“What’s happening down below?”
No one knew who first noticed the spreading disturbance, but soon the already chaotic crowd atop the mountain began slipping further toward complete disorder.
Enciodes frowned.
According to the plan, the Tschäggättä units should have already stormed the Sacred Stone Plaza and engaged the Paleroche family’s forces by now.
Yet anyone could see that the conflict hadn’t erupted at the plaza, nor even on the mountain itself, but at its base.
Something had gone wrong with Degenbrecher, or Matterhorn’s side had encountered trouble?
The possibilities flashed through Enciodes’s mind, only for him to dismiss them.
Impossible.
Matterhorn was one of his most trusted subordinates, his loyalty beyond question.
As for Degenbrecher, although she had only recently been hired at great expense from Kazimierz, Enciodes trusted his own judgment.
She was the type to choose her employer.
If she disapproved, no amount of money would make her serve.
But once she chose, she would carry out her duty with absolute precision.
Then the problem lay elsewhere.
Had the Paleroche family set up an ambush in advance and intercepted the Tschäggättäs?
Enciodes’s gaze swept toward Arctosz.
The towering Ursus showed undisguised concern, clearly worried about the scale of the unrest.
Noticing Enciodes looking at him, he turned and shouted:
“Enciodes!
Didn’t you say your people were coming?
The crowd is about to lose control.
Where are they?”
Enciodes withdrew his gaze and replied calmly,
“They should be here soon.”
It’s not him, Enciodes concluded.
Arctosz couldn’t fake that expression.
He doesn’t have the mind for it.
Could it be Browntail?
But Ratatos didn’t seem to know anything about this either.
Given her temperament, if she had known from the beginning, she would have exposed Enciodes’s troop movements on the spot and joined forces to take him down immediately.
‘Strange.
Where exactly had the plan gone wrong?’
No matter how he turned it over in his mind, Enciodes found no answer.
After ruling out every possibility, he had no choice but to shift his gaze toward Ernest, who stood upon the Sacred Stone platform.
Only him.
Ernest stood tall and composed on the platform.
Even as the unrest at the mountain’s base grew loud enough to reach those above, even as the Sacred Stone Plaza descended into chaos, he showed not the slightest sign of panic.
He had no need to worry.
Because at this very moment, he was speaking with someone else.
Or rather, with a “god.”
Kjeragandr’s voice came and went, at times like thunder descending from the heavens, at others like a gentle stream flowing through the mountains.
Majesty and warmth intertwined, contradictions blending seamlessly into something unmistakably divine, leaving an impression impossible to forget.
“Are you not afraid?”
The voice was soft, like a mother speaking to her child.
Ernest shook his head, then after a moment, let out a faint, wry smile and nodded.
“If you mean failure, then no.
Failure still leaves room for many chances.
I wouldn’t want success to be an orphan.”
“But if you’re asking whether I fear death… then yes, I do.”
Who doesn’t fear death?
Perhaps the warriors on the Sami tundra who battle demons do not.
Perhaps the imperial guards who wander Ursus do not.
Perhaps those who must die to fulfill their ideals do not.
But Ernest, at least, was afraid.
Kjeragandr’s tone shifted again, turning stern, like a father questioning his child:
“Why?
Those reformers you speak of, they do not fear death.”
“Did they succeed?” Ernest asked in return.
“Some did.
Ernest shook his head.
“Very few succeed.
Countless fail.
From your perspective, it may be difficult to understand, but for great undertakings, especially reforms, the greatest danger is that when the person dies, the policy dies with them.”
For terranity and the nations it builds, this seemed an unavoidable truth.
Cases like Napoleon Bonaparte’s legal reforms, where the man fell but his system endured for generations, were rare exceptions in European history.
Far more common were examples like Thomas Cromwell’s administrative changes or Prince Henry the Navigator’s exploratory ventures-initiatives with long-term potential, yet halted or reversed the moment their patrons vanished.
