'Thinking back on it now.'
Esther had never been afraid of Astrail. Not once.
'They were just a nuisance.'
Like fruit flies that keep clinging to you in midsummer—when you try to swat them they slip away, but if you leave them alone you feel like they'll lay eggs somewhere on your body—those abnormal fruit flies.
So with Astrail gone she felt a bit of relief, but nothing beyond that. You could say she had no lingering sentiment. Which is why Esther stayed unfazed and made clear what she had to do.
"I should make the rounds in a few places."
"Where?"
Enkrid asked. There was nothing to chew over in the message passed on by the dead demon. It was an opponent they'd fight whenever they met anyway. That was all.
So while he was simply mulling over what he'd learned in today's fight, lost in various thoughts, he heard Esther and responded.
"To their hideouts."
Back then she had investigated Astrail in her own way, so while she didn't know their main base, she did know how to find their hidden assets.
'Most of it will be useless, though.'
Some of it, if left as is, would be dangerous. Astrail as a group were outright lunatics— not in a good way, in a bad way.
'Who knows where a colony-class monster might burst out.'
And an ignorant passerby stumbling on one of their hideouts would be a problem too.
'If I think a bit more drastically…'
There could be a recurrence of a contracted beast incident on the level of the Salamander. If she cleaned it up beforehand and burned it all?
Their assets and research no longer meant much to her. This was entirely the result of Enkrid-style thinking.
'If left alone, it turns to poison.'
Then a preemptive measure wouldn't be bad. A potential threat sufficient to rob someone of their home or life—their legacy ought to be treated that way. So Esther thought.
"Sincerity and concern are—"
The dragonkin broke off and lifted his sword.
Kwarung.
The sound came a beat late. Before it, light flashed as the dragonkin's sword Baika collided with it, discharging prickling lightning in all directions.
Temares's lemon-colored hair stood stiff in reaction to the bolt, then settled down.
"I told you to stop speaking my mind out loud."
Esther was a witch.
No matter how much she had changed from before, her behavior was on a different track from ordinary people. Blasting lightning with a spell just because she didn't like something— that. And in that regard the dragonkin was the same. They were alike in that both were masters of a mindset that runs on a different track.
"I'll remember."
He showed no peculiar reaction to a spell that carried no malice. She really had done it as a warning.
He was gradually adapting socially too, learning to distinguish what shouldn't be done.
Esther collected what she needed from the corpses of the dead mages.
Each had this and that on their person. From the short mage in armor she pulled something like a broad iron plate—an object with a permanently imbued levitation spell.
"This would be decent with a little work."
Helping Aitri forge Enkrid's sword had opened her eyes to enchantment as well.
A few creative ideas flitted through her mind. It would be nice to tinker with it later when she had time. Getting Aitri's help would be fine too.
"Well then."
Esther had no lingering attachment. She always looked forward as she walked, and knew how to sort what to do from what not to do. Above all, if they just went back now, those people would have a grand time teasing them.
'Better to give it time.'
A cool judgment.
Esther regretted tossing a joke out of guilt and gratitude. Maybe if Shinar had said it, it would have passed without issue.
'Not that I'm about to say I'm feeling faint here, either.'
Why was Shinar-style joking— a tactic to get Enkrid to carry her on his back—popping into her head again now?
Anyway, Esther learned one more thing anew. In front of these people, jokes are forbidden.
"Is it just me, or does this look like you're running away?"
Rem said. He sounded like he was asking, but the way his lips were curling up made it clear he meant them to hear it.
"No."
Esther answered at once and moved. Even for a mage, if she was setting out on a long trip there would be various preparations.
"I'll stop by Lockfried and then go straight there."
As she spoke and turned, Jaxon watched her back with careful eyes and said,
"Do we pursue?"
He doesn't look it, but Jaxon means it when he teases people. If that weren't the case, he couldn't have gotten along with Rem all this time. Of course, if you said the two of them teased each other perfectly, you'd have a knife fight on the spot.
Enkrid shook his head.
"Leave her. Let her."
Then he looked to the ground, not the dead. Hadn't Kraiss said this land was being tilled over with light brown soil to develop it into farmland?
The traces were here and there. Over them, the marks of miasma and spellwork were plain as day.
Kraiss intended to turn even this land into fields. It was the work of making it a better land, a better place to live.
To guard places like this, they would still have to live diligently today. The sun, slanting westward, met the clouds and diffused a gentle glow in all directions.
Even though everything was over, Enkrid felt like there was a faint smell of burnt air. Was his developed intuition and gut telling him it wasn't over like this?
'Or is it because I cut down the demon's underling whatever and a vampire?'
He didn't know. You can't know the future. Because you can't know the tomorrow that hasn't come, you simply give your all to today, always.
So they couldn't just end it here today either.
"Let's head back. Temares, feels like you didn't even get to limber up?"
"There wasn't a place for me to step in. And you want to fight more."
"Yeah."
At the answer that refused to deny it, Temares nodded. Dragonkin are terribly susceptible to intelligent beings whose will shines. They're like plants leaning toward sunlight.
"Let's."
The party returned.
***
Kraiss heard the full situation from his seat. And he did not rejoice over having dispelled his anxiety.
'Will it be not enough?'
