Calling Her Mother
Akina stepped out of the tent and surveyed her surroundings.
Fortunately, neither the soldiers nor the knights seemed particularly shaken. Of course they wouldn't be—the knights had already watched commoners die by the dozens, and the soldiers were hardened veterans of the civil war. A mere massacre of a few hundred was nothing to rattle them.
Especially since, more than once in their lives, they had all seen people who put useful knowledge from otherworlders to good use get beaten to death under the charge of Crime of Colluding with Otherworlders.
But Kaisent is different.
He might have grown used to fighting, yet he had never once experienced the slaughter of people who possessed neither the ability nor the will to resist. Having witnessed the massacre of helpless civilians, the shock would hit him hard.
And that one over there is a problem too.
Moving through the soldiers who automatically cleared a path the moment they recognized her, she turned her gaze toward Lillian. The helmet hid her expression, but even at a glance it was plain she was standing there in a daze—the shock must have been severe.
These people were supposed to have been her subjects, after all. That one will simply have to stand back up on her own.
She had already taken steps to ensure no further massacres would occur; she had done everything she could. If Lillian collapsed here, then that was all she had ever been worth.
Kaisent, however, was different. Strong as he was, he was still young, and there were many soft places left in him. She could not measure a child by the same standard as an adult; this part she would have to care for herself.
Heading for the Wolf Mercenary Corps, Akina asked where Kaisent was. Upon learning that he had vomited at the sight of the slaughtered civilians and then gone off in a certain direction, she let out a knowing sigh and set off after him.
When she finally found the tent where Kaisent was, she made her presence known, pushed the flap aside, and stepped inside.
"Ah… Lady Akina…"
"So this is where you were."
Arty was inside as well. For some reason Akina felt a flicker of irritation behind those inhumanly cold eyes of hers—and the feeling was perfectly accurate.
I finally had a chance to be alone with Master!
Arty had been filled with the desire to care for her master—not the usual master, but a master so shaken he needed someone's care. Now she understood exactly why humans sighed.
—Arty.—
I know. The interloper should leave.
Even without Artemis's words, Arty had already decided that the only person who could help Kaisent in his current mentally unstable state was Akina. She stepped out of the tent.
I know she has a self, but watching a golem act like a person still gives me the creeps.
She had kept secret the fact that Arty was a machine assassin sent to kill the leader who might become humanity's hope, yet a machine that thought and behaved like a person still stirred an instinctive unease. Lillian and the others had grown used to her and knew her leanings were thoroughly human-centric (or rather, Kaisent-centric), but to anyone who didn't know, she was simply unpleasant.
Thanks to Arty's consideration, Akina was now alone with him. She sat down beside Kaisent, who was crouched on the ground.
"……"
"……"
Rather than offer clumsy encouragement, she simply created an atmosphere for quiet conversation and waited for Kaisent to speak first.
"Lately I've been realizing all over again just how lucky I am."
"Otherworlders aren't easily trusted."
"Yes. If I had met anyone other than Lillian, I wouldn't be here right now."
Hm? Lately? Not today?
The moment the word "lately" instead of "today" left Kaisent's mouth, something felt off. Unaware that he had been tormented by the Third Prince, she assumed the shock had simply made him misspeak or scramble his vocabulary.
"Kaisent, about what happened today…"
"I know. That it wasn't your intention, Lady Akina."
The Akina he knew would never slaughter weak civilians for no reason. Feeling a deep trust settle in her chest, she got the impression that Kaisent was recovering from the shock more easily than she had expected.
"Honestly, today was a huge shock. But thanks to it, I was able to firm up my resolve."
"Resolve?"
"I'm sorry. I can't tell you what it is."
Kaisent had felt gratitude when Lillian declared she would reclaim the kingdom to protect him, but nothing beyond that. Building a nation was simply too vast in scale—unlike forming an organization. Yet between the Third Prince's affair and today's events, he had directly tasted this world's hatred toward otherworlders, and he had realized he could not remain a mere observer.
I can't leave everything to Lillian. This is my problem too, so I have to help.
And he had to create a place where Dang Seol-yeong—who had become a poisoner and been hated even in the world she came from—could live in peace.
"It seems I underestimated you. To think you would stand up on your own."
"I can't stay a child forever, can I?"
That mindset is admirable… yet it also makes me sad.
