1

A magnificent carriage pulled by four white horses passed through the castle gates and advanced into the courtyard of Grain Hold, the royal castle of the Kingdom of Skard.

The carriage was protected by eight knights, four each at front and back. They were clad in ceremonial armor, all the same size and shape, and they’d taken on matching swords and shields. A coat of arms had been painted on their pale green breast plates, divided into two sections and emblazoned with flames and a dragon.

Every person in the Duchy of Moss knew the coat of arms as that of The Dragon’s Blaze, the Kingdom of Harkenne. The dragon on the coat of arms signified their adherence to The Dragon’s Pledge, and the flames were the coat of arms of Harkenne’s royal family.

Normally, they would have been wearing armor bearing only Harkenne’s coat of arms. The use of the two part coat of arms revealed that the party in this carriage was a formal envoy associated with The Dragon’s Pledge.

Two days previously, a courier had arrived from The Dragon’s Scale, Vennon, Skard’s protector kingdom to the north. The courier told them that a delegation from the Kingdom of Harkenne was on its way to the Kingdom of Skard.

By rights, the reception of an envoy with such a message from Harkenne should have prompted the dispatch of another envoy, to confirm the visiting country’s intentions. But this messenger had been a knight of Vennon. Dispatching the delegation from Harkenne without waiting for Skard’s reply was an event completely without precedent.

Skard’s knights buzzed with the news, everyone wondering if some emergency had occurred. Skard was a small country, and not even a member of The Dragon’s Pledge. A messenger should never have been sent to them, not in times like these.

Harkenne designated Skard and regions like it only as “The Autonomous Vennon Regions.”

Although they didn’t understand the reason for the visit, they had no reason to behave impolitely towards an envoy from the great nation of Harkenne. The Skard court had been thoroughly busy for those two days, making preparations for the reception.

The carriage advanced to the center of the courtyard and stopped.

The guards dismounted from their horses, and bowed reverently to the three people who stood at the entrance to the royal castle.

Each of these three wore a crown on their head.

They were Skard’s King Brook, Prince Nashere, and also the Princess Reena.

Brook counted his age at forty years. There was not one bit of useless flesh on his tall frame. He wore the air of a wise man, and there probably wasn’t a single person in Moss who could surpass him as a soldier.

Prince Nashere, although there still remained traces of youth on his face, had already surpassed his father in height. His reddish-golden hair stretched long, and was wrapped in a metallic band to keep it off his face. Perhaps because of that, he left a somewhat feminine impression.

Princess Reena differed from her older brother, having black hair and black eyes. That hair and those eyes stood out conspicuously against her white skin, and gave her an extreme prettiness, like a doll. Her eyes were open wide, staring at the company in the carriage with deep interest.

The knights of Harkenne opened the door to the carriage, and bowed their heads even more deeply than they had for Skard’s royal family.

Accompanied by a single lady’s maid, a woman who obviously held a high position descended from the carriage. She was wrapped in a pale red dress, and on her forehead was a small simplified crown.

“Princess Elanta,” the father said to his son who waited at his left side.

“The third princess… …isn’t she?” his son answered.

“Why would a princess of Harkenne come to this country?” Reena pulled at her brother’s sleeve, asking this simple question.

“I don’t know.” Nashere’s answer was curt.

“You’re mean.” Reena puffed up her cheeks, and looked up at her brother reproachfully.

Skard was not a country that had a great harvest of visits from princess of superpowers. Even politically ignorant Reena understood that.

The country was known for its excellent ale, which it traded with the Dwarf tribes, and for the weapons, armor and other handiwork brought in from those earth sprites.

They had a monopoly on trade with the Dwarves, so even though Skard was a small country, their economy flourished. They were occasionally asked by Vennon for a delivery of money and goods under one pretext or another, but they still had plenty of rich treasure saved up in their national treasury.

So then, what was the purpose of this visit?

Escorted by her knights, Princess Elanta stepped up to them.

“We were told a delegation was visiting, but a princess’s visit…” The king crossed over to her and offered to take her hand.

“For goodwill with Skard.” Elanta answered with a smiling face, but she didn’t take the king’s hand.

Her gaze turned to Nashere, standing next to Reena. “This is the famous…”

“The prince Nashere,” the king proudly introduced Nashere. He winking lightly at his son.

Seeming to understand, Nashere stepped up to stand before Princess Elanta. Taking the princess’s right hand, he lightly kissed it.

Elanta’s cheeks glowed like a rose in full bloom.

“You must be tired. Please, take your rest until the feast. Your room is this way.” Taking the princess’s hand, Nashere made as if to escort her into the castle.

But the princess grasped Nashere’s hand and started off in the entirely opposite direction. “I’m not tired at all. Actually, this is a rare opportunity. I’d love if you’d give me a tour of the castle until the feast.”

Nashere gave a look of consternation, like he thought she was being a little assertive.

Seeing her brother’s embarrassment, Reena raised her voice without thinking. “If it’s a tour you want, I’ll do it!”

At that statement, Princess Elanta slowly looked back at Reena. “I appreciate your kindness, but I think I’d like to take my tour with Prince Nashere.”

The phrase was polite, but the gaze was cold. Her expression was one she might use on a blundering lady’s maid.

I’ve been looked down on, Reena thought. Her face went bright red in intense embarrassment.

Elanta’s laugh made a light noise. The princess started walking towards the herb garden in the backyard, pulling Nashere along with her.

The Harkenne knights tried to follow them, but Elanta waved her hand vigorously, and they sank back. “Prince Nashere is said to be the best swordsman in the duchy. What use are knights going to be!”

The knights looked at each other. What was that about? they asked each other with their eyes.

Eventually, the knights silently withdrew, but their drawn expressions showed their true feelings. For men who made their living by the sword, the princess’s words could not have been more insulting.

Nashere and Elanta twisted their arms together and headed off. All Reena could do was watch their backs as they left.

A sensibility even Reena herself didn’t notice sparked in her eyes and became a fire.

The island named Lodoss is a remote island that lies to the south of the continent of Alecrast.

It is known among the inhabitants of the continent as the Accursed Island. As a violent war raged around it, the island was created as a place to house demons, to keep them apart from human beings.

The southwest region of Lodoss is a mountainous land with steep ranges. But even here, people make their lives and a country flourishes.

The name of this kingdom is Moss.

But no king exists here. After the fall of the ancient kingdom of magic, Castule, countless small countries rose up in this region. Because it was a difficult land both to defend and to easily attack, a unified kingdom was never born.

But in other regions unity prevailed, and mighty kingdoms came into being. Soon, their military power turned on even these mountainous lands, and for defense, the small countries of this region bound together in an alliance.

The agreement thus signed was The Dragon’s Pledge.

According to tradition, in this mountainous region lived a number of dragons, demon animals, the strongest of mythical beasts. By likening various countries in the regions to those creatures, a bond was formed as the single country of Moss.

The name of dragon was added to the various countries who had signed the pledge, and they swore an oath to battle against aggression from neighboring countries and to maintain the union.

This oath was acted upon, and Moss pushed aside the foreign invasion.

On the other hand, civil wars weren’t extinguished in the region. Each country spent its time fighting insatiably to expand their own power. When one kingdom’s power grew too large, the other countries would bind together to effect a regional self-purification.

Thus, the theory of small countries standing together didn’t change the situation very much in practice.

Soon, the people who controlled these various countries came to call themselves king, and the name The Kingdom of Moss became inappropriate for the unification of countries in that region. Therefore, it became known as the Duchy of Moss instead.

Essentially, a duchy, as compared to a kingdom, is a name for a smaller country. In going against this and using it with the opposite meaning, they highlighted the weakness of the united family of Moss, and the strength of the independent countries.

But, when there was aggression from an outside country, The Dragon’s Pledge would be invoked without fail. Countries that had been crossing swords only the day before would line their shields up next to each other at word of the pledge being invoked.

Seen from the outside, this bond could only be called peculiar. But this was the way of things in the region called Moss.

On the southern edge of this Duchy of Moss was the small country called Skard.

The population was a mere ten thousand. The number of knights charged with protecting the kingdom wasn’t even a full hundred. Having no affiliation with The Dragon’s Pledge, they looked for help to the large regional leader to the north, The Dragon’s Scale, Vennon, and were under their protection.

The name of the current king is Brook.

Two children had been born to Brook. A son, Prince Nashere, by his primary queen, and a daughter, Reena, born to his second queen.

The golden-haired brother and black-haired sister didn’t look anything like each other, but the beauty of those siblings was the pride of the people of Skard.

The people of Skard had given them the title “Prince of the Sun, Princess of the Moon.” This praise was known even in court, and the knights of the kingdom came to use it.

Prince of the Sun Nashere was fifteen, Princess of the Moon Reena, thirteen.

They were at an age where they had to sever their connections to an innocent childhood.

* * *

The banquet to welcome the envoy from The Dragon’s Flame, Harkenne started that evening.

Foods of every extravagance were lined up, and barrels of first-class ale, a drink normally forbidden domestically so that they could export it to the Dwarf tribe, had been carted in.

The music started, and jesters presented miming and magic.

The knights and ladies amused themselves with dining, chatted, and dancing. Men and women began to softly sneak away from the banquet to talk of love.

The atmosphere became brilliant and filled the banquet hall.

But to Reena, the atmosphere in the banquet hall was choking. She leaned back against the stone wall, a glass of wine in one hand. The cold of the wall cut through her pure white dress and spread out from there.

Her gaze stayed fixed on one couple. Her older brother Nashere and the guest of honor, Princess Elanta, danced in the center of the hall.

Elanta looked like she was having the time of her life. Nashere responded politely to the Princess’s demands, the smile never leaving his face.

Elanta seemed to be using her brother as a personal valet, and it made Reena vehemently angry. But there was no point in putting that on display. Treating the Princess rudely would be an insult to the Kingdom of Harkenne, and in a worst-case scenario, might be used as an excuse for war. At that point, the Kingdom of Vennon would have to take up the challenge, but if the fault was Skard’s, they would make demands for a huge war chest.

It was a pain, but she could only be patient.

She figured her brother felt the same. But, judging by Nashere’s expression, that kind of feeling hadn’t occurred to him. Rather, he looked like he was enjoying serving the daughter of such a large country.