They had even stopped the Salamander, a contracted beast, and now had the force to repel mages even if they massed and attacked.
Yet the unease remained. Just as Enkrid smelled burnt air, Kraiss felt an unprecedented sense of dread.
'The price for refusing the demon's offer.'
His anxiety converged there.
Well, so is there anything more he can do right now? No. In that case, he would simply do as they had been doing.
"Abnaier."
At Kraiss's call, the owner of the dark-green hair lifted his head where he sat at the desk.
"What?"
The office was too spacious to have only two desks; when needed it turned into a meeting room. There was always a military map spread across the big table in the center. It was where they would stand in a ring around the table and each state an opinion.
Kraiss stood before that table and fell into thought. He'd called Abnaier, then once more reviewed his own thinking.
Abnaier understood that, and quietly waited for him to speak.
Kraiss's gaze turned to the map.
'Even if we prepare for everything and it's still not enough—'
He divided the regions on the map. He looked again at the points that shone in each region. The vulnerabilities were plain.
"Azpen must be training knights too, right?"
Of course. Abnaier didn't know every single thing happening in his home country, but he knew to a degree. What wasn't told to him he would infer or predict.
"Stating the obvious."
Abnaier answered.
A duchy had to rise to its feet on its own. Force was essential for that. Even if for now they were pressed by the Border Guard and Naurillia, who knew about twenty or thirty years later?
And how long would those two remain allies?
The continent was more familiar with chaos than order. Human selfishness and greed always changed circumstances.
Abnaier didn't trust humans easily.
'We need a system where betrayal is impossible on both sides.'
But was that even possible? For now, suppression by force was the best course.
If a burly adult with thick fists watched two kids and told them not to fight, the kids wouldn't be able to fight.
For all these reasons, investing in the future and cultivating talent was only natural.
The home country would do so.
"Send them here to learn."
At Kraiss's words, Abnaier— though he had no such doubt—asked back.
"You're not telling them to naturalize, I trust."
"No need to force anyone to stay. What's needed is learning and having force."
Kraiss knew Enkrid. He would protect even Azpen, whatever it took.
'We can't mass-produce knights—'
But they could build the foundation. Enkrid had built such a system.
It wasn't perfect.
'But it helps.'
This proposal would purely benefit Azpen, but Kraiss didn't see it that way.
'Azpen will become a bulwark guarding the Border Guard's rear.'
Abnaier acknowledged that Kraiss was a madman too. Not just his rapture for salons— this crazy bastard had a broad, broad bowl.
"Let's do it."
Azpen hadn't been an enemy ten years ago— only a few years ago.
'And you're going to step up and strengthen an enemy's force?'
Was it because they couldn't look even ten years ahead?
No— it was because they could draw a bigger picture than that. They'd suppress the immediate threat, and when future events arose, they'd deal with them then.
Kraiss would deny it, but this madman was no different from Enkrid. They were alike in walking a narrow tightrope with their own lives on the line.
Thus, from a land that had once been an enemy, applicants to be trained as knights set out for the Border Guard.
Abnaier persuaded his home country, and Azpen in truth had no choice.
If they wished, the madmen of the Border Guard could already have subjugated Azpen.
Especially after they killed the Balrog, and the recent events had even been carried to the Azpen royal family.
'This is an opportunity.'
So Abnaier judged. Though the thoughts of the Azpen knight-applicants who actually came to the Border Guard were different.
***
Crang let an old habit from the past slip out for the first time in a long while.
He didn't usually use refined speech for the sake of majesty, but people nagged him so much that he had come to use somewhat tempered language— not now.
"These bastards? They really mean to do this?"
Marcus Baisar, who had succeeded to the marquisate, was about to agree with the king. Crang spoke again. He didn't glare or pound the table. But from his tone alone, you could tell he was incensed.
"Why? Is it just a bout of mania? There's nothing in it for the South either, is there?"
Relations between the southern great power Rihinstetten and Naurillia were extremely bad— far worse than with Azpen.
Both countries shared a border with the Demon Realm in the south, and the South would cross the line at the drop of a hat. It led to local wars, and in the past to war proper.
How many died in between?
Even the late previous Marquis Baisar would grind his molars raw at the mention of the South.
Crang could read the situation. Naurillia was in a period of prosperity like never before. He could almost hear the southern king's words.
"Let's die together."
If not that, then what?
"Or they think they can win."
Marcus stated the obvious.
The South probably hadn't simply gone mad and started inching the front line forward.
'Because they think they stand a chance.'
Crang knew that made sense too. But it felt like some twisted malice had gotten mixed in.
"Up to now, I took their scheming not as war but as a bid to split the profits."
That was how he saw the reason they sent spies and ran all manner of operations.
'So was it war they wanted?'
This was internecine slaughter. A fight where both sides kill and are killed.
Why in the world do this?
Whatever it was, they couldn't just sit there and take it.
"Move the troops and notify the Council of Ten. This is the front guarded by the Red Cloak Order. We will not be pushed back."
Watching the South inch the line forward, Crang steeled himself. Venting his anger here would change nothing.
'Within a month at the longest?'
Marcus had a lot of battlefield experience. Even without calculating this and that, he saw a full-scale war breaking out in less than a month. He wasn't certain.
This war would break out not under Naurillia's initiative, but under Rihinstetten's.