"Peace? It's hard to answer that when you ask all of a sudden. Actually, what about you?"
In the courtyard of the Rufence royal castle, Aria was going through her daily training. The way she swung her spear and let the sweat flow — before, it had been nothing but rough and wild.
But now, there was something a bit alluring about it. Could it be that after nearly two years since we met, Aria had grown as well?
"My peace?"
Having asked Aria about peace, only to have the question turned back on me, I crossed my arms. Looking down a little, I spoke what was really on my mind.
"As long as nothing blows up, I'd say it's peaceful enough."
Inside the Jewel, the Third Generation was having a good laugh.
"Ahahahaha, I guess that really is a matter of life and death!"
Whose fault did she think it was? Well, I supposed it was partly my fault too, so it wasn't solely the responsibility of the Successive Heads.
Aria looked at me with a somewhat exasperated expression while wiping her sweat with a towel. She draped the towel over her shoulder and drove the spear into the ground.
"...Wouldn't it be better to worry about that after everything's over?"
"Easy for you to say, but... even if I beat Ceres, the real problems come after the victory. There's no doubt things are going to get incredibly busy."
I wanted to think through everything I could while I still had the chance.
Aria kept her gaze on me.
"Well, I can't really imagine what peace would look like. Even back when I was in Banseim, there were skirmishes somewhere every year. When there was a large-scale battle at the border — a few thousand soldiers or so — the kids were always talking about which knights had distinguished themselves."
Conflict happening somewhere was just a part of daily life. Aria had the look of someone who simply couldn't wrap her head around the concept of peace.
"Well, I think you should just focus on beating Ceres first. If you don't win that, everything you're planning is for nothing."
That was undeniable. Shrugging my shoulders, I conceded the point. Then Aria continued.
"So? Did you and Novem make up? I'd really rather you didn't start fighting again."
"It's not like we're fighting or anything."
Aria, who said it would be troublesome if Novem and I grew distant, pouted slightly.
"Listen. The reason Novem was able to balance everything so well is because she's closest to you. If something were to happen there, Novem's, well... influence? would weaken. If you just keep having a bunch of other wives foisted on you like this, don't come crying to me."
That would be troublesome. Thinking so, I decided to go talk to Novem.
Novem's room.
The Valkyries were standing guard, keeping Novem in a temporary state of confinement. Normally, there would be plenty of work I'd want her doing, but I had her stay in her room, giving her some time off as well.
When I arrived, Novem began preparing tea.
"I haven't prepared any sweets. Shall I order some?"
The room Novem was using was tidy, but held very few personal belongings she might have brought in.
Thinking back, Novem had only purchased the bare minimum. I had gifted her various small items before, but she had kept them carefully stored away.
"No, just tea is fine. Also... about that previous matter."
It looked like Novem's hands, which had been brewing the tea, stopped for a moment. The Third Generation within the Jewel also reacted.
*"It's rare to see Novem-chan flustered, or rather, does she care this much?"*
Novem prepared the tea in silence for a while, then sat on the sofa, took a sip of the tea she had made herself, and finally spoke.
"...Are all the previous Heads listening as well?"
Her gaze turned toward the Jewel, but the Third Generation did not answer.
"Only the Third Generation remains now. The others... they entrusted various things to me and fulfilled their duties."
At that, Novem smiled slightly.
"They fulfilled their duties. That's good. Still, it's a little disappointing. I would have liked to meet them."
Inside the Jewel, the Third Generation muttered under their breath.
"I don't think you should meet them, though. There are still too many unknowns."
I decided to steer the conversation away from the Jewel and ask Novem what I'd been wanting to know.
"That reminds me, Novem—would it be wrong of me to aim for peace?"
Novem lowered her gaze to the cup in her hands and began to speak, one quiet word at a time.
"Lord Lyle, what exactly is peace?"
"It's vague and hard to pin down. But when I asked the people around me, they all said it meant tranquility for themselves and those close to them. Maybe people can only focus on what's right in front of them."
