The Banner of a New Crombell

Ironically, it was House Ahental that first received word of Alan Aster's rebellion. They had already learned the full story through Messi, and both their intelligence corps and the Huang Merchant Group had been watching Crombell without rest.

Alan Aster named Rowin his lieutenant, drew investment from a host of cadet branches, and hired mercenaries in great numbers. Then, one by one, he launched surprise assaults on the ancestral seats of Count Crombell's retainers. Control of the City of Crombell fell into his hands almost at once.

Such a thing was possible only because the ringleader of the revolt was a Sword Master — Alan Aster himself. The mere sight of him was enough to strip his opponents of the will ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to resist; they begged to surrender on the spot.

A rebel force that had begun five hundred strong soon scraped together the private soldiers of every noble who had yielded, until it numbered nearly two thousand. Flush with newfound confidence, Rowin issued a proclamation of rebellion under the name of a New Crombell.

The Viscount of Ahental read those words and burst into a laugh that shook the worry from his shoulders for the first time in a very long while.

"Hahaha! Now that's a masterpiece! Just imagining Albarayen's face rotting off is enough to clear my chest!"

"You look even happier than when you saw me for the first time in ages, Roan."

"Indulge me this once. Think of how I've felt ever since we first got tangled up with Crombell. I kept telling myself, so it's finally come. And now it's ended in our victory — how am I supposed to keep a straight face?"

Frox laughed along at his old friend's rambling. It was a genuine relief that the whole affair had closed without any real disaster. And yet, on another level, he found it extraordinary.

"I still can't believe he orchestrated all of this."

"You mean Sir Messi. I don't treat him as my benefactor for nothing."

"But how did he know Alan Aster had been poisoned? Heal magic alone couldn't possibly have told him that."

By Frox's own knowledge of Heal, it was an impossibility. He knew, of course, that Messi's Heal was nothing like the ordinary kind. The first time he had witnessed that magic wielded through divine power, he had nearly lost his jaw and his eyes both.

"Raising Erena to her feet in the first place was hardly something Heal could manage, was it? I've decided not to pick at the reasons. He's Sir Messi, that's all."

The viscount took the opportunity to try out the meme currently making the rounds in the knight order: It's just Messi.

"At any rate, you'll be hearing a great deal of good news this year. Erena's on her feet, Crombell's been brought down, and you've still got a magic tower to build… And Bacillus hasn't come out of his room, I hear?"

"The signs look promising. Whenever Sir Bacillus shuts himself away like this, he always comes out with something worthwhile."

Whether the fake Sword Master meant to become a genuine one, no one could say — but it had been a week now since he had sealed himself behind a closed door. Whether it was because the Red Scroll Messi had given him had let him taste what lay beyond his realm twice over, or because he had taken in Roud's innate gifts, remained unclear. Everyone was waiting on a knife's edge for that door to open.

Sir Messi really is someone, isn't he. He's had a hand in nearly all of this.

The viscount could not help but be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠impressed.

Messi rested at his ease in a tent House Crombell had provided. They were looking after him with a care that felt excessive for an other-race they had only just met — gratitude, most likely, for his having saved the lives of Count Crombell and his retainers.

He was not permitted to go out. He suspected that was Hiwork's doing, a precaution from a man who did not yet fully trust him. Even confined to the tent, however, Messi could tell that the war was turning steadily against Count Crombell. Part of it was the wind spirit, which brought him sounds from outside — but it was also in the way the knights and soldiers grew more strained by the day, and in the meals they served him, which declined in quality with every sitting.

He put the idle, locked-away hours to nourishing use, circulating and studying his mana cultivation method.

So this is the profound principle of the lower volume of the Einhartz Mana Cultivation Method…

At last, Messi had gathered both halves of the divided Einhartz Mana Cultivation Method. He had earned them, of course, by the labor of healing Count Crombell.

I billed him properly for the treatment, at least.

That was not all. The Count had been so consumed with researching mana cultivation that traces of several other methods besides had turned up in his mana circuits. There were three unnamed ones in addition — which meant the Count had known five cultivation methods in total.

