The First Snow of the Northern Empire
The First Snow of the Northern Empire
The soldiers who arrived while Aslan was beating Valder senseless showed surprisingly little inclination to cause trouble.
If anything, they seemed to regard the whole affair as some kind of power transfer.
They clearly assumed Aslan intended to make himself Emperor.
Aslan, who had no desire whatsoever to become Emperor of the Northern Empire, explained that he had merely been verifying whether Valder was fit for the position.
How persuasive that excuse was remained unclear, but no soldier openly challenged it—perhaps because the man speaking had just beaten a monster to a pulp with his bare hands.
It sat uneasily with him, but Aslan tried not to dwell on it. Whatever the process, things had worked out.
'Worked out, yes... but the plan has gone off the rails.'
Aslan's original intent had been to put Valder to the question.
During that interrogation, if he determined Valder was no priest, he planned to either win him over or leave. If Valder was a priest, he meant to kill him.
Depending on how that played out, Fay would be responsible for summoning Angie and Ereta, who were outside feigning the presence of a large army.
While the gathered soldiers dispersed back to their duties and barracks, Aslan told Fay—who had been watching—to fetch Angie and Ereta, and instructed Valder to admit them into the fortress and keep the assembly hall cleared until further notice.
Valder departed without so much as a word of objection, and Aslan made his own way to the assembly hall.
There he waited until the entire party had gathered.
In the assembly hall—its wall gaping open, a cold hall where the winter wind seeped freely in—the party was fully assembled by the time the small hours arrived.
Beneath the dim sky, Aslan's account began—a briefing, essentially.
By the time that briefing ended, dawn was breaking.
Rumel was nodding off, her head bobbing with exhaustion. Tiyamal had long since curled up like a dog in front of the brazier and fallen asleep, but the rest of the party remained awake.
What followed the briefing was a discussion of their next move.
Aslan spoke up.
"From what I can tell, the blessed ones are, at minimum... artificial heroes created through improved monsterization."
"Improved monsterization?"
The question came from Ereta. Aslan nodded to the white-haired woman resting her chin on her hand and replied.
"I don't know the exact term, so that's just what I'm calling it. But do you know what ordinary monsterization entails?"
"Yes. Simply turning into a monster, isn't it? Mindless, indiscriminate, and if left alone, they barely survive two weeks before dying. Correct?"
Ereta was a former high priestess, so her explanation cut straight to the heart of it.
Angie, watching Aslan nod, twisted her lips in distaste.
"Disgusting. Using people like that..."
"That is precisely the advantage of the monsterization power. Used against an army, it inflicts psychological shock, and a single human life produces a mindless monster that remains useful for two weeks. That's why Self-Birthing Mother's priests are so troublesome."
Ereta spoke in a lilting, melodic tone as she inspected her fingernails.
It was Fay who responded to that indifferent expression.
"Yeah, they're a pain. They heal fast, and even when you cut them, the pieces tend to reattach. You have to cut deep or tear them apart. A real hassle."
The blood-haired Elf, tilting back and forth in her chair with a creak, delivered the assessment.
Angie, looking slightly abashed, seemed ready to leave it at that.
"But you called it improved. What exactly was improved?"
"They retain their reason. Closer to priestification, but more stable."
"An improvement that discards every existing advantage... I can't fathom the scheme behind it."
"...That's exactly the point."
Richard asked and Aslan answered, the exchange passing quickly between them.
As Richard had astutely noted, the defining feature of improved monsterization was precisely that its purpose remained inscrutable.
Aslan, who hadn't expected anyone to catch on that fast, let honest admiration show on his face. Richard scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"Oh, the kid's sharp."
"This is all thanks to my senior and you, Aslan..."
"Don't call her your senior. Want me to hit you?"
"...Yeah, sorry."
He shrank back and went sullen immediately, but Richard had put his finger on it—this monsterization was strange, particularly because its purpose defied easy guesswork.
