I considered cremating Pax.
Burn the body, then bury it.
It was the standard funerary practice in this world.
But Zanoba shook his head and stopped me.
Without Pax's body, the rebellion wouldn't settle down.
In a flat voice, he said the body should be kept to help quell the domestic turmoil.
No matter what, we shouldn't hand a king's corpse over to the rebel army.
That was what I thought too, but Zanoba carried an indescribable weight behind his words.
In the end, I acquiesced without objection, cleaned Pax's body with water magic, and carried it up to the fifth floor.
As I climbed to the fifth floor, Randolph was there with Queen Benedict strapped to his back and a massive bundle in his hands.
Roxy was helping him.
Randolph had asked for her assistance, apparently.
They'd dressed the naked Benedict and fashioned a carrier out of sheets.
They silently went about pulling clothes from the closet and stuffing them into bags.
"His Majesty?" Randolph asked, that being his very first question.
"He has passed. We'll hand the body over to the rebel army to settle the unrest," Zanoba answered evenly.
Randolph's expression didn't change.
As though to say he already knew what the outcome would be.
"I was charged with extracting the Queen and delivering her to the Dragon King Kingdom."
Randolph probably knew.
That Pax had been contemplating suicide.
I had no right to ask why he hadn't stopped him.
"Then you should follow us," Zanoba said.
"Understood. Lord Zanoba—I am grateful for your consideration."
After an exceedingly brief exchange, Randolph bowed his head.
Randolph, who until just moments ago had been fighting to kill us, would now be accompanying us.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been wary of him.
Convinced this was the Hitogami's trap and a final battle awaited.
But I now knew that wouldn't happen.
I could tell Randolph had no desire to fight.
It was a strange feeling.
But not entirely incomprehensible.
The Fifth of the Seven Great Powers, Randolph Marianne.
Even a man this incomparably stronger than me wore a look of fatigue on his face.
That said, both Roxy and I were just as exhausted.
Even if someone had asked me to "fight Randolph now," I would have weakly shaken my head.
Everyone was utterly spent.
Even Zanoba had gone silent.
The four of us—five, counting Benedict.
Five people left the royal castle using the underground passage, footsteps heavy.
We made it back to the water mill.
Pitch black. Still a long time until dawn.
When a light spirit shot through the darkness, the Magic Armor stored near the water mill was brightly illuminated.
In the end, we never used that thing for anything besides transport.
"This is... could it be the Fighting God Armor?"
Randolph asked suddenly.
He was staring up at the Magic Armor with a dazed expression.
"No. It's a 'Magic Armor'—a magical tool that Zanoba and I built for the decisive battle."
"I see... If you'd been using that, I might have been in trouble too."
"Maybe. In the end, I couldn't handle your Phantom Blade."
At that, Randolph let out a soft laugh.
"Well, you backed me into a corner before I could use it."
"Huh?"
"The combination attacks alone left my body in tatters, and firing that rock cannon drained what little mana I had left..."
He said it almost as if trying to comfort me.
So that meant my composed stance back there—the one that looked like cowardice holding me back—was actually the Phantom Blade?
If I'd attacked at that moment, could I have won?
No... either way, all I could do was sigh.
The best answer was to not fight at all.
Win or lose, it all came down to spinning my wheels.
"Oh, that reminds me. Randolph, you said you knew about the Hitogami."
Let me ask while I still remembered.
A person who knew of the Hitogami was valuable in and of itself.
After going through all this, with Pax dead to boot—
It would be pathetic to come away with nothing to show for it.
"Yes, I don't know much, though."
"Would you mind telling me what you do know?"
"I can, but... I only heard a story about a relative of mine who borrowed the Hitogami's power to fight a mighty enemy, long ago."
"A mighty enemy...?"
"To protect his fiancée, he followed the Hitogami's suggestion and stole the Fighting God Armor, then used it to fight. Against the Dragon God Laplace—who was said to be the strongest at the time."