Princess Elanta was fourteen, one year younger than Nashere. She had a beautiful look, full of the grace of a princess of a great nation. Despite her age, she had ample chest and hips. There were probably plenty of men in Harkenne who hankered after her. Perhaps her brother’s attitude wasn’t a lie, maybe he really wanted to steal the Princess’s heart.

The song had changed three times, but Nashere and Elanta continued dancing. You couldn’t say that the Princess was entirely without dancing ability, but with Nashere’s skillful guidance, she looked brilliant.

“It’s weird, but when she dances with my brother…”

Reena sighed dully.

And then,

“Princess Reena, if it would please you to have me as a partner for a dance…”

A knight of Harkenne had come over on his own, and he was inviting Reena to dance.

Reena stared motionless at the knight’s face.

His age was somewhere around twenty, and because he had been selected to guard the princess at such a young age, he was probably of noble birth, even for a knight.

He had a slim build and his manner was soft. He had a thin mustache, and flashed a smile full of confidence. He seemed to be accustomed indeed to handling women. With that sincere-looking expression, one could easily imagine what he was thinking.

Silas, knight-commander of Skard, was like that. The knight-commander hadn’t shown up for the start of the banquet, and had already left the hall. One of the countesses had disappeared too, probably chasing after him.

“I’ll pass, thank you.” Reena turned away.

At this unexpected reaction, the knight’s smile, so full of confidence, froze.

The knights of Skard who had come close sniggered.

Shaken by the humiliation, the knight of Harkenne backed away.

“Our Princess has danced with Prince Nashere since she was born. If she can’t dance with a prince, other guys don’t stand a chance.” One of the Skard knights said, walking up to the Harkenne knight with a mug poured to the brim with ale and handing it to him.

“His Highness has himself one tough little sister,” the Harkenne knight answered in a rueful tone.

“You’re telling me. If you ask Princess Reena, the fact that Lord Nashere is her older brother is life’s greatest tragedy. The man who outrivals the Prince just doesn’t exist. Even your princess must be in his trance by now.”

The Harkenne night sniffed as though he wasn’t interested. “He was born prince of this tiny country. Even if he does have tons of charm, he’d still get buried.”

“That much is true,” the Skard knight answered. Because the other man’s words were the truth, they weren’t very insulting. “But Skard is a peaceful kingdom. The Prince supports this peace. And the Prince lives an easy life in this peace. I’d be delighted if we were immune from bloody battles, if only for the Prince’s sake. Knights from large countries, such as yourself, certainly understand the value in that, don’t you?”

With an eerie expression on his face, the knight of Harkenne headed off in the direction of the tables, where dinner was lined up.

Just then, the music stopped. Couples who were exhausted from dancing removed themselves from the center of the hall for a drink, changing places with those hoping to join the line of dancers anew.

Princess Elanta and Prince Nashere, too, walked in Reena’s direction.

Princess Elanta was in a cold sweat all over her body, and breathing fiercely. Nashere, on the other hand, was just as usual. Her brother tempered his body with swimming and horsemanship, and was beginning swordplay. He could remain composed throughout any dance.

Finally, she could dance with her brother. Picking up the skirt of her dress, Reena hurried over to her brother.

“Will you dance with me, brother?” she said with enthusiasm.

Nashere’s right hand was on Elanta’s back. Reena tried to assertively take his free left hand. But when she did, Elanta rebuked her.

“Nashere must be exhausted. If you need a partner, you’d better look for someone else.”

(My brother is not tired!) Reena shouted a protest in her heart, but of course, she wasn’t allowed to raise her voice. She looked at Nashere, appealing to him.

“As My Lady says,” Nashere said in a quite voice. And then he winked, as if that explained everything.

Failing to understand his meaning, Reena stood blinking, unable to move.

“Father’s angry with you,” Nashere said, drawing his mouth close to Reena’s ear.

Hastily, Reena looked back in the king’s direction. Brook was looking right back at Reena. His expression was severe.

(That expression again…) Reena thought with deep sadness.

It was an expression he used on people who’d drunk the forbidden ale. It was the expression he used whenever he scolded Reena. She’d never seen him direct it at Nashere.

“If you need a dance partner, you could be served by one of our knights.” Elanta’s triumphant smile overcame Reena. It was a smile that said there was nothing she could do about Elanta’s monopolization of her brother.

(Prince Nashere is mine!) Reena thought, like she’d spoken it aloud.

The color of her face went red and the paled from anger and shame.

“My Lady Reena…” One of the Skard knights, seeing the change in color, came near in concern.

“I’m not feeling well. I’m going to get some air.” She thought if she stayed in that banquet hall any longer, she’d suffocate.

She hurried through the hall entrance as if she were running away. When she looked back, Nashere was chatting again with Princess Elanta, having already forgotten all about Reena. And her father had an expression of frank relief, and was saying something to a knight of Harkenne.

(Nobody needs me.) She despaired.

She half-ran down the hallway, and exited into the courtyard.

Bathed in moonlight, the outdoors was brighter than she’d thought.

Reena headed for the stables.

If no one needed her, she didn’t have to be in this castle.

Such thoughts ruled Reena’s heart.

Once she arrived at the stables, she stood before one of a pack of horses. It was a chestnut horse, her brother’s most favorite. She put a saddle on it and straddled its back.

Just like that, she exited the stables. From the courtyard of the royal castle, she aimed for the back gate, grasping the horse’s neck. She kicked the horse’s stomach, set in like a whip.

Like a gale, the horse started running.

From somewhere in the distance came a wolf’s howl.

* * *

Several moments later, the guard who served as gatekeeper at the castle gate rushed into the banquet hall. He hurriedly ran over to King Brook and whispered something to him.

Upon hearing it, Brook’s eyebrows drew up in surprise, and he moved his mouth, saying something.

“Shall we, sir?” The guardsman asked.

Brook looked around the situation in the banquet hall, and shook his head as if depressed.

“Let them loose,” Brook said over his shoulder, turning his body away from the guard. “Her mother was a selfish woman, too.”

2

The forest at night was filled with a quiet stillness.

The light of the full moon shining in the sky filtered through the treetops, and hardly any of it reached the ground. She couldn’t take the horse too deeply into the forest, for fear of it stumbling on tree roots.

Her heart was filled with vacant, lonely feelings, cold after such high-strung emotions.

What foolish thing to do, she thought.

But she had been unable to keep control of herself in the face of Princess Elanta’s disdainful attitude. She thought she could steal her brother, monopolize him. And her brother only smiled and played right up to that Princess.

Just then, a night breeze blew over her. Her black hair flowed out in the wind and softly touched her cheek.

Slipping one hand off the reins, Reena took the hair in her hand.

“Why am I so different from my brother? His hair shines just like yellow gold. But my hair is like the raven’s wing. My brother’s eyes are the color of clear water, but mine are the color of stagnant well water.”

Reena hated the mother who had born her.

Her mother had been of lowly birth, as opposed to the first queen who had been Nashere’s mother, and she had always burned with envy. But the first queen was generous to Reena’s mother, and had loved Reena as if she were her own child.

When the queen died, rumors spread that Reena’s mother had poisoned her.

If the herbalist Tatus hadn’t denied those rumors, she might have been punished. But maybe that would have been better.

Her mother’s behavior afterwards was unbearable, even in the eyes of her own daughter.

She bought expensive goods, and decorated her body as if it would conceal her lowly birth. She persecuted the late queen’s ladies-in-waiting, even driving one of them to jump from a castle window to her death.

When her mother died from hysteria, Reena was far from sad. Rather, she sighed in relief.

She hated her mother that much. And this hair and these eyes she’d inherited from her mother, she hated them, too.

Prince of the Sun, Princess of the Moon. Reena knew what the knights called them.

Her father Brooke seemed fond of the nicknames, but the knights compared her to her brother and looked down on her. An unworthy daughter born of a lowly mother, that’s what they thought.

But the moon only shines at night. In the light of the sun, the light of the moon is swallowed up, and seems not to exist.

If I could somehow have a different father too, that would be better, she thought. Then she could be together with her brother.

Her father was hoping for a marriage between her and the prince of Vennon, the Dragon Scale, to deepen the connection with Skard’s protector country.

Her brother had been by her side constantly until now. But, she realized, those days would never come again.

Eventually, some noble daughter of some large country would be married off to her brother. Maybe that daughter would be Princess Elanta.

“Brother……”

Her tears spilled over.

She felt like the most important things in her heart were flowing out alongside those tears.

That’s when it happened.

The howl of a wolf echoed through the forest. It wasn’t that far away, either.

The horse that Reena was on struggled violently, surprised at the beast’s howl.

Reena grabbed the reins and tried to somehow quiet the horse. But she couldn’t.

In the time it took the horse to raise his front legs, Reena was thrown from the it’s back. She rolled onto the ground, and hit her back heavily on a tree trunk.

She heard the cloth of her dress split.

The pain seemed to choke off her breath, and she gasped.

Braying, the horse ran off in the direction of the high road.

The pain gradually subsided, but her will to move had completely disappeared.

There was no one by her side now. She might die like this. She was able to imagine it.

“Even if I do disappear, there won’t be anyone who’ll be sad about it……”

Reena looked up at the night sky, crushed with sadness.

Shaded by a thick cloud, the moon disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The night went on, the banquet continued. King Brook had already left, and many of the more senior knights had returned to their quarters. Those who remained in the banquet hall were comparatively young knights and ladies. Perhaps they were searching for a lover, just for the night.

Nashere and Princess Elanta, too, were still there. They had gone out onto the veranda, and were keeping themselves cool, their bodies glowing from the warmth of drink and dance.

Nashere had suggested a rest so many times, but the Princess wouldn’t hear any of it.

(What a selfish person.) Nashere was tired of her. But she was an important state guest, and he couldn’t be even a little bit rude to her. At least, this was the sense he’d gotten from his father.

Nashere got the feeling that the goal of Princess Elanta’s visit had something to do with him.

The Princess hadn’t been carrying any special letters, she wasn’t here to negotiate with his father. Probably, the Princess was on an envoy from Vennon, and she had decided to call on Skard while coming south from the town of Muskett, on her way back to Harkenne.

And all to meet him. She must have heard some rumor and become interested in him.

That must have been a boundlessly annoying order for her knights. Although, from their perspective, being able to drink Skard’s famous ale must have been a tempting invitation.