But it wasn't the problem to solve right this moment. Aslan looked away from the two of them and tapped his fingers against the table.
The clear sound of dark fingers striking wood drew every gaze at once.
"At any rate, to continue... I believe there are priests among those blessed ones. And the imperial mages pulling the strings behind them will all be priests."
With the party's attention still fixed on him, Aslan withdrew his hand and continued.
"If all we needed to do was crush a conspiracy or simply hunt down and kill every priest in the Northern Empire, it would be far simpler. But it's not going to be simple."
"So what do we do, then? Beat down all the ringleaders too?"
Angie chimed in with a straightforward suggestion. Aslan gave a faint smile and shook his head at her words.
"Can't do it that way. I need the Northern Empire. Specifically... I need a Northern Empire that's unified and part of the broader alliance."
Angie's expression shifted from disappointed to troubled at that firm statement. Aslan, watching her face, added.
"And our objective isn't to kill priests or smash priestly conspiracies."
Angie wore a puzzled look. Rumel, who had briefly stopped dozing, was pressing her cheek to the long table as she fought off sleep. Ereta and Fay simply blinked at him, while Richard had sunk into deep thought.
Aslan swept his eyes over his party as he spoke.
"Those are just steps along the way. A path we have to travel, not the goal itself. If we get buried in the process, the goal itself might fail."
"Then what do we do?"
Ereta tilted her head as she asked. Aslan smiled faintly at her and answered.
"We'll have to unify the Northern Empire ourselves."
That statement drew a reaction only from Richard. His eyes went wide with bewilderment before he managed to speak.
"...We will? I mean, is that even possible? This is still an empire, you know..."
"Empire in name only. They claim succession from the Ancient Empire, that's all. In reality, it's a kingdom at best."
"Even so, we're supposed to unify an empire by ourselves?"
"Yes. Because that's the easier path."
At the words easier path, Richard's expression grew even more perplexed. Aslan studied his party as he explained.
"Distinguishing which warlords are priests and which aren't, who's entangled and who's clean—it's impossible. Even if it were possible, the difficulty would be extreme and the chance of failure would only grow."
And even if such distinctions could be made, a problem remained. There would be no certainty in them, and no trust either. Betrayal could come at any moment. In short, there were too many variables.
"So we're better off acting directly. Faster and simpler that way."
"...Then, what do we do, specifically?"
This time it was Rumel who asked. The woman with her cheek to the table, eyes heavy with sleep, voice low and husky.
Aslan smiled slightly and answered.
"We'll use Valder."
Valder. The temporary master of this fortress and a hero born of improved monsterization. A Northerner who regarded Aslan as his sworn enemy.
Richard glanced briefly at the floor where he himself had slammed Valder down earlier, then said.
"That... can we trust him? No suspicions?"
Meeting those worry-filled gray eyes, Aslan nodded. Before Richard could even ask why, Aslan spoke first.
"Valder's actions held nothing but emotion. There was no cunning in them."
Richard and the others, failing to grasp it at once, wore expressions of puzzlement. Aslan looked at them and elaborated.
"He had no idea what kind of being I am. He only knew me as his enemy. That's where I became certain—Valder is not on the priests' side."
"Couldn't he have just been pretending?"
This time the question came from Angie, her expression still perplexed. Aslan folded his arms, naturally shifting his gaze away from the emphasized contours of her chest, and shook his head.
"No reason to. If he were in league with the priests and meant to deceive someone like me, he wouldn't have attacked."
"He might've thought he had a chance..."
"After I took down the Sword of the War God?"
"...Ah."
Understanding dawned, and Angie let out a soft exclamation.
Aslan reflected inwardly.
There was no way anyone connected to a priest of Self-Birthing Mother wouldn't recognize the man who had felled the Sword of the War God.
A priest or a blessed one allied with the priests who knew that news would have approached cautiously—or with open friendliness—rather than attacking.
In that sense, Valder was trustworthy.