"In the end, he couldn't protect his fiancée, and it was apparently almost a draw..."
Randolph added, "Mind you, this is all hearsay," and let out a chuckle.
But I'd heard that story somewhere before.
Right—Silica and Orsted had mentioned it.
Something about the Dragon God and the Fighting God fighting each other...
"When I was young, I'd hear it often at drinking gatherings. It's probably just a tall tale, but having grown up hearing it, I at least knew the name 'Hitogami.'"
No, that was genuinely valuable information.
In a sense, it was a story about a former apostle of the Hitogami.
Though Orsted probably already knew about it.
A little redundancy in intelligence wasn't a bad thing.
"That relative of yours—what was their name?"
"The Demon King of the Biegora region, Badi Gardie."
Oh.
Well, hmm.
In that case, that story might indeed be tall tales.
That Demon King had been a boisterous, freewheeling sort.
It wouldn't be unlike him to make up stories like that.
I didn't think Orsted was lying, though...
Well, claiming someone else's heroic deeds as your own was a common enough story.
"Thank you..."
I was completely drained.
I had no energy left to say anything more.
So I'd been jerked around by all that...
Haa.
I just wanted to go home and sleep without thinking about anything.
Come to think of it, I hadn't slept at all today.
"Randolph, what will you do from here?"
After our conversation ended, Zanoba asked Randolph.
"I'll head straight to the Dragon King Kingdom."
"And after that?"
"I'll protect the Queen until she gives birth, and teach the child swordsmanship, academics, and cooking."
Give birth—so Benedict was pregnant?
You couldn't really tell from looking at her...
"He said he'd been asked to raise the child with praise and encouragement, so the child might end up a bit spoiled."
"I see."
Benedict would give birth, and Randolph would raise the child.
Could it be that Benedict, too, had known Pax was going to die?
Like with Randolph, I wouldn't ask why she hadn't stopped him.
She couldn't have stopped him.
The two of them were probably the ones who felt the most helpless.
"Lord Randolph, may I ask one thing?"
Zanoba posed a question, as though it had just occurred to him.
In the darkness, his skull-like face tilted to one side.
"Why did you follow Pax so loyally? Was it an order from the King of the Dragon King Kingdom?"
Randolph smiled faintly.
"No. I simply liked the man."
"I see... Then let me express my gratitude."
"Gratitude? Lord Zanoba, you're quite the character."
Randolph kept his thin smile and turned to me.
"Oh, right. Lord Rudeus."
"Yes? What is it?"
"They say you shouldn't get too involved with the Hitogami.
My relative told me as much—even if you make an enemy of them or try to make them an ally,
you never come out ahead. He drilled that into me."
I nodded.
I knew that better than anyone.
And it was far too late now.
If anything, I wished someone had told me ten years ago.
"My relative also suffered terribly because of his involvement with the Hitogami."
Badi Gardie.
Come to think of it, he'd seemed to know about the Hitogami too.
Where he was now, I had no idea...
"Well then, everyone. Stay safe."
"You as well, Lord Randolph."
Randolph shook hands with Zanoba one last time, then turned on his heel.
His skull-like figure vanished into the night.
"..."
"..."
After that, without a word to each other, we returned to the water mill.
We slept like the dead.
---
The next day, we woke around noon and headed back to the capital.
The royal castle had already been seized by the rebel army.
The gate's blockade had apparently been lifted at some point.
"Void Severing Eye."
I didn't know what Randolph's magical eye was, or by what principle it had kept enemies out of the castle.
But he'd either left the castle's vicinity, or the effect had simply worn off with time.
Smoke from cooking fires rose from the occupied castle.
From within, you could feel vitality.
Were they, like the soldiers at Karon Fort before, drunk on victory?
Regardless, there was a sense of life.
The foolish king is finished, and a bright future awaits.
That was the energy emanating not just from the castle, but from every corner of the city.
Conversely, there were places devoid of life.
The city square.
There, Pax's body was put on display.
