— "The Stone Block,"
One of the Four Great Spirits, an ancient Great Spirit whose roots were planted deep in the soil of the Volakia Empire.
Unlike other nations' Divine Beasts, Wandering Devils, or Mediators, Muspel was a being that left no record of autonomous action or proclamation in history. Even knowing it existed within Volakia, no further information or sightings ever surfaced—perhaps making it the most spirit-like spirit of them all.
That was the nature of "The Stone Block" Muspel, residing in what was simply deemed a sacred site.
"Okay, so Bear explained that all nice and cute for me, but isn't this totally different from what we're dealing with?"
A Great Spirit whose whereabouts—and for that matter, very identity—remained unknown, and that was supposedly Muspel— "What proves they had it snatched is that you already had a handle on its location. Which means, by extension, Muspel was right here in this fortress city. Am I wrong?"
With that, Subaru jabbed his index finger straight at Abel's scowling face, question and all.
Abel narrowed his black eyes in response to Subaru's interrogation—but before he could open his mouth— "Hey, just what kind of tone do you think you're using with His Majesty the Emperor?"
A suddenly rough voice cut in between Subaru and Abel, and a gust of wind blew through. An instant later, the white crescent at the tip of Subaru's pointed finger was sheared clean off.
A white blade had flashed through wind and nail alike, and Subaru couldn't help but shriek, "Dwoaaah!"
And then— "You brat! Know your place! Your place!"
"That's my line! Don't go deep-trimming a kid's fingernail with a sword out of nowhere!"
Clutching his hand, Subaru spat his fury at the perpetrator of that outrage—Jamal.
Somehow, Jamal had been permitted to accompany Abel ever since they'd arrived at
At that breathtakingly reckless act, Subaru stared at him with utter disbelief— "I thought you'd gotten a little better, but in the end, I still hate you!"
"Huh? I ain't exactly tryin' to be liked by no brat. …Anyway."
The time he'd told Kucha of Todd's death, Subaru had been naive enough to think rational conversation was possible.
Protesting Jamal's unchanging coarseness, Subaru tried to stare him down despite their age gap, but his childish standoff was interrupted by a raised hand.
It was Abel, seated at the round table, who spoke the command: "Stop."
"Cease your pointless squabbles. Your recognized worth lies in being a relatively useful piece on the board—be conscious of that. Now is not the time to be feuding with the Kingdom."
"Fighting with the Kingdom… ah—"
Furrowing his brow at Abel's words, Subaru caught the implication and turned around.
Sure enough, the Kingdom's side—
If this staredown continued, their intervention would be all but guaranteed.
But Jamal, who seemed blissfully unaware of the gravity of the situation, scowled and reluctantly sheathed his blade.
"If His Majesty the Emperor says so… Tch, you got lucky, brat."
"Unbelievable you can still pull that off in this situation… I could swear we were on the brink of the alliance falling apart and the Empire getting destroyed."
Sighing at Jamal's refusal to show any remorse even under the Emperor's stop order and the combined stares of Subaru's companions, Subaru looked at Abel.
He'd called Jamal easy to handle, but Subaru couldn't see that at all.
"You're not going to, like, accidentally get assassinated or something at this point, right?"
"Realistically, if you carried my head and surrendered, things would probably work out for you. His attitude is perfectly standard for an Empire soldier—merely a touch impulsive, but not on Cecilus's level."
"Using Cecilus as a comparison is cheating!"
Subaru bristled at Abel's deadpan delivery of an unnerving joke backed by undeniable precedent. Ignoring him, Abel gestured for Jamal to withdraw, then turned back to Subaru.
This was the return to the matter at hand—answering Subaru's pointed finger and question, namely, the information disclosure about "The Stone Block" that had nearly been derailed.
"Regarding the question that had you panting so eagerly just now—the answer is yes. 'The Stone Block' was in this fortress city. They used means to keep it here, making this city a sacred site."
"…You don't say."
Abel tapped the round table again, his words accompanied by a hard sound, as he laid out the facts. At his revelation, it was Beatrice who swallowed hard.
With her cute profile, lips pressed tight, she said: "That's an outrageous claim. The most difficult of the Four Great to communicate with is 'The Stone Block'—at least, that's what Mother told me."
