The Unfathomable Defection
I just couldn't comprehend the defection. Why? Why on earth? I'd welcomed him so kindly. I'd shown him such affection so tenderly. I'd confessed my heart to him so desperately...
Zigrinde stared blankly at Sturts, her face twisted in delusion. The peerless genius met the amethyst eyes of the Steel Lorelei, brimming with confusion, and let out a low groan before speaking.
"How do you think the colonial empire and pirate alliance fleets managed to set up an ambush? They must have ordered Linde to wipe out the pirates as a ploy for defection and infiltration."
"Lord Valtenstein would never betray us! He's the benefactor who devoted himself to us without hesitation. He must have been caught in that wicked bombardment— we have to rescue him right away!"
There were more than enough reasons for Kailun von Valtenstein to betray them. He'd been denied the merits from Hammerfall Fortress for Sturts, the credit for quelling the southern rebellion for Zikfried, the city union territory earmarked for his domain for Kasian, and forced into the role of fixer while Zigrinde stole all his achievements. It had been thorough exploitation and plunder.
And on top of that, citing the excuse that "as one's status rises, they become inconvenient to treat as expendable," they'd revoked the earldom promised to him upon Hammerfall's fall. Despite eight years of brutal frontline combat, the war hero had remained a third-rate noble.
"Linde, you've been too soft on lowly scum like that. Lowborn trash always bites the hand that feeds them the more you indulge them."
"It's still just suspicion for now, isn't it? But if Valtenstein really did betray us... I'll mobilize every spell in the Red Tower to make him pay."
No matter how good-natured someone was by birth, rebelling against unfair treatment and exploitation was only natural. Besides, Kailun was an ambitious man who'd joined the imperial army solely for meteoric rise and quick riches. How much resentment had he harbored over the last three months? He must have seethed with killing intent, drowning in despair and deprivation. After all, he'd watched helplessly as highborns snatched every bit of his effort and achievement right before his eyes.
"Young Master Zikfried!"
"Sir Garet! What the... you're covered in blood!"
Just as they half-doubted Kailun's defection, someone arrived at the banquet hall to deliver the irrefutable truth: a knight from the Kreuz family.
Blood poured from his body in rivulets as he staggered forward. The moment he spotted his lord, the heir to the Sword Duke, he collapsed to the floor with a wet thud.
"Ambush...! An ambush! Kailun, that lowly third-rate noble, raided the treasury... stole the Kreuz family's magic weapon, the White Night Sword Albrus, and the Red Tower's magic weapon, the Black Star Sword Morion... and fled!"
"Albrus and Morion?! That goddamn vermin!!"
The White Night Sword Albrus was as sacred and inviolable as the Sword Duke's authority and bloodline. The Black Star Sword Morion was the ultimate culmination, inherited over centuries by successive Red Tower masters channeling their mana into it.
For such divine relics to be stolen by a third-rate noble? It could strip Zikfried and Kasian of their statuses as heir and sub-tower master in an instant. Considering the symbolism and meaning embedded in Albrus and Morion, it was entirely possible.
This was a catastrophe. A nightmare worse than any other.
No. They had to stop it, no matter what.
Zikfried and Kasian's faces drained to corpse-like pallor.
"What are we supposed to do if you leave like this?!"
"Young Master Zikfried! Sub-Tower Master Kasian! Protect us!"
"If you get us out of this hell safely... we'll empty our family coffers for whatever reward you demand! Please, don't abandon us!"
Voices laced with terror and desperation rained down. They were the surviving nobles from the banquet hall.
The bombardment had finally tapered off. But this was still a deathtrap where survival hung by a thread. In their panic, they clutched at the Steel Lorelei and her lovers like drowning men grasping straws—their only lifeline.
"Lord Valtenstein...! For Lord Valtenstein to leave us like this. Why, why...? I truly admired him from the heart, and I confessed my true feelings to him..."
Zikfried and Kasian felt no pity or guilt, but they could roughly guess why Kailun had defected. Zigrinde, however—the one who'd repeatedly demanded exploitation—twisted her delicate features in genuine bewilderment.
Everyone had adored and cheered for me. When I pleaded earnestly, they all listened in rapture. My joy was their happiness; my satisfaction was their bliss.
So Zigrinde couldn't fathom Kailun's betrayal at all.
