”
“Calm yourself, Grand General.”
This time it was an elder of the North who spoke.
He looked quite old and weathered, yet his broad shoulders and dense frame still carried the bearing of his warrior youth. Indeed, he had once been a Grand General himself.
“What we're planning isn't a brawl — it's a war. And nothing is ready yet.”
“Elder!”
“The merchants arrive with weapons, arrows, and provisions two days from now. The warriors guarding the outlands return in two days. Shearing the wool for winter garments at the ranches takes until two days from now. And above all—”
The elder looked at the Grand Duke.
“The Grand Duke's 2nd Legion has only just returned from the Frost Field. If it were up to me, I'd want months of preparation and then some, but since the Grand Duke has decreed this must be settled within two weeks, even that is the bare minimum we could set. To chase the Kingdom army on sheer blood-heat, with nothing prepared—”
He set his elbow on the round table and laced his fingers together.
“—is suicide.”
“What nonsense are you spouting, Elder!”
Ganiro glared at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Look at the situation! The North has fought the Northern God for centuries! Are you saying we should just hand the god over to them?”
“I'm telling you not to act rashly, young Grand General.”
“We northerners could hold out on the Frost Field for weeks more without your precious supplies! You did the same in your warrior days! Eating monsters while—”
“And that's how—”
Thud.
The elder propped his leg up onto the round table. Below the knee, there was nothing.
“—I ended up like this.”
“……”
“I survived tearing the flesh off comrades frozen dead on the Frost Field. With proper preparation, there would have been no needless sacrifice. And Grand General — you're overlooking one thing.”
The elder bit down on the pipe he'd lifted to his lips with his fingertips and went on.
“They don't know the road to the Abyss, where the Northern God dwells. They may have charged ahead out of haste, but it's a blunder.”
“What if—”
Every head in the chamber turned toward the voice.
The large man who'd cut into the exchange between Grand General Ganiro and the Grand Elder was none other than a blue-haired boy.
“What if that information was leaked? Shouldn't we consider that possibility too?”
“!”
The elder's face froze, and Ganiro's brow furrowed.
“Impossible. The only ones present were His Excellency the Grand Duke, myself, the Elder, Butler Godric, and General Blota. Five, no more. Guest of the Grand Duke or not, if you mean to insult the North's solidarity—”
“Outsiders aren't always wrong, though.”
Every voice in the room stopped.
A young man with ash-gray hair was strolling toward them. With the banner of the North slung over his shoulder, he gave Simon's arm a light tap and winked.
Ganiro's face twisted.
“Stand down. This is no place for a cadet.”
“Ha, bullshit. There's none of that crap up here. The one who fights well is the one who counts, no?”
The young cadet, bold as brass, marched right up and dropped himself onto the round table without ceremony.
“I just came back from paying a visit to Count Boldmont's estate.”
Everyone fell silent and stared at him.
“The Count's gone. Nothing left but rabble. His soldiers and his most treasured servants have all vanished without a trace. He's attached himself to the Kingdom army.”
He shrugged.
“You all know firsthand what kind of rat that man is. All that big talk about being for the North's sake — but really, he only ever latches onto whichever side profits him.”
Looking at Simon, he added that eight-tenths of the North's current distrust of outsiders traced back to Count Boldmont.
“And now that rat's joined the Kingdom army. Think about what that means.”
Whoom!
The young cadet's banner whipped out violently — and froze just before it struck the round table. The hair of every elder seated nearby rose, then settled.
“The Count knows the road to the Abyss! Which means the information leaked — to him.”
The cadet's eyes moved.
Toward Godric, Ganiro, the Elder, and General Blota — the ones besides the Grand Duke who had attended that meeting.
“Which means one of the four is a traitor who slipped the information to Count Boldmont.”
Murmur murmur murmur!
The chamber's atmosphere turned uglier still. Blood vessels flushed red across Ganiro's face, and the elder let out a long sigh.
And at that very moment—
“Enough!”
At last, the Grand Duke spoke. At the sound of her voice, the chaotic chamber plunged in an instant into a silence so deep one could hear a pin drop.
“Pull yourselves together, you fools! What we debate in this room is war against the Northern God.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Will fracturing among ourselves on the eve of battle accomplish anything?”
The warriors' blood-heat cooled by half.
She crossed her legs with a charismatic motion and rested her chin on her hand.
“Grand General. Your counsel.”
“Yes! Grand Duke.”
The moment of final statements had come.
Grand General Ganiro bowed his head respectfully.
“If the route to the Abyss has leaked to the Kingdom army, then we have less time than ever to sit here! We must scrape together whatever forces can move and pursue them from behind!”
The Grand Duke turned her head.
“Elder. Your counsel.”
“Will rushing the rice make it cooked? Even this two-day window for departure is a spareless minimum. What matters as much as the strength the warriors wield is the foundation that lets them fight at all. The Kingdom army will slip in its haste — so we must stand unmoved and depart as scheduled. That is my counsel.”
Having heard every statement, the Grand Duke slowly closed her eyes.
A heavy silence settled over the chamber once more.
On this judgment of the Grand Duke, the North's fate would be decided.
“Disciple.”
Then, unexpectedly, she called on Simon.
Simon, who had been sitting quietly in his seat, jolted and straightened his back. He'd never imagined being called on at a moment like this.
“Ah — yes!”
“Speak.”
More than a hundred people in the chamber began fixing Simon with fearsome, unblinking stares.
-Tell them to chase the Kingdom army.
-Tell them to stick to the scheduled departure.
He could feel their clashing wills pressing in from every side.
Simon swallowed hard and sank into careful thought.
“Our greatest asset right now—”
“?”
Simon looked at the Grand Duke as he continued.
“—would be Hate and the 2nd Legion. And no one understands their condition better than you, Grand Duke.”
Ganiro's and the warriors' expressions contorted spectacularly — and yet, unable to offer a single rebuttal, they could only stew. The Grand Duke burst into a thoroughly satisfied laugh.
In the silence, her laughter rang out alone.
“It is decided.”
At last, she rose from her seat.
“For hundreds of years, our North has endured, waiting only for the day we could strangle the Northern God's throat. And now, at the last, we cannot wait two days more?”
Ganiro bowed his head deep, and the elder stroked his beard with satisfaction.
She continued.
“We will not be swayed by the Kingdom army. Within these two days until departure, we will face the Northern God in the fullest condition we can achieve. The 2nd Legion will likewise complete its preparations within that time. Let all assembled attend to every matter with meticulous care, that nothing be wanting. That is all.”
Every person in the chamber rose.
“Yes! Grand Duke!”
The decisive battle was set for two days hence.
What was decided would not be changed — and so now all had to move as one heart. The people dispersed quickly from the chamber, each to their own preparations.
“If anything—”
As Simon moved to leave the council room, he caught the elder's murmur.
“—I hope they are not too weak.”
“……?”
Simon stopped in place and blinked.
Cheeky old man.
Just then the Grand Duke approached and laid a soft hand on his shoulder.
“I've bought us a little time. Straight back to training.”
“Ah — yes!”
“And pay the Kingdom army no mind.”
Her sharp, raptor-like eyes closed slowly, and the alluring tear mole beneath one stood out.
She shared much the same view as the elder.
“They've dug their own graves.”