"The most difficult… among the Four Great Spirits?"
"For reference, the one least likely to listen to a proper conversation is 'The Divine Beast,' the one most impossible to reason with is 'The Wandering Devil,' and the one where talking is most completely pointless is 'The Mediator.'"
"They're all pretty much the same! Pack, come back already!"
The lineup was so alarming that Subaru could no longer hide his sheer astonishment at how much he now missed Pack.
Even the names "Wandering Devil" and "Mediator" sounded ominous, but "The Stone Block" and "The Divine Beast" sounded comparatively soft by comparison—which was its own kind of messed up.
"If 'The Stone Block' can't communicate, then 'The Divine Beast' sounds like the lesser evil by comparison…"
"Mother said 'The Divine Beast' is a well-meaning monster."
"Man, while I kinda want to see all the landmarks in this world, there's not a single famous person I actually want to meet… Isn't that kind of incredible, though?"
Subaru had spent over a year in this world now, so he'd occasionally hear the names of famous figures, but almost all of them bore unsettling titles, and he was getting tired of it.
Though, the fact that he'd already met the more positive celebrities—Royal Selection candidates and the Sword Saint, for instance—probably played a big role too.
In any case— "You mentioned keeping 'The Stone Block' here and used the term 'sacred site.' I imagine that's specific to Volakia, but what exactly does it mean?"
"In brief, 'The Stone Block' is the Great Spirit that governs the earth element. As such, the land where it takes up residence naturally receives the protection of its attributes. Rich, fertile soil is created, and it also has restorative effects on the health of those living on that land."
"…I see. That's a far more significant role than I'd imagined."
Otto interjected his question, then pressed a hand to his mouth in admiration at Abel's answer.
In essence, within the range of Muspel's influence, agriculture flourished, and the sick and injured healed faster—it had benefits galore, like some miraculous hot spring.
If one could freely control where Muspel was placed, that would mean— "Indeed, that's far more reason to keep secret than a fortress city under reconstruction. One of the pillars supporting the Empire's formidable national power is 'The Stone Block.'"
"And you've disclosed this to us, who are foreigners. —I take that as evidence of the resolve held by Emperor Vincent Abel."
"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you opening your cards this wide, but… as for not wanting internal strife, we're on the same page."
Anastasia and Julius responded with the natural bearing of foreign representatives.
Of course, as Anastasia had noted at the end, there was also the possibility that revealing too much disadvantageous information about the Empire carried its own risks.
"If this were truly something Abel wanted to hide, he could have obfuscated it with all sorts of different wording. The fact that he didn't—that tells me it's not like that."
"Emilia-tan's right. This guy's got a nasty personality and a cunning mind. He could've fooled Roswaal or Anastasia-san if he really wanted to. Even if it doesn't look like it, this is Abel's sincere best effort."
"I'm surprised the half-elf girl manages to sound less rude. In the current age, you'd seldom receive such a评价."
Subaru pouted at the unhelpful response to his attempt at backing Abel up.
It was Flop who brought that little scene to a close, clapping his hands to draw attention. He nodded, saying, "You guys are right," then continued: "Emperor-kun has shared the truth. That alone signals the urgency of the matter, and it's a topic that couldn't be avoided when explaining the worst-case scenario."
"The worst-case scenario… you mean the end of the Empire's lands that His Majesty spoke of?"
"That's right!"
Flop nodded vigorously, confirming Roswaal's question.
The end of the Empire's lands—that was the worst-case scenario of the "Great Calamity" in which "The Stone Block" Muspel would be weaponized to strike at the Volakia Empire.
And before that scenario was revealed to Subaru and the others, Abel had brought along Flop—a mere civilian—because— "The one who entrusted me to relay information about the sacred site to Emperor-kun was the false Emperor… but it seems his true intention wasn't to cooperate with 'The Stone Block' as a Great Spirit, but rather to warn that 'The Stone Block' might be being used in the enemy's plan."
"I see. So Flop, you met Abel's double in person."
"Mm. Why he was behaving that way—I have neither the answers nor the right to offer opinions on that… but I'm the type who wants to fulfill whatever's been entrusted to me."
