Having won the duel, I’m just going to make sure the promise gets kept, as usual.
But Pierre looks shocked.
“W‑what, a promise?”
“Yeah. I told you, right? Bring it back—bring it to me, right there.”
When Pierre’s face shows he’s catching on, he turns to Fernand.
“That’s right. This guy won the duel. He’s the owner of that ship, so I’m not at fault. He’s the one who’s wrong!”
Pierre keeps shouting, refusing to give up, and I grin as I reply.
“Hey, hey, didn’t you hear me? I said… bring it to me. Now hurry up and give it back. I want to sleep in an Einhorn bed again. I’m so delicate I can’t even rest if the pillow changes.”
It’s a lie.
Even with a new pillow I could crash into sleep that very day.
I watch Pierre’s face turn blue, smirking all the while.
“What’s the matter? Bring it here already.”
Fernand steps in.
“Count, I’m sorry, but your airship’s gone berserk. We can’t bring it over right now. If possible, we’d like you to help us stop it.”
I open my mouth wide like a crescent moon and say as if I’d been waiting.
Yeah, I’ve been waiting for this moment.
All the time‑buying was for this.
Because Pierre over‑estimated his own power—his Saint Tree’s power and Alogantz’s performance—everything went smoothly.
All for this!
“Doesn’t matter!”
Pierre starts crying at my words.
“Oh? Finally noticing, are you? Yeah, you broke that Saint Tree oath thing. You lost the duel and still won’t give me back the Einhorn—what punishment do you think the Saint Tree will hand down?”
A red magic circle flares up right beneath Pierre.
Fernand and the others instinctively step away from the circle, looking terrified.
I stand on the circle, staring at Pierre.
“No, no, please. Forgive me. I’ll do anything, just forgive me! I don’t want ‘No Blessing.’ I don’t want ‘No Blessing!’”
Pierre screams, tries to run, but roots sprout from the ground and coil around his body. They grab his ankles, pull him down, and lift him up, vines from the roots wrapping his right arm.
“Stop it! Please! I won’t do this again! I’m not the bad guy! He’s an outsider! Please forgive me!”
I step close to the wailing Pierre and say.
“You said you’d do anything, right? Then become ‘No Blessing’ right now.”
‘No Blessing’—that’s what the nobles with Saint Tree blessings fear most.
It was written in Marie’s notebook.
When Pierre’s face turns to despair, the emblem on the back of his right hand flares brightly—then the vines release him. The roots retreat into the ground and the emblem disappears from his hand.
Pierre collapses, refusing to move, tears streaming as he looks at his empty palm.
I walk up, smile, and say.
“Breaking promises is bad, huh? Let this be a lesson—live properly from now on.”
I knew everything from the start.
I’d imagined what Pierre feared most and decided I’d erase his emblem no matter what.
After consulting with Luxion behind the scenes, we’d teach the Alzel scum a reality lesson.
When the red magic circle fades, Fernand and the others creep forward, trembling.
‘No Blessing.’ Seeing his blessing stripped, he looks a little shaken.
“…Pierre.”
Even Fernand’s sympathetic gaze can’t hide that he’s still one of the Six Great Nobles.
He feels sorry for Pierre, who’s lost his emblem.
He doesn’t need a blessing. Just having one brings misery to others.
More than anything, he dared to pick a fight with me.
That’s the one thing I can’t forgive.
An event? The protagonist and the target heroine are already dripping with sugary atmosphere—no need for a forced “let’s become friends” scene now.
This is reality… If they’re in the way, just eliminate them. We can clean up the protagonists later.
Patience is poison.
If he hadn’t tangled with us, I’d have just watched… but he crossed the line. When he kidnapped Noel and Carla, I decided to give him the cruelest treatment possible.
I whisper gently to Pierre.
“How does it feel, losing the Saint Tree’s blessing? Tell me, you fake little noble.”
I grin and listen as Pierre looks back, his expression a mix of anger and tears.