If you and the people around you are at peace, then everything else is surely someone else's problem. How many people are there who actually think any differently?
"Peace is an illusion. Yes—it's like clouds. It appears to be there, but in truth you cannot grasp it. It shifts with the wind and changes shape. It barely has any form at all."
I turned to Novem.
"So you're saying I shouldn't aim for it?"
Novem raised her face. Her expression was serious.
"...If anyone else said it, it would be dismissed as idle talk. But if Lord Lyle says it aloud, it will have a profound impact on the future. Your words will be twisted and distorted, used by future generations to suit their own ends, and they will diminish you, Lord Lyle."
I wasn't really that significant of a person, was I? Well, if I aimed for the throne and claimed it, my name would certainly go down in history.
But would it go any further than that?
"There will always be plenty of pointless fighting—Monsters and bandits, if nothing else. Surely there's nothing wrong with aiming for a slightly more peaceful world. Besides, who knows what things will look like hundreds or even thousands of years from now."
When I said that, Novem looked at me and gave a weak smile.
"Let us suppose—you unified the continent and carried out just governance, Lord Lyle. The continent would flourish greatly, and in a few thousand—no, a few hundred years, people could reach the moon. No, if Professor Damian and Monica from the Automaton group put their minds to it, they could probably reach the moon in just a few decades. In such a world... do you truly believe Monsters and bandits would still pose a threat, Lord Lyle?"
From inside the Jewel came a serious voice.
"The moon, huh... I'm a romantic at heart, so I'd be delighted if there were rabbits up there. If the Fifth Generation were here, they would have been absolutely ecstatic, I'm sure. I wonder—can the rabbits on the moon talk?"
"...I wish you'd just keep quiet."
"The Moon, huh? Well, if Damian really put his mind to it, he could probably pull off all sorts of things. But he's the pervert he is, so I doubt he'd be interested in that sort of thing."
Novem said, looking at me with a sad expression.
"Actually, Professor Damian's wish would likely be granted if he went to the Moon. More precisely, I think he'd make tremendous progress. After all, up there... ancient facilities are still preserved."
"Facilities? Not ruins?"
I opened my mouth in surprise, but that wasn't what I wanted to ask.
——How did Novem know such a thing?——
The Evil God's memories? As I was thinking that, Novem took another sip of tea and averted her gaze from me.
"You must have heard all sorts of things inside the Jewel. Just how much have you learned?"
I answered honestly.
"That Novem inherited the memories of the Evil God — that is, Novem, who is the Evil God, inherited them — and that Ceres inherited the negative memories of Septem, who is a goddess. And the reason your clan has continued supporting mine from the shadows, I suppose."
Novem smiled.
"If you already know that much, this will be quick. That's right. Lord Laiel has the right to claim the continent. The time has come for House Walt to reclaim everything that Banseim once stole."
I took a sip of tea, and from inside the Jewel, the Third Generation spoke with a disinterested tone.
"...But, y'know, can you really blame the ancestor for snatching it away? If you told Banseim he had no right to it, he'd be furious. Or rather, if you were in his shoes, you'd be saying the exact same thing. Well, I'll still lend my wisdom to help Laiel win, of course. Prosperity and decline go hand in hand, after all."
"I'm not seeing the connection. What does any of this have to do with peace?"
Novem's expression was flat.
"It does. Humanity once left Earth and extended its domain all the way to the Moon — and then gradually perished in peace. Complete extinction. And there is a possibility that, through Lord Laiel, that extinction will occur once more."
My hands trembled in shock. The tea remaining in my cup sloshed, and I stared at Novem, breathless.
"They perished? No, well... I mean, the ancient civilization did die out, but complete extinction is a bit much."
If it was complete extinction, then what exactly were we? Then, Novem let a dark smile cross her face.
