In the Name of the Hartvalt Grand Duchy, Kill Them All
The air in the waiting room grew icy at Valgrim's words. Derikson's face stiffened slightly, yet his expression was one of pure bewilderment rather than fear.
"Your Grace," he managed to squeeze out. "Wasn't that before the noble Hartvalt Grand Duchy had fully taken shape?"
Kyle let out a soft, derisive laugh. 'This bastard. He's serious.' It wasn't the ravings of a man desperate to die. Those words had come from the heart.
In the era when Valgrim had donned armor and strode across battlefields, they did not speak of those days as the Hartvalt Grand Duchy's pride. A barbaric age. A primitive past before true nobility had been perfected. That was how they saw it.
Valgrim's eyes chilled to frost. "A knight of the Hartvalt family," his voice rumbled low, "yet you know nothing of its history."
Derikson's shoulders twitched.
"I became Grand Duke forty years ago." Valgrim's gaze swept across the waiting room. "And even after handing the title to that boy Roderick twenty years ago, I spent over a decade on the front lines." His voice carried the crushing weight of iron. "Right up until ten years ago."
Several knights' faces hardened. Valgrim took a step forward. His boot landed squarely in a pool of blood.
Squelch.
"Every time we marched to war, those who followed me and I always wore armor. We donned helmets, clad ourselves in steel plates, and rolled through mud and blood." His eyes pierced straight through Derikson. "To survive. To protect the North. To safeguard the name of Hartvalt."
Derikson swallowed hard. Yet he still refused to back down. "B-but Your Grace," he forced his chin up. "The reason you roamed the front lines was because it was still a barbaric age."
Valgrim's brow twitched. Even though it had only been ten years, these men spoke of it as if it were ancient history. Derikson pressed on without pause.
"Times have changed. Because Your Grace drove out every last monster, heteromorph, and savage, the North can finally establish order. Now is the time to display dignity and authority beneath the majesty of the Hartvalt Grand Duchy."
He bled profusely yet carried himself with false pride. "A knight must look the part of a knight. Would the central nobility ever regard men wearing crude iron armor as noble knights?"
Kyle's lips twisted. 'The center, huh.' Just as expected. These men's roots traced straight back to Roderick. Roderick Hartvalt—the current Grand Duke who was ashamed of the North and yearned for the Empire's central culture.
There was a vast age gap between Valgrim and Roderick. By the time Roderick was born, Valgrim and his followers had already brought a measure of stability to the North. Roderick had visited battlefields, but he had never truly tasted the blood-soaked stench of pioneering.
Having come close to death once or twice did not make him complete. He had been born after the walls were raised. He had not staked his life in the mud; he had grown up safely behind walls already built.
The difference between a powerful house facing mortal danger during an expedition and carving out land in an empty, lawless wilderness was night and day. That was why he viewed the North's harshness as barbarism.
He mistook the center's gaudy splendor, superficial polish, and empty bravado for true culture. And that contamination had spread even to this knight order.
"It truly pains me that Your Grace once wore armor and suffered in those harsh lands," Derikson said with genuine feeling. "But the times have changed. The knights of Hartvalt must now display the dignity befitting that new era."
"Dignity." Valgrim murmured the word in a low voice. In that instant, the temperature in the waiting room seemed to plummet. "The North has its own laws."
Valgrim's voice settled like frost. "The one who survives is the strong one. Practical gain is life itself. That is the North." A ferocious light flashed in his eyes. "So when exactly did the knights of the North begin groveling before the standards of the center—chasing after the superficial adornments of men who have never even fought?"
Derikson bit his lip. "Your Grace…"
"Inside the walls I built by shedding my own blood," Valgrim cut him off, "you have learned nothing but empty illusions."
His gaze crushed the knights throughout the waiting room. "Armor is shameful, uniforms are dignified. Survival is barbaric, ostentation is culture." A twisted smile curled at the corner of Valgrim's mouth. "And yet you felt no shame as you committed insubordination."
A suffocating silence descended. Then Valgrim turned his head.
"Kyle Hartvalt!"
His thunderous voice shook the waiting room. Kyle, still holding his blood-drenched sword at a slight angle, gave a small nod.
"Yes, Grandfather."
"Answer without falsehood." Valgrim's eyes blazed. "Is it true that these men insulted you and your knights?"
Kyle shrugged. "It is the truth." He slowly scanned the knights in the room. "They called me a scoundrel, filth, the disgrace of the Grand Duchy, among other things." Kyle's lips curved into a chilling smile. "As for my knight Reina, they gleefully spread rumors that I had defiled her, that she had entered my bed, and that I would share her with them as well."
The knights' faces turned deathly pale. Just moments ago they had hidden behind their numbers and snickered. Now those very words were being repeated before the former Grand Duke. Only now did they seem to realize exactly what they had said.
Valgrim's gaze grew even colder. "I will ask again," he said. "Is it true that they ignored your orders as the direct heir, even when you demanded a duel with legitimate justification?"