Having lost blood, Flop's complexion still looked somewhat pale. His answer was typical of his unwavering loyalty, and Subaru felt saved by it as he thought of the false Emperor.
The false Emperor who had displaced Abel from the throne only to lose his life—his true intentions could only be inferred from the same logic as when he'd clashed with Abel, and Subaru would never get the chance to hear them directly.
Still, choosing Flop as the messenger had been one of the false Emperor's best moves.
"So, to summarize what's been said—Muspel and the Empire had some kind of contract. Is that correct?"
"If by 'contract' you mean the kind formed between spirits and sorcerers, then no. 'The Stone Block' possesses no such self-awareness. We could never even propose a contract from a position of advantage or equality."
"It's like Volakia to talk about leverage in spirit contracts. Look at the pure, upright, and heartwarming relationship between me and Bear."
"It's exactly as he says."
"To the untrained eye, it just looks like a child playing around."
At Abel's deadpan remark, Subaru and Beatrice joined hands and took a light step together. Abel ignored their puffed-out cheeks and pressed on.
"There are no pacts with 'The Stone Block.' However, it remained within Imperial territory. That made it a relationship of exploitation… but at the same time, 'The Stone Block' continued moving beneath the Empire's soil, sinking in roots."
"Roots?"
"Think of it like a tree's roots. The land where a great tree's thick, long roots spread is strong and firm—but what happens to that soil after the tree is pulled out?"
"…It ends up riddled with holes, brittle, and crumbles at a touch."
Anastasia summed it up succinctly.
Muspel, which had continued enriching Volakia's soil, had in exchange bound its own fate—and the fate of the Empire itself—together.
And that meant— "So if Muspel dies, Volakia is done for—like, literally done for! Isn't that insanely dangerous?!"
To put it plainly, it was as if they'd revealed the existence of a bomb that could blow the Empire itself to smithereens.
This wasn't just about the current crisis—it was a state secret that Volakia would have to conceal forevermore, regardless of what lay ahead. Only now did Subaru's shock finally catch up to what the experts had already grasped.
But— "Don't be a fool. Don't panic."
"As if I can not panic! Ha! Don't tell me—you were planning to silence all of us who know the secret once this is all over…"
"Don't be absurd. If that were my intention, would I let you even harbor such a suspicion? Scheming and dark maneuvering are not the sole privilege of the Holy Kingdom."
"Shouldn't both the Empire that brags about it and the Holy Kingdom that's famous for it just cease to exist?"
The sheer scale of things meant that talk of national-level politics flew freely, but between the Empire—which went without saying—and the Holy Kingdom, neither sounded like a pleasant place. Subaru felt he'd been through quite a lot himself, but it only drove home that the
"Well, at the end of the day, once I met Emilia-tan and the others, Lugunica was unquestionably the closest thing to heaven even if the rest of the world were hell."
"Sorry, I don't really understand what you're saying."
"It's fine, it's fine, never mind that. —Anyway, the real point of what was just said ties back to that."
Smiling at Emilia's confused head-tilt, Subaru directed the conversation back to Abel. Accepting the cue, Abel quietly closed one eye and crossed his arms.
"A ruler who would leave such an transparently dangerous situation—essentially entrusting his very heart to another entity—unaddressed would be insane. Naturally, we had already been proceeding with the separation of 'The Stone Block's' roots. Your concern, and the notion of finding it and taking its life, are nothing but idle fantasies. Like challenging a dragon with a quill pen."
"Oh, great! Then we're safe! But wait—if that's the case, how does it connect to what you said earlier about running out of time? You might have been making progress on the separation, but it wasn't finished, which is why we're in this situation… Isn't that what's going on?"
"……"
"Don't go quiet just because I hit the mark!"
Abel's silence in response was proof that Subaru's suspicion had landed.
Perhaps Volakia could one day sever the shared fate it had with Muspel. But that time was not now, and it offered no leverage against the pressing crisis.
"In other words, the fate of us Imperial citizens remains bound to 'The Stone Block.' If that horde of corpses keeps chasing us and we keep desperately scattering them, eventually 'The Stone Block's' mana will run out, and the destruction of the nation will be inevitable. And I hear the soldiers who fall in battle rise again immediately. In other words—"
"We can't afford to defeat the enemy too thoroughly, nor can we afford casualties on our side."
