Chapter 84 - Rift in the Capital (2)

"A message from your daughter, Your Grace. She has secured the position."

Grand Duke Aslan, who had been resting with his eyes closed and his hand on his cane, slowly opened his eyes.

'... That girl.'

It had only been a short while since she had undergone Magical-Beast Transformation and been forcibly brought back. Both her physician and the grand duke himself had repeatedly urged her to rest, since no one knew what side effects might arise. Liza had chosen to ignore them all.

["I hear the man who saved me is in the capital."]

["He is, yes."]

["Then I will go help as well. My recuperation is hardly the priority, is it?"]

["... Are you sure that is your only reason, Liza?"]

["..."]

... Something about it had not quite sat right with him.

'Not my daughter too.'

Well.

Grand Duke Aslan certainly held Aiden in very high regard. But his daughter becoming infatuated with the man was another matter entirely.

Anyone in the military who was in the know was aware that the Lionhearted had virtually no romantic experience. Only the grand duke himself knew that Lady Liza Aslan was scarcely any better.

In short, she was an accomplished warrior with the tremendous pedigree of a grand duke's daughter, but few men could look her in the eye and interact with her as an equal.

And now a man had saved her life.

Wasn't that the perfect setup for imagining a prince on a white horse...?

"Haaah..."

His sigh billowed white in the chilly night air. It almost looked as though he were venting the heat that had risen to his head.

That was not entirely wrong, either. Every member of his family was precious to him, but as a father, he naturally worried about what his daughter was getting up to.

"Men."

And he knew exactly where to vent that anger.

Grand Duke Aslan rose, listening to the bestial cries erupting all around him.

"Let's be honest. We've had it easy this year because that fellow Aiden took care of everything, haven't we?"

Someone let out a chuckle, and it spread through the ranks.

Amid the quiet laughter, Grand Duke Aslan donned his helmet. At that very moment, the figures arrayed around him in ink-black armor snapped to attention.

"Fortunately, it seems we won't be short of work."

Supernatural power flowed over his armor. It might not be the Lionhearted's pure-white energy, but Grand Duke Aslan was a veteran of the battlefield himself. Pure, refined energy coursed over his entire body.

"Black Guard. Assemble."

The private soldiers serving directly under the grand-ducal House of Aslan. The force that played an enormous part in earning the house its reputation as the Empire's foremost martial house.

Commonly known as the "Hunters."

Then the grand duke addressed them in a voice as sharp as frost.

"We cleanse the capital."

The hunt was on.

▣

"... The chaos is subsiding quickly."

Noel glanced around as she spoke. Her voice held something approaching wonder.

As a member of a knight corps who took pride in her own abilities, Noel was among the harshest judges of skill.

For someone like her to be so impressed meant that the performance of the grand-ducal House of Aslan's Hunters in the capital was the work of first-rate elites who could hold their heads high anywhere.

They spread out systematically in teams of three, eliminating the magical beasts rampaging throughout the Empire with such skill that even Noel, a fellow knight, could do little but applaud.

This was different from the way a knight corps fought.

"... You're telling me you can command people like that, Aiden?"

"..."

And to Aiden, who could now set those people in motion with a single word, they looked like nothing short of monsters.

'Just how highly does he think of me?'

He had heard before that the grand duke's house was the continent's greatest martial house. But seeing the strength of the people behind that reputation brought home just how much authority he had been given.

"At this rate, we should have this suppressed in no time."

"No, not yet."

He looked around as he spoke.

In fact, there was something fundamentally wrong with that statement.

'... This is all just the setup.'

To be precise, they had only managed to block the opening move.

The imperial prince's plan for treason clearly was not all that complicated.

Cause chaos in the capital with potions that turned people into magical beasts, drawing out the knight corps, the Empire's greatest fighting force. That alone would leave the plan more than halfway to success.

Of course, the chaos needed to last as long as possible. Terror attacks would then disrupt communications and responses, delaying the knights' deployment while he carried out the "final stage."

In terms of personal combat strength, the imperial prince was someone the knight corps could only just manage to contend with. Without the knights, no one would be able to oppose him.

With that in mind...

"... We need to go there, Dame Noel."

The key lay inside that place. The rampaging magical beasts and terror attacks were ultimately nothing but a setup.

Thinking this, Aiden stared up at the towering Central Spire.

It was where the imperial prince's key asset—the one Ganesha had told him about—was located.

'It won't be anything ordinary.'

Events had diverged so far from the original game that it was hard to guess exactly what that asset might be. But it was clearly something powerful enough to affect the entire capital.

Ultimately, the purpose of this attack on the capital was to cement the imperial prince's control over the whole Empire. He would seize both the imperial palace, the heart of imperial administration, and the Imperial Army's high command at once. That asset would play a pivotal role.

There was one puzzling point, though.

'That's strange.'

This method did not suit the imperial prince.

Once people began transforming into magical beasts all over the heart of the capital, casualties were inevitable.

In the original game, the imperial prince was supposed to care deeply about the welfare of the Empire's subjects. Something about that felt distorted here.