…That’s the face I wanted to see!
“Come on, say it. You only have the Saint Tree’s blessing as your asset—how does losing it feel? Scared? Yeah, you should be—after acting all high‑and‑mighty, now you’ve lost it. Everyone’s probably out for revenge, huh?”
Looking at the audience seats, the academy students stare at Pierre with cold eyes.
Even nobles get a cold shoulder once they lose their blessing.
Pierre collapses into a sobbing heap.
“Why… why is this happening to me!?”
“It’s because you picked a fight with me. Brace yourself. It’s not over yet. And this is your own fault. Well, it was an entertaining show, Pierre.”
I place a hand on his shoulder.
“You were a good clown.”
Pierre wails louder, and Fernand and the others stare at me, utterly shocked.
…No, they should be the ones shocked.
What the hell, we’re the ones who got dragged into this mess.
I brush my hair back.
“Alright, time to go pick them up.”
I hope Luxion isn’t overdoing it. That kid’s always talking about wiping out the New Humans—he’s a lost cause.
◇
The Alzel Republic’s airship fleet is deployed.
Behind them looms the Saint Tree Temple; pushing further would endanger the tree.
The admiral on the flagship shouts.
“Sink that thing here, no matter what! Crew safety doesn’t matter!”
Over fifty vessels point their cannons at the Einhorn.
They’ve been tearing through the Fevel lands, sinking the private Fevel fleet to get here.
All the Republic airships fire in unison.
The cannons line the hulls, their shells accelerated and empowered by magic.
Through that barrage, the Einhorn barrels forward.
It deploys shields, deflecting every shot.
The admiral’s face twists like he’s chewing on a bitter pill.
“…a monster.”
In Republic history, they’ve never been pressed this hard.
For a Republic that worships the Saint Tree, retreat isn’t an option.
More airships rise into the sky, joining the fleet, but the Einhorn ignores them and keeps firing.
The admiral watches, stunned, as the Einhorn fires while still pointing its bow forward.
Republic airships get their magical shields pierced and take hits.
Allied ships are hit one after another.
“What accuracy… this is a Kingdom airship?”
The admiral roars.
“Full engine output! Even if we have to ram this ship, we’ll sink it!”
Realizing a gunfight puts them at a disadvantage, several ships, including the flagship, prepare a charge. The Einhorn watches silently.
“Crush them!”
The admiral’s eyes linger on the Einhorn’s movements, but drunken shouts crackle over the comms:
‘Gyahaha! We’re the strongest!’ ‘Long live the Fevel house!’ ‘Hey, move out of the way~’
Even if the enemy acts incomprehensibly, they just dismiss it as “drunk antics.”
“Charge!”
Airships thicken their shields at the bow and rush the Einhorn.
Crew scramble off the ships; the admiral hops into a small craft and leaves the scene, shocked.
“…No way.”
He shoots down the charging airships, sinking them, then the flagship—over a thousand meters long—plunges forward, smashed and split apart.
Only the Einhorn emerges unscathed from the explosion, fire, and smoke.
The admiral clenches his fists in frustration.
“This is hopeless.”
Lack of preparation, sure, but they were never even in a real fight.
From a small craft, he watches the Einhorn.
If the Republic knights try to attach armor, it’s either shot down or knocked off by some legless armor thing.
The admiral collapses to his knees.
“Is this the day the Republic loses under my watch…?”
The undefeated myth is about to end.
Then a subordinate points to the sky.
“Admiral!”
“What… is that?”
A massive armor piece, unknown even to the admiral, descends from the heavens toward the Einhorn, smashing the legless armor and landing on the deck.
A young man steps out.
“A student?”
A student—Leon, shotgun in hand, boards the Einhorn, and the Drouil family’s airship broadcasts to all vessels:
‘Don’t fire! That kid is an ally!’
Fernand Toara Drouil—upon hearing the words of the Six Great Nobles, the fleet obeys and ceases fire.