They clearly had no intention of showing the corpse any respect—it was left naked, with a cutting wound near the shoulder that hadn't been there when we'd last seen it.
They'd added it afterward.
Maybe they wanted to claim they'd killed him.
General Jade seemed to be spreading the message that "Pax was a foolish tyrant, and he who holds our banner is the true king."
Some kind of propaganda, no doubt.
Whether Pax had truly been a tyrant and a fool was hard for me to judge—I'd never been involved in politics.
The old Pax might have been, but the recent Pax had been neither foolish nor tyrannical, I thought.
Well, if you focused on the fact that he'd massacred the entire royal family, he was nothing short of a tyrant.
And yet, despite all that, few people were throwing stones at Pax's body.
He hadn't been loved, but he hadn't been hated either.
Mostly, he'd been absent abroad for too long and reigned for too short a time, so people were left thinking, "What was this guy, anyway?"
Indifference—that was the overwhelming sentiment.
"..."
Zanoba trembled as he watched.
His eyes were wide, his fists clenched, his whole body shaking.
I, too, felt something welling up inside me at the sight.
Maybe we should have cremated him after all...
Maybe we shouldn't have handed the body over to the rebel army.
Once they'd seized the castle, they would have considered themselves victorious regardless...
No—before all that, maybe I could have saved him.
I never would have imagined he'd jump, but if I'd jumped with Zanoba and used magic midair, maybe...
...Enough.
I never thought Pax would jump so easily.
It was too late.
I should have noticed sooner that he was contemplating suicide.
That, too, was a tall order, though...
"Have I... made yet another mistake?"
Lost in thought, Zanoba murmured.
I didn't know what was going through his mind.
I couldn't tell how seriously Zanoba had truly considered Pax his brother.
But it was clear from his face that he harbored some special feelings toward Pax.
There might have been something in their shared past that I knew nothing about.
"Hard to say... But looking at this, anyone who was thinking of resisting the next king will think twice. The country should... stabilize, right?"
The Eleventh Prince.
What was his name again?
I couldn't remember, but he was around three years old, I think.
He couldn't have been pulling the strings. General Jade must have been behind it all.
It made logical sense.
It just didn't sit right.
"..."
In the end, had General Jade been a Hitogami apostle?
Should I have killed him?
But if killing Pax had been his goal, it was already too late.
Now that everything was over, he might have been released from the Hitogami's service.
Forget it.
I'd been spinning my wheels this entire time.
At this rate, anything I did would just miss the mark.
More than that—I no longer had confidence in my own judgment.
I should go back first and ask Orsted for instructions.
I'd have to report that Pax was dead.
But I couldn't just leave Zanoba behind and go.
"Zanoba, I'm thinking of returning to Sharia. What about you?"
"...Master. Before we go back, could we wait for Ginger first? She's probably heading this way right now."
"Oh, right. Got it."
Damn, I'd completely forgotten about Ginger.
Of course. We needed to rendezvous with her too.
Our next move would have to wait until we'd linked up with Ginger.
With that decided, we left the water mill.
---
Afterward, the three of us took rooms at an inn in the capital, and three days passed.
There had been talk of us heading toward Karon Fort to meet up with Ginger, but that plan never materialized.
I wanted to get home quickly, but at the same time, I felt we should observe this country a little longer.
A few days here wouldn't tell us much about the country, though.
We still kept up our intelligence gathering.
Something else might yet happen.
So we couldn't neglect maintenance on the Magic Armor or keeping watch on our surroundings.
The town was buzzing with rumors from the battle.
The siege of the capital by the rebel army and the clash with the royal forces led by Pax.
The days-long death struggle between General Jade's forces and the Death God Randolph.
How wise and noble the next king would be.
Most of it was fabricated.
The victors write the history, and the results were atrocious.
Of course, not all of it was General Jade's doing.
Some of it could have been jokes by people with no connection at all, which then spread as accepted fact.