"Exactly. In short, we're trapped in an atrocious and perverse set of constraints—brutal down to the last detail."
They were forced into a reactive position, and even the conditions of their defensive battle were stacked against them.
Subaru didn't understand why Selena seemed so amused, but the enemy's relentless machinations—going far beyond simple brute force with an army of corpses—hinted at a calculated design to assuredly destroy the Empire— "—But why would
"Huh?"
Emilia's question, which had apparently just occurred to her, made Subaru blink.
The enemy who raised the countless dead buried in the Empire's soil and set into motion the strategy of annihilation known as the "Great Calamity"—"The
However, the motive Emilia questioned—namely, the Witch's driving purpose— "Isn't it because she wants to destroy the Empire? …I don't know exactly how she feels either."
"Regardless of Natsuki-san's personal feelings, that's insufficient as an answer to Emilia-sama's question. If what the Margrave and little Beatrice confirmed is true—that the enemy's ringleader is the 'Witch' who once wreaked havoc in the Kingdom of Lugunica—then her grudge should be directed at the Kingdom."
"And yet, 'The Witch' raised the dead in the Empire. It doesn't quite add up. Though, it's possible the Empire simply met her conditions."
"Conditions?"
Following the thread of Emilia's question, Otto and Julius exchanged glances.
Seeking the next step in the reasoning, Julius touched his slender chin with a finger and said: "A zombie army created by hybridizing 'The Miracle of the Undying King' with restoration magic… To achieve this, an existentially extraordinary source of mana—one of the Four Great Spirits—was essential. Therefore, 'The Witch' enacted her sorcery within the Empire—"
Julius paused for a beat, then swept his gaze across every face in the conference room before continuing: "—and her plan may well be to destroy the Empire first, then advance into the Kingdom next."
"Wha—"
"—Don't be ridiculous!!"
At the possibility Julius had raised, Subaru was struck speechless—but Goz's roar drowned it out entirely. Goz clenched those fists the size of a child's head with all his might, maintaining just enough restraint not to shatter the round table, teeth gritted.
"If your theory is correct—then our Volakia is being destroyed as nothing more than a stepping stone?!"
"Well, strictly speaking, it'd be the first phase of the plan to strike the real target. No, I suppose the groundwork—the Stone Block's placement, the zombies—started way, way earlier than that."
"Grrr… nngh!!"
Anastasia probably hadn't meant it that way, but her supplementary remark did nothing to calm Goz's fury. If anything, he groaned in frustration, and Jamal was visibly enraged too—but nobody could accept their homeland's crisis being called a "stepping stone."
Sensing their feelings, Subaru noticed Beatrice's expression beside him.
"Bear?"
"…I understand Julius's reasoning. But… Roswaal."
"Yes, I understand your concern. —The question is whether Sphinx truly harbors something as human as a desire for revenge against the Kingdom. I have a feeling that, at best, only half of Knight Julius's theory holds water."
"Half of Julius's theory…"
"The Empire happened to meet the conditions. So she acted. That's all there is to it."
With one eye still closed, Roswaal's words made Subaru hold his breath. Beatrice, wearing a grim expression beside him, said nothing—because she shared his opinion.
If Julius's theory was correct, then what had happened in the Empire was no longer someone else's problem for the Kingdom either.
But if Beatrice and Roswaal were right, then the situation was even more devoid of hope.
And— "Regardless, 'The Witch' has already drawn her bow against the Empire. The Imperial family's honor has been violated—there is no choice left but to annihilate the enemy. Would you not agree?"
"Quite the hot-blooded sentiment, Prime Minister. So you've finally had enough of Sir Lamia, have you?"
"—Yes. Is there a problem with that?"
There may have been an intent to tease, but if so, Selena's aim fell wide of the mark.
Despite his face—the very picture of inscrutability with those narrow eyes—Beltets now carried an unmistakable fury toward the enemy, his outward demeanor all the more chilling for its calm.
At Beltets's words, Selena traced the scar on her own face and replied: "Not at all. The Prime Minister of right now is far more to my taste."
"You speak terrifying things."
"Ha ha ha! If you overlook the scars, I'd say he's handsome enough."
