There Was, and Then There Wasn't
“There was... and then there wasn’t.”
“...”
It was over. For a clash between the strong, it had ended remarkably quickly.
Grand Duke Schrelitz, who had been seated on the hill watching events unfold, thought as much as he rose to his feet.
The moment he stood, the knights around him fell in behind him as one, and soon the commanders gathered.
“Your Grace.”
“What has become of it?”
What has become of it, indeed. It was finished. The grand duke muttered the thought to himself.
There was a reason the Imperial army, standing on the very brink of battle, had been forced to linger in a place like this without warning.
They had withdrawn the legions at the strong request of the three John Nassen siblings.
The Coalition might feel pressured, they said. It could even be taken as a provocation. So please pull back.
It had been called a request, but it had been close enough to a demand that the distinction barely mattered.
To demand that Grand Duke Schrelitz himself pull his legions back—anyone who was not the Emperor or another grand duke would never have dared even imagine it.
The core of the Ministry of War was filled with men from Schrelitz, and the grand duke himself ranked among the finest commanders alive. For a noble to try to meddle with military authority in front of such a man—would anyone believe it?
Yet Grand Duke Schrelitz had done as they wished and drawn the legions back as far as he reasonably could.
He held the Emperor’s delegated command authority, of course, but more than that, he was simply extending the courtesy due to the strong. And if he refused, he had no desire to discover what sort of displeasure they might show.
Because of that I couldn’t watch as closely as I would have liked…
Even from a distance, it had been enough. Reading their presence, feeling the flow of mana—that alone was sufficient.
Ordinary soldiers and mid-level officers would have understood nothing. But he and the Knights of the Sword Brotherhood had felt it from the instant the fight began until the moment it ended: something beyond words that made cold sweat run down their backs, and forced them to gasp in awe.
“Strong” was not enough. The only fitting description was, “They are not human.”
The first of the Three Heroes to step forward was one thing, but the remaining two had clearly used something more. He had felt a flow of mana and a presence stronger even than the Imperial 10 Strongest.
If those two had been faced head-on, how much damage would have been taken? Could the safety of the 10 Strongest themselves even be guaranteed? Even Grand Duke Schrelitz could not give a firm answer when he considered such things.
Meanwhile the three John Nassen siblings had simply laughed as they beat the three of them into the ground.
“Begin preparations.”
“Preparations for battle, Your Grace?”
“No. The Coalition side will declare their intent to surrender at once.”
“…What?”
Anyone who watched that and still refused to surrender would have to be insane. No—not even insane. Simply suicidal.
What was the hardliners’ logic? Even if victory was impossible, inflict as much damage as possible. Force the Empire to accept catastrophic bloodshed if it wanted to erase them. Stamp the Coalition’s desperation into the Empire’s memory so that voices of doubt about the war would rise from within. That was it.
The Coalition had suffered far too much at the Empire’s hands for far too long. They had lost too much. That was why the hardline faction within the Coalition could never truly disappear.
But even that required a level of endurance one could actually afford. In front of people who simply laughed while smashing everything to pieces, defiance was useless.
If you told them to fight to the death, those monsters would answer “Gladly!” and charge even harder. The blood they spilled mid-battle was not pain to them—it was the harvest, and they would savor it with satisfaction.
“Your Grace. Will the Coalition truly surrender?”
“They are the ones who struck first, the ones who dared to show hostility toward the Empire. They know perfectly well what treatment the Empire will decide upon. Would they really do it?”
“They just lost their three sharpest blades. Who would still want to fight after that?”
And even though those blades could have been snapped cleanly, they had been left merely damaged.
Sharpen them again, put a proper edge on them, and come back for another round—that was the invitation the John Nassens were extending to the Coalition. Or rather, not an invitation. A demand.
“I leave the manner of settling this to you. Only do not treat them too roughly.”
“This is not the mercy or leisure of a victor. I, too, would like to erase the Coalition while I have the chance.”
“But on reflection, handling it this way may not be so bad after all.”
At first he had wondered why the Emperor had sent such a letter.
That man had hated the Coalition so thoroughly, had wanted so badly to wipe it from the map. Why leave instructions now not to be too harsh?
The gains from letting the Coalition linger a little longer outweigh the gains from erasing it entirely, is that it?
What exactly those advantages were, Grand Duke Schrelitz had still been wondering only moments earlier.
The answer arrived soon enough.
“The Coalition may be a mess, but there are some decent people there!”
Leah John Nassen, covered in blood yet wearing a brilliant smile that filled her whole face.
Behind her, Lear John Nassen wore a faint smile of his own as he spoke.
“To think there were people worth fighting besides the 10 Strongest. It was truly enjoyable.”
Grand Duke Schrelitz let out a breathless sigh and turned his head.
The blood-soaked John Nassen siblings were still grinning away.
This was no ordinary boasting of military merit. They had simply met more strong opponents worth fighting, and so they were laughing. Honestly… even he found them a little frightening.