Given how quickly the rumors circulated, they'd probably been making the rounds since before we'd even been waiting outside the castle.
People gravitated toward the more dramatic version of events.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Strange yet pitifully anticlimactic—that was reality.
In the inn's dining hall, at the well, at the market.
Words that might have been lies or might have been truth drifted through the air.
Among them was a rumor that the next king would sell half the Silon Kingdom to the northern country.
Come to think of it, what had happened with the cease-fire negotiations?
Had the fort's garrison commander taken over?
Had it all just fizzled out?
I had no idea, but Zanoba seemed not to care anymore.
Ever since we'd taken rooms at the inn, Zanoba spent most of his time lost in thought.
He'd sit in his chair all day long, staring into nothing.
Come to think of it, Zanoba had lost his family.
His brother. His father. His home.
He'd called this country his homeland, but a homeland where you had no place left to belong—maybe he no longer felt it was worth defending.
That said, he didn't seem depressed or withdrawn.
He just had a lot on his mind, I supposed.
About what came next.
The one who was actually depressed was someone else.
Roxy.
For the past few days, she'd barely spoken, had little appetite, and ate sparingly.
When night came, she'd sit with a listless expression, staring into the fireplace.
Was Pax's death really that much of a shock?
Of course it was.
At the very end, Pax had spat out his resentment toward Roxy.
All but saying, "You're the reason I'm dying."
I'd be shaken too.
"I'm back."
"...Welcome home."
Roxy sat as she always did today—hugging her knees, gazing vacantly at the fire.
I sat down beside her as usual.
I had plenty of words of comfort, but they all felt trite and irresponsible.
I couldn't bring myself to say them.
Or maybe saying them would ease Roxy's heart a little...
"You know—" I started quietly.
"...I sighed, back then."
Roxy wasn't looking at me.
But she was speaking to me.
As if confessing a sin, she continued.
"The day Prince Pax mastered intermediate magic.
He came to me, brimming with joy, to show me. And I sighed at him.
I might have muttered under my breath, 'So this is all you can manage?'"
"That would hurt."
When I said that, Roxy's hand clenched the hem of her robe.
"Honestly, when I was teaching Prince Pax, I think I was constantly comparing him to Rudy.
'Rudy would have understood this problem right away. Rudy would have mastered this magic in no time.'
And on top of that, 'This child is below Rudy.'
I... might have been looking down on him."
I had mastered intermediate magic quickly.
Roxy probably had too.
But not everyone could learn it so easily.
Pax must have worked hard.
He'd made his own effort, devised his own methods, practiced, and finally mastered it.
And when he went to show Roxy, hoping for praise—all he got was a sigh.
If someone had done that to me back when I was in Buena Village...
I might not have revered Roxy. I might never have married her.
"Back then, I was only looking upward.
I was learning king-level magic and aiming even higher.
I might have been arrogant.
So much so that I neglected anyone below me."
Roxy bit her lower lip and hugged her knees tighter.
I stroked her back.
She was faintly trembling.
"I thought I was reflecting on my mistakes.
That I'd failed, and next time I'd do better."
Tears pooled in Roxy's eyes before my very eyes.
"But I wasn't reflecting at all.
I vaguely felt I'd taught the wrong way, but I justified myself by saying the royal court environment had made me that way."
A tear spilled from Roxy's eye.
"I didn't realize that my own attitude had changed Prince Pax.
Not until he told me himself, the other day—all those years, and I never, ever noticed."
As tears flowed freely and wouldn't stop, she buried her face in her knees.
I stroked her small, hunched back as she curled up smaller and smaller.
"Prince Pax didn't have a next time..."
Roxy wept, just like that.
I kept stroking her back.
I stayed there for a while.
Just stroking Roxy's back as it shuddered with sobs.
Eventually, Roxy's sobs subsided.
She raised her head and looked at me with bloodshot, crimson eyes.
"Rudy, should I... continue being a teacher?"
"..."
How should I answer?
I didn't know.