Akina felt a pang of pity at the sight of Kaisent rising without her comfort, declaring he could no longer remain a child. No matter how strong he was, he was still mentally immature—a child who needed protection. Her own daughters, at Kaisent's age, had still acted like children: playing, getting scolded, crying and laughing through peaceful days. That only made it worse.
But what exactly is this resolve aimed at?
Naturally, as a noble of the Halrot Kingdom, she could not be told of any plan to revive the Luciarkenel Kingdom. Personal friendship was private; matters of state were public.
"Still, thank you for coming. If you hadn't helped me, Lady Akina, I wouldn't have found my answer so easily."
"Mm…"
"Lady Akina?"
"Ahem. Your praise is excessive."
Looking up at her with a gentle smile, Kaisent made an intense desire to pull him into a tight hug surge through her before she even realized it.
What is this? He was always cute, but today he's even cuter!
The feeling was no temporary illusion. By granting Lilith the wish she had sought even after becoming a Lost Heroic, Kaisent had inherited a portion of her power through the Emblem System. The Demon King of Lust—who had been intersex—had been born with the natural ability to seduce anyone, man or woman. With the demon king's bloodline awakened and a fragment of Lilith's power added to his own, Kaisent could now entrance even powerhouses like Akina. Of course, it only worked because she already held affection for him.
"I should be going as well. Someone has to keep those fanatics from running wild."
"Um…"
"Hm? What is it?"
"If I say this… you might get angry…"
"What is it? I won't get angry no matter what you say."
"It's just… every time you help me, Lady Akina, you feel like a mother…"
"Mother…?"
"N-n-no! I mean! Thank you for helping me like a mother would!"
Aaaah! I'm insane! Why did I say something like that!
No matter how fondly she treated him, calling a woman who already had two daughters "mother" was going too far!
She's going to think I'm disgusting. What if she gets angry and tells me not to say weird things?
Swept up in the mood, he had blurted out something unnecessary and now berated himself.
Look at that! She's just staring at me in disbelief!
The sight of Akina gazing blankly at him with a dumbfounded expression only deepened his self-reproach.
But inside, she was reeling from a Big-Bang-level shock.
Mother. Mother. Mother.
It was a word she had heard countless times from her daughters, yet the way it left Kaisent's lips carried an entirely different resonance.
What is this? Why does it feel so sweet?
The voice that had called her mother was so sweet she could almost taste sugar on her tongue.
"I-I'm sorry…!"
"No, it's fine. Truly, it's fine."
"But…"
"I'm not angry. If anything… ahem. There's no telling what the Purification Knights might do, so I should be going."
If she continued the conversation any longer, her facial muscles would melt and she would make some strange expression against her will. Akina decided to retreat.
Forget son-in-law—I'll take him as an adoptive son. Once this war is over, I'll go through the formal procedures.
Plans and schemes no longer mattered. Whether he shyly called her "Mother" or smiled cutely and said "Mom," either was fine. The desire to be addressed by Kaisent with a maternal title had become impossible to restrain. She now had one more reason she absolutely had to win this war.
Only by winning could she happily take Kaisent as her adoptive son.
Her husband would object to a decision made without consulting him, but that didn't matter. He barely had any say within the family anyway.
"Then rest well."
With those words, Akina left the tent without looking back. Kaisent wondered if he ought to catch her and apologize properly, but she had exited with such force that he couldn't stop her.
Meanwhile, Arty—who had been waiting outside—noticed something odd when she saw Akina wipe the corner of her mouth with her arm.
What? It almost looked like she was smiling.
Her arm covered the area under her nose, yet analysis of the muscle movement above it showed she was smiling with one-hundred-percent certainty.
"Auuugh…"
When Arty went back inside, Kaisent was thrashing about in embarrassment, as if he had just remembered some cringeworthy middle-school dark history from after he grew up.
Artemis. What is this situation?
—It seems Master is about to gain an adoptive mother.—
?
Akina kept the Purification Knights penned in among her own soldiers as they marched. She had ordered the soldiers and knights to physically block the Purification Knights if they moved without orders, leaving no room for another sudden incident like the last one.
She would have liked to punish those who had moved with the Purification Knights as well, but they belonged to other territorial forces, and the offense was too minor for severe punishment. Deserting one's unit was a serious crime in a regular army, yet it did not apply the same way in a coalition of multiple nobles.
"This is strange."
