Chapter 241 - Clouds of War Gather (1)

Malcoy de Marseille did not think he was someone the staff of the Marshal's Office would welcome. There were countless organizations that dealt in intelligence, but not one would welcome an outsider who suddenly landed in their midst. All the more so when that outsider came from the Imperial Army, which the people of Leonberk so thoroughly despised.

He had taken outright harassment and ostracism for granted. But he had been wrong. The staff of the Marshal's Office did not welcome him, but neither did they shut him out. Their indifference was almost disconcerting after all the hostility and bullying he had expected.

It was only some time after his assignment to the Marshal's Office that Malcoy learned why.

Work lay piled before him. None of the individual documents was particularly important, but their sheer volume was staggering. It was truly strange. He had spent all day sorting documents, yet there were still as many before him as there had been that morning. He could not understand it.

No, in truth, he did not even care. All he could think of now was getting out of here. After staring at documents all day, he felt as though black stains were forming on his eyeballs. The back of his neck was stiff as stone, and his back creaked. He could take no more.

He stole a look around. Thankfully, no one was paying attention to him. Quietly, he rose from his seat, checked to see whether anyone was watching, and tiptoed away. Only after he had left the building did he release the breath he had been holding.

"Whew."

He let out a long breath and stretched his aching body. Then he glanced back into the Marshal's Office. It was deep into the night, when everyone except the knights and guards on duty was asleep, yet the building was brightly lit.

"Surely Leonberk's staff officers don't always work like this."

"The kingdom suffers from a chronic shortage of manpower."

A ringing voice came from behind him. He turned to find the Grand Marshal standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

"During the years when the kingdom was crippled, all those with principles and ability withdrew from public life. So we're always short of people, whatever we try to do."

Malcoy nodded involuntarily. The Empire had reportedly oppressed the kingdom for over a hundred years. It was hardly strange that its supply of talent had dried up during that time.

"Had circumstances been different, I would not have accepted you, even at His Highness the Crown Prince's request."

"I am simply grateful that you did."

"His Highness is the one who ought to thank me."

After that indifferent reply, the Grand Marshal asked whether anything was giving him trouble. Malcoy shook his head, and the Grand Marshal followed with several more questions, mostly to check whether he had settled into the Marshal's Office.

"Excellent. It sounds as though you're ready to move on from miscellaneous chores and begin working in earnest."

"Will there not be objections over my background?"

"What of your background? The people of this kingdom bear Marseille no resentment whatsoever. If anything, they sympathize with its plight."

The Grand Marshal's words brought a fresh lump to Malcoy's throat. When he had told the man his history not long ago, he had only reluctantly revealed his origins as a recently defected prisoner. He was truly grateful.

Unlike a certain someone who had dumped him in a fortress and forgotten all about him, the Grand Marshal was someone he could trust and rely upon. Or so he thought. But that judgment had been premature.

By the time he came to his senses, he was sitting at his desk again.

"Congratulations. As of today, you're a true staff officer of the Marshal's Office."

Before him, the Grand Marshal wore a generous smile as he congratulated him on being entrusted with proper intelligence at last. And yet Malcoy had certainly been on his way back to his quarters in the royal palace after finishing work.

"Now, get started. We must report to His Majesty by noon tomorrow at the latest."

The Grand Marshal smiled as he spoke, wearing his usual genial expression. Yet it felt quite different now. The smile he had once thought merely warm and easygoing now seemed not just sly, but positively scheming.

"Just to be clear, reporting at noon tomorrow means the work must be more or less finished by tomorrow morning."

With that, the Grand Marshal returned to his own seat. Malcoy stared blankly after him, then scowled.

That was only the beginning. Malcoy had to live amid heaps of documents, forgetting what a night's sleep felt like. Meals were a luxury, and sleep was a sin. Every day was hell.

Countless times, he cursed his past self for wanting to earn recognition and demonstrate his abilities as quickly as possible. Back then, he had not known. Recognition in the Marshal's Office meant suffering under so much work that one wished to die.

