The Dodo Bird That Leaps Off a Cliff
Diana had been curious about Rai's true identity for a long time. The miraculous skill he had displayed when he saved Emilia was a spectacle she could never forget — so overwhelming that she wondered whether even the Empire's finest knights could stand against him. His conspicuously paltry résumé, which looked entirely deliberate, combined with ability that belonged on a battlefield rather than in a classroom: all of it made him seem like a man who had no business being here.
Diana was the type who couldn't stand not knowing something, but she never approached him too rashly. He seemed free-spirited enough that he might actually answer if she asked — yet the thought of a man like that going stone-faced at her question was terrifying in its own right. She had grown closer to him after losing to Violet thanks to her own foolish training methods, but even then, Diana still couldn't work up the courage.
Setting aside the question of who he was, she wandered the Treier Territory simply to enjoy herself.
The Devil of All Nations had always been a major landmark in her life. It was a place she had wanted to visit at least once, and watching the North and South split into camps, each shouting that they were right, was entertaining in its own way. In particular, watching people argue over actual historical events from completely different angles taught her a great deal — it let her think about the same facts from every side.
Diana had prided herself on knowing a great deal about the Devil of All Nations, but coming to Treier — once his own territory — she found it overflowing with things she had never seen. His personal tastes. Paintings that rendered him as a demon. Paintings that rendered him more sacred than a saint. Who else in the world could be hated and venerated in the same breath?
In the South, they had even painted a mural in a corner of a cathedral to commemorate his deeds. In the North, there were street stalls where you could throw daggers at a board painted with his face. When Diana planted daggers in both of his painted eyes, the Northerners cheered and congratulated her. Sucking on the giant lollipop she had won as a prize, she drifted between North and South, taking in everything there was to see of the Devil.
And then she came upon a scene where Northerners and Southerners had gathered to argue. The South was showing off the Devil's prowess. The North dismissed it all as exaggeration, tearing him down. Diana didn't care whose side was right. But one claim caught her attention: that when the Devil swung his sword, dozens of soldiers had been cut down in a single stroke.
Rai, cutting down the assassins who had come for Emilia in a single sweep, flickered through her mind.
A Northerner was ranting that it was all exaggeration — how could anyone swing a sword and cut through mountains and sky? Rai's blade had cut as if it were slicing through space itself. Everything along the line it traced had been severed. A Southerner insisted it was possible, citing as proof that his strength had been so overwhelming no famed sword could withstand it. The sword Rai had swung had crumbled to dust and scattered into the air.
As if they were describing that very moment, the pieces of the puzzle began to click into place.
Rai had never said it out loud, but he had never seemed particularly interested in hiding who he was. He had spoken of the past without hesitation, as if daring anyone to figure it out, and he had never bothered to conceal his skill. Where on earth had a fighter of that caliber dropped into an academy from? Boundless knowledge at a young age. Skill that looked as though it would yield to no one. Geniuses like that didn't appear even if you combed through the history books of the Empire — or of the entire continent.
And there was one genius who, most recently, was said to have died.
The Devil of All Nations.
A shiver ran down Diana's spine. She wandered North and South, looking at every painting that depicted him. Afterward she returned to the castle, spoke with a great many people, and even listened to the old stories Juan told Abigail — and then she was certain.
It was possible she had already made up her mind, and that the composite she had drawn in her head simply resembled Rai. Memories, after all, were always being rewritten.
But...
She flopped onto the bed.
Diana had hated the Devil of All Nations since she was a child. During the Era of War, he had been the Empire's greatest enemy, so perhaps that was only natural for an imperial citizen — but House Deschubella had been wounded by him more deeply than most.
In the Era of War, the Empire had held an overwhelmingly superior force. Toward the end, that balance began to crumble. The Keilen Kingdom, coordinating its armies with Northern Norden, unleashed guerrilla tactics across the entire Empire with the Devil of All Nations at the vanguard. When he entered imperial territory with nothing but his own unit, the Empire's commanders unanimously called it arrogant and stupid. Only Edelian, who had faced him for years, insisted they had to catch him even if it meant abandoning the Eastern Front — but the capital dismissed it as the stubborn pride of a commander burning with rivalry against the Devil of All Nations.
