Chapter 87 - The King's Silence (5)

The instant Ivan saw Edelflat Coenwulf's name, he remembered the front line in a conifer forest on a cold winter night. Back in those inexperienced days, when he had only just been assigned to the Royal Guard.

* * *

Whenever he went on an operation with foreigners, one thought struck him: their names were far too difficult.

It was ridiculous. Having spent over twenty years in a culture that used Chinese characters, Ivan should have found Krasilof's naming conventions no different from those of any other foreign country. But weren't humans adaptable creatures? After a decade or so in this fantasy-Russia world, he now found foreign names harder.

At least Krasilof made widespread use of familiar names. People who knew him usually called him Vanka. Even without that, Ivan wasn't a difficult name to begin with. But when dealing with foreign troops—and nobles at that—he felt his tongue seize up every time he had to address someone.

["Sir Coenwulf."]

They were deep in a conifer forest, snow falling on a winter night, the stench of blood thick on every side.

Ivan stepped forward with a measure of tension and no small amount of fear. A decade or so had already passed since he fell into this hellish world, but the front lines beyond the reach of civilization still frightened him. Even so, he stepped forward. He was a member of the Royal Guard. Fear must not govern his actions.

["Back, are you?"]

["Yes. Our reconnaissance found..."]

["No need to tell me. There are no enemy remnants left in this forest, I take it. I know."]

["... Pardon?"]

["Elves have keen ears, Ivan. Sometimes, when we listen closely, what we hear reaches beyond the material world. The forest told me. There are no more demons."]

What the fuck was she talking about? Had senility set in?

Ivan quietly bowed his head and grumbled. (Inwardly. Elves had good hearing.)

["Full of complaints, aren't you?"]

["You misunderstand."]

["Oh, come now. I told you, I can hear it all. If I knew it was safe, why send you out scouting for two hours in this cold? That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"] \n ["..."]

Ivan struggled to keep his mouth shut as he rubbed his hands, numb even beneath his thick gloves. One slip and a stream of profanity might come pouring out.

He was a reasonable man, so he did not criticize a monster who slit people's throats more easily than she breathed. It was absolutely, categorically not out of fear. He was a member of the Royal Guard, and the Royal Guard never felt fear.

["I needed time to meditate."]

["To... meditate, you say?"]

["Yes. To contemplate the truth one encounters at the end of martial mastery. I needed a moment to sink into myself in the forest on a quiet night, facing the corpses of those I had cut down. A moment to realize that one day I, too, might lie like that—that this fleeting life has merely been granted a reprieve until I stand before someone stronger."]

Definitely senility with regression to infancy.

He was freezing to death. All he could think about was getting back to camp, sitting by a fire to warm himself up, and toasting a nutrition bar.

Quiet? It was winter. Winter on the northern front was brutal. Blizzards raged through this region all winter long. Just like this one. The wind cutting at his ears and the noise of snow lashing the conifers hardly qualified this as a silent, holy night.

Ivan tensed.

'If a deranged elf with dementia is also a master swordswoman, could I possibly stop her?'

Being a clearheaded man, he immediately determined that he could not. He clasped his hands and answered politely.

["Unlike a lowborn wretch such as myself, elven warriors may indeed attain enlightenment through such sudden revelations, but the weather is foul. I believe it would be best to return to camp and recover from the fatigue of battle."]

["Yes, let's. A nighttime stroll is a pleasant experience, too."]

Crazy fucking elf.

Ivan was a civilized citizen of the twenty-first century who abhorred racism, so he did not hate elves. (In this uncivilized world, by contrast, elves were a hated race.) But he was only human, and whenever he witnessed the madness elves occasionally displayed, he found it hard to hold back the curses rising in his throat.

Of course, hold them back he must. Here, might passed for truth, rather than logic or law. An uncivilized world indeed.

* * *

Ivan emerged from his recollections.

Did elven medicine have a treatment for dementia? A long-lived race might well have one. They would have to suffer senility for centuries, after all. (They did not.)

He studied the list with concern, remembering.

Edel the One-Eyed.

Jet-black hair that spread softly like an animal's fur, and golden eyes like a bird of prey's. That gallant warrior who had laughingly said she had thrown one of those eyes to a Dragon General.

In fact, when the legion she commanded was ambushed by one of the Seven Dragon Generals, she had faced the General alone and returned alive, missing an eye.

It was an astonishing feat. Everyone knew that no one in this world could dare face them alone. Yet Edel had actually accomplished that impossible feat. Her legion had successfully escaped with minimal losses.

