With a sword in one hand and bundled supplies tucked under his arm, he slowly pushed open the door before him.
He didn't kick the door down or hew it apart. Making unnecessary noise to draw out any corpse people lurking inside was something to avoid. Attracting the attention of others around was likewise something he'd rather not do.
If they were merely ordinary Imperial soldiers turned into corpse people, that would be one thing — but running headlong into seasoned corpse people was the last thing he wanted. Especially while lugging around baggage he couldn't very well set down.
"—"
He sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the smell of iron rust drifting from within.
The scent of blood. Once you'd grown accustomed to it, you could tell roughly how fresh it was, more or less. This was the smell of blood that had only just been spilled — and not from a single person.
Sure enough, when he checked the back room, two corpses lay piled one atop the other.
A private home facing the main street. What remained inside were the bodies of an elderly woman and a man.
The culprit was likely the corpse person he'd just cut down in front of the house. The sword in that thing's hands had been slick with blood precisely because it had just finished making these corpses.
The victims were probably mother and son. Unfortunately, comparing their features was difficult — their expressions in death could hardly be called peaceful. The old woman lay in bed, and beside the man who had collapsed over her, a broken sword lay on the floor.
"They were too slow to escape... no, that's not it."
It wasn't two people who were too slow to escape. It was a son who stayed behind to protect a mother who couldn't run.
That scene — so natural in its interpretation — was far too bitterly ironic to be playing out at the heart of the Volakia Empire, where the strong trampling the weak was considered simply the way of things.
That said, he couldn't laugh at the irony. If only he had arrived a few minutes earlier— "—"
He sheathed the drawn sword and silently regarded the man's body — a man who, faced with an unavoidable tragedy, had chosen how to use his life until the very end.
If he himself had been placed in the same situation — with his beloved family's bed behind him, shielding them — could he have fought until his life ran out, just like this man?
"Useless. You already know the answer."
He spat out the bitter saliva of lingering resentment with an irritated flick of his tongue.
Yes, a self-question to which the answer was already visible. After all, he would certainly flee with his tail between his legs. — Just as he was indulging in that self-mockery— "Oy, Red! Where are you at, ser!? This one's business is all done with, ser!"
A shockingly loud voice suddenly boomed from outside the building, and his eyes snapped to the window.
The face of his red-haired companion — off on a separate assignment — flickered behind his eyelids, and he felt the drunken haze withdraw with a hiss at the sheer recklessness of someone shouting like that in a city crawling with corpse people.
Whether it was the alcohol or himself doing the intoxicating, the crushing weight of reality — impossible to paper over with drunkenness — struck his head like a hammer. Clicking his tongue, he shuffled to the window and peered outside.
There, in the street below, a blue-haired Waso man was waving and searching for him — no, beside him stood a small figure in similar attire— "Where might you be, my father's companion! It's hard to have a proper conversation around here, so shall we find somewhere more comfortable to talk? Assuming my father's claim that he has a companion is not some drunken hallucination or idle nonsense!"
"Now that's rich, the nerve of you! Grabbing your parent and using such tone — what kind of unfilial child did I raise!? What went wrong with my, with my parenting, ser...!"
"Oh no, no, Father is not to blame at all! After all, I was practically raised by no one!"
The two loudmouths stood side by side, and their combined racket was more than double what either could produce alone.
Whether the intoxication came from liquor or from himself, Heinkei could tell these were unmistakably the voices of two drunks. At the search for a companion — and that companion being himself — he held his head in his free hand.
As his hangover-throbbing skull pounded with a pain entirely separate from the alcohol, he shifted the bearded dog-man emergency ration tucked under his other arm and let out a deep, liquor-reeking sigh.
△▼△▼△▼△ Two idiots making a commotion on the main street without a care for who might see.
He could leave them be and let the approaching swarm of corpse people swallow them — their own fault. But getting dragged into that himself was another matter entirely, so Heinkei quickly called the two over.
When he brought them into the house, an unexpected addition had tagged along.
"I sure didn't think you'd still be holed up in the capital too, Heinkel. Figured you'd have hightailed it ages ago — or else..."
"You'd be dead, right? I'll throw those exact same words right back at you, Aldebaran."
"Just Al is fine, ser."
The unexpected reunion was with Al — the iron-helmed man. He fiddled with the fittings of his helmet as he answered.
The all-out battle between the
Answers he'd had no way of knowing — and here they were, handed to him unexpectedly.
And moreover— "So Lady Priscilla was captured, was she? That's hard to believe."