By any common-sense measure, the Devil of All Nations — walking in with a single unit and no supply line — looked like a rat in a trap. Even the Emperor took him for bait and committed the blunder of reinforcing the North and East, while the Devil of All Nations led his unit alone, wandering imperial soil at will.
There was the natural fortress of Ketlangca Gate, yes — but he had held back the Empire's strongest armies, and even that hadn't been enough. He had wandered every nation, slaughtering countless champions and entire units. He had become a symbol. In an Empire that worshipped martial valor and lived by pride, people felt less fear than a hunger to capture him and raise their own honor. Countless landed nobles rose up. Even those from territories at the westernmost edge of the Empire moved their armies to catch the Devil of All Nations — a spectacle unlike any other.
But the gap between his unit — tempered by fighting day in and day out on the front lines — and soldiers who did little more than patrol their own territories was the difference between heaven and earth. According to the records, even the rank-and-file of the Devil's unit moved like knights. The nobles were lambs walking into a tiger's maw without even knowing it.
In the first engagement, three Counts, two Viscounts, and a host of other nobles were captured by the Devil. And he had the audacity to demand supplies in exchange for releasing the hostages. He didn't even release them all at once. He kept the prisoners with him and traded them one at a time whenever supplies ran short. At times he made the outrageous demand that they prepare a banquet fit for the Emperor, stoking the fury of the imperial people.
Having underestimated the Devil and suffered a crushing defeat, the Empire was toyed with by his mobile tactics ever after. He never fought a strong enemy. He picked off only the weak with uncanny precision. Imperial knights raged that he was a coward — but in the end, he was the one who smiled.
One of the Viscounts taken prisoner in that first engagement was Diana Deschubella's father, Holten Deshvella.
The Devil of All Nations knew exactly how delicious a piece of bait he made, and he played the Empire's hunger for glory like a fiddle. The original plan had been for the noble armies that arrived first to merely contain the Devil's unit until the Central Army could get there. However strong his unit might be, the Emperor believed that the thoroughly trained Central Army plus the nobles' countless soldiers would be more than enough to take him. But the Emperor made the complacent assumption that most people would behave rationally.
The Devil's unit would flash a weakness, then lose every small-scale skirmish they fought. Watching this, the nobles began to think he looked manageable. A commander who couldn't even lead properly, his forces milling about in confusion. A ragged army that had marched into the heart of enemy territory, morale so broken they barely had the will to fight. Facing the Devil, the nobles' reason began to seize up under the weight of their own confidence and hunger for honor.
An army weaker than its reputation. And if they captured him, they would earn the title of having defeated the Devil of All Nations — the man who had commanded the continent. The nobles' heads filled with visions of themselves as imperial heroes, striding proudly into the Imperial Palace.
Pressed on all sides by tightening armies, the Devil's unit made its stand in an abandoned mining village. And from a soldier originally from the region, they learned of a secret passage connected to the abandoned mine. Presented with a perfect opportunity for a surprise attack, the nobles gathered for a council. In truth, it barely qualified as a council. Blinded by glory, they clamored that they had to strike before the Devil left. They launched the operation three days before the Central Army was due to arrive.
In a book by a noble who later recalled the surprise attack, it was written:
It was a dark night, gray clouds swallowing the moon. We passed through a dark, damp passage like a serpent's gut and emerged behind their unit. And what met us at the serpent's maw was the smile of a devil crawled up from hell.
With that smile, steeped in every darkness, came the sound of the sky collapsing, and the entrance that had been lit by our torches caved in, sealing the path ahead.
We could not tell whether we were fortunate to have escaped the devil, or unfortunate to be trapped in the abandoned mine.
The ones who fell for an operation planned from the moment he entered the Empire were the nobles themselves. The instant their forces entered the mine passage for the surprise attack, the Devil switched to the offensive and trampled the nobles' armies, which were all but leaderless.