“Brother, Sister. Go wash the blood off first. And check your wounds while you’re at it.”
“Oh my, Kyle. Are you worried about your big sister? Afraid I’ll collapse?”
“No. You just look unsightly.”
Thankfully, the youngest of the John Nassen family—Kyle—could still be called relatively normal.
Looking at him, the grand duke thought that this young man might well be their only remaining hope.
Before the appointed time, Mathieu led the leadership as promised.
Then he knelt before Grand Duke Schrelitz and formally requested surrender.
The leadership should have been far larger than the number he brought. The problem was that more than half of them had been hardliners who had adamantly opposed surrender—men who treated fifty thousand lives like figures on a ledger and possessed nothing but loud voices and no substance.
When those hardliners kept making a scene, Mathieu’s rage had naturally exploded.
Whether one’s power was great or one’s voice was loud, what ultimately mattered was strength itself. Even after his crushing defeat at Kyle’s hands, a member of the Three Heroes was still a member of the Three Heroes. Mathieu remained a warrior no one could lightly oppose.
In the end he had subdued every hardliner among the leadership and all those under them. Then Mathieu had led the remaining men and fulfilled his promise to the John Nassens.
“Welcome.”
Grand Duke Schrelitz treated the Coalition’s representatives with moderate courtesy.
Even though the Coalition had stabbed them in the back first, he still extended proper treatment, leaving the moderates who had followed Mathieu looking somewhat dazed. They had fully expected him to grind his teeth and demand immediate disarmament and a humiliating surrender.
“He planned this.”
Sip—.
In the command tent the grand duke himself had provided, Kyle sipped tea said to be good for the body and muttered under his breath.
“What do you mean, Kyle?”
“The Emperor. He knows that taking everything by force only creates headaches. And it wasn’t even the Imperial army that crushed them—it was just me, Brother, and Sister who tore them apart. In that situation, even if the Empire seized the Coalition, it wouldn’t be long before every kind of internal noise started up.”
Better, then, to open a massive crack inside the Coalition itself.
Fortunately the finest chisel and hammer—John Nassen—had stepped forward of their own accord. Punch a hole with that, give it time, and the cracks would spread on their own until the whole thing finally split. When that moment came, the Empire could simply walk in and devour everything smoothly and thoroughly.
That was almost certainly what the Emperor was thinking.
“Couldn’t the Empire just push them all the way under?”
Nod, nod—.
Of course Leah and Lear seemed to have different ideas on the matter.
“Hmm.”
After a moment’s thought, Kyle offered a reason his brother and sister would immediately accept.
“Because the Empire is weaker than people think?”
“Ah. Fair enough.”
“Understood. It is still weak.”
Had the Emperor, the grand dukes, or the 10 Strongest overheard that, they might have leapt to their feet. The countless nations and experts who had suffered under the Empire might have gone into an uproar as well.
But when a John Nassen nodded, that made it true. Everyone else had to nod along. Otherwise, there were more than enough people present who might personally remove the offending head.
“So what will you do now? It seems everything is finished.”
“They promised they would never create that vicious thing again, nor even think of it. So we will trust that promise and return home.”
“…It could be a lie, though. To feel truly at ease, shouldn’t we inspect the entire Coalition ourselves? I think we should.”
At Kyle’s suggestion, Lear shook his head.
“If they say they will do it, we trust them. If they keep the promise well, that is good.”
“And if they don’t?”
“If they don’t, we just go back and flip the whole place over again, right, Kyle!”
At those words, Kyle thought:
Are these people deliberately leaving themselves an opening so they can go on a legal rampage later? After training so hard their bodies ache, they come down once in a while to blow off steam?
“Of course we will check thoroughly. We will demand that as well. This matter is something John Nassen can never simply let pass. Father would think so, Mother would think so, and so would everyone back home.”
“Sister is right. If something like this happens again, even more people from John Nassen will come down.”
…The Empire and the Coalition would both be desperate to eradicate every last trace of amplification or berserk techniques. Even now the situation was barely manageable—if more John Nassens poured in? There would be no nightmare worse than that.
“Kyle.”
“Yes, Brother.”
“I’m glad.”
“…What?”
What was this about all of a sudden?
Kyle blinked, waiting for the next words. Leah reached out and ruffled his hair.
“Your older brother has been worrying about you more than he ever let on. Wondering if our little brother was really all right. I pretended everything was fine too, but honestly I was worried. After today, though, I don’t think we need to worry anymore.”
“Just as Sister says. Kyle. You were truly magnificent today. You fought extremely well. I will be sure to tell Father and Mother.”
Only a John Nassen would treat fighting a monster outside every known scale as something to brag about to their parents.
Feeling half-exasperated, Kyle found himself smiling at his brother’s and sister’s words all the same.
This was the John Nassen way—and the way the people of that place showed their love.