By Zephyria 
If the end of the world were to be painted, this would be its exact depiction.
Clouds gathered around a single point, writhing like snakes. The backs of the clouds were red, and their bellies were deep purple. By this time, the sun that should have been peeking from the east was nowhere to be seen, and the entire sky gleamed with a cruelty akin to Sagall.
It was a distant sight that made even me, who had consistently trained my body and mind, gasp for breath.
If this same sight had appeared in the Central Plains, the King would have offered sacrifices, and all the people, from the highest to the lowest, would have come out into the streets and bowed their heads. On such a day, I too would have been terrified, thinking the heavens were angry, and would have been lost in anxious thought, which made me let out a hollow laugh.
Not only I, but everyone in sight had stopped and was looking up at the sky.
Some peered out through the windows, while others stood in the Martial arts training ground, gazing upwards. The servants and maids, holding each other’s hands tightly and reciting prayers, kept glancing at me. Their faces clearly showed they hoped I would explain something.
How many times had I seen faces like these, seeking reliance on someone stronger than themselves?
It would be a lie to say I wasn’t bewildered by an event that occurred just one day before the planned operation, but I forced a smile and simply exchanged a glance with them. The anxious and impatient faces of those around me grew a little lighter. As they parted their lips as if to ask something, I merely shrugged my shoulders and moved on.
Where is the Dragon?
Now I knew very well that blindly chasing the enemy without understanding the cause was not the only way.
The Dragon Spiritus was said to be able to pull down stars from the sky and embed them in the ground. He might be able to explain the reason for the sky opening up like this to some extent. First, I needed to understand why the sky was writhing like this and find out what I could do.
My impatience made walking difficult. Soon, I cut through the wind and flew.
Running like this within the Imperial Palace was improper, but no one was blocking me now.
“N-now…!”
Instead, one of the passersby, seeing me from a distance, waved both arms high and opened his mouth. I only realized he was calling me after I had passed him by and stopped. Turning back, I saw it was a servant. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted loudly.
“Your Highness is in his office!”
“Ah… Thank you.”
Though it was unnecessary help for me, who could sense Ruben’s presence, I was grateful and relieved that it felt like I had received permission to go quickly. I bowed my head in thanks to the servant, who had a proud look on his face, and took flight again.
I stopped before the office, where a familiar presence buzzed. I knocked twice, observing the final courtesy, and the bell hanging by the door rang once. It was permission to enter.
Indeed, the room was filled with familiar faces. Ruben sat in the master’s seat with a grave expression, Hestia Yeldidus was looking at a map with Ruben, a Nereid hanging from her shoulder, Justin Barret smiled silently at me, and Kelly Hawkins, also with a serious expression.
And… Matt Nico?
“Wow. It’s been a while, Mikael. Do you remember me?”
“…”
“Gasp. You don’t remember? But I’m quite… No, it’s okay. It can happen. It’s me, me. Matt Nico. We took swordsmanship classes together back at the Academy. You even helped hide Wendy, no, Vivian Grimbswein…”
Even if I were a scatterbrain, would I have forgotten this guy?
Matt Nico was not only Ruben’s close friend but also a boisterous and friendly senior to me. I had heard that he had been running around protecting the Grimsvain succession and had recently been hiding with his mother, protecting Lucilla who had gone into hiding with a Divine object.
He paused his rambling and asked again.
“I heard you were with Senior Lucilla recently.”
“Uh, yeah. I was… but now I’ve been captured.”
Captured?
I looked back at Ruben, curious about where he came from, how he was brought here, and why. Ruben was busy with his hands, filling in numbers on a chart in a document, and couldn’t explain calmly. Instead, with a serious expression, he briefly looked up, met my eyes, and declared,
“We’re deploying in three hours, Mika. I’ve ordered the Knights’ building to prepare the attack and defense Artifacts, so you should hurry and get ready too.”
“…Now? But.”
“I’m going with you, so I’ll explain later.”
“Yes?”
Later, when?
No, more importantly, Ruben is going with me? To where? Floyd?
Today, I had planned to share a heartfelt farewell with Ruben. Wouldn’t it be right for only those who knew how to fight to engage in war, leaving Ruben in the relatively safe capital? As I flustered and tried to step forward to say something, Matt Nico grabbed my forearm and pulled me.
“First, come with me to Mac Weaber. When Rubel is like this, it’s better to just listen to him.”
“…”
Hearing that, Ruben looked up and met my gaze.
“Sorry.” After receiving the apology forming on the child’s lips, I finally came to my senses. Right, he said there were only three hours left. The child would return to me shortly. I forced down my anxious feelings.
Taking Matt Nico with me, I headed towards the building where the Knights were stationed.
Fortunately, Matt Nico had always been a chatterbox. Without me asking, he started talking about his efforts to hide their whereabouts while moving around with Lucilla.