"It is the truth." Kyle answered calmly. "Not a single one showed up at the Grand Drill Hall. They gathered here instead, believing the Grand Duke would protect them."
Valgrim nodded slowly. Then he looked at the Golden Lion Knights filling the waiting room.
"Those who refuse even a legitimate duel cannot be called knights." The declaration was heavy. "They have insulted a direct descendant of the Grand Duchy, defied his orders, and used the Grand Duke's name to justify their insubordination."
Valgrim's voice pressed down on the entire room. "In the name of the Hartvalt Grand Duchy, I declare—"
The knights stopped breathing.
"You are no longer knights of Hartvalt."
Derikson's pupils shook violently. "Y-Your Grace!"
"You are nothing but traitors who failed to know your place and insulted your lord." Those words were no different from a death sentence.
Derikson staggered forward one step. "You… you mean to kill us all?" For the first time, terror seeped into his voice. "It isn't just us! The other knight orders also refused the summons! Are you saying you will kill every knight in the Northern Duke's Castle?!"
It was a threat built on numbers. Could he really discard all these precious knights?
Valgrim snorted. "You think I cannot?"
Derikson's face froze. Valgrim looked down at him as if he were an insect. "In any case, you lot never go to the battlefield. You avoid danger, watch from the rear, and only when the tide turns do you rush out in your flashy uniforms to snatch up glory."
His voice dropped even lower. "The North has no need for such trash."
Valgrim waved his hand as if the mere sight of them annoyed him. "Kyle."
"Yes."
"In the name of the Hartvalt Grand Duchy, kill them all."
The moment the order fell, Derikson opened his mouth to shout something. But it was already too late.
"Understood."
Before Kyle had even finished speaking, his body blurred. Slash.
Splurt—!
A crimson arc brushed across Derikson's throat. Thud. Derikson's head tumbled to the floor. It rolled across the pool of blood with a wet thump thump. His eyes remained wide open, still unable to believe what had happened.
A brief silence fell. Then—
"Uwaaaaaaaaagh!"
"Sir Derikson…!"
"Run!"
"To the door! Get to the door!"
The remaining knights collapsed into panic all at once. Some raised their swords and charged. Others tried to retreat. Still others sprinted toward the exit, desperate to live.
Kyle plunged straight into their midst.
Clang! He knocked aside the sword of a resisting middle-grade knight and immediately drove his blade into the man's chest. Shunk! Blood sprayed. Kyle kicked the corpse away and yanked his sword free. The next instant, the neck of a lower-grade knight charging from the side flew into the air. Slash!
"Guhk!" A sword Kyle had kicked lodged itself in the back of a fleeing knight. Before the staggering man could fall, another slash tore through him. Splurt!
The waiting room was once again drenched in blood. But the greatest despair did not come from Kyle. It came from the doorway.
Valgrim Hartvalt stood there. Arms crossed. His massive frame completely blocking the exit. He watched the fleeing knights with cold eyes. Behind him lay the only way out of this room. Yet no one could reach it. Because Valgrim stood in the way—as if declaring that no one would leave this chamber alive.
"Move aside!" a middle-grade knight wailed. "Your Grace! Please!"
Valgrim did not move. Kyle's sword pierced through the man's back. Shunk! The knight vomited blood and collapsed.
The last remaining upper-grade knight rushed toward the door. His face was twisted in pure terror. There was no trace of the dignity or pride he had boasted about earlier. Not a shred of knightly bearing remained. He practically crawled as he reached out toward Valgrim.
"Your Grace…! Please, please move aside!"
Valgrim simply looked down at him.
"Spare me! I… I still… cannot die…!"
The words never finished. Shunk! The sword tip that drove in from behind burst out through his chest. The upper-grade knight's eyes rolled back toward the ceiling. Bloody foam bubbled from his lips.
Kyle twisted the blade from behind him. "Kuh… guhk…"
Then he pulled it free. The upper-grade knight's body crumpled at Valgrim's feet. That was the end.
No Golden Lion Knight remained standing in the waiting room. Only corpses filled the space.
The Golden Lion Knights—everyone except those currently deployed on the front lines—had been completely annihilated.
A mountain of corpses, a sea of blood.
Kyle stood at the center of it all. His clothes were torn to rags, and blood still flowed from the countless wounds covering his body. Yet his eyes remained perfectly steady. The blood-red glow had grown so intense it completely swallowed his original green irises.
"All traitors have been dealt with."
At Kyle's report, Valgrim stared at him in silence. The look in Valgrim's eyes as he regarded Kyle was filled with the deep satisfaction of a predator watching its cub successfully complete its first hunt.
It was then that hurried footsteps thundered down the corridor. Many of them. The sound grew rapidly closer. And then—
Creeeeak—!
The door behind Valgrim was violently thrown open.
"What in the—!"
It was the current Grand Duke, Roderick Hartvalt. The moment he crossed the threshold, his words died in his throat. His face turned as white as a sheet at the sight before him.
"This…"
His lips trembled.
"What the hell is this?!"
Roderick's scream echoed through the blood-soaked waiting room.