The fact that he had charged in recklessly, baring everything to avenge his father, had in itself become his alibi.
Through the gap in Aslan's thoughts, Rumel spoke, rubbing at her sleepy eyes.
"What if he's hiding something, like that bastard Tormule?"
A fair point. Fortunately, Aslan had already considered it.
"Precautions are already in place. A single priest or an artificial monster in a priest's grip—we can manage that easily enough."
Everyone present was at a level where they could hold their own or win against a hastily-made priest in single combat.
Fay, now fully integrated as a companion, could probably handle several priests entirely alone.
At that appended explanation, Fay smiled with full confidence.
"That's right. Fay is cute and strong. Just trust Fay."
The Elf girl struck a triumphant pose, hands on her hips. Once the Elf had finished, Aslan added.
"So we're going to make Valder into Emperor. We'll use Fay to manage Valder, and with Valder as the axis, we'll unify the Northern Empire. Starting with Velus Nelesa."
The party raised no objection to the plan. By now, they were running short on objections to offer under such a thorough explanation.
As the party settled into quiet acceptance, Aslan continued.
"The first step of that plan, naturally, begins with devouring the nearby factions. We need to absorb them as intact as possible..."
"Should I go smash them up?"
Angie grinned, clenching a fist. Aslan shook his head with a pained expression.
"That would cause heavy casualties. We wouldn't be able to absorb them intact. That's why Rumel's role becomes important."
Having been called out so abruptly, Rumel—who had been dozing with her cheek on the table—jerked awake.
Aslan met the eyes of the bewildered woman and smiled.
"In that sense, the easiest faction to devour is one that's among the smallest in the area, easy to digest, and lacks any significant prior reputation or achievements."
The gathered party turned their full attention to Aslan. Feeling those gazes, he opened his mouth to speak.
"A faction that has explosively swelled its ranks since monsterization began, and its leader—Red Mane..."
Creeeak.
The assembly hall door swung open mid-sentence, and Aslan fell silent.
The figure slipping through the doorway was Valder.
He had already fully recovered, all traces of the earlier beating erased, and he was looking at Aslan with eyes that held both fear and hatred.
"Did I not tell you not to come unless something special happened..."
The would-be Emperor spoke haltingly. Aslan, hearing those words, recalled what he himself had said earlier.
He collected himself and turned his head. The sound of commotion was carrying in from outside.
"...Now that you mention it, it's noisy outside. What's going on?"
"Er... it happens often enough that I debated whether I should come to you or not... Red Mane's army has arrived."
Aslan's brow furrowed at those words.
"Why have they come?"
"I assume it's the usual. They show up frequently to provoke us, or challenge us to duels, that sort of thing..."
A familiar story, then. A ploy, most likely, to inflate their own reputation and expand their influence outward from this fortress.
To judge by how routine it seemed, Valder—nervous as he was—was still trying to handle it calmly.
"I was going to ignore them as we always do... but you ordered me to report, so I came. I mean... I can deal with it myself, so you can just carry on with what you were..."
He was clearly afraid—the beating had left an impression—but still trying not to be a nuisance.
Aslan stared at the cowering giant for a moment, then raised a hand.
"Wait."
Valder flinched violently and stopped.
He even reflexively raised his arms into a defensive stance.
A pitiable sight, but not one worth dwelling on.
There were other matters requiring attention. Ignoring the man's wretched demeanor entirely, Aslan spoke.
"Let them in."
"...Uh, what? Let them... in?"
Valder frowned in confusion, then met Aslan's eyes and swallowed a strangled breath.
Aslan looked away from Valder and turned his head toward Rumel.
The woman was braiding her hair with sleep-laden eyes.
She tilted her head in response to Aslan's sudden teal gaze.
"Rumel, I think it's time to give that role I mentioned a demonstration."
"Akh— ahem. When you say role...?"
She cleared her throat, her voice still husky. Aslan smiled sheepishly and added.
"A duel."