I wasn't a teacher, after all.
But there was something I'd once said to her.
"Sensei."
A superficial word I'd nicked from some game or manga.
It might still be nothing more than empty consolation.
It might be nothing more than a salve.
It might be nothing more than me glossing over things.
"You didn't make a mistake, Sensei. You gained experience."
I didn't think it was wrong, even if it was just lip service.
"If you never make the same mistake twice, then your students—all of them—will grow up to be fine people and find happiness. Just like me."
"..."
Roxy stared at me intently.
Blue hair, blue eyelashes. Trembling little lips.
She'd once been someone out of my reach, but not anymore.
"Rudy, are you happy?"
"Yes. There are hard times, but thanks to your teaching, Sensei, I've been able to be happy."
"Rudy, you... always say that, don't you."
Of course I did.
It was the truth, and the truth didn't change from one day to the next.
"I can't explain it well, but the reason I was able to take the first step in life is because you put me on that horse."
"That's an exaggeration... It was so long ago, you've probably just convinced yourself that's how it was."
"Maybe it is an exaggeration, but every time I think of Roxy pushing forward through her own repeated failures, it gives me courage. That much is certain."
I said it seriously.
It was true that Roxy, as a teacher, might have derailed one student's life.
I wasn't going to say things like "it wasn't entirely her fault" as some kind of comfort.
If she felt responsible, then in her heart, she had killed Pax.
But on the other hand, there were students whose lives had been saved because of a teacher like Roxy.
I was one of them.
I wasn't the only person who'd kept me alive all this time.
But Roxy was undeniably one of them.
"I'm not going to tell you to forget what happened.
If anything, you shouldn't forget.
But at the same time, please don't forget that there are people like me—people who were given life by Roxy."
I was aware of how self-righteous I sounded.
But I meant every word.
I didn't want Roxy to reject her life as a teacher.
"..."
Roxy looked at me with a dazed expression.
Her mouth half-open, her red eyes wide.
Then, as if something clicked, she started trembling, snot ran from her nose, and she hurriedly buried her face in her knees.
"Rudy."
"Yes."
"Lala must have been trying to reunite me with Prince Pax again, wasn't she..."
I didn't know the answer to that last question.
Only Lala knew.
It might be different from my perspective.
"...Maybe."
After that, Roxy cried for a while longer.
I stayed by her side the whole time.
The next day, Roxy seemed a little better.
---
About five days had passed.
General Jade was apparently planning a coronation ceremony.
It was going to be lavish, but this country couldn't afford that kind of extravagance.
Still, showing the world that the leadership had changed was probably important.
Around the time I heard that rumor, we managed to link up with Ginger.
After the battle, she'd recovered her strength and then set out from Karon Fort to catch up with us.
She'd been a bit late because she'd worn out a horse along the way.
She took in the state of the capital, heard from us what had happened, and with no change in expression, simply murmured, "Is that so."
But I didn't miss the way her face said "of course" when she heard Pax had died.
He'd done terrible things to her, so it was only natural.
Even knowing that, it still felt hollow.
"So, what does Lord Zanoba plan to do?"
"Hmm."
"He will... protect the country, I presume?"
When Ginger asked that, she'd been calm, I think.
Pax was dead.
There was no one left to threaten Zanoba's life.
The next king might still view Zanoba as a threat.
But Jade was a man who could be reasoned with.
Unlike Pax, he held no personal grudge against Zanoba.
He also knew the value of a God Child.
It was still dangerous, but he was the kind of opponent you could deal with through logic.
Yet Zanoba shook his head weakly.
"No. I'm going back to the magic city of Sharia."
"...Understood."
Ginger nodded deeply.
She looked somewhat relieved.
I'd always thought Ginger wanted Zanoba to be a proper royal, but...
Perhaps more than that, she simply wanted him to be alive.
I was honestly relieved too.
Staying in this country, he'd probably be killed eventually.
Thinking that, I looked at Zanoba's face and felt a bad premonition.