Selena laughed heartily at the changed man Beltets had become.
Setting aside that exchange, the truth was exactly as Beltets had described. Against Sphinx, who commanded the army of corpses, there was no option other than a decisive confrontation.
No matter what her ultimate objective might be.
"So, Emilia-tan, you holding up okay?"
"Mm. I've been thinking hard, but I just don't know right now. I wish there were an opportunity to ask Sphinx directly…"
"We crossed paths for only an instant, but she didn't seem like the conversational type."
"Betty shares Subaru's view. Dialogue with that one would be difficult, I think."
Sphinx had targeted the chain-dragon carriage with a suicidal "death leap," throwing her own life away.
Her willingness to expend life itself was paralleled by the complete absence of warmth in the rare exchanges they'd had. An opponent unmoved by emotion wouldn't take the bait of provocation either—the worst kind of enemy for Subaru.
And so, even with "Return by Death," she would remain a formidable foe— "While we sit here, the enemy is steadily increasing the zombie count and chipping away at Muspel—the Great Spirit's residual power bit by bit. A war of attrition only works against us."
"But we can't exactly amass the Empire's entire military and launch a full-scale assault on the Imperial Capital either. An all-out clash between massive armies would be a war of attrition in its own right—the casualties would only escalate."
"With binding constraints on both sides preventing casualties—meaning the only viable strategy to save the Empire from the imminent 'Great Calamity' is essentially a single option."
Subaru, Anastasia, and Otto continued in turn, and their gazes naturally converged on Abel at the round table. Every citizen of the Empire had a stake in this, and the man standing at its pinnacle received those gazes as his due, then declared: "—A small elite strike force will assault the Imperial Capital, seize the ringleader 'The Witch' herself, and dismantle the path of the 'Great Calamity' she has so meticulously laid."
He declared it clearly—the plan to stop the "Great Calamity," the final phase of this battle that had begun in the Volakia Empire.
△▼△▼△▼△ The round-table conference had reached its conclusion, and things settled down for the moment.
In accordance with the policy they'd set, the next step would be selecting personnel for a blitz operation and devising the strategy for the assault on the Imperial Capital.
But before those discussions could begin in earnest— "I hadn't imagined that 'The Stone Block' had been stationed at Guaral."
In the conference room, now emptied of all but the Emperor and the Prime Minister, it was Beltets who broke the silence.
The Kingdom's representatives, along with Imperial figures like Selena and Goz, had all stepped out. Even Jamal, the bodyguard, had been asked to wait outside—this was a conversation among the Empire's leadership alone. Normally, there should have been one more person present.
"So, in short, you were thoroughly manipulated by Chisha's designs as well."
"It appears so. Under normal circumstances, this period's sacred site should have been near the southeastern cloud-sea city… around Mezoreya. At what point did they manage to elude my notice?"
"You have eyes that appear half-closed. Stealing from them would have been easy enough."
"They only appear closed—precisely so they serve as an effective deterrent… That said, claiming as much after the fact is nothing but sour grapes."
Beltets shook his head slowly, lamenting his own oversight. But Vincent did not consider it Beltets's failure.
As had happened repeatedly, it was simply that Chisha had outmaneuvered both Vincent and Beltets.
Chisha had not only deceived the Emperor and the Prime Minister but had also prepared the means to discern precisely what the approaching "Great Calamity" would bring.
"If 'The Stone Block' hadn't been exploited, we merely needed to fortify our defenses with the fortress city as our base. But since 'The Stone Block' was taken—"
"Then it would be used in the 'Great Calamity's' scheme. That madman—apparently, he conceived countless ways to destroy the Empire and rehearsed them in his head. That's how his predictions hit so precisely."
"If the target were those plotting usurpation, one could prepare accordingly—but when the goal is annihilation itself, they fell outside our assumptions. Going forward, I will strive to be more vigilant."
"…See that you do."
Beltets had spoken of "going forward," envisioning the future—and in that moment, Vincent felt a slight twinge of surprise.
He had been considering the possibility that, once this matter was resolved, Beltets might resign as Prime Minister and seek to die alongside Lamia.
"I'm afraid Sir Lamia rejected that."
Noticing the brief silence, Beltets answered his own unspoken question.