In any event, they’d gone a long way just to drop in like this. Probably they’d stay two or three days and then return to Harkenne.

Until then, he’d be doing nothing but serving this Princess. Nashere hoped with all his heart it would all pass as quickly as a single day.

Just then, a night breeze blew over them.

“It’s getting cold, let’s go inside.”

“Yes, shall we?” the Princess answered, with an enraptured expression on her face. “It’s been a wonderful day. The rumors about you appear to be true, Prince Nashere. Rather, you go beyond the rumors. If I could be permitted, I hope to marry into your lovely country……”

“How very kind of you.”

Hearing Nashere’s answer, the Princess drew herself up fully and leaned in so her mouth was close to Nashere’s ear.

“Would you like to come up to my room?” Elanta said, her voice shy.

Nashere stared at her, not knowing what to say. What kind of education was the King of Harkenne giving this princess?

His younger sister was selfish, too, but not like this girl, and she was the daughter of a prominent country.

As to how he should reply, Nashere was lost. He had mastered court etiquette, but he hadn’t been taught how to reply in the face of a proposal like this one.

Nashere opened his mouth to politely refuse.

From the castle’s back gate, he caught sight of a single horse galloping in. It was a horse without a rider.

The gatekeeper stood in its way, trying to capture the reins of the violently spirited animal.

“What is that?” Pushing Elanta aside, Nashere leaned out from the veranda. He paid no attention to the Princess’s voice raised in protest.

(My horse……) Nashere was surprised.

Reena had disappeared from the banquet hall, he remembered. He’d thought she’d probably gone back to her room, but what if……

“Princess Elanta, you’ll have to excuse me!”

Nashere ran down the veranda stairs. He had an evil feeling. He hoped from the bottom of his heart that the feeling was wrong.

* * *

Two green lights wavered and drew near.

With her back still up against the tree trunk, Reena stared at those lights as if she were possessed.

From the darkness, a shadow approached.

A howling voice could be heard.

Just then, the moon that had disappeared behind the clouds showed itself, and cast a silvery light into the forest.

Shining in the moonlight, the wolf’s body was sharply defined.

He was probably a lone wolf, driven out from his pack. He looked like he was starving, and saliva ran down from his mouth like a thread.

The wolf gave a low growl. With careful steps, it closed the distance to Reena.

Her voice wouldn’t work, it was like her throat had closed up. Her whole body was shaking and she had broken out in a cold sweat. It hadn’t even occurred to her to run away, it was as though her brain had burned out with fear.

I’m going to be killed, she thought. It’ll tear out my stomach with those sharp claws and chew through my innards. I’m still going to be alive when it bites into me, what’s that going to feel like?

Reena opened her mouth, to ask for help. But she couldn’t use her voice.

Maybe that was for the best. If she did raise a shout, it might be taken as a sign to pounce.

The wolf got as close as five steps away, but it didn’t make any moves to get closer than that. It paced back and forth, waiting for the right moment.

The wolf was a wise animal. It knew a human was a tough opponent. Humans carry sharp pieces of iron, and the wolf knew it could be injured with those. It had to remember, humans are unsuitable as prey.

Reena stretched the bluff to it’s limit, and glared at the wolf.

The wolf dipped back a half step and began pacing again.

This was crazy. At any rate, she couldn’t hold out forever, a yelp was bound to leak out of her.

The wolf showed absolutely no indication that it was even thinking about leaving.

Was it that hungry? She could see its eyes were bloodshot.

(It’s no use……) All the spirit went out of her glare. Her consciousness wasn’t far behind. How easy it would be to faint just like that. She wondered if it wouldn’t be better if she was unconscious while she was killed.

She thought it, but she couldn’t do it.

Unconsciously, Reena let out a scream. Once she’d used her voice, she couldn’t stop.

The wolf let out a long howl, as if to match Reena’s scream.

It lowered it’s stance.

And then, it jumped.

Its claws closed in.

Just then, it happened.

A white shape appeared before Reena’s eyes, and closed the distance to the wolf.

“Run!” A scolding voice jumped out at her.

“Nashere!” That voice was unmistakably Nashere’s. He’d come to her rescue.

She was wrapped in a deep relief.

And with that, she reached her limit.

Everything in front of her became pitch black, and she lost consciousness like a thread had been cut.

* * *

“……Reena.”

From out of the darkness, she could hear a voice calling her name. Someone was shaking her.

Reena came to, and opened her eyes gloomily. In front of her was the handsome face of her brother Nashere.

His hair was disheveled, and blood dripped from his forehead. The drops had made a stain on Reena’s dress.

“Brother……” Reena stretched her hand out to her brother’s wound.

If she looked closely, her brother had suffered injuries over his entire body. Just standing up must have been hard.

“You’re not hurt?” her brother asked, a cold light in his eyes.

Reena’s hand stopped it’s movement. Her brother’s eyes looked like her father to her whenever he looked at her like that. It was a gaze of contempt mixed with deep anger.

(Why did you come to rescue me then?) The question shot off like an arrow, and Reena barely swallowed the words. Wouldn’t it be better if he was off being sociable with Princess Elanta? People like she herself were unnecessary, so it was better to just ignore them. If he had, the wolf would have solved the problem for him.

But the wolf had become a cold corpse, behind Nashere.

My brother doesn’t even wear a dagger.

So he had defeated the wolf unarmed. He had been taking lessons.

But she hadn’t thought he was that good. An ordinary human shouldn’t win against a wolf, unarmed.

She realized that she and her brother were separate people. No matter how close they were, there was an infinite distance between the two of them. The days when her brother was hers alone would never return.

“You’re not hurt?” Her brother repeated the same question.

“I sprained my ankle, I can’t move……” Reena answered.

Her own words surprised her. They were words she hadn’t thought.

She had felt like she wanted to make him worry, and they had just come out of her mouth. She had thought, if she said it, her brother would turn around. Rather, if she didn’t he would never turn around.

Nashere nodded silently, turned around, and bent over. Reena wrapped her arms around her brothers neck and climbed up on his back. With her now on his back, he back stood up.

The smell of her brother’s blood reached her nose. She felt a wetness on her hands, too. His injuries were worse than she’d thought.

But Nashere started off for the road back to the castle with firm steps, as if he wasn’t in any pain.

“Brother?” Reena said, from the midst of her wandering thoughts.

Apologize, she thought. And tell him you can walk on your own.

But her brother didn’t answer.

(He must be pretty mad.) A despairing sadness broke Reena’s heart into pieces. (He’ll never forgive me now. He’ll never show me that gentle smiling face again.)

That much at least was certain.

It was all her fault. Her brother was injured, and Princess Elanta had probably been seriously insulted. But what could she do to make up for it? Reena said to herself.

Nashere had come to save here without thinking about the danger. She could only offer her own life in response. Reena vowed in her heart, that if she had to sacrifice her life for her brother, she would happily do so.

Maybe her brother would forgive her then. Maybe he would remember her his entire life, and she could continue to live in her brother’s heart.

Then her brother would be hers once more.

* * *

Six months from that very day, Reena carried out her vow, and the Demon King was set loose on Lodoss.

1

There is an island named Lodoss.

It is a remote island that floats to the south of the continent of Alecrast. There are those on the continent who call it The Accursed Island.

The demon world still exists in many regions, trying to keep the humans at bay, and so abominable war rages on.

The southwest region of Lodoss is a mountainous place called Moss. It is made up of relatively small kingdoms standing together, and the struggle to expand their power has continued over several hundred years. However, unity of these kingdoms is currently neither theory nor practice, thanks to it being a land easy to protect and difficult to attack.

For that reason, war continues.

For the most part, no large battle has occurred in nearly ten years. But every person living in Moss knows full well that this peace is only a temporary state of affairs.

In the southernmost part of the Moss region is a kingdom called Skard. Population, approximately ten thousand. The number of knights who protect the kingdom, even including apprentices, isn’t fully one hundred men. And most of the knights have their origins as farmers without any noble lineage at all. If they returned to their own demesnes, they would cultivate the wheat and grapes themselves.

The current king of this Kingdom of Skard is called Brook by name–

“A demon army?”

King Brook, surprise and doubt mixed in his eyes, peered at the face of the magician standing in front of him. The magician’s hair, which stretched easily to his shoulders, had not been well cared for, and the tips had become ragged. Even the white robe he wore stood out for its stains and filth, and showed signs of not having been changed for several days.

A typical magician, he was indifferent to worldly things. Indeed, when this honored guest had come from the country, cleaned up his appearance, and entered into service, it had surprised even Brook.

“That is correct,” the magician answered quietly.

He looked just past thirty, but some thought he was as much as ten years older than his outward appearance indicated.

The magician’s name was Wort.

His other name, The Sage of the Wilds, rang out over all of Lodoss. The previous year, Brook himself had journeyed to Wort’s stronghold, built on the Runoana Shores, and invited him to Skard as court magician.

Indeed, he had entrusted him with a job even more important than the duties of a court magician: the education of his son Nashere.

To Nashere, who was adored, praised by the people as the Prince of the Sun, this was just one more person in charge of his education. Instructing him in general military arts was The Red Headed Mercenary, Beld.

He, too, was a man for hire whose name was known throughout Lodoss. The price of employing him was enough to hire a hundred ordinary mercenaries. But for Beld’s martial skill, even that was considered cheap. If he’d cared to, he could have easily conquered a small country. As to why he didn’t, perhaps it was because he thought ruling a country would be a bother.

Nashere was an outstanding young man, such that he might surpass two such eminent teachers.

This wasn’t looking at it with the prejudiced eyes of a parent. Brook had the confidence of having seen it with his own eyes. The opponent had been a woman, but still……

Against a woman, you could be charmed by beautiful limbs and a beautiful face before you knew it, ability and personality be damned.

Except when he had met Nashere’s mother, Eliza. Not that she wasn’t a beautiful woman. Rather she was more beautiful than any woman Brook had met before. And that body, it was well-proportioned without being extravagant.

But, as well thought of as those virtues were, she was also intelligent, and wise. That was what had stolen Brook’s heart.

Eliza was the princess of The Dragon’s Eye, the Highlands, and belonged to one of the larger Moss countries. She was on a whole different level from Brook, who was just the prince of a small country, without even a Dragon name, but the Highland king accepted Brook’s proposal of marriage nonetheless.