“At first, I was really surprised. Not many people climb through my bedroom window in the middle of the night. Lucilla must have been quite desperate…”
“Was that… Emperor Veneto’s… that day?”
“Yeah. On the former Emperor’s death anniversary.”
Normally, people don’t enter other people’s rooms through the window, do they?
Lucilla Anti Sieron had been ordered to swap the Divine object with an identical one. That was all Emperor Veneto had said. The Emperor had been extremely urgent, so Lucilla swapped the Divine object without knowing why and went into hiding.
To evade the First Prince’s pursuit, Lucilla sought out Matt Nico first, and his mother, Viscountess Nico, ordered all household staff to evacuate to a safe place and hid with Lucilla.
“How could you possibly do that?”
“Well…”
Matt Nico ran his messy hair through his fingers and grinned mischievously.
“Actually, my mother used to work in the Nobility Yearbook administration department.”
“…Ah.”
“She knows well how ‘they’ operate, so it’s not hard to evade them. They use different methods each time. This time, she had all the servants and maids in the household disguise themselves as us and sent them on vacation simultaneously. A viscountcy usually only has eight to fifteen people from the intelligence department, so if you scatter them all at an unpredictable moment, it’s hard to track them. My mother had also already investigated the people who had infiltrated the family beforehand.”
“Hmm.”
“Then, we mostly moved through underground passages. We stayed and ate at commercial buildings prepared as safe houses and contacted messengers.”
“Hmm…”
“Immediately after Emperor Veneto’s death, the First Prince tried to get his hands on the Divine object first. Of course, he found nothing, and the First Prince issued a nationwide warrant for Lucilla’s arrest. She fled to Floyd as soon as Rubel returned.”
I could vaguely understand why the Ninth God hadn’t killed Rubel directly.
Souls killed by a god are absorbed by the god and disappear. Ruben resembled the first human greatly. The Ninth God likely didn’t want to scatter his soul meaninglessly before the grand operation.
Even if Richard alone tried to kill Ruben by human hands, the problem remained.
Ruben was intelligent, and his Knights were formidable. The evidence Ruben held was compiled into reports according to Sierren’s law and distributed. If Richard intended to become Emperor through assassination, he would have to harm both Rubel and Lucilla simultaneously, and Lucilla was in hiding, her whereabouts unknown.
Therefore, Richard had no choice but to flee. Whether he was backed by Floyd, the Ninth God, or those damned Demonic Cult bastards as his external forces, I couldn’t tell. I could only guess that with his Magic Power at a mere thousand, he wouldn’t be holed up in Dunmel Canyon…
“The First Prince is in Floyd and gone, and Ruben is guarding the Imperial Palace, so why is Senior Lucilla still…”
“They thought if it seemed like Rubel possessed the Divine object, she might be attacked and put in danger, so they hid Lucilla to make it appear as if they didn’t know the Divine object’s whereabouts. They believed it was more important to secure proper evidence and hold the coronation ceremony. If they engaged in armed conflict with the First Prince’s faction, the Empire would falter due to the many people involved.”
“Then why now?”
“Why?”
“You said she was captured. So the reason Senior came here is…”
“She wasn’t supposed to need the Divine object until the coronation. But she suddenly needed it, so she rushed here this morning. If Lucilla appeared at the Imperial Palace, she would naturally be suspected of knowing the Divine object’s whereabouts, so I brought it.”
Is it related to the sky becoming strange?
Matt Nico said his role was simply to deliver a package prepared by Lucilla to Ruben. He suspected the Divine object was inside the package, but he explained that he wasn’t sure what he had carried because he hadn’t seen its form.
He said that since he was here anyway, he would just help prepare the Artifacts needed for attack and defense, just in case, and do his job well.
Seven in the morning.
Knights and Wizards alike were already gathered in the Martial arts training ground. While Mac Weaber and Matt Nico clasped hands, sharing a moment of camaraderie, Hugh Benson, who was inspecting the Knights, approached me and opened a box of Artifacts, showing me the contents.
“I’ve set aside the Artifacts prepared by the Valentia family that you might find useful. Tell me if there’s anything you don’t need. I’ll give it to someone else.”
“Hmm… What is what?”
“This here is the Type 7 Instant Accelerator. You wear it on your wrist, and it allows you to use Blink with a specific signal input. It’s a one-time use. Next to it is the Type 5 Localized Shield. When you take a heavy blow, a small, solid shield appears around the brooch pendant, about 50cm in width and height. I figured a full-body shield would just get in your way and be useless.”
“…Thank you. But is this last one perhaps the Type 2 emergency signal transmitter?”
“Ah, an emergency flare. Use it if you want to lure monsters, or if we get lost.”
I put the bracelet on my wrist and the brooch on my chest. The emergency flare was clipped to my waist.
Wearable Artifacts, even with many Mana Stones attached, were generally not heavy and were small in volume. Yet, somehow, it felt heavy and overwhelming, as if I had attached a giant stone to my chest.