"Well, charging headlong into surprising developments is one of Her Ladyship's endearing qualities, but even I can't just sit back and ignore this one. So I stayed behind in the capital, and... ran right into that, of course."
At Heinkei's words, Al nodded.
Though his face and expression were hidden behind the iron helm, the weariness in his voice and the atmosphere around him spoke volumes about the hardships he'd endured.
Al was the sort of fellow who could even deal with the utterly capricious and reckless Priscilla. For even him to be in such a state, the terror of their opponent must have been beyond imagining.
And yet, the fact that the one who had worn Al down to this degree was who it was — well, that was quite the twist of fate.
"I never thought I'd run into Father here of all places! I'd been wondering where you'd gotten off to — could it be that you were the one who had me thrown onto that gladiator island, hoping I'd pull off some legendary feat of arms in the tradition of lone-island tales?"
The Waso boy — who called himself Cecilus — chattered away in rapid-fire speech, gnawing on dried meat he'd helped himself to from the house's storehouse. What was astonishing was that this child was apparently Rowan's son — the same Rowan who had been traveling with Heinkei.
And what was more — whether it was some kind of joke or not — the name included his family name, and it was— "—
The strongest swordsman in the Volakia Empire, the immovable First among the Empire's "Nine Divine Generals."
Heinkei was, for all his flaws, still the Vice-Commander of the Royal Guard of the
This individual had taken more lives than anyone else in a blood-soaked imperial history that had seen nothing like him — a figure said to be on par with the Kingdom's own "Sword Saint."
"—"
Heinkei narrowed his eyes at Cecilus, who looked roughly eleven or twelve years old, and mocked himself for the impulse to underestimate the boy's abilities based on his youth.
Against the truly strong, talk of appearance or age was just pathetic and embarrassing.
Heinkei had first lost a sword match to his own son, Reinhardt, before Reinhardt had even turned six. — In this world, such beings existed.
If anything, the one Heinkei should have acknowledged as the rare one here was Rowan.
He too, like Heinkei, was the father of someone called the strongest — yet even if he had his own complicated feelings about his son Cecilus's sword skill and fame— "Ha ha ha, that's a good one, ser! The killing on that gladiator island was just a sideshow in the end — no matter how many people you cut down there, there's nothing to learn for your sword or your technique. Throwing you in there would be nothing more than a detour on the path to the 'Divine Sword,' ser!"
Setting aside the very thought that had risen in Heinkei's own mind, Rowan shrugged with his red-faced grin and pressed his mouth to the gourd of liquor, cheerfully chatting with his son.
At his father's answer, Cecilus simply tilted his head with a "I see~" — no sign of embarrassment — while chewing his dried meat to shreds.
"Well, I had a feeling it wasn't Father — the method seemed too directionless for something you'd do. But then again, that makes it even more of a profound mystery why on earth I was on that island at all."
"Now that's a wonderfully peculiar way of putting it, ser. In any case, it wasn't arranged by my hand — hm?"
Mid-sentence, Rowan suddenly stopped and looked Cecilus up and down with great scrutiny.
Sensing his father's gaze, Cecilus twirled around, waving the sleeves of his Waso garment and spreading out his untamed long blue hair.
"What's the matter? Even after all this time, I imagine my brilliance as a leading man is hard to forget."
"That aside — wait, wait, son! Where did you put Murasame and Masayume? Those are exceptional blades — you mustn't carelessly take them off your waist, ser!"
"Swords, you mean? What are you talking about? Our unspoken agreement is that until I can obtain a sword truly worthy of me, I won't carry one. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found that legendary blade, so my waist stays light. Free and easy, so to speak."
"Hmmmm?"
At Cecilus — who was swaying his hips to demonstrate his empty belt — Rowan's eyes grew even cloudier with suspicion. But then, as if something suddenly clicked, his eyes widened with an "Ah."
And then— "Something felt off, and now I see it — Cecilus, you've shrunk!"
"Only just now you noticed!?"
Al raised his voice, more startled than the already-surprised Rowan.
Beside them, Cecilus himself wore a blank expression. "Shrunk?" Heinkei, for his part, had no idea what any of this meant either.
Instead, it was Al — who apparently did have an idea — who closed the distance to Rowan with heavy steps.
"I need to get something straight here. You are Cecilus's father, and the Cecilus you know was fully grown. That much is correct, right?"
"Wait just a moment, Al — what is that really? At what point and in what manner can one truly say a person has become an adult? For instance, should one not be considered a full person from the moment one first cuts down another? Otherwise, the one who was cut would only have been half a person, and that would be a truly unfair arrangement—"
"Shut up for now! What about it, Father?"