The child who was born to Eliza in time was Nashere. His excellence must have been from his mother.

In his younger days, Brook imagined himself a suitable candidate for the duke who would lead the Moss countries, but watching Nashere grow up, he came to realize that it had been a foolish delusion.

He himself had never gone beyond mere cleverness. A hero was a far better human being. The Red Headed Mercenary, Beld, and The Sage of the Wilds who stood before his eyes, Wort, they were the ones who could be called heroes. That these two men had undertaken Nashere’s education was proof that Brook’s eyes were not clouded.

It was unfortunate that Nashere had been born as a prince of a kingdom in the crush that was Moss, and a tiny kingdom at that. What great person, being born here, not being able to take his place in the spotlight, what great person wouldn’t be buried and succumb to decay?

But he wanted to keep Nashere from any taste of the disgusted regret he felt over his own younger days. Brook intended to risk what life remained to him for that cause.

He would unify Moss, the same Moss that spend all it’s days in war, and he would tuck the large neighboring countries into his territory, too. In the end, he would mark even the Thousand Year Kingdom Alania and The Dark Island of Marmo on his map, and The Age of The Sword would pull aside the curtain on a unified Lodoss.

But in order to do so, he needed a strong army.

When he had appealed to, or rather, complained about these things to Court Magician Wort, Wort had replied with those recent words.

There was a demon army.

There were ruins of a fallen ancient kingdom from more than five hundred years ago, in a spot far to the south, beyond the tunnel that led to the village of the southern Dwarf tribe, the Kingdom of Stone, and it was said that inhabitants of the spirit world had been summoned in ancient times and sealed there.

These inhabitants of the spirit world were called demons. They were placed in bodies with powers far beyond the capabilities of human beings, and dark people commanded those fearful powers and special abilities that no human possessed. It was said that this army was more powerful even than all the knights of Lodoss combined. If such a thing really existed……

Brook tried tossing out a casual question. “Are you saying that if I commanded this demon army, I could easily conquer Lodoss?”

“You probably could.” Wort nodded, apparently indifferent. “Although, even if you did unify Lodoss through such means, you probably couldn’t maintain the kingdom for long. The only thing history would remember would be the disgrace of your using the evil creatures. Do you intend to pass on a throne thus endlessly dishonored to Prince Nashere?”

“That is……” Brook was at a loss for an answer.

That was to say, who would praise a throne this small, even an honorable one? On the other hand, wouldn’t it be possible, in the thrall of massive power, even if the throne was painted with blood, if the country was huge?

But he wanted to leave a name behind to history, to Nashere, as a heroic king. That would suit a prince who was a once-in-a-millennium hero.

“In the first place, in order to subdue the demon army, you must release the Demon King from his seal and place him under your rule. The other demons are subordinate to their king, so they will all be ruled by whoever liberates him. However, there are plenty of obstacles to doing so. Many traps have been laid in the labyrinth, and you must break through them and the magical creatures that protect the labyrinth. And then, you will need a sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice?”

“And not just any common sacrifice.”

“Some maiden protected by her purity?”

In response to Brook’s sarcastic question, Wort nodded and smiled grimly. “Even the magicians of the ancient kingdom used pure young girls as sacrifices, just as frequently as the priests of the dark gods. It seems that virgin girls are the closest thing to the origin of life, although they weren’t thought to be a very significant element when I was at studies. We have a hunch that they’re rather a ceremonial decoration. Or maybe a relic of the dark ages when they worshiped nature……”

“I don’t need a lecture on magic.” Brook rebuked Wort for his wandering speech, urging him to continue the story of the demons.

“The sacrifice used to liberate the demon king must be a blood relative of the liberator. The demon king exists only as an immortal soul, he doesn’t have anything like a body.”

“What are you saying, he’s the same as the gods……?” Brook realized how horrible the demon king must be.

In ancient times, the gods divided into factions of light and darkness, and did battle. They lost their bodies and came to exist only as souls.

Their souls were immortal, but because their bodies had been destroyed, they had lost their means of influencing this world. But even though they could no longer exercise it, the power of the gods was so massive it was incalculable. High ranking priests invoked the power of a god by forcing the advent of that god into his own body. These powers were beyond human imagining.

The demon king must have powers comparable to a god’s. Or perhaps he was an evil god.

“Can you offer a pure maiden as a sacrifice, one of your blood relatives?” Wort asked, a teasing note in his voice.

There was only one person who fulfilled the conditions Wort indicated. The Princess of the Moon, Reena, half-sister to Nashere. She was two years younger than Nashere, having turned fourteen just this year.

She had come of age last year, and although she was finally coming into a body that resembled a woman’s, her spirit was still that of a child. Her selfishness was sometimes wearying.

Just like her mother.

Reena’s mother, who had been the second queen, was named Natasha. Originally an itinerant dancing girl, she had a free and unrestrained nature. With ebony hair and eyes, and an ample and flexible body, she had known all of the skills that brought a man joy in bed.

She had had a particularly lewd nature in that respect. Indeed, Brook had been so taken on that point that he made her his second queen……

While his first queen, Eliza, was alive, Natasha had been comparatively mild. She must have detested Eliza, but she feared her at the same time.

Later, when Eliza died of an illness, Natasha’s vices began to appear. She acted quite the empress, earning her the hatred of the people. She drove one of the first queen’s lady’s maids to suicide, and never tired of buying expensive fashions and jewelry. And finally, she crossed a line that should never have been crossed. She had a passionate affair with one of the servants.

Brook decided she had gone far enough.

When she came down with a mild cold, he gave orders to Tatus, an herbalist attached to the court, and had him prepare a poison. To people unaware, it appeared as if her condition had simply deteriorated and she had died. Only the perpetrator would be aware of the poison’s added effects.

Even now, her final words burned Brook’s ears. He couldn’t forget them.

“I curse you. I curse your kingdom, and your royal family……”

The Princess Reena had inherited her hair and eye color from her mother. When she grew up, she too might become like her mother.

She had an important role to play as the daughter of the royal line. Some day she would be married off into the royal line of another country. Whether she would or would not become a captivating marriage partner, that was the important question.

But he wasn’t considering marrying his daughter off just yet. He thought it would be better if she matured more, emotionally. Besides, she might find someone she liked. If a marriage with such a person turned out to also have political meaning, Brook would happily approve. He had no intention of causing her grief by pressuring her into a marriage she was unwilling to accept.

Reena probably misunderstood him, but Brook did love her. How nice it would be to dote on her. Except it didn’t suit the position, the bearing of a king. He had to keep his heart well veiled, so it was often better to be severe.

But it seemed Brook’s heart, and everything else, was visible to this court magician. With his thoughts tending toward the indignant, Brook threw himself onto a couch that had been placed against the wall.

“You can’t keep something like a demon king under your control forever. Eventually, it will get out of control, and spread misfortune across Lodoss.”

“Probably true……” That, Brook could agree with.

If the person who liberated the Demon King died, only then would the demon be freed from the blood ties. So, that being the case, even the magicians of the ancient kingdom had to seal the Demon King in the deep underground labyrinth.

“To judge by recent movements, this region will soon be upset. Without it, you can’t do anything. Your first goal should be unification of Moss, and after that you can subdue the communal towns led by Raiden, and then dispose of the dragon hunters, and the wind and fire tribes of the desert.”

“That’s easily said,” Brook declared ruefully.

Wort took the response calmly, and then he said, “It is a simple thing.”

He look down at Brook, saying nothing else, but thinking that Brook must have invited him here for that very purpose.

He was certain of it.

Brook flashed a wry smile. “I asked you, Lord Tactician.”

“Please, leave it to me. Except, if you plan in haste, you will make mistakes. We must plan slowly, and carry out those plans carefully. Prince Nashere is still young. There is plenty of time.” Wort looked full of confidence.

His dream, beside Nashere’s becoming king of a unified Lodoss, was to wield power. At this point, his interests were in agreement with Brook’s. As far as the king was concerned, The Sage of the Wilds wasn’t just a court magician, he was a trusted friend. This was why a conspiracy like this was even possible.

But–

(Is there enough time……?) Brook muttered in his heart.

But this was only the voice in his heart, there was no reason to speak of it to his trusted friend.

Brook gave Wort the order and he stepped back.

Bowing reverently, Wort excused himself from the room. The door closed after him with a heavy thud.

“Nashere certainly has enough time. But what about me……”

2

A little while after Wort left, there was a knock at the door. When Brook called out who was it, “It is the herbalist Tatus. I have your medicine,” was the reply he received.

“Enter.”

Thus prompted, a fat man of about forty entered the room. There was no feeling of slackness about him; indeed he gave the impression that his flesh and bones were packed in solidly.

Tatus had became a pupil of the proceeding court herbalist as a child, and had always served in the court of Skard. As for his position, he wasn’t a knight, but Brook’s trust in him was far deeper than even a high-ranking knight.

As for herbalists, he was likely the best in Lodoss. The fact that Skard did not have any more than fledgling priests at court was down to the herbs Tatus prepared being so effective.

It wasn’t magic, but like Dwarven workmanship, it was effective in the same way.

In Tatus’s right hand, he gripped a silver goblet. A pale white steam rose from it.

Brook stretched out his hand and received the medicated water from Tatus. He held his breath and drank the bitter, paste-like liquid.

“Can’t you make it easier to drink?”

Placing the now empty silver cup on the arm of the couch, Brook walked over to the desk that had been posted by the window. He picked up the pitcher that had been placed there, and poured the water directly into his mouth and down his throat, not bothering with a glass.

The medicines this man prepared were terribly unappetizing. You couldn’t help but think that he did it on purpose.

Tatus waited for him to finish drinking the water, and came over beside him. “Would you open your mouth please?”

Brook nodded and, setting himself down in a nearby chair, turned to the window and opened his mouth wide. The inside of his throat glistened in the light that flooded through the window.

The feeling that he had some foreign object in his throat had started about half a year ago. He thought off-handedly that he’d probably just injured himself, but the feeling gradually grew larger.

When he went to consult Tatus, he’d gone with a casual sense, like it wasn’t any big thing, but something unusual had happened. The imperturbable herbalist’s face had paled.

“This mass is a matter of life or death,” Tatus had said, sweating profusely.

Brook asked only one question. “Is it curable?”