In Kjerag, opposition to reform was immense, and conservative forces were deeply entrenched.
Ernest could not place his hopes in some distant future recognition, becoming another Che Guevara remembered only after death.
Better to live poorly than to die gloriously.
If one can live, why choose death?
Kjeragandr fell silent.
Just as Ernest thought the presence had faded, the voice spoke again, now light and clear, like a young girl.
The change eased the heaviness in his chest.
“I have also been thinking.
Because of my protection, because of faith in me, Kjerag has remained stagnant for a thousand years.
Is that a blessing, or a flaw?”
“With respect,” Ernest replied, “your greatness is beyond question.
But terranity must eventually outgrow the cradle.”
“Then I will wait for your answer.”
The voice shifted once more, becoming vast and immovable, like an ancient mountain.
Its echo rolled through unseen valleys, deep and enduring.
“The elder’s answer tells me that Kjerag should remain as it is.
Nothing needs to change.
Under my protection, it may flourish for ten thousand years more.”
Then it softened again, like wind chimes in the distance:
“Enya tells me that Kjerag may need change.
That people require thought and freedom.
Yet all must still revolve around me.
Faith must remain absolute, and no one may cross its boundaries.”
Suddenly, it thundered like a crashing storm:
“And Enciodes… he offers an answer that gives me pause.
Kjerag must undergo complete transformation.
The three great families should be abolished.
The Monastery dismantled.
My existence is an obstacle, and I should be cast out of this land, leaving only statues behind.
What should guide Kjerag is a Columbian-style order of freedom, built by Karlan Trade, and what should guide its people is profit.”
The divine presence withdrew, yet Ernest felt it still, a gaze upon him through the Sacred Stone.
“And you?”
Ernest pressed his lips together.
“The Grand Elder is too conservative.
He treats terranity like infants, begging the gods for constant care, without considering whether even the gods might grow weary.”
“Enya’s nature is gentle, and her views reflect that.
A hundred years ago, such an approach could have guided Kjerag forward in steady, orderly growth.
But time does not wait.
Today’s Kjerag has already fallen too far behind.
If we follow her path, it will simply be too late.”
“Enciodes sees what Enya does not, yet overlooks what the Grand Elder has long understood.
He binds the urgency of the present to Kjerag’s future, then stakes that future entirely on himself.
He hopes to jolt Kjerag awake with a drastic remedy, forcing it to follow his lead, or else collapse entirely.
But he ignores one thing.”
“And what is that?” Kjeragandr’s voice softened once more, returning to the gentle tone of a caring woman.
Ernest answered earnestly, “You are also a part of Kjerag.”
In troubled times, harsh measures are often justified.
Enciodes’s thinking was not without merit.
Without swiftly unifying Kjerag and mobilizing the entire nation for development, this small land would inevitably face absorption by the ever-strengthening powers of Victoria, Columbia, and Kazimierz.
To achieve this, to break the old structure of the Tri-Clan Council, suppress the remaining great families, dismantle the Monastery’s ideological control, and unite the people, he believed there was only one method.
Force.
But was that truly the only way?
On closer thought, perhaps not.
The Tri-Clan Council, the great families, the Monastery, even the hearts of Kjerag’s people, all ultimately rested upon a single foundation: Kjeragandr.
A famous figure from Ernest’s previous life once said that politics is the art of reducing enemies and increasing allies.
Enciodes had, quite naturally, treated the root of opposing power, Kjeragandr, as the greatest enemy, making it his mission to overthrow divine authority and dismantle the Monastery.
Yet he overlooked a crucial fact.
Kjeragandr, as a god, held no desire for worldly rule.
The deity and the Monastery that wielded divine authority for its own purposes were, in truth, entirely separate.
This was the fundamental difference between Kjerag’s Monastery and the churches.
Kjerag truly had a living god, and that god could think.
That god could be convinced.
Ernest’s answer seemed to strike directly at the softest part of Kjeragandr’s heart.