"Search for Lord Valtenstein immediately! If he was caught in the bombardment, rescue him. But if Sturts is right and he betrayed us... capture him alive, by any means necessary!"
She wanted to know the reason—the reason for his defection. Why he'd betrayed her, why he'd betrayed them all. She'd break every limb if she had to, just to hear Kailun's true intentions.
The Steel Lorelei's amethyst eyes, swirling with betrayal, issued the order to the Sword Duke's heir and the Red Tower's sub-tower master.
Zikfried, who'd been about to demand instant execution, clamped his mouth shut at the madness in Zigrinde's gaze.
Having seized the Sword Duke family's treasures and the Red Tower's magic weapons, Kailun von Valtenstein had already escaped the Luxor Family Castle.
He used the smoke from the bombardment like a smokescreen, heading for the rendezvous point promised by the colonial empire.
But it wasn't smooth sailing. The Baldemar family's Special Forces were on his tail.
"The White Night Sword and Black Star Sword?!"
"We can't let him escape! Kill the defector!"
The Baldemar family's Special Forces, tasked with perilous missions, were essentially an assassin squad. Spotting the White Night Sword and Black Star Sword in Kailun's hands, they classified him as a top-tier threat and declared immediate execution.
No hesitation. Kill without mercy.
The assassins, cloaked in pitch-black masks and robes, drew poison-laced daggers. They leaped from the ground in unison, targeting Kailun's neck from all sides.
"Banish the darkness with waves of white, Albrus."
Kailun raised the white hilt and intoned the White Night Sword's activation phrase.
Vwoooooom—!!
A vibration that shook the air. Pure white sword aura converged rapidly at the blade's tip.
The Special Forces assassins were swallowed in an instant by a storm of white-hot incandescence.
"Gaaahk!"
"You... how can you wield the White Night Sword...!"
Albrus was a magic weapon that unleashed devastating shockwaves of destructive power. The assassins, engulfed in white heat, were crushed like bugs under a giant's heel—their bodies mangled beyond recognition.
They left only brief screams behind. Indistinguishable chunks of meat splattered to the ground.
Damn, this thing packs a punch. As expected of the Kreuz family's magic weapon.
Kailun whistled in admiration, holding Albrus aloft.
"Don't get close recklessly!"
"Only the Sword Duke's heir should know the activation phrase... How did he activate the White Night Sword?"
The assassins screamed and fell back momentarily. One pulled out a tightly sealed parchment.
A magic scroll. A one-use tool that channeled spells through parchment.
6th Circle. Inferno Surge.
The moment the seal broke and it unfurled, a fiery pit boasting infernal heat materialized. No doubt a product of the Red Tower, mass-producing such war engines of immense lethality.
Fwooooosh—!!
Crimson fireballs plummeted down.
Facing them, Kailun pointed the pitch-black tip of Morion.
"Devour all magic in pitch darkness, Morion."
At that instant, black starlight flickered along the razor edge.
The colonial empire and pirate alliance fleets had ceased their bombardment for a simple reason: to accept the defector, the Theodor Holy Empire's war hero and arch-traitor, who had surrendered and provided intel on the Steel Lorelei.
A small pier along the coast. A transport vessel flying the colonial empire's flag was discreetly docked.
The defector had arrived.
An Eisenreich general dispatched for infiltration greeted him warmly. The man, presumed to be of pirate stock, tapped the black eyepatch over one eye and asked,
"There've been some noisy explosions just now. Don't the Holy Empire nobles know the meaning of stealth? Why not shout it from the rooftops?"
"Someone once said, 'Kill all witnesses, and it's an assassination.'"
Not wrong.
The Eisenreich general burst into booming laughter.
"Kailun von Valtenstein. Who'd have thought the Holy Empire's mad dog would defect to the colonial empire? We wouldn't have moved without intel on how that whore with her pack of men was working you to the bone."
"Can you shut up and just get me on the boat?"
"Welcome to the Eisenreich Colonial Empire, mad dog—our new brother."
"......"
Betray the Theodor Holy Empire.
Defect to the Eisenreich Colonial Empire.
There was no other way. It was the only path open to Kailun.
According to the war hero who'd danced on death's edge across the frontlines, surrendering to the enemy was the sole escape.