Tatus slowly shook his head. “If we use strong medicine, we can prevent the mass from getting too large, but curing it isn’t possible. The only thing you can do is throw yourself upon the mercy of the gods for a miracle,” he said, implying that Brook should call a priest.

If they called a priest of eminent virtue, he could beg for a miracle from the gods, calling on them with holy magic, to heal this illness.

Brook hadn’t replied. The only thing he had asked was this: “How long do I have?”

“If you continue with the medicine, you have maybe five or six years. It’s strong medicine, your internal organs won’t handle more that.”

“……Prepare the medicine,” Brook had ordered Tatus.

He was not of a mind to call a priest. In cases of illness caught naturally, many of the holy magic cures didn’t work. That was just the end of that person’s life. And also, if his illness wasn’t cured, it was his own business, but what if information about it leaked to the outside world?

This alone, he wanted to avoid.

Inevitably, their neighbor to the north, The Dragon’s Scale, Vennon would take advantage of Nashere’s youth and intervene. Vennon was Skard’s sole neighbor, and so Skard would be forced into a subordinate alliance to that large country.

If they married one of their own to Reena and then assassinated Nashere, they could take over Skard without doing any hard work.

But, in five years, Nashere would be a magnificent young man. He wouldn’t allow any intervention by the likes of Vennon. As far as Brook was concerned, if his life lasted until then, it would be enough.

It was too bad that he wouldn’t see his son walk the royal road with his own eyes. But that was his sole regret.

Half a year had now passed since he had discovered this illness.

“How’s my condition?”

“The medicine seems to be effective. The mass hasn’t gotten any bigger. But your throat is getting quite bad. I’m asking you again Sir not to have any strong drinks.”

Brook made a sudden noise with his nose.

With drink, his thought was that the stronger the better. Ale and its kin were as water to him. Only the taste of a craftsman would do.

He loved the spirits that the northern Dwarfs purified from grape wine. When you poured that drink in your throat, it felt like your throat right down to your stomach was on fire. And then you could dip right into a comfortable intoxication.

But, these spirits might have been too strong for humans. Probably this mass developing in his throat was from drinking too much of them in the first place.

It was a catastrophe he’d brought on himself. He was more than prepared to meet his fate.

Except, it was a shame he had such little time remaining for the things he wanted to do for Nashere. And it was too bad that he was leaving Nashere’s future to Wort and Beld.

He envied them all. He had wanted his own name to appear in a military epic of heroic kings.

“What a shame……” The words spilled from Brook.

Tatus selected his words carefully. “There are limits to life. When a life ends in old age, if it has been lived without regrets……” He seemed to have misunderstood Brook’s mumble.

“Let’s try that,” Brook said, as if he were passing an order down to Tatus, and smiled.

“An envoy came from Vennon a little while ago, requesting a meeting with Your Highness. If you’re up to it, I would like you to go to that meeting……”

Brook’s expression instantly clouded over. “A Vennon envoy?” This was the first he’d heard of any envoy from Vennon.

“What are they here to demand this time?” Brook complained, moving towards a closet in the corner of the room. He’d need to put on full dress to meet an envoy from Vennon. “Put them in the audience chamber.”

“That’s……” Tatus hesitated, unusual for this always direct man.

Brook pressed the point, and at last the herbalist continued. “It seems to be secret business. He wanted a meeting alone with Your Highness. That’s what he told me.”

“Secret business?”

Clouds spread through Brook’s heart, like on a hot summer evening. Alarms rang out like thunderclaps.

“It was inevitable……” he answered himself, his shoulders dropping.

Skard’s powerlessness squeezed his chest. They were here to make some impertinent request, and he couldn’t do anything but agree to it.

“Have them wait in the drawing room. Leave me,” Brook said.

He usually appeared healthy, despite the illness, but in that instant, his face clouded over darkly. He looked like a corpse.

3

“My daughter, Prince Alondo’s queen……”

Brook repeated the envoy’s words in a voice that sounded as if his soul had dropped out of his body.

They were in one of the many interior drawing rooms in Skard’s royal castle. Ever since Brook had invited Wort, the Sage of the Wilds, to the castle, anti-magic wards stretched over each one of the drawing rooms.

Wort didn’t only know how to cast magic, he also understood how to put it to use. He wasn’t like the so-called research magicians at private academies. As far as he was concerned, magic was no different from a sword in a knight’s hand, except for how one got to the point of proficiency with the tool.

“That’s right.” With no break in his arrogant attitude, the envoy from Vennon nodded. “We’ve allowed your country to refuse this offer multiple times. Princess Reena was just a baby. But Her Highness is fourteen this year, and lacks nothing required for marriage.”

“Age doesn’t come into it. She’s still a child. Marrying her as she is now would cause His Highness nothing but trouble. Can’t you wait a little while longer?”

“Our king has made his wishes clear. That’s enough waiting. He’s wondering if you’re not accepting this offer of marriage because you’ve got something else on your mind.”

“No, nothing like that……” Brook hastily denied the envoy’s words. Under the circumstances, he didn’t have any other choice.

Sending a secret envoy instead of an official one was a ploy to secure the answer they wanted. This wasn’t any kind of diplomacy, this was a kind of threat.

“That’s what our king is saying. He thinks Skard is plotting it independence from Vennon. Inviting the Red-Headed Mercenary, Beld and the Sage of the Wilds, Wort is proof of that.”

“Wha- what did you say?” Brook put a surprised expression on his face. “It’s only because of Vennon that Skard exists. Inviting the Sage, employing the Mercenary, I was merely thinking to play a roll for His Highness in some future battle. If Vennon’s king thinks that my daughter is suitable for a duke of Moss……”

“Cut the crap,” Vennon’s envoy said sharply.

Brook reflexively lowered his gaze, although he wasn’t overawed by anything.

The envoy was a decade younger than Brook, and was not a model human being, no matter how one looked at it. Except that thanks to his stupidity, it was impossible to change his mind on anything. Those eyes were filled with hostility towards Brook, and looked like he was ready to stab anyone, providing he was carrying out orders from Vennon’s king.

(Does this young buck think he can defeat me?)

The flames of hatred burned Brook’s heart on the inside, while on the outside he pretended to be flustered. He felt as if he’d been made a complete fool of.

But even if he was better than this kid, he had been born into this small country, and had to bow his head even to this fool.

Brook once again etched onto his heart the hated facts as he understood them. He would not allow Nashere to taste humiliation like this. He was determined…

“I understand,” Brook said, looking withered. The reply didn’t commit him to anything, but it was a response the knight would be satisfied with.

“There is one more thing I wanted to ask you,” the Vennon envoy said, his attitude growing even larger.

“What might that be?” Brook asked, holding his anger in check by sheer force of will. His fingertip twitched on the chair arm like he’d had a cramp.

What more do they want to demand? he thought.

“Hereafter you will pay eighty percent of your profits from your trade with the Dwarf tribes in taxes,” the envoy said arrogantly, puffing out his chest.

“What did you say?” Brook stood up from his chair without thinking.

“Our last war with the Dragon’s Flame, Harkenne, was your country’s fault. Three famous knights of our kingdom died in that war, have you forgotten?”

In the face of the Vennon’s envoy’s shout, Brook embraced truly murderous intentions.

“I haven’t forgotten. We here in Skard paid a huge war chest for that very reason.”

It had occurred last year, when Harkenne’s Princess Elanta suddenly visited Skard. After she returned to her country, she apparently reported to her father that she had been roughly pushed by Prince Nashere. The furious king of Harkenne dispatched troops to demand Prince Nashere be handed over. Vennon, being Skard’s guardian country, took it as an affront, and a petty war rose up between the countries.

The charges that Nashere had done any violence to Princess Elanta were, of course, groundless. The truth was, Princess Elanta had tempted Nashere, and had made the false report out of spite at his refusal.

Elanta, frightened at the gravity of the situation her lie had caused, told her father the truth, and a cease-fire was immediately enacted. However, in the absence of any apology from Harkenne, Vennon decided, for whatever reason, that the deterioration of its relationship with Harkenne was, in the end, Skard’s fault.

And they had demanded a large war chest.

At the time, Brook had followed quietly along. He knew his daughter Reena was partly to blame. But their demands this time……

“Trade with the Dwarf tribe is this kingdom’s only lifeline. We’re just a small country, we don’t have any other industry.”

“It’s a trade that seems to flood your country’s coffers with treasure.” Settling himself heavily into his chair, the envoy crossed his arms and stared up at Brook.

“That rumor has no roots, let alone a leaf……”

“Silence!” the envoy said in a violent tone, as if he thought Brook was only making excuses. The envoy got to his feet like he was going to kick the chair. On his face was an expression like he was drunk on his own power. “We’ve gotten our information from a reliable source. If you’d like, I can make a guess as to how much you’ve got saved up down there.”

Having spoken, the envoy began to list the treasure saved up in Skard’s national treasury.

Struck dumb with astonishment, Brook could only listen to his words. The size of the treasure the envoy listed was just about in agreement with what Brook knew of it. Someone of influence here in Skard must have been in secret communication with Vennon. Maybe they had given up the fate of this small country as hopeless. They must have been promised handsome treatment when Skard was annexed.

But what surprised him more than that, was that Vennon was envious of their riches, and that they would have the nerve to make such demands like a thief.

They must be anxious about something.

They must be afraid of something.

Questions rose to the surface, one after the other, and disappeared. They wouldn’t be able to make such inhuman demands without some cause.

“Know that if you refuse these demands, we will resort to force.”

So they said today, but Brook wondered if that was Vennon’s true intention anyway. Maybe they wanted to use military power and annex his kingdom. If they succeeded, they could have a monopoly on trade with the Dwarf tribes and amass huge amounts of wealth. With those riches behind him, the king of Vennon could think of unifying the Moss region.

He was an ambitious person, the king of Vennon. Brook had known it full well for a long time now. Brook wasn’t particularly qualified to accuse him, though.

After all, Brook himself harbored those same ambitions. However, in Brook’s case, it was not an aspiration for his own sake, it was the thought of his son Nashere……

“Your country’s demands are quite serious. It’s not a question I can decide on my own. After I’ve had a meeting with the court, and consulted with my subjects, then I’ll give you a reply.”

“Do you think you can carry on with these half measures?” the envoy threatened, placing his hand on the sword at his hip. A blue vein stood out on his temple.