As he endured this daily torment, the Grand Marshal made a welcome suggestion.

"I'm going to see His Highness. Would you like to come?"

The Grand Marshal said that now he had settled in, it was only right to pay a visit. Malcoy nodded without a moment's hesitation. So long as he could escape this place, he would gladly go to see the devil himself, never mind the crown prince. And so, for the first time in ages, he escaped the Marshal's Office.

"Do you have some particular business with His Highness?"

His spirits lifted by the fresh air, Malcoy put the question to the Grand Marshal.

"His Highness has been unusually quiet. It's most suspicious."

Looking distinctly uneasy, the Grand Marshal continued.

"He is absolutely not the sort of person to stay this quiet."

The Grand Marshal kept frowning as he explained. In the past, the crown prince would have found some excuse to demand that he be sent to the battlefield. His unusual silence was troubling, and the Grand Marshal would not feel at ease until he had checked on him personally.

"You should know this too, if you mean to serve His Highness for long."

"Know what, sir?"

"When His Highness is unusually quiet, that's when you must be most careful."

The Grand Marshal shuddered.

"Nine times out of ten, he's either about to cause trouble or has already caused it."

His tone was so grave that Malcoy nodded repeatedly, promising to bear it in mind. As they talked, they arrived at the crown prince's palace. The Grand Marshal's expression hardened at the sight of its firmly shut gates.

"Why are the gates locked at this early hour? And where are the Royal Knights who should be guarding them?"

He raised his voice to announce their arrival.

CREEEAK.

Before long, the firmly locked gates opened, and a man poked his head out.

"Ah. Grand Marshal."

Malcoy had seen the man a few times before. Bernardo Eli, was it? He was a Direct Knight of the crown prince, a man awarded the title of Silver Lion, reserved for those at the very pinnacle of Leonberk's knights. And yet...

"Young Lord, what on earth happened to your face?"

He was in such a sorry state that he hardly befitted the glorious name of Silver Lion. Both eyes were blackened, his hair was a tangled mess, and his lips were split. Even beneath his nose, a trickle of blood had dried.

"Come inside and you'll see."

Bernardo Eli answered the Grand Marshal in a loose, casual drawl and opened the gates a crack.

THUD.

Following Bernardo Eli inside, the Grand Marshal and Malcoy froze.

"What in the..."

A groan escaped the Grand Marshal's lips. Malcoy, too, looked around in bewilderment. The ground was gouged and shattered. Buildings were cracked in places or had collapsed entirely. Wherever he looked, it was difficult to find anything intact. He could scarcely tell whether this was the residence of a nation's crown prince or a ruin ravaged by war.

But the truly astonishing sight was something else. Knights lay strewn everywhere. One was draped like laundry over a cleanly severed tree trunk. Another lay like a corpse, half buried in a deep pit. Yet another was sprawled disgracefully face-down on the shattered marble paving.

Malcoy's eyes widened as he spotted a familiar figure among them.

"Percival?"

He had no idea why his adjutant, whom he had assumed to be at Iron Lion Castle, was here. And buried in the dirt as though he had been entombed alive, at that.

"You've caught us on a break."

An arrogant voice rang out. It belonged to Crown Prince Adrian Leonberk. Malcoy turned toward him.

Pale dust coated his brilliant golden hair, and his sweat-soaked clothes were torn here and there, making for an unsightly spectacle. He looked comparatively unscathed beside the others, who had been reduced to rags, but the crown prince was hardly presentable himself.

"Your Highness. What on earth have you been doing in here?"

The crown prince answered the Grand Marshal's question indifferently.

"Can't you see? Training."

"Then why are they..."

"They're resting."

"They look severely injured and unconscious to me."

The Grand Marshal challenged that brazen answer in disbelief. The crown prince frowned.

"Anyone who's unconscious, speak up."

Naturally, no answer came.