Her other epithets—such as "The Ever-Victorious Knight," "The Queen's Champion," "The Undefeated," and "The Adjudicator"—were secondary.

"Edel is entering."

"That's right, sir. Ah, it's been ages since I've seen her, too. I imagine she's still hale and hearty?"

"She must be, to pull something like this. Who put her up to it?"

"Pardon?"

"As if Edel would submit an application herself. Who entered her name for her?"

"Miss Grikencos."

"Veolgrin..."

Ivan frowned. Elpihera would hardly decide out of nowhere to ruin this tournament, so ultimately Veolgrin must be behind it.

Did Veolgrin have any reason to meddle in this country's internal affairs? Was he looking for traces of Alexander? That would make some sense. Elizaveta's political enemies were almost certain to have belonged to Alexander's faction.

"Has Her Highness issued any further orders?"

"No, sir."

"I see."

The Princess's last order had been a single sentence: "Win overwhelmingly."

Then so it must be.

A good agent prepared several contingency plans for an operation's failure. Second-best objectives, least-bad objectives, and so on. But agents of the Extermination Unit did not.

Their question was not what they should accomplish in the event of failure to minimize their losses. They prepared for one thing alone: how to succeed when failure threatened.

Everything else was secondary. For the Extermination Unit, there was no failure but death. Until they died, they had not failed, and anyone who wished to stop them from carrying out their operation for good had only one option: kill them.

That was how they had been trained.

Ivan closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and sank into thought. Two days remained. He had to devise a way to defeat Coenwulf.

* * *

"Finished... finished... I finished it..."

She had burned herself down to white ash. Elpihera slumped to the floor, dark circles heavy beneath her eyes.

Borrowing her father's wisdom, reverse-engineering ancient artifacts, checking every spell she had already mastered, rebuilding the logic behind their workings... At last, she had finished.

"C-can you hear me? Can you hear me?"

-"Perfectly. How fascinating."

Before her stood a suit of full plate armor with graceful lines. Amid the countless magitech components strewn haphazardly around her, it alone stood tall and gleaming.

Just how many high-level spells had she embedded in that armor? How many mana stones had been ground up to power it?

"I-it can only operate for two days. Would you like to give it a test run?"

-"There's no need."

The armor nodded with a clatter. It had no expression, its visor lowered firmly over its face, yet somehow Elpihera thought it was smiling.

-"You truly are the daughter of that sly old fox Veolgrin. Remarkable. Had this technology been perfected just twenty years earlier, you could have saved so many lives."

"Y-you flatter me! This will only work for a few days... It was only possible because I designed it for a short, decisive engagement from the start."

-"And modest, too. Looks and talent are all you inherited from your father. How blessed you are."

Among the elves' magitech technologies was something called "remote communication." Widely used among elves, it could even project a somewhat blurry afterimage with the addition of more intricate techniques.

It was a high-level spell capable of linking terminals across great distances—even between this land and faraway Kallion.

And installing more mana terminals and adjusting their directionality opened up new horizons. By controlling the voice input-output syntax, one could arrange for only specific stimuli to be transmitted and received.

In simpler terms, it meant creating a remotely operated golem—one that could be controlled in real time.

The operator could see only a blurry afterimage. Movement came with a delay of several seconds, and the golem's inherent sluggishness made fine control impossible. Even with those limitations, it would work for only about two days. Nevertheless, she had single-handedly created a means for someone in Kallion to act in Krasilof.

-"The movement... There is a slight delay."

"I c-couldn't help that. I'm sorry..."

-"No, this is more than enough. You could write a thesis on this and earn your degree immediately. What is there to worry about?"

"Hehe, thank youuu..."

A great knight who had not suffered a single defeat in hundreds of years, counted among that arrogant Privy Council's foremost "fixers" on skill alone.

How many illustrious titles had followed in the wake of her achievements? Her life itself could qualify as both a history book and a tactical manual. And someone like that was smiling warmly at a young elf like her.

Elpihera bowed her head, her face melting into a smile. The exhilaration of a scholar who had achieved a great academic breakthrough washed over her together with the exhaustion of days of sleepless toil. As a result, she failed to catch the quiet whisper that reached her ears.

-"I wonder how much that little boy has grown. I'm looking forward to it."

Edelflat Coenwulf smiled as she manipulated this unfamiliar metal body to raise a longsword. It was late at night, on the eve of the tournament.

* * *

The festivities began, splendid enough to seem intent on erasing the chaos that had engulfed Prizhenkaya these past few days.

Elizaveta spared no expense from the treasury, throwing banquets, inviting nobles, and feeding the citizens to their hearts' content.

And at last, the tournament began.