After a moment’s silence, Brook spoke in a low mumble. “……You should draw your sword.”

“Wha- What was that?”

“I said, draw. You don’t seem to know it, but I’ve taken part in the Highlands fencing tournament, and I earned my victory in the final round. Even Highland’s King Mysen wasn’t beyond my ken,” Brook said, in a voice without intonation.

The envoy’s face changed color distinctly. The bravery of the knights of The Dragon’s Eye, the Highlands was said to be higher not only than those of the Moss dukedoms, but of all Lodoss. Performing well enough to remain in the finals during the fencing competitions sponsored by that country should have been impossible even for a Vennon knight.

Brook’s participation in the contest had been specifically for that reason. He had gone as Vennon’s proxy, from their subject state Skard, for Vennon’s honor. Although, if he hadn’t taken part in the competition that year, he would never have met Eliza, and wouldn’t have gained Nashere for a son.

Seeing Brook’s power for the first time, Vennon’s envoy lost the vigor he’d had thus far, and took on an embarrassed expression. He tried to say something, but he only moved his mouth, and in fact did not utter a peep.

“It’s not a business that will be concluded in a day or two either. The envoy will, on this occasion, return to Vennon. Once there has been sufficient consideration, we’ll send out reply on the issue of the demands to hand.”

“Is- is that right? Well then, I’ll send His Highness word of it,” Vennon’s envoy answered, displaying his recovered bravado once again in the face of Brook’s courteous attitude.

After that, he reversed direction almost at a run, opened the door, and exited into the hallway.

Brook followed after him, seeing him out of the building. The foolish envoy’s attendants held the reins of his dappled grey horse, holding it in the courtyard.

“Give my regards to His Highness.” Brook turned to the envoy and bowed his head reverently.

Taking an attendant’s help to straddle the horse, Vennon’s envoy took the horse’s neck without a word. Turning toward the castle’s gate, he walked the horse out of the building.

Brook stood by the entrance until the envoy’s shadow disappeared from view. He wasn’t seeing him off. He wanted to be certain that the envoy had disappeared from the castle.

The instant that shadow disappeared, Brook’s feet hit the ground as hard as they could.

He had no intention of consulting with any of his subjects, despite what he’d told the envoy. He had to consider this problem and come to a solution on his own.

He did harbor intentions of declaring Skard’s independence from Vennon one day. But he hadn’t dreamt of taking action like this, in circumstances like these.

Maybe he had underestimated the Vennon king. Maybe he had seen through the ambition lying in Brook’s heart.

Right now, Nashere was young, and there were no preparations for independence. If they fought, Skard would be certainly be defeated. If they asked the Highlands for assistance, even though they were his late queen’s ancestral homelands, and even though their relationship with the Dragon Flame had deteriorated in recent years, they were too far away to be of much good. Only Skard’s alliance with the Dwarf tribes, called The Ale Vow, was dependable, but he didn’t know to what extent the earth sprites would seriously intervene in an argument between humans.

The situation was hopeless, in the extreme. What was the best way to get out from underneath these pressing circumstances?

Brook scolded his stagger-prone feet and started back to his private room, feeling like everything was going dark before his very eyes.

The corridors of the royal castle, called Grain Hold, felt more narrow, longer than ever before.

4

There was the sound of someone hitting the door severely.

Reena, embroidering a handkerchief by candlelight, lifted her face in suspicion.

A calm darkness stretched on outside her window.

The night was growing late.

Before long, it would be time to go to bed. She was only awake now because she had decided to stay up until this embroidery was finished.

She had changed into a thin night dress and slipped a fur gown on over it.

She was enthusiastic and absorbed in her work, but the outdoor chill had stolen into the room, and she shook unconsciously.

(Maybe, my brother……)

She held on to thin hope for an instant, but her brother Nashere wouldn’t come to sit with her in the small hours like this. No, even if it was the middle of the day, there would be no visits from her brother.

Scholarship and military training, that was how he spent nearly every day lately. He passed his time as if he’d forgotten about little sisters entirely.

And so, she threw herself into her amusements as if she had a hole in her heart, as if she could bury that hole. Even this embroidery was one of those amusements.

She’d learnt it from one of the lady’s maids, and she’d become rather good at it lately. Her work had even gotten to the point where she wasn’t embarrassed to show it to other people.

Her time spent absorbed in it was good time. But the loss grew larger and larger when it suddenly came back to her.

“Who is it?” she asked, coming up to the door.

“It’s me.”

“Father!” Reena said, surprised.

She couldn’t remember even one visit from her father in the small hours like this.

She’d probably done something to anger him. She tried to think of what, with her hand to her chest, but she didn’t have any idea.

“If you’re awake, can I come in?” His voice sounded unusually gentle.

This was the first time she’d heard her father’s voice like that. She wondered if that wasn’t a result of his being terribly angry.

Her hand shaking, she gripped the doorknob.

She pulled open the door just a little, and peeked out from the tiny opening at her father’s expression, as he stood in the hallway.

Brook looked like he was worried about something, but she didn’t sense any anger.

Relieved, Reena opened the door all the way.

Her father held two slender jars and two silver wineglasses in his hands.

“Please come in,” Reena invited her father, plastering an impossible smile on her face. With a silent nod, Brook stepped into the room.

In the corner was a small round table, with three-legged chairs set around it. Brook headed straight for one of them and took a seat. He casually placed the wineglasses and jars on the table.

Reena took a seat facing her father. “What on earth is going on?”

Her father’s bearing was completely different from his usual. He’d always been strict, with a difficult to approach air. But now, he looked somehow weak.

A deep agony was cut into his expression, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. Exposing weakness to others was something he’d never done before.

He had always been severe towards Reena. Even as much as he loved her older brother Nashere, he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.

That was only natural, she thought.

Nashere was the Prince of the Sun. He was noble, strong, wise, and also beautiful. Compared to her brother, she, the Princess of the Moon, was swallowed up by his light, as if she wasn’t even there.

“A secret envoy from Vennon came today……” Brook said slowly, pouring transparent liquid into one of the glasses. Then he filled the other with a wine of scarlet color, and handed it to Reena.

“A secret envoy?” Reena knew almost nothing about politics.

She had a simple notion that a secret envoy was somehow different from a normal envoy.

“That’s right. This secret envoy threatened a marriage between you and Vennon’s third prince. If I refuse, we’re to resign ourselves to the use of military force……”

“I won’t do it!” Reena shouted, without waiting for her father to stop speaking. “I cannot like that man. Whenever he looks at me, he looks like he’s sizing up a prostitute. If he opens his mouth, it’s only for money or food. As far as he’s concerned, I’m just an amusement for his bed, and the only women he likes are those that come with huge dowries. If I’m to be married to someone like that, I’d rather die.”

Brook looked with pity on his daughter’s situation. She was refusing with her whole person.

(You’d rather die… …would you?)

Brook gazed at his daughter’s face, knowing that her words came from beliefs typical of young girls. In that sense, her thoughts were pure, and things couldn’t but proceed according to her words.

“……If I refuse, Vennon will attack our country. Skard will be helpless.”

“If they do attack, all the better. My brother and Captain Beld are both here. We won’t be defeated by the likes of Vennon. And there’s the Dwarf tribe, they’ll come to our aid. And there’s the Highlands army, surely they’ll dispatch some reinforcements.”

Her tone was becoming desperate, but looking at her, Brook couldn’t help thinking that maybe they should try fighting. But, he thought, going to war without a chance of winning it was the action of a fool.

Even if he did somehow choke out his wiser thoughts, if he did somehow summon up the recklessness, it wouldn’t make enough of a military difference to gain him a victory. If reinforcements from the Dwarf tribe came, they might be able to repulse Vennon’s army, perhaps once. But as far as Skard was concerned, they highway through Vennon’s territory was their only doorway, you might even call it their lifeline.

If Vennon blockaded that highway, Skard would be unable to carry out any trade. Their only resource would be cut off. And if their income disappeared, they’d soon reach the end of the treasure they’d saved up. When next Vennon invaded they’d be powerless to protect whatever of their kingdom remained.

He could try to explain such prospects, but Reena probably wouldn’t understand. The real reason she refused to marry the prince of Vennon had little to do with his personality.

Brook know how much she loved her brother. That love remained a quiet reverence at this point.

But, when she became an adult, those thoughts would change. But because a blood connection existed between them, it would become a forbidden love.

“We will not win a war with Vennon. Of that much I am certain. But I don’t want to force you into a marriage that you don’t want. Besides, if the prince of Vennon does end up with you, the Vennon king probably plans to assassinate Nashere and me. If we were no longer in the way, the succession would pass to Prince Alondo, as the son-in-law.”

At Brook’s words, Reena’s face drained.

“My brother, and father……”

“That’s what we call politics. Vennon would have Skard in the palm of their hand, without sacrificing even one of their people. It seems one of our knights is already in communication with Vennon. The envoy knew exactly what we had in our national treasury. Skard’s financial power must be charming for Vennon’s king; he hopes to conquer Moss. Once he makes everything his own, he intends to begin a full-scale war.”

“That’s……” At a loss for words, Reena covered her mouth with her hand.

She wasn’t particularly sad, but a tear trickled down her cheek nonetheless.

“But if that’s how it is, shouldn’t we fight even harder? Even if we did get married with your blessings, if we got together just so they could assassinate you and Nashere, I couldn’t stand it. If I end up as just a tool for this kind of ugly politics……”

“You’d end your life……?” Brook asked quietly.

“Last year, when Nashere saved my life, I made a vow. If it would save him, I would gladly throw down my life……” Of course her voice shook as she spoke, but there was nothing false about her determination.

She truly had made such a vow.

It had occurred the year before, when Princess Elanta of Harkenne had visited Skard. She had called herself an envoy, but her goal was to meet Nashere.

Princess Elanta had treated him like a hired hand, and Reena, unable to let it pass unnoticed, had jumped from her seat at the banquet and took a horse into the Forest of Night. There, she’d been attacked by a starving wolf.

The one who had saved her from this dangerous situation was her older brother, Nashere. He stood unarmed against the wolf, and had been wonderful. He had slayed the beast, although he ended up with wounds all over his body.

The wounds festered, and her brother had wandered between life and death for three days. If her brother had lost his life, her father would never have forgiven her.