A single mana cultivation method is rare enough to be astonishing, and he had five… His obsession goes beyond impressive. It's enough to make your skin crawl. How many grudges must he have piled up just to get his hands on these?

He set the three unnamed methods aside for now and kept digging into the one he judged to be the lower volume of the Einhartz method. Those three were nameless as well, of course — but he was certain this one belonged to Einhartz, for a simple reason.

It's slow.

Whether it was the upper volume's method or the lower, both ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠displayed the same nature, as if to prove they had once been a single body. There was a difference, however. The upper volume Messi had already mastered was slow, yet closed — it violently rejected and shoved away any foreign energy that approached. The lower volume was slow as well, but inclusive; he could not yet tell what attitude it would take when it met another force. It also felt far more unstable than the upper volume's method.

I'll have to try it in actual combat to know… I should find Sir Ramang as soon as I can.

With Ramang, the finest sandbag alive, practice would be no trouble. The real problem was returning the two methods to the single whole they had once been. The pair of them seemed as far from becoming one as a partitioned nation from reunification.

I thought that knowing both would be enough to merge them without much difficulty…

An arrogant assumption. A puzzle does not take on meaning merely because you have every piece; you need the picture, the form, that tells you how the pieces fit.

They were originally one, so if I reason from the ordinary structure of a cultivation manual…

The upper volume would have held the explanation of the Einhartz method, its foundations, its basic principles, its nature. The lower volume would have preserved the advanced principles, the applications, the methods of tempering, and the founder's final insights.

Seen in that light, Count Crombell was not a complete fool. Or rather — was this the success story of an obsessive man? Astonishingly, without knowing a word of the upper volume that should have served as his foundation, the Count had looked at nothing but the advanced course and the applications, and had managed to approximate the method to a fair degree.

Which is exactly why it's so unstable.

A fragment of the complete upper-volume method, joined to an incomplete lower-volume method built on inference — of course they would not merge. To make them one body, it seemed he would have to look through the actual contents of the lower volume at least once.

Messi was letting out a long sigh when a soldier stepped into the tent.

"The Count requests your presence."

So they're only calling me now. Took them long enough to figure out what I'm good for.

Viscount Hiwork had been withering away of late. Under the crushing stress his guts churned without rest; he had no appetite, nothing went in, and yet the water and the diarrhea kept coming out. Even so, he had to keep his mind turning, hunting for a way to break this situation. An ordinary man would have lost his reason and gone mad.

His eyes, however, still held a clear light. It was because of the news that had come from the City of Crombell.

The extinction of House Hiwork. The massacre of his entire family.

Yes… I expected it would come to this once they found the poison. But it hurts terribly, Sir Alan.

He knew it himself. He had used the worst means imaginable on Alan Aster — means that should never have been used at all.

In his youth he had been an ambitious, callow young man, and he had known he was rather cleverer than most. How could he not have been thirsty for success? Alan Aster, the future and the light of the house, already had retainers clustering around him in droves. Had Hiwork gone to that camp, he would have been one subordinate among many, never a man who stood alone.

Instead he had found a darkness standing in Alan's shadow. A dank, dependent petty creature — so lacking that he was full of blanks Hiwork could fill, and yet so stuffed with inferiority toward Alan that he kept trying to wear clothes that did not fit. For that small man's sake, Hiwork had played a filthy hand. It had struck true — and like an arrow caught in a headwind, it had come back around today.

The irreversible past had been exposed. They could no longer live together under the same sky. Hiwork intended to give a repayment that fit.

He soon put forward his first proposal, and from the outset it became a subject of heated controversy among the Count and his retainers.

"We must make peace with House Ahental."

"Have you lost your mind? The war's already begun — and you want us to make peace?"

"Then do you intend to make peace with Alan Aster?"

"......"

The Count's mouth clamped shut.

"And a reconciliation with Ahental is more possible than one with Alan Aster."

"Why is that?"

"There are several reasons. First: Ahental has taken almost no losses in this war. They have carried off nothing but glory. If they end the fighting here, they become 'the house that overwhelmingly defeated Crombell.'"