After a full day of smooth travel, the soldiers setting up camp began to feel puzzled.
"Why aren't the enemies attacking?"
"Right? There were plenty of chances—while we were sleeping, while we were on the move…"
Having lived through a civil war, they could sense that several situations had been perfect for an attack, yet the Saryeong Kingdom had, with eerie restraint, never struck at those openings.
"What in the world is the Saryeong Kingdom thinking…"
"Quiet! Just get the camp set up already!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
The junior knights supervising the soldiers cut off the chatter and hurried them along. But the questions the soldiers carried were already spreading among the knights as well.
"The undead we purged in our own territory were a much harder fight than this."
"Same on our side. They kept popping out of the ground and giving us hell."
"I figured we'd be fighting every single day."
Those who had faced undead before had learned firsthand what happened when the dead were used maliciously. They felt relief that the worst scenarios they could imagine were not occurring—yet a strange unease came with it.
"What kind of scheme are they cooking up?"
"If it's this quiet, doesn't that mean they're preparing something big?"
The commanders naturally knew their men were worried. They themselves found the abnormal situation baffling.
Then, from far off, a sound like a signal arrow rang out and a massive light bloomed. Everyone seized their weapons and began scanning the surroundings.
They thought the undead's signature underhanded assault was finally beginning—yet what they witnessed was not an ambush, but a colossal hologram-like image.
Whether it was a recording or a live magical transmission was unclear, but the slender, beautiful voice that emerged from behind the fully enclosed helmet drew every gaze.
The knight called Sirin had accurately named the overall commander—proof that they possessed a certain degree of intelligence on the human world.
She had been about to step out of the frame when something seemed to occur to her; she turned back and glared into the image. Cold blue light flared within the dark helmet.
With those final words she left the frame, and the image ended.
Naturally, the first to fly into a rage were the Purification Knights.
"How dare they! Filthy undead speaking of pride!"
"They're nothing more than the world's refuse!"
Hatred of Outer God cultists and undead was a basic requirement for joining the Purification Knights; the mere idea of undead discussing pride and honor enraged them.
Akina and the more experienced commanders, however, wore grave expressions.
"Countess Akina! There is no need to listen to the words of filthy undead! They have revealed their own position—let us detour around them!"
"How much distance do you think an army this size can gain by detouring?"
"How can we trust the word of undead in the first place!"
The Purification Knight commander insisted they need not follow the undead's intentions. The one who pushed back, however, was not Akina but another territorial commander standing beside him.
"The problem is that we cannot simply ignore them."
"What…!"
"You explain it. Why we are in a checkmate."
Unwilling to spell out the obvious herself, she left it to the commander.
"If we refuse to move as they intend, the peace we have enjoyed until now will prove to have been a lie, and they will harass us by every possible means."
"That is irrelevant! You handle the small fry and we will deal with the strong undead!"
"For how long, exactly?"
"What?"
"We are living beings who must eat, sleep, and fight. They, on the other hand, are immortals who need neither food, stamina, nor sleep. With the Purification Knights' help we might hold out for a week, but what about a month or more?"
"Kh…"
The Purification Knight commander had no answer.
"The battlefield you fight on and the battlefield we fight on are of different scales, Commander of the Purification Knights."
With that, Akina sealed his mouth and looked around at the other commanders.
"Does anyone have another plan or opinion?"
"None… though I am not certain the undead will truly keep their word."
"They may be luring us into a trap…"
A few commanders considered the worst possibilities, yet—
"If we refuse their proposal, that is when hell begins."
"If they truly mean to fight us head-on, it is a good opportunity. We can finally gauge the real combat strength of the Saryeong Kingdom, which has remained unknown until now."
"We possess weapons drawn from the knowledge of many worlds. The Luciarkenel Kingdom may have captured some during its fall, but most were destroyed in the fighting—so we stand a chance."
Most agreed to a frontal clash, confident that their arsenal of advanced war weapons would keep them from losing.
"We maintain the route. Strengthen reconnaissance just in case."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Akina accepted Sirin's challenge of a frontal battle, yet—mindful of the Purification Knight commander's warning that it could still be a cunning undead trick—she ordered intensified scouting.
They told us not to slaughter civilians and to face them fairly. Could they actually have reacted to the Purification Knights massacring the people?
The confident voice that had come through the image made her increasingly certain that these were not mere undead, but beings possessed of reason with whom one could hold a conversation.