But more than that, Reena had not intended to keep on living in such an event. She would have followed after her brother and ended her own life. He had carried Reena the entire way back to the royal castle, despite his wounds. She had lied about a twisted ankle.

Princess Elanta had apparently had her feelings hurt, and the next day, she departed Skard. And then, after she got back to her own country, she lied to her father, Harkenne’s king, that Nashere had acted violently. Harkenne sent out a troop of knights straight away, and started a petty war with Vennon, Skard’s protector country.

The responsibility for this series of events was her own, Reena knew in her heart.

But the mysterious thing was that her always severe father hadn’t scolded her, not even one word about the matter. Nashere was the same. It might have been easier to be scolded. She came to believe that they didn’t say anything to her about it because she was being abandoned.

She wanted to make up for her crime.

She would do anything, if it would make her brother happy. Conversely, she had no intention of doing anything that wasn’t for her brother’s sake.

“Maybe I’m just too impatient. I wanted to prepare a suitable stage for his abilities, before he became an adult and despaired of this tiny country……” Brook said, covering his eyes with one hand.

Is he crying? Reena thought, surprised and staring at her father.

He looked dreadfully small.

When she noticed that, she stood up and embraced her father, standing behind him and putting her arms around his shoulders.

Even to her, her actions were a mystery, but she felt surprisingly close to the father she’d only been afraid of until now. His warmth spread through her arms and chest, and she felt content.

“……Do you remember? The young man arrested for killing his father three years ago?”

Reena released her father and sat down again in the seat next to him. Confused by the sudden change in conversation, she hastily nodded. “I remember. There were desperate pleas to have mercy on him. his father was a terribly violent person, and if he’d been left to his own devices, he might have killed the mother, or the younger sister. The villagers from his town, every single one of them, begged for his life. That’s why even I……”

“That’s right. Fratricide is a crime that cannot be allowed, but there are in this world fathers who should be killed. In these sort of situations, like when a child has a hand in a crime, the people of the world choose not to blame anyone. Rather, they almost admire them.”

“Your judgment in the matter was excellent, father. You ordered him executed as a criminal, but the punishment was never carried out. And then at Nashere’s investiture as crown prince, you pardoned the young man and released him. The people of Skard should have been greatly impressed at your methods, father.”

Brook had no reason to sympathize with the young man. He had handed down the judgment in that way out of consideration for public sentiment. It was the best way of gaining popularity.

And the effect was more than Brook had anticipated. The minstrels composed poems about The Youth and The Wise King, and such an abundance of goods came in as congratulations for Nashere’s investiture that even Brook was surprised.

“For Skard, for Nashere, I to intend to throw down my life,” Brook said, looking face on at Reena.

Reena accepted his words so unaffectedly that it surprised him. She even smiled at him.

He had thought she would always be young, but before he knew it, his daughter had become an adult. She had a passion in her eyes that couldn’t be contained in her heart.

They were the eyes of a girl in love.

Brook remembered Reena’s mother, Natasha. Her love had always been true love. She had loved all of those men she had welcomed into her.

Even her love for Brook had been the real thing. He didn’t intend to doubt that. Monopolizing her as his second queen had been a mistake. Natasha was not a woman who changed her way of life according to what position she held. Certainly, she had not been a wise woman, but wasn’t it a thin line between wise and clever anyway?

“For Nashere……” Brook muttered to himself.

And then, like it was some kind of password, Reena whispered back. “For my brother……”

5

The sound of metal armor rang out, spreading out on its path to the door.

At that moment, Skard’s Court Magician, Wort was seated at his desk, investigating a document.

The ancient documents he’d been absorbed in reading since yesterday were heaped up in a jumbled pile beside his desk.

Towards morning, he had taken a short nap, and when the sun climbed high, he’d awoken once again and continued his reading from the night before.

The story that Brook had sent for a secret envoy from Vennon was stretching into a full blown rumor in Skard’s court. Of course, Brook hadn’t uttered a single official word on the matter. Even to Wort. Although Wort expected that Vennon had made some demands.

Maybe they should hasten the time frame of their mobilization. Clearly their preparations were lacking. He wasn’t particularly inclined to do so, but they probably should even consider the direct war potential of his own magic powers.

Technically speaking, The Sage Academy and The Institute of Magicians in Alania’s royal city Alan both considered the use of attack magic a taboo.

Wort himself had no connections to the Sage Academy, so he wasn’t bound by their rules, but using magic to win battles wasn’t something that earned you a good reputation from the masses or from other countries. But now, the important thing was not to lose. If they lost, Skard’s fate would end there.

Wort was intending to rewrite the book on magic, assembling tactics that combined mages with knights and mercenary units. For instance, if you hammered a Meteo Strike into places where the enemy was concentrated, you could destroy an entire corps with that move alone.

He had to write up this tactical treatise and begin war training before Vennon’s full scale invasion. Skard would have to hire mercenaries, even if it meant using up their national savings. They had to organize militias from among the farmers, and supplement the thinness of their military strength.

By Wort’s calculation, they could unify the Moss region in five years and then turn to the League of Northern Free Cities with an eye to invasion. If they could force the city of Raiden to submit, they would gain a powerful navy and much wealth from trade with the continent. At that point, the unification of Lodoss would be more than half achieved.

After that, with the backing of military and economic power, they had only to subdue the large countries that remained one by one.

They could achieve victory over all Lodoss if given perhaps fifteen years, he estimated. By that time, Nashere would be just over thirty years of age, just when he would be beginning to reach the fruition of his manhood. He would succeed after Founding Emperor Brook, and become a wise ruler, who would bring the base of the Lodoss Empire to completion.

It was faster than he’d thought possible, but the time to look to the future of Lodoss Island and take a great step forward had come. The pride swelling up in Wort’s chest was maybe even a little suffocating.

***

Sensing that the metallic clanging was gradually getting louder, Wort released his eyes from the page.

Maybe there had been some accident.

Vennon was turning up the pressure, after all, amassing knights at their border with Skard and such, and important knights were secretly communication with Vennon. People seemed on the point of rioting.

He considered how to cope with whatever had happened. Thinking to take charge of the situation, Wort laid his hands on the magician’s staff that stood beside his desk.

He stood up from his chair and turned to the door.

“Lord Court Magician……”

It was a young voice.

He happened to know it. It was a knight who was charged with protecting the king’s person, a member of what would have been the royal guard in any other country.

Wort faced the door and recited the password in the High Ancient tongue.

In the next instant, the door opened inwards without a sound.

Standing in the doorframe was the person he’d been expecting. A number of other young knights accompanied him.

Seeing their expressions, Wort felt that something was abnormal. Their expression were full of the thirst for blood.

“Lord Court Magician! Orders from His Highness the King. We are to arrest you for the crime of rebellion.”

“Rebellion?”

He tried to smile, but only drew his face back.

Maybe a rioting rebel had instigated them?

But they were all of good families, people the King had nothing but confidence in. Surely they hadn’t betrayed him.

Besides of which, they’d said they were on the king’s orders.

“If you resist, we’ll cut you down,” one of the other young knights said, in a tense voice.

He hadn’t had any intention of resisting, but seeing the magician’s staff, the knights had all drawn their blades.

“By what evidence do you think I am a rebel?”

Wort was having trouble responding to this sudden occurrence. His own brain, which had pretensions of being better than anyone else’s, just wasn’t moving, as if it had been paralyzed.

The young knight didn’t make any response. Maybe they couldn’t.

The one who knew the answer, though, appeared behind the knights.

Skard’s king, Brook, was that one person.

Wort felt the door that had opened on his future being slammed shut with an ominous sound.

“What do you have to say, Your Highness?” Wort asked, his gaze fixed on Brook.

Had he been threated by Vennon’s secret envoy, and given up his ambitions? Did he intend to pin all his crimes on his court magician, to prove there was no rebellion on his mind?

But Vennon wasn’t going to give up on Skard annexation just because of that. And Brook knew such things well enough.

Wort couldn’t catch hold of Brook’s reasoning. But one thing was clear: at this rate, Wort was going to end up a prisoner. But if he resisted, the young knights would likely stab him without mercy.

If he cast a spell, he could be gone from this place in an instant. And if he decided he was ready to die, and fought, he could even take Brook and his knights along with him to the underworld.

But Wort didn’t choose any of those options. Saying only, “I understand,” he turned his staff towards the knights and threw it down.

The young knights’ expressions immediately changed to those of relief. But Brook’s expression didn’t change a bit.

Two of the knights took up positions on either side of Wort. At their prompting, he started walking.

He’d probably be confined in an underground prison. Cooling his heels in there for a while might be best, he thought. If he advised them on their foolishness, he’d only be making a similar mistake.

As he passed by Brook, Wort threw unspoken words at him.

Why? Why are you arresting me? What’s become of your ambitions……?

Brook’s expression gave no answer.

He only stared back with a resolute attitude. There was no anger or hatred or pity to be felt in that gaze. Only firm determination and steadfast readiness lodged there.

But what that will was for, Wort didn’t have a clue.

(It’s like he’s completely possessed by something,) Wort thought.

Whatever Brook was planning to do, it was a complete mystery to him, the so-called Sage of the Wilds.

Except to say that he had a hunch it was something dreadful.

And if even he couldn’t predict it, no one on Lodoss was going to be able to do so.

It might be a misfortune beyond imaging.

An unease skipped across the surface of Wort’s mind, but he immediately wiped it away.

They were imprisoning a man who had tried to cloak Lodoss in war.

It was rather a good way to avoid misfortune.

The only fate for a small kingdom like Skard was to be annexed by a large neighboring country. As far as Lodoss as a whole was concerned, it was a trivial matter.

The only regrettable thing was that one outstanding young man would vanish without leaving even his name to Lodoss’s history. And Wort, his own name, which should have made it further than this at least……

(Will I get another chance?)

Walking down the stone corridor, held up almost entirely by the knights, Wort felt his loss deepen, as if he’d fallen into an abyss.

6

The Demon King’s labyrinth was shut off in the darkness of five hundred years.

It was an underground labyrinth, that had been dug out of dozens of layers of earth, deep underground.

Even in the Ancient Kingdom, it was called The Deepest Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth’s darkness was filled with lethal traps and magical creatures who lived for centuries with the sole purpose of keeping out intruders. There were more than just a few near-fatal devices.