As the creator of Kjerag, thousands of years ago, she carved out this land among the endless snowfields, guiding its people, once ravaged by war and hunger, to settle and thrive.
She sheltered the nation for millennia, sparing it from catastrophes and turning it into a rare sanctuary upon Terra.
Why?
Because the divine loves terranity.
In modern times, people often try to attach ulterior motives to that phrase: faith, offerings, devotion, or some hidden self-interest.
But Kjeragandr loved the people of Kjerag simply because she loved them.
She summoned blizzards to bury a tyrant who enslaved them, and she wept for those who suffered.
She cared for Kjerag’s future as a whole, watching over the nation tirelessly, and she also cared for individuals, offering aid when Enya collapsed on her pilgrimage.
She pondered Kjerag’s fate, wondering whether her very presence had kept it forever in infancy.
Yet she also cherished her people, hoping they would remember her, care for her, and not cast her aside.
So when the Grand Elder insisted that Kjerag required no change, she did not intervene, nor did she reveal any miracle upon the Sacred Stone.
It was out of love, and faith that she could continue to protect them.
At the same time, she did not stop Enciodes from summoning the Tschäggättäs.
She was prepared that if her children truly stepped beyond her care, if they no longer needed her, she would quietly withdraw.
Still, to give love and receive none in return, to be treated as an obstacle and cast aside, would leave even a god feeling lonely.
If she were terran, she might well have scolded Enciodes for his ingratitude.
And now, Ernest had spoken those unspoken thoughts for her.
Though criticizing his own brother might be questionable, Kjeragandr chose to forgive him, and even to praise him.
In mortal terms, this would be called divine favor.
___
Realizing that a battle had broken out below, the panicked crowd began surging downhill, desperate to escape what was no longer a safe place.
Enciodes silently spun his cane.
Hidden within it was an Originium casting core he had commissioned from Columbia, ensuring that when necessary, he could unleash his Arts.
[True Silver Slash.]
That was what Matterhorn called it.
A slicing gale like a blade, sharp enough to tear through flesh and blood.
He was ready.
If the situation at the foot of the mountain worsened any further, he would act personally, striking first to take down Arctosz and Ratatos, then proceed step by step.
But at that very moment, a fierce wind rose without warning among the mountains.
It swept down from Kjerag’s highest peak, Mount Matterhorn, brushed past the Saintess Peak, and surged toward the Holy Mountain of Karlan.
Snow and dust were lifted into the sky, scattering like strokes upon a vast canvas, as though a god itself were painting across the heavens.
Those stumbling downhill were caught by the wind and gently pushed back toward the inner path.
Those trying to rush downward felt the gale brush against their faces, yet instead of pain, it brought an unexpected warmth and calm.
Below, the weapons in the hands of both the Tschäggättäs and the Blacksteel mercenaries froze solid in an instant.
Triggers would not pull, bowstrings would not draw, and even the edges of blades were sealed beneath a thick, smooth layer of ice, harmless and unyielding.
On the Sacred Stone Plaza, Arctosz and Ratatos stared in astonishment as the crowd, soothed and guided by this “gentle storm,” was pressed back into place.
Only Enya seemed to sense something.
She suddenly turned, drew the prayer bell from her robes, and raised it high above her head.
“Ring—”
She did not move it, yet the bell rang on its own.
The clear, flowing sound spread like a spring across the mountain, washing away the turmoil in every heart.
At that moment, anyone who still did not understand what was happening would hardly deserve to call themselves a Kjerag native.
“Kjeragandr has manifested!”
No one knew who shouted it first, but the restless crowd fell into sudden silence.
Devout believers lifted their eyes to the Saintess, to the Sacred Stone, and to the bell that floated in the air, its chime echoing like music from the heavens.
The bell seemed to be the final piece in Kjeragandr’s hand.
Accompanied by that natural, ethereal melody, the clouds in the sky and the snow upon the mountains gathered under the bright sunlight, forming words across the vast canvas above.
[Innocent]
The entire plaza fell silent.