"Fuck. Go on."

"Second: the Viscount of Ahental is a central noble, and a rational one. A man who has spent his life in the capital will know that destroying Crombell outright and absorbing everything would give him tremendous power — and that the other central nobles would check him for it in equal measure. He will also know that the image of a merchant-born noble wiping out a pure-blooded house of the center would become a political millstone around his neck."

"I've always hated that holier-than-thou act of his. And that's what's opened a way for us to live, is it?"

"Third: the scale of the grudge is nowhere near what it is with Alan Aster. Alan Aster has executed the entire families of the core retainer nobles — myself included — and extinguished their houses. That is as good as a declaration that he will not look back."

"...I see."

"If you, my lord, were to seek peace with him, those same core retainers would be highly likely to turn. You would never be the first to ask for reconciliation, and Alan Aster played this hand knowing that. It means he intends to fight to the death."

Ahental, by contrast, had none of that. Despite surely having heard of the rebellion, Ayres's First Army and Ereb's Second Army had merged with the viscount's Third Army and were still busy reorganizing. Count Crombell had joined the forces on the Yorente front, and Ahental was applying pressure only, as if waiting to see how the Count would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠move before they decided.

"Fourth: Ahental is stronger than the rebels. Not merely in the numbers of soldiers and knights, but in supply as well — thanks to the Huang Merchant Group, they want for nothing. Ahental holds both a Sword Master and a Great Magician. Among the rebels, the only one who poses a real threat is Alan Aster."

"That's enough. I understand."

Hiwork had been prepared to recite the list until the Count accepted it, but fortunately the Count was convinced before his mouth went sore.

"Hah… Do I have to go myself?"

"If you go in person, the viscount will find it burdensome, and you yourself will not be able to endure the humiliation. Use someone else."

"......?"

"The other-race you brought in the other day."

At Hiwork's words, the Count too saw the possibility. The man had a connection to the "other-race prince" who was the viscount's benefactor. If he dropped even the slightest hint to that prince, might he not be able to draw a peace from it?

That was why Messi had received the Count's belated summons. Messi had expected it as well.

"You wish me to go to Ahental as Crombell's envoy, then?"

"That's right. You serve a prince of your own, do you not? Speak with him well, and do what you can to bring about a reconciliation."

Messi put on a dubious look.

"How strange. I came all this way because I was told Crombell was a great house that surpassed Ahental… Why, then, is a mighty house begging a weaker one for peace?"

The Count looked as though he had taken a blow. It was his own fault, of course, for having lied. Hiwork stepped in at once.

"Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been so. It is only that a war on two fronts, thanks to the rebels, has made matters difficult. War is, by nature, a business of the unforeseen. Keep that in mind."

"Hmm. I understand. I needed to see His Highness in any case, and I have been treated generously during my stay… Helping you would be the proper thing to do."

Once Messi had agreed, Crombell, Hiwork, and the retainers began to debate what they would actually hand over to Ahental. It was never going to go well. Hiwork argued that they should make peace even if it meant ceding the recently lost Melta Barony. The Count insisted that surrendering even his retainers' territories would be as good as advertising his own incompetence, and that the compensation and reparations should simply be put down as debt.

The retainers who joined the meeting late, still not fully grasping the situation, tried to shave the compensation and reparations down by even a little. Watching the spectacle, Messi clicked his tongue inwardly.

No wonder we were bound to win this war. Ahental's retainers may be incompetent, but here even the lord himself is hopeless…

In the midst of it, Messi looked at Hiwork, who was fighting the whole room alone.

Hmm… this man could be useful.

It felt like finding a decent horse just before a race.

Then someone made a remark so far beyond common sense it threatened to overturn the entire table.

"My lord! I oppose this! Why pay a steep price to make peace with those filthy Ahental dogs? I have a way to slaughter those vulgar money-grubbers and the rebels alike — just give me a private audience!"

It was Viscount Hurik. He was a man who ordinarily offered no opinions at all, and the sudden contribution left everyone looking startled.

Only Messi was beaming — because of the familiar rotten stench coming off the man.

It felt like finding a lost toy.