"Now now, there's no need to press so close, sir helmeted one. In the first place, from a parent's eyes, no matter how much a child grows taller, the classification of 'child' never changes. And as for Cecilus, sir, his words and behavior never grew past childish no matter how much time passed—"
"I've heard more than enough proof that you two are father and son...!"
Both Rowan and Cecilus had unleashed their responses like an avalanche, and Al stomped his foot in impotent frustration.
Feeling a measure of pity for Al, Heinkei roughly scratched his red hair and said— "In other words, Aldebaran. What you're saying is this: that Cecilus Segmunt over there has somehow shrunk into a child."
"Right. ...Well, I know the reason and the fix and everything else, but yes."
"You know how to fix it too..."
It sounded absurd to simply nod along when told someone had shrunk — but given the apocalyptic nightmare he'd witnessed in that decisive battle at the capital, he could accept just about anything.
If there was a way to restore him, it wasn't something worth agonizing over.
"Then couldn't you just change him back first and talk afterward?"
"I'd like nothing more, ser, but we need a certain old ninja to do the fix. So for now, we're stuck at this size. ...Anyway, how did you not notice your own son had shrunk the instant you laid eyes on him?"
After shaking his head slowly, Al turned the question on Rowan.
But Rowan simply ran his finger along his unshaven jaw and answered— "Well, whether my son is big or small, that's a trivial matter to me, ser."
"Oh come on, is this the
"— What about you? Do you have any awareness that you've shrunk?"
Al sighed at Rowan's utterly unapologetic response — the farthest thing from a model parent — and turned his attention to Cecilus.
Cecilus, who had moved on to his third piece of dried meat, grinned at the question.
"If you're asking whether I'm aware — no! Whether I shrink or grow, I take the stage as myself!"
"Is that so..."
"But! But, you see! What Boss, and Gustaf, and the folks on the island, and various other supporting characters told me — it all adds up! I knew this was a case of foreshadowing paying off!"
He slapped the nearest table, his voice brimming with excitement.
He seemed to have figured something out, but to Heinkei, who had merely been following the conversation, it was all gibberish. The only thing he could gather was that both father and son were taking the rather serious matter of a shrinking body with remarkably little gravity.
"But now it makes sense, ser. No wonder I thought he was acting oddly when we crossed swords — because of how we parted, after all."
"Oh my? I don't recall that at all — what kind of parting did Father and I have?"
Rowan murmured, stroking his chin, and Cecilus tilted his head.
A parting between father and son that the son had forgotten — but judging by the conversation so far, Heinkei had a feeling it hadn't been anything pleasant.
And then— "— That piece of trash over there is the piece of trash who got cut down for plotting His Excellency's assassination."
A sharp voice cut in, and Heinkei and the others turned to look.
The bearded dog-man who had been dead asleep until just now was sitting up on the floor where he'd been rolled out. Cross-legged, he scowled at Rowan.
"The trash who was supposed to be dead is alive — even I was surprised as hell. On top of that, for Cecilus the little trash to have botched it — that's what's really unthinkable."
"Oh, you're awake, dog-man! How wonderful to see you in fine health, wagging and all!"
"You're trash too, you damn little trash!"
The bearded dog-man's raised voice made Cecilus pucker his lips in a sulky expression.
From that reaction, it was clear the bearded dog-man and Cecilus knew each other. Though Cecilus seemed to have forgotten about it. — No, judging from the flow of conversation so far, perhaps it was more accurate to say he'd forgotten everything from before he'd shrunk.
It was a strange situation — but because he'd forgotten what it was like to be an adult, his exchanges with both Rowan and the bearded dog-man weren't clicking at all.
"Oh, that reminds me — who's this fellow we were carrying? Quite energetic, it seems..."
"Ah, that furry one over there is General Groby, ser. One of the Empire's 'Nine Divine Generals,' and Cecilus's colleague."
"Groby — as in Groby Gamblett?!"
Al's voice rose in surprise at the unexpected identity, and Heinkei felt the same jolt of shock.
After all, on the road, Rowan had only said this was an important person — and with no further information, he'd been transporting the fellow as luggage.
Under different circumstances, this luggage could have ended up as an unwitting shield against corpse people attacks.
"So let me get this straight — one of you has shrunk, sure, but there are actually two Generals right here together? That sounds like an unexpected ray of hope, if you ask me..."
"—?"
"Weren't you just saying something outrageous a moment ago, General? Something about an assassination attempt on the Emperor?"