The nobles' main force, which had no idea what was happening, saw the Devil's face waiting for them in the mine — and then the mine collapsed, and they could go no further. What greeted them when they turned back was the Devil's unit, filling the land on every side. It had clearly been the Devil they had seen in the mine. And yet there he stood at the mouth of the secret passage, smiling.
Fear and terror rose in them, but the nobles and soldiers fought anyway — and they could not overcome the gap in skill. They became prisoners.
With this single first battle — known as the Battle of the Dodo Bird Jumping off the Cliff — the Empire let the Devil slip away. He ran rampant across imperial territory, disrupting the rear at will. He made a point of avoiding the Central Army and struck only vulnerable units. The Empire was thoroughly toyed with by his tactics. At times he even negotiated by releasing hostages and used the opening to flee from the Central Army.
For nearly three months the Devil's unit had wandered the Empire at its leisure before turning back. If there was any consolation, it was that Edelian's unit — which had abandoned the front of its own accord — managed to inflict serious damage with a surprise attack. But in the end, the Devil of All Nations had ravaged the Empire and left. For an Empire that had lost its pride, its honor, and countless opportunities, someone had to take the blame.
One of those people was Viscount Holten Deshvella.
"Wow~ So our family's mortal enemy was Rai-kkang."
Lying on the bed, recalling the past, Diana smiled with sunny brightness.
After the Battle of the Dodo Bird Jumping off the Cliff, House Deschubella's power had fallen sharply, and her father had lived in perpetual hatred of the Devil. Ordinarily he was a gentle, affectionate father — but the moment anything related to the Devil came up, he would fly into a rage and rain down curses. And in his drive to restore the family's lost prestige, he made excessive demands of her older brother. Her brother, who had no talent as a knight, became a leftover in his own house once Diana began to stand out.
Her family had become a thoroughly twisted household, all because of a single man: the Devil of All Nations. If you looked at it closely, her father had underestimated the enemy, failed, and then taken out that sense of defeat on his children. But Diana had been hearing words of hatred for the Devil since childhood, as if being indoctrinated. She couldn't help but hate him.
Diana had lived her life being praised as a genius — but she knew perfectly well that she wasn't one. The praise she had received as a child had been too sweet. For that reason alone, she had always worked to meet people's expectations — and when effort still couldn't get her something, she had given it up. But even when she worked herself to death, geniuses like Violet would reach in a single breath the heights she had clawed her way to. Every time that happened, Diana hated geniuses with a passion.
And one of the figures who stood as the very emblem of genius was the Devil himself. His exact age was never known, but he had appeared like a comet while still young, stood shoulder to shoulder with the commanders who had defined the Era of War, and brought down countless powerful opponents. Whenever things got so hard she wanted to quit, it wasn't once or twice that she had thought of him — the man already said to be dead. The one who had held her together through every hardship was the Devil. And the one she wanted to defeat more than anyone else was also the Devil.
As she grew older and her mind matured, the more she learned about the Devil, the more she could only feel awe. Tactics that shattered the textbook. The ingenuity to take the worst possible hand — a hand that should have meant nothing but defeat — and cling on until he forced a draw. And through it all, plans more meticulous than anyone else's. He was a genius so unorthodox it almost seemed as though hundreds of commanders were taking turns at the helm.
The hatred her father had instilled in her had slowly transformed into longing and admiration. When she wanted to give up, she would picture his face and pray for the strength to get through one more day.
If only he hadn't died — he was the person she had wanted to meet more than anyone else.
And that person had been right beside her.
Rai-kkang was wonderful, but the Devil of All Nations had been the guardian deity watching over her since she was a child. Diana was so happy she kicked her feet and thrashed on the bed. She had no idea how it had happened, but her guardian deity was alive. And not as a rumor that he still lived — he was right beside her, teaching her the sword.
If the happiness she had longed for since childhood had been sitting right next to her all along, waiting only to be recognized — could there be any greater joy than this?
Every time Diana pictured Rai's face, her heart pounded. She had no idea how she was supposed to look him in the eye when she woke up tomorrow.