"See? Nobody's unconscious."

Apparently struck speechless by that absurd claim, the Grand Marshal could only give a series of incredulous laughs.

"Anyway, what brings you here?"

At the crown prince's question, the Grand Marshal finally explained his visit.

"I heard that you had not been seen outside your palace at all, Your Highness. I came out of concern."

The crown prince chuckled at that tactful phrasing.

"That's a very long way of saying you came to check whether I'd caused trouble again."

"Ahem."

The Grand Marshal cleared his throat.

"As you can see, I haven't snuck out of the palace, and I haven't caused any other particular trouble. Nothing's different from usual."

The Grand Marshal's gaze swept their surroundings at those words.

"How very strange. To me, the palace looks quite different from usual."

"A few things got damaged while we were absorbed in training. That's all."

"I'm already worried about what His Majesty will say when he sees this. I shall summon workers to repair the palace at once."

The crown prince shook his head.

"Later. It'll only get wrecked again."

"What do you..."

"Time's up."

Before the Grand Marshal could finish, the crown prince looked around and spoke quietly.

"Everyone up. Break's over."

No one rose.

"If you won't get up, you can stay right there."

As he spoke, the crown prince raised his sword. In an instant, the knights scattered about like corpses sprang to their feet and took their stances.

Malcoy studied their faces. The black-haired female knight with the red, swollen cheek and the light-brown-haired female knight who limped into position were the kingdom's Silver Lions in the crown prince's service. The handsome man and the others whose expressions remained solemn despite their battered state were his Royal Knights. Those men with their vaguely sinister air were surely knights in his service as well. Then there were Bernardo Eli, who had opened the gates, and Malcoy's own adjutant, Percival.

Until then, Malcoy had thought little of it, assuming they were simply about to resume sparring. Now his eyes widened. The knights had all drawn their swords and pointed them at the crown prince, gathering shimmering light at their tips.

"Are you coming to me? Or shall I come to you?"

The crown prince lifted his chin arrogantly. In answer, the knights kicked off the ground.

Malcoy's mouth fell open. Pummeled by the crown prince's sword, the knights were sent sprawling in an instant. Even the Paladin-class knights fared little better. They merely lasted a little longer than the others before rolling across the ground, covered in dirt.

The air rippled just behind the crown prince, and shadows shrouded in grass-green cloaks sprang out of it. Ruthlessly driving Percival away, the crown prince raised a foot.

THWACK!

With a dull thud, the shadows were hurled back one after another. After tumbling across the ground for some distance, the shadowy figures sprang to their feet. They were the half-elf swordswomen who followed the crown prince.

Even during that brief diversion of his gaze, the fight—if this could even be called sparring—had continued. The crown prince knocked the knights down in a completely one-sided onslaught. The fallen knights staggered up and charged him again. Over and over. Again and again.

When they finally lay on the ground without getting up, the crown prince lowered his sword and surveyed them.

"Not enough. Not for me, and not for any of you."

To Malcoy, his expression looked little different from that of a man tormented by hunger.

"Marquis."

The crown prince abruptly turned toward the Grand Marshal.

"I have a favor to ask."

The Grand Marshal, who had been staring blankly until then, started and looked at him.

"Gather the Iron Lions and the kingdom's Silver Lions."

"Why them, all of a sudden?"

The crown prince replied as though it were obvious.

"Why else? We have a war to prepare for."

Shouldn't they sharpen even one more blade before the war? His voice was firm, leaving no room for compromise.

Malcoy marveled at how right the Grand Marshal had been.

["When His Highness is unusually quiet, that's when you must be most careful."]

["Nine times out of ten, he's either about to cause trouble or has already caused it."]

This was unquestionably the very moment the Grand Marshal had warned him about.

"This is only the beginning. After the Iron Lions and the Silver Lions, it'll be every knight in the kingdom."

Though even the Grand Marshal appeared not to have expected the crown prince to cause trouble on quite this scale.