"I'll tell you, if you like. How exactly did humanity go extinct? It's a rather foolish story and not a particularly interesting one at that. But that's the point I'm trying to make. Peace didn't just bring humanity prosperity — it also brought extinction, the one ending a species must most avoid."
I opened my mouth to question Novem, but before I could, the door was knocked with tremendous force. Startled, I turned toward the door, and Shannon spoke before I could even answer.
"L-Lael!"
"Wh-what?! You scared me! Cut it out — stop knocking so violently at a time like that!"
The dark smile on Novem's face was terrifying. She was beautiful, which only made it worse. And from that smile, I felt an unspoken pressure telling me that if I wanted to hear more, I'd better steel myself. On top of that, the shock of the knock left my heart pounding so hard I could almost hear it.
"Novem, come too! Monica says there's new information! Ce-Ceres—"
The moment I heard Ceres's name, I rose from the sofa.
*They're making their move at this very moment?* That's what I thought.
We gathered not in the meeting room but in the dining hall we'd been using.
There, Monica and the Valkyries were drawing pictures on paper. They drew with the meticulous detail of artists, but what came through in those illustrations was less artistry and more sheer eeriness.
Monica stopped drawing the moment I arrived. Shannon glanced at the illustrations Monica and the others had produced, then hid behind me.
"Ugh!"
What was depicted on those pages was nothing short of hell.
"What is this?"
I picked up one of the sheets, and every face in the room had gone grim. Monica spoke to me.
"This is information from the Valkyries we dispatched. It appears they've been constructing a tomb for Meizel Walt. It's a massive undertaking — tens of thousands of people were rounded up and put to work on it. The number of people involved easily reaches into the hundreds of thousands."
Mustering manpower at a time like this was astonishing enough, but mobilizing that many people would inevitably create problems with the harvest. They couldn't have gathered only people from the urban areas. I genuinely couldn't understand what Ceres was thinking.
"A tomb? ...Hey, wait a minute. Then what's this picture? Why is my father in it?"
Monica's expression was completely serious. She wasn't in the mood for jokes. And she'd never joke about something like this anyway.
"If the intelligence is correct, that is without a doubt Meizel Walt — the Chicken's dear old father."
The painting depicted his father, who had come to inspect his own tomb. And in a different painting —
"And here is the situation at the time. To keep them from being lonely, we buried alive everyone who participated in the work."
It was deeply unsettling no matter how you looked at it. How could anyone do something like this?
As I wrestled with those questions, Novem glanced at the painting in my hands.
"...This is a Skill Septem created. It seems he's grown capable of wielding multiple Skills at once."
I turned to look at Novem.
"What kind of Skill? Don't tell me he brought Father back to life!"
Was there really a Skill powerful enough to do that? As I was thinking this, Novem spoke to me.
"Lord Rael, both goddesses and evil gods are just names people give them. We don't possess that kind of power. I believe records are being extracted from portions of a corpse and used to create a reconstruction. You could think of it as a puppet that uses the deceased's Skills."
He hadn't actually come back to life. Part of me was disappointed, but another part thought it was fine just the way it was.
Miranda took charge of the room.
"...We should report this to the neighboring countries of Banseim. This is insanity. It'll give us the perfect justification to take Banseim down."
The Third Generation spoke to me.
*'Rael, Miranda is taking charge because she thinks you're feeling down. Don't forget that. And also... things have gotten far too big. The complete annihilation of the ancient people. Plus Novem, who seems to know all sorts of things... I think we should talk.'*
I agreed with the Third Generation's assessment. I looked toward Miranda.
"Sorry. I should've been the one to say it. Monica, compile the reports. And Eva."
"Wh-what?"
I said to Eva, who had gone pale.
"...Spread the song. Have them sing of Banseim's atrocities. I'll provide the funds for it. I hate to say it, but we'll use whatever we can."
Standing before Ceres's reckless actions — which seemed designed to hand us a righteous cause on a silver platter — my anxiety only continued to grow.