Al steered the topic back, and all eyes converged on Rowan once more.
For a moment, attention had been drawn to the bearded dog-man — Groby — and his exchange with Cecilus, but yes, that was indeed what he had said.
Under those questioning gazes, Rowan placed a hand on his forehead with a sheepish "Ahaha—"
"There's been a misunderstanding regarding that, ser. I never plotted the assassination of His Imperial Majesty. I only tried to make my son do it."
"...That's not even an excuse. So the two of you are would-be regicides?"
Heinkei stared dumbfounded at the blue-haired parent and child, baffled by an explanation that explained nothing.
He hadn't heard that the Emperor had been killed, so presumably it had ended at the attempt — but even so, what a scandal.
However, at Heinkei's unspoken question, Groby shook his head.
"This trash told His Excellency that his trash father was plotting something like that. And then — he supposedly dealt with the trash father and his schemes himself, all on his own."
"But if it didn't work out, isn't he alive?"
"I don't know about that part either, you damn — Hey, Cecilus you trash! What the hell were you thinking, letting your trash father live!?"
"Who knows? Even if you ask me what I did, the brilliant quotes and performances that flash through my mind differ depending on whether it's yesterday's me, today's me, or tomorrow's me. But I doubt I simply failed — so perhaps I chose not to do it?"
Groby leapt to his feet and cornered Cecilus, but the boy waved his hand casually with a completely unrepentant expression, as if the answer had vanished into the ether.
Asking Cecilus — who almost certainly didn't remember his own reasons — would be a pointless argument. Rather than fixating on that unknown answer— "Blue — why did you try to assassinate the Emperor? Were you aiming to overthrow the state?"
"Ha ha ha, Red, what a funny thing to say, ser! The purpose was quite simple — if His Excellency were killed, the entire Empire would become my son's enemy, would it not?"
"That... would be the case, yes?"
"That was the goal, ser! An army of Imperial soldiers coming after us without rest or sleep — no better environment exists for honing one's swordcraft in the space between life and death!"
"—"
Rowan slapped his knee as if to say, "Now that's an idea!"
Heinkei stared, completely unable to comprehend the logic coming from Rowan's mouth. Cecilus, meanwhile, raised his voice in a drawn-out "Ahhhh—"
"I see, I see — so that's why! I don't remember, but that does sound like something Father would have me do! 'To reach the Divine Sword, no method is off-limits!'"
"Your talent for the sword is genuine, ser. ...And yet, you hit a wall right before the 'Divine Sword.' So I thought I'd break you out of that shell with a somewhat forceful hand — that was the parental love behind it, ser."
"Ha ha ha! Parental love — how unlike you! If you still had any human emotions left in you, you wouldn't have killed five or six of your own children before one with my talent came along!"
"My word! There is no room for rebuttal on that point, ser!"
As if the great mystery had been solved, the father and son laughed together — their bizarre laughter echoing through the room.
Groby listened with a scowl, Al with his hand on the back of his neck, and Heinkei felt so dizzy the room seemed to tilt, staggering into the wall.
A parent-child relationship that defied all understanding.
He couldn't grasp what could drive them to this point. In an instant, the faint sense of kinship he'd felt toward Rowan — a man in the same position as himself, father to someone called the strongest — evaporated completely.
A man who had plotted the assassination of the Volakian Emperor, been betrayed by his own son, failed in his goal, been treated as dead, and now bore the worst kind of infamy.
And yet — how could he laugh so calmly? Heinkei couldn't understand.
Back in his own country, Heinkei was in a similar position. And even that made it hard to breathe.
Just being suspected — without the slightest basis — of involvement in the royal kidnapping was suffocating enough— "— So we've all accepted that we're each running from something."
While Heinkei was reeling, Al spoke up in a quiet voice.
He too, no doubt, had his own thoughts about the parent-child exchange and about Groby's situation. But he swallowed all of those feelings whole and sealed them away.
This was because Al had decided what took priority in this place over the questions of the moment.
"We're all a group that came to the capital for some purpose or another — something to find, something to do. We might all be capable enough that we don't technically need anyone else's help, but there's no reason to turn away allies either. Right?"
Al looked around the room at the assembled faces.
At his question, Groby crossed his short arms over his chest.
"I just woke up and the only thing I know is the capital's a damn mess. On top of that, I don't much fancy being left behind with this trash and the trash's father. — And I don't know what His Excellency's scheming either."
"I take it that at the very least, we can agree that right now, with no friend or foe distinguished, clearing out the corpse people is our top priority... right?"