At this, Vincent said nothing. He simply let out a soft breath through his nose. Receiving that reaction, Beltets continued regardless— "I was surprised that Your Majesty spoke of 'The Stone Block' and the sacred site. As for separating 'The Stone Block' from the nation's soil, progress has been… difficult to claim."
"The moment this matter is settled, I will resume the national policy we suspended. If we haven't achieved results within two years—before the non-aggression treaty with the Kingdom expires—then whether we live to see today or tomorrow makes no difference."
"Very well. Incidentally—"
Beltets paused for a moment, then slightly opened those narrow eyes.
"As I'm sure you understand, I cannot disclose how 'The Stone Block' is being kept. Not only because it remains a state secret, but also for the sake of our allies' sensibilities."
"
"Your Majesty."
Beltets gave him a warning—don't let that slip—and Vincent shrugged.
During the conference, Emilia had asked whether the Empire had a contractual relationship with "The Stone Block," and Vincent had answered that no such contract as she understood it existed.
That was no lie—he had simply expressed the truth as he saw it.
The most expedient way to keep "The Stone Block" bound was indeed a contract between a spirit and a human.
However, "The Stone Block" possessed no self-awareness, and there was no room for negotiation or point of contact in such a contract. Therefore, the price of contracting with "The Stone Block" was always the same: an immense, crushing void that flooded into the contractor.
To share a body twenty-four hours a day with an inconceivably vast entity with which communication was impossible—such an experience would quickly destroy a human mind, reducing them to something unrecognizable.
In exchange for the inevitable fate of becoming a husk, "The Stone Block" remained at the contractor's current location.
And so the Empire had death-row convicts forcibly contracted with "The Stone Block" in areas requiring sacred sites, then distributed the benefits of those sites across the land. Once the "Stone Block's" location was lost, finding it again was an almost impossible task—making the replenishment of convicts one of the Empire's highest priorities.
And before the battle for the Imperial Capital had even begun, Chisha—disguised as the Emperor—had relocated "The Stone Block" to the fortress city of Guaral, positioning it as preparation for the "Great Calamity."
But within the city, there was no sign of the death-row convict bound to "The Stone Block."
"If it was moved, finding it without any leads would be impossible. If that's the case, providing only more detail would earn nothing but distrust from our allies."
"There were surely some among us who had already pieced it together without needing it said aloud."
Vincent recalled the conference attendees and mentally identified a few suspects, closing one eye.
As Beltets had said, the last thing they needed now was internal discord. Those who had discerned the truth without voicing it likely shared the same resolve.
In any case, once it had been taken from the fortress city, "The Stone Block" was no longer a usable piece—it had become a ticking time bomb with an unknown location and an inevitable reckoning.
Unless there was a solution beyond capturing Sphinx herself, there was no point in dwelling on its existence— "……"
"Your Majesty?"
Noticing Vincent's sudden silence, Beltets called out to the Emperor.
Vincent shook his head slightly, saying "No."
For an instant, a thought had crossed his mind—but it was far too tenuous a thread to weave into their strategy.
Moreover, it would involve the most uncontrollable entity in the Empire, and the next most difficult one to deal with— "If there's any chance of locating 'The Stone Block,' it would require a hound with an uncanny nose for prey beyond the natural order—but that is asking far too much."
△▼△▼△▼△ —At that same moment, somewhere in the Imperial Capital of Lupgana.
In the darkness, it lay sprawled across the hard, damp ground, unable to move.
The wounds were severe. Physical and mental exhaustion had taken their toll as well. But the greatest reason it could not move—greater still than the wounds of body and mind—was the damage dealt to something vital within: a wound to the soul.
Something it had believed in and prayed to for so, so long had been denied and cast down to the earth.
From the day it was born until this very moment, nothing had ever mattered more—and yet the very thing it had treasured most had rejected it.
It had lost its reason to live, its purpose.
It had surrendered its own worth, its reason for existing, everything it was capable of.
And so it simply lay there on the damp ground, its chest rising and falling with each breath, and whispered: "Princess…"
Toward the one who had denied its very meaning—voice weak, trembling, pleading, as if in prayer.
It was feeble, and it could do nothing but keep whispering.