But the admiral, tears streaming, clutches both hands.
“…Even now it’s too late.”
The ground where the Saint Tree stands is littered with wrecked airships.
In effect, the Republic fleet was beaten by a single foreign airship.
◇
Inside the Einhorn.
It’s a mess; I’m holding two shotguns and mutter.
“Gonna bill them extra for repairs.”
Luxion, who’s got guard robots on either side, appears before me.
‘We’ve been waiting, Master.’
“Lonely?”
‘Yes. I’ve grown enough to understand that not hearing your idle chatter is lonely too. If you’d just been a bit later, we could’ve destroyed that temple.’
…still not cute.
Claire even sends Angelica’s underwear pics.
Luxion floats to my right shoulder, the robots taking up defensive positions.
“So, where are the scum?”
‘A few are holed up in a room, escaping reality. Most are trying to flee the hangar in various ways.’
“Show me. And make Pierre’s case thorough.”
‘…Understood.’
I raise my shotgun, grin, and start hunting Pierre’s goons.
While eyeing the wrecked Einhorn, Luxion reports.
“What about the Saint Tree oath— isn’t that a contract?”
‘No. To be precise, it isn’t. The Saint Tree itself doesn’t handle such fine details. The “contract” talk is an application of the oath. Supposedly, the oath is meant to borrow greater power. This application was only discovered recently.’
“So the reason they didn’t just take it or curse us directly is because of that?”
If Pierre wanted, he could have just snatched the Einhorn without question. He chose the roundabout oath route for a reason.
‘Our research shows the Saint Tree’s emblem has ranks. The top is “Guardian,” then “Priestess,” followed by the Six Great Nobles, then lower nobles. The higher the rank, the bigger the benefits.’
“Pierre couldn’t just steal or curse it, huh?”
‘Exactly. That’s why they used the oath. The Saint Tree probably reported the Einhorn as belonging to Marie’s side. From the Tree’s view, a blessed Pierre outranks us.’
I chuckle.
“An overbearing Saint Tree— a sapling works against it.”
‘Those who hold a sapling can’t act as superiors. I inferred that from Marie’s notebook, and I was right.’
A bargaining chip.
And the sapling’s been pretty useful.
“Still, the Saint Tree tossed Pierre aside easily.”
‘For the Tree, breaking or losing an oath makes the oath‑taker an inadequate guardian, so it revokes blessings and curses. If they fail, the Tree can’t just sit idle.’
In short, the Six Great Nobles aren’t the only ones exploiting the Saint Tree; the Tree uses them to protect itself.
“Pierre was reckless. If we leak this to the Kingdom, what happens?”
‘If the Master doesn’t act, nothing changes. The Kingdom lacks the power to crush the Republic. The Republic still has the defensive edge, but they’ll notice its weak points—useful long‑term intel.’
As I speak, we arrive at the hangar.
Pierre’s goons, resigned, sit as I walk in.
“Hello, rebels— and to hell with you!”
I pull the trigger; shells spray, the buckshot stinging like knives.
Human‑target ammo, painfully effective.
I fire repeatedly, watching them crumble in agony.
I stomp a head of a goon I recognized from the day Pierre challenged me.
“Now, you’ll be judged as rebels… how does that feel?”
The wounded goons turn blue, smelling of booze but sober.
“Did you figure out who you picked a fight with?”
All trembling, I reload.
“You guys tried to invade the Kingdom, right? You’ll be the ones to deal with us? Nice guts. Want me to buy you?”
They keep their faces down, muttering:
“Uh, I didn’t mean—” “Pierre said— Pierre said it.” “No, we didn’t do anything!”
I pull the trigger, silence them, then laugh.
“It doesn’t matter! Your crime is that you— no, that you picked a fight with me.”
Now the protagonist and the target heroine are already sweet‑as‑sugar, no more events needed. I’ve got no need to hold back.
Next, we’ll make the Alzel Republic pay up.