"You don't need to worry about that, damn it. That much, at least, I agree on."
Groby gave his gruff assent to Al's proposal. Then, having received that answer, Al turned to Cecilus.
"So I get that you two have a unusual father-son relationship. I don't understand how you ended up laughing about it, but I feel the same way about getting hung up on parents. I won't dig into it. But in exchange—"
"There's no need to choose your words so carefully out of worry, Al. Earlier, during the fight with that archer, your judgment saved me. So! I see no need to break from your plan and go off separately."
"That's a relief. And while you're at it, spare me the fits of wanting to kill me. You can never have enough lives."
"Ha ha ha, never enough lives! Nice joke!"
"It's not a joke, though..."
Cecils laughed merrily and gave a thumbs-up; Al sighed.
Then, bringing both Heinkei and Rowan into a single frame of attention— "What about you, Father? What will you do?"
"Oh my, sir helmeted one — compared to how you addressed our son and that furry gentleman, the weight of your invitation to us is so much heavier, so much heavier... That really stings, ser."
"Right now, my impression of you is pretty much the worst, to be honest."
Al shrugged his one-armed shoulder and delivered his blunt assessment of Rowan, then turned his gaze toward Heinkei.
"That big battle might have been a wash for you, but if you help Her Ladyship here, you can make up for it. Without Her Ladyship, you can't get what you want. Right, Heinkel?"
"I..."
At Al's words, Heinkei clenched his back teeth and looked down.
Al was right. Heinkei had joined Priscilla's camp because he wanted something — and that reward would come from her winning the royal selection.
In truth, no one was expecting Heinkei's own contributions or ability. What they expected of him was to serve as a deterrent against Reinhardt, who was with another candidate.
If he thought about it that way, no matter how much Heinkei contributed to Priscilla here, he would simply be achieving results beyond his original role.
And besides— "—"
Once before, on the battlefield, Heinkei had bent his knee and given up resisting.
He had witnessed a sight that seemed unreal — as if heaven and earth had been flipped inside out — and his spirit had broken. — Heinkei had tried to surrender.
So he had left the battlefield, drowned himself in liquor at Rowan's side, and sealed everything away.
And yet, now, he thought— "...Luanna."
With no dignity whatsoever, the possibility of redemption caused longing to rear its head in his heart.
If Priscilla hadn't seen the way he'd fled, hadn't seen his state of mind when he'd given up — if he could still put on a brave face — if he could close his eyes to the terror that had already passed and still reach out— "—. But what can we do? Five people, all told. With just five of us, are you saying we can save an Empire that might or might not be on the verge of destruction?"
"Now that's an unfair thing to say. It may look like just five on paper, but this hidden strength isn't merely the equivalent of a hundred men — calling it a million and four wouldn't be— glub glub glub glub."
"Shut the hell up."
Even as he struggled with his own inner conflict, Heinkei had been listening for the odds of success and the outlook ahead.
At Cecilus's frivolous quip, General Groby himself clamped a hand over the boy's mouth. But even as he did, he glanced at Al and said— "Red middle-aged guy's got a point. Even with me and this little trash, wiping out every one of those things out there won't be easy."
"For the record, I think we shouldn't do that. Reason: a leading man's intuition!"
"Shut the hell up!"
Setting aside the two who were now fighting over whether or not to cover a mouth, Heinkei's doubts remained unresolved, leaving him in a state of suspension.
Honestly, Heinkei's mind was already mostly made up. If he could avoid giving up, he didn't want to. All he needed was a reason.
As Heinkei sought that reason, Al tapped a fitting on his helmet— "Heinkel's right. The five of us flipping this whole situation is asking too much, even for us. So what we need to do isn't something grand like saving the Empire. — It's laying down the groundwork."
"Groundwork, you say?"
Rowan licked the liquor from his gourd, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and asked. Al nodded.
He turned his gaze to the shut window — and beyond it, the imperial capital that had become a city of the dead.
And then— "Saving the Empire is a hero's job. Our job is to set up what's needed for that. As many as we can, whatever comes to hand — because who the hell knows what might come in handy."
Something in Al's words carried the weight of conviction, and Heinkei blinked.
It sounded as though he knew someone who could pull it off. But Heinkei certainly had no such person in mind, and presumably neither did Rowan nor Groby.
However, the wild card of the group lit up at those words— "— In other words, this is all foreshadowing!!"
The young "Blue Lightning," cheerful and eager, welcomed Al's plan.
Given the balance of power in the room, this would effectively be the consensus of all five — and it didn't take long.