As though this capital and the people in it were not particularly "important" to him—

"... Huh?"

Before he could pursue that thought, he heard Noel utter a sound of disbelief beside him.

He did not need to ask why. The cause was plainly visible to his own eyes.

—!

—!!

Black specks blanketing the sky moved at a terrifying speed. There were so many that they briefly blotted out the sun, darkening everything around them.

A skill immediately activated, displaying information about the enemy before his eyes.

⊙ Swarm

Wild birds transformed into magical beasts. They attack any living thing in sight.

"... Flying magical beasts? Just how much has that damned man set up?"

Noel's outburst was entirely understandable.

Transforming that many creatures into magical beasts was no ordinary undertaking. Each individual would inevitably be weaker, but a magical beast was still a magical beast. These creatures could tear an ordinary person apart with ease.

Gathered in such numbers, they were unquestionably a tremendous threat.

"... We can't move while exposed to those things. We need to go from cover to cover—!"

"No. That would take too long."

They were surely another measure meant to prevent anyone from reaching the Central Spire quickly. Slowing down would only mean playing into the enemy's hands.

And Aiden had already considered the possibility of this sort of obstruction.

'... Well.'

He looked up at the sky.

Each individual creature might resemble a bird, but gathered in those numbers, they were more like a swarm of insects. They called to mind those maddening clouds of flying bugs in summer, or a devastating plague of locusts.

And viewed in that light, the "solution" he had prepared in advance was an excellent counter.

'Bugs really gave me hell back in the slums.'

Aiden chuckled at the memory.

And whenever those pests had tormented him, there had been one particularly effective remedy.

▣

["Magician. How are things progressing?"]

"Well, everything's within expectations so far."

The masked woman replied indifferently into her communicator.

["The Lionhearted's soul and flesh are essential to resurrecting our beloved chief deity. Keep a close watch so nothing interferes with the plan."]

"... Yes, yes. I can't exactly get involved myself, but understood."

She would have liked nothing better than to go down there and wreak havoc herself, but the name "demons" could not yet come to light.

They were the enemies of the entire continent. Their existence must not become public until no one could stop them.

And that day was not so far off.

What lay before her was the first step.

The burning capital unfolded before her eyes in real time.

Everything was going according to the imperial prince's plan. Communications within the capital had been completely severed, leaving the knight corps and peacekeeping force floundering.

There was simply no one capable of mounting a clear response. This would buy more than enough time to proceed to the final stage.

Annoying as he could be, there was much about the imperial prince's abilities that even she acknowledged.

He was clever and quick-witted, and he had precisely coordinated every element needed to put the plan into action. That was beyond the capabilities of an ordinary human.

'... Though it has lost a little of its punch.'

The problem was the Hunters of the ducal House of Aslan, who had appeared out of nowhere.

She did not need to check to know whose orders had brought them here.

'Aiden Kellermain.'

... What a damned nuisance of a man.

Until recently, he had not even been on her radar. Now his name was rapidly becoming a source of headaches for them.

*'...But even he, well...'

He would not get through that.

She gave an indifferent yawn as she watched the horde of magical beasts blackening the sky.

Numbers were a form of violence in their own right. However formidable a supernatural-power wielder might be, trying to force a way through that many creatures would be suicide.

She had prepared so many that even she thought it was a little excessive. She had spared no effort.

Dangling her legs over the railing of the rooftop where she sat, she considered whether she could break through them herself.

'Maybe, if I could reveal my true name?'

Not that ridiculous nickname, Magician. If she could utter the glorious name bestowed upon her by the God of Devouring, it might be possible.

But with her god sealed away, that was impossible.

In any case, that meant it was absolutely impossible for supernatural-power wielders within the usual superhuman limits. The Central Spire was safe after all.

All she needed to do was while away the time here and watch the imperial prince swallow up the capital.

That was what she had been thinking.

"... Hm?"

Until something caught her eye.

A woman was rising into the air.

Mounted on a wolf the size of a house, she was a magnificent sight, as though she had torn her way out of a page of mythology...

—!

—!!

Of course, something that conspicuous was bound to attract the magical beasts roaming the skies. At once, the transformed birds plunged toward her as though the heavens were collapsing.

It was like a swarm of starving locusts descending to scour the earth. No supernatural-power wielder could survive that.

But there was something strange about the woman's movements.

... She seemed never to have considered "surviving" in the first place. Without a care, she charged into the magical beasts alongside her wolf.

Then fierce streams of flame began pouring from her body, so hot that the heat could be felt even from this distance.

A moment later, a pillar of fire surged upward, staining the sky red and swallowing her entire field of vision.

"..."

The Magician stared incredulously at the hundreds of magical beasts reduced to ash before they could even scream.

It was a fitting expression for someone seeing an enormous hole punched through the middle of a horde she had thought even she could not penetrate.

One impression immediately came to mind.

"... A flamethrower?"

Dazed, the Magician murmured the name of the ultimate weapon of pest extermination.

... Aiden Kellermain, that damned bastard.

It seemed he had prepared quite the perfect counter.