"Ginger."
Zanoba wore an expression of firm resolve.
The same face he'd worn right before setting out for the Silon Kingdom.
He looked like he was about to do something.
"I'm going to... renounce this country."
"Renounce... the country?
Oh, you mean you'll seek asylum?
That's a fine idea.
The Ranoa Kingdom would gladly welcome you, and with a word from Lord Rudeus, even the Asura Kingdom..."
"No. Not asylum."
Zanoba shook his head once more.
Then, looking down at Ginger who had fallen to her knees, he spoke as though trying to convince her.
"I intend to cast aside my royal status.
In the aftermath of this rebellion, I will have 'died.' And rather than continuing as the Third Prince of the Silon Kingdom, Zanoba Shirone, I will live out the rest of my days as simply Zanoba."
Ginger's face clouded.
She didn't want that?
Renouncing his status—honestly, I couldn't quite grasp the feeling.
I'd never had a status worth renouncing.
"...That is also a fine idea, I think."
But Ginger didn't refuse it.
Life in Sharia had seemed to make Zanoba happy every day.
Returning to the Silon Kingdom now would only mean shouldering a burden.
Seeking asylum in another country would just mean being used for his God Child status.
If he gave up his status, he could live as he pleased.
The problem with not being royalty was money, but if it came to that, I could find him work.
Make him the exclusive mechanic for the Magic Armor and pay him a salary.
Or if he preferred, he could do something for my mercenary company.
"Mm. Ginger, I appreciate all you've done for me."
"Those are most generous words..."
Zanoba nodded, looking satisfied.
Ginger also let out a relieved sigh.
"So, Ginger, what will you do from here?"
"...Naturally, I intend to continue serving Lord Zanoba."
Ginger said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
But Zanoba frowned.
"You were my royal guard, true, but you're a knight of Silon. If I'm no longer royalty, there's no reason for you to serve me."
"No, my lord—whether you are royalty or not is of little consequence to me."
"Hmm. But I can't very well pay you. You used to send money back to your family, didn't you?"
"They are all adults and independent now. There's no one left for me to support."
The two continued their back and forth.
Zanoba demurring, Ginger pressing.
But gradually, the sharp edge of Zanoba's questions faded.
"If you stay by my side any longer, you might miss your chance to marry," Zanoba said at last.
Miss her chance to marry...
Come to think of it, how old was Ginger now?
Considering the marriageable age in this world, she might have already missed it.
"Marriage—!"
That was when Ginger finally lost her patience.
She lifted her head, threw her arms wide, and dropped to her knees.
And before I could wonder what she was about to do—she slammed her body flat against the ground.
Full prostration.
In the Silon Kingdom, was full prostration the highest form of respect?
Zanoba used to do it all the time.
"I was entrusted with Lord Zanoba's care personally by Lady Minerva!
Even if Lord Zanoba is no longer royalty, it changes nothing!
Not as a bodyguard—I would serve as your consort, if you would have me!
Please! If you have any concern for my fate, then please, let me stay by your side!"
I couldn't hide my surprise at the sudden gesture.
Minerva—that must have been Zanoba's mother's name.
"Hmm."
Zanoba stroked his chin as if deliberating, then slowly crouched down.
"Ginger. I understand your feelings. Raise your face."
"...!"
Ginger looked on the verge of tears as she lifted her upper body.
"If you're going to say all that, I won't cast you away by force.
However, I won't treat you as a subordinate.
From now on, stay by my side as someone who understands me. Is that acceptable?"
Tears spilled from Ginger's eyes.
"Understood!"
And she returned to her full prostration.
A beautiful sight, perhaps.
From the visible part alone, it was a touch surreal.
In any case, Zanoba had decided to go back. That meant this whole affair was over.
I couldn't very well call it a neat resolution.
Nothing had really been solved.
The taste was bitter.
All that remained was the sense of defeat, futility, and stress.
But an ending was an ending.
Time to go home.