But they couldn’t go back anymore. If they didn’t go forward, there would be no future for the King or the Prince.

And so, at last, Brook reached the deepest hall. According to the treatise he’d confiscated from his Court Magician, Wort, he knew this hall was named The Hall of The Demon King.

In this hall, The Demon King and his relatives were sealed. Summoned from the world of their homeland, they had been confined in a false space created with magic.

Unlike the rest of the Labyrinth, The Hall of the Demon King was lit brilliantly, with magical light.

Brook extinguished his magic ring that cast the spell Light, which had been their only source of light until now.

And then, he looked back.

The silhouette of the Princess of the Moon, Reena was there. She wore a pure white dress of soft cloth. During the journey through the labyrinth, the dress had gotten stained.

Her face was pale.

But that was only natural. The fear she’d experienced on the way to this hall, no ordinary girl would have been able to bear. But she bore it with thoughts of her brother. Brook had used those thoughts to invite his daughter to the place of her own death.

Brook was tortured by terrible self-hatred.

Just then, Reena suddenly flashed a smile.

“In the end, I’ll get to see my father’s greatness with my own eyes.” She squinted, as if such a thing made her truly happy.

At those words, Brook felt as though he’d been rescued. Returning his daughter’s smile, he said, “I am your brother’s father. I won’t be taken down by some demon like this.”

“I know it.” Reena put her hand over her mouth and laughed.

It was obvious just how ready she was. She had surmounted the fear of death. She looked as if she felt joyful, blissful, in throwing down her life for the brother she revered. The thoughts of a girl just beginning to know love were so strong, so single-minded.

Brook took his daughter’s hand and they advanced to the center of the hall. It was as if he was accompanying her at her wedding ceremony.

From here on out, there ceremony might be a true marriage ceremony for her. It wasn’t so different from being allowed to marry her brother, despite their blood ties……

In the center if the hall a magical sigil had been drawn, a double circle surrounding a pentagram. There were also huge double doors in the interior wall. Wort’s treatise said the Demon King would be called from the magical sigil and his relatives from the interior door.

The ceremony itself was extremely simple.

You offered your sacrifice in the center of the sigil and recited the Demon King’s summoning spell. The words of summoning worked best in Low Ancient. High Ancient wouldn’t work when invoking magic.

Brook accompanied Reena to the center of the sigil.

Naturally, his eyes met his daughter’s.

Reena was smiling. Except her eyes were filled with tears. Her whole body was shaking slightly. It seemed her young body, as opposed to her mind, was resisting its fate from here on out.

“Your clothes……” Brook said, his voice cracking.

Reena nodded and began slowly taking off the white dress she wore.

Soon, she was stark naked.

In the magical light, her young figure shone dazzlingly. Her youth still remained in the curves of her hips and chest, like unripe fruits.

Reena crossed her legs and hugged her chest with both hands, shy.

“……On the floor, lay down, and your eyes, close your eyes please,” Brook said haltingly.

Reena nodded crisply, and laid herself on the stone floor. And then she hesitantly closed her eyes. She put her hands straight down at her sides, and shifted her position to push her chest out just a bit.

Still, the hills of her firm chest hardly changed from their face up position.

While she was doing that, Brook pulled a short blade bearing the crest of the royal family from its sheath.

“Supreme God of Light……” Reena began to offer a prayer to the gods in a small voice.

Brook prayed too, from the bottom of his heart, that her soul would be carried up to heaven.

Brook fell to the floor on both knees and held the dagger in an underhanded grip. Adding his left hand on top of his right, he held the dagger at eye level. The well polished blade sharply reflected the magic light.

If he looked down, there was her white shining nudity.

Brook made sure of the position of her heart, at the same time killing his own. He threw away all awe at his performing this forbidden act, all pity for his daughter. He wouldn’t need even a fragment of these human emotions as the commander of a demon army, as someone who planned to control Lodoss.

Then he began to slowly recite the spell for summoning the Demon King……

“Demon King, come! Into this innocent maiden’s body!!”

At the same time the spell ended, Brook gathered his strength and swung the dagger down.

The steel blade slid deep into the girl’s left breast. The fresh blood that gushed out soaked Brook’s face.

In that instant, Reena’s arms and legs bounced, and her eyes and mouth opened. Tears leaked from her dark eyes, a moan of pain from her crimson lips.

“Na……” Her lips moved in the shape of her brother’s name, but her voice had disappeared.

And then, she passed away.

Brook closed his daughter’s hollow eyes.

In his cold heart, Brook stared at his daughter’s changed corpse. The body in front of him was already not his daughter. It was nothing more than a vessel to accept the Demon King’s soul.

Brook waited.

The advent of the Demon King……

Stepping outside the sigil, he repeated the demon summoning spell once more.

A long interval passed, but nothing changed.

If the Demon King’s seal hadn’t been broken, Reena’s death would become a useless one.

But his frozen heart didn’t even feel impatience.

And then, his time came at last.

Reena’s body, which shouldn’t have moved, began twitching, cramping.

A red light rose like a pillar from the sigil.

Brook suck in his breath and stared.

Reena’s body was trembling all over. But the shaking gradually subsided.

The light, too, disappeared.

The eyes opened.

They burned a deep crimson.

The mouth opened.

It let out something like a sob.

And then, the thing that had inhabited Reena’s body slowly got up. After that, it grasped the dagger that was still sticking out of its chest with both hands.

It yanked the dagger out in one go.

Fresh blood flowed out like a fountain. The white nude body was dyed a deep red, as if it was wearing a deep crimson dress.

The head lolled in a circle.

Their eyes met.

The eyes had returned to their original color. But the light that now inhabited those eyes was not that of his daughter. He felt an evil he didn’t think was of this world.

“You, are the Demon King……?” Brook said, intimidated.

There was no answer.

It’s long tongue licked up the red liquid that had splattered around its mouth. Then, it turned to Brook and came near him with a staggering gait.

But at the edge of the sigil, its movement stopped.

Lips stained the color of blood moved slowly. “Thou it is that has liberated me?”

It was Low Ancient.

The demons had been sealed in the era of the Ancient Kingdom, so they didn’t know any words that had come into existence in the Sword Age.

“Yes. It is I who have liberated thee,” Brook answered, puffing out his chest.

A blind exaltation enveloped his body. He had paid a huge sacrifice, but his goal had been achieved.

From here, Brook would organize a demon army, and go out to conquer Lodoss. He had five years to accomplish that goal. After that, the tyrannical emperor who dominated the demons would be toppled by the crown prince, prepared as a heroic vessel.

People would praise the Crown Prince. Taking revenge on a tyrannical father is the duty of a son.

And then, a thousand years of stability would be earned. After the Sword Age opened the curtain, the first unified country would be born on Lodoss.

“Demon King, obey me! Thou art bound to the body that you control through the bond of blood!!” Brook ordered in a loud voice.

The Demon King did not answer.

Still silent, it took a single step forward, going over the sigil.

“I have been liberated.”

The Demon King flashed a slimy smile and approached him sensuously. Even knowing that it was his daughter’s face, his daughter’s body, Brook’s spine tingled.

Embracing a demon king who had come into his daughter’s body had to be the hieght of immorality. But in playing the part of the tyrannical emperor, even that might be alright.

“Yes, I am thy liberator. I commandest thou through the bonds of blood. Thou shalt obey me!”

The Demon King’s mouth stretched wide, as if its face had been split open. It was an eerie smile. A brutal light dwelt in both black eyes.

“Indeed, thou art my liberator.” The Demon King’s speech was like a song. “And so, I am free!!”

As the words left his daughter’s mouth, Brook’s exaltation cooled in an instant.

“What did you say!!”

Brook himself didn’t notice it, but the words he’d uttered so reflexively weren’t in low ancient, but in the language used daily in Lodoss.

“Thou hast no blood bond to the body I control. And so……” The Demon King flung its eyes open wide. It turned to the void and shouted. “I am free!”

The shout felt as if it was directed at something impossibly far away, as if it was directed at the distant past.

“Idiot……” Brook shook his head violently, seeming to deny the Demon King’s words.

That was the sort of thing he shouldn’t have done.

The Demon King came right up in front of him. An ominous charm flowed from its entire body. That body was unmistakably his daughter’s. It was the image of her mother, his second queen……

“Are you saying that……?” Brook finally shouted. “Natasha! This is your revenge!!” Brook screamed.

Natasha’s curse had fallen on the land of Skard and its royal family. They would have a war now, with a matchlessly powerful demon army as their opponent.

They couldn’t but be destroyed.

The royal family, the noblemen, even the common people……

“I’m so sorry……” Brook crumbled right there, putting both hands to the floor.

Those same words echoed in Brook’s heart.

He cursed his own foolishness. Remorse broke over him in waves.

This was too harsh to be labeled just one of fate’s jokes.

But no one else had brought this on him. Only Brook himself was to blame.

Tying a free and unrestrained woman down as his second queen, who had done that?

And who’s clownery, who’s solitary role in this drama had now shut off the future of the one young man who kept his heroic abilities to himself?

“The accursed island, Lodoss……” Brook muttered the thought, as though he were spitting blood. “It certainly is……”

Brook lifted his face.

The Demon King was chanting something in an unknown tongue.

At Brook’s rear, a sound like a heavy door opening began to be audible.

In the Demon King’s hand he gripped a large hand-and-a-half sword. It was so huge as to be disproportionate to the body of an undersized girl.

The Demon King hefted it in one hand.

Staggering, Brook stood up. He put his right hand on the longsword at his hip. It was a magical longsword that had toppled many dozens of magical creatures, and it had a specially engraved blade that had been presented to him by Court Magician, Wort.

The Demon King and Brook turned to confront each other face to face.

Brook brandished his sword, gave it his all.

The Demon King didn’t even try to avoid the blow.

The demon burst wide open from left shoulder to breast, but no blood flowed. Perhaps the girl’s blood had already gone.

The Demon King flashed a demonic smile.

And then the great sword was brandished.

It was a cursed demon blade, later known as The Sword of the Demon King, or Soul Crusher.

But Brook knew nothing of that. Because in the next instant, his torso was separated from his neck.

In losing his soul thanks to the magic of the blade, Brook may have been fortunate.

The cries of unsaved souls have no voice in Hell……