"Let go! I said let go!"
"Director Dechion. Regrettably, the one I serve is not you but His Highness."
"Your Highness, how could you commit such an outrageous deed! Planting bombs, of all things!"
"You are laboring under a preposterous misunderstanding, Reijo. This prince merely happened to be nearby."
Dechion thrashed about while pinned down by Winter.
Reijo let his arms and legs hang slack in blank despair.
He suddenly grew curious.
'Of the fortune you two believe you have lost just now, what proportion was hoarded by exploiting Deberians?'
Almost all of it, without a doubt.
The crime of paying bribes and working Deberian penal laborers like slaves.
The crime of selling what must not be sold in order to fatten their own bellies.
Now it was time to pay the price.
"Winter. Beat him. Until his wits return enough to answer this prince's words plainly."
Receiving the instruction, Winter immediately drove his fist into Dechion's solar plexus.
"Kugh! Hurgh!"
"Director Dechion. Do you require one more?"
"I-I am fine."
He had seemed out of his mind from losing his entire fortune, yet a single punch had set him right.
A man who had forced pain upon others without a thought was terribly frail before his own pain.
"Dechion."
"...Yes."
"Reijo."
"Yes......."
"Good. Now conversation is possible. Let us keep to the main point and be done. The investment funds you promised, can you pay them?"
"......."
"......."
The two fell silent. They would not be able to pay.
It was a trap designed with full knowledge of that.
"Your Highness. If you grant me just a little time, I can deposit any amount. The deadline still has a good while left, does it not?"
Unlike Dechion, whose utter ruin had been confirmed along with the explosion, Reijo could recover if only he had time.
For now, at least.
Of course, that was a matter of whether someone's magnanimity permitted it.
"Why should I do that? Let us go by the contract, exactly by the contract. It is tomorrow. If you cannot deposit by tomorrow, then hand the collateral over to Blen Industries as the contract states."
Shares in Brown Defense. Half of the farms he owned.
They were the collateral put up by Dechion and Reijo respectively.
If the investment funds were not deposited at the fixed time, the terms of the contract were that the collateral be handed over in place of the money and shares in Blen Industries received in return.
"That is right, the shares. I will hand over my shares in Blen Industries to Your Highness. How is that?"
They were shares that would generate great profit in the future, but what was urgent now was money.
Unless he was incapable of calculating profit and loss, the prince would never refuse to take over the shares......
"Very well. Only, the appropriate price seems to be 5 percent of what you have in mind. Will that do?"
"Five percent? Because my circumstances are poor, you would...... ahem. I shall look for someone else."
To take aim at his poor circumstances and beat the price down?
He had made the offer only because the prince was in front of him; there were plenty of businessmen to deal with.
"Well, I wonder whether anyone will be willing to buy."
Cruel enjoyment. It was the most precise expression for the emotion settled on the prince's face.
Reijo felt as though his heart had dropped with a thud.
"The truth is, Blen Industries' technology has not been completed."
To be precise, Lumio would not register the improved patent unless the order came down.
"Your Highness. Did you propose the partnership aiming at this from the very start?"
The question was spat out through gritted teeth, one syllable chewed at a time. It was Dechion.
"Aiming at it? Anyone listening would think this prince had committed the act of terror himself. Plainly it was the Deber Liberation Army that targeted you, one of those called the Five Enemies Outside the Palace."
It was 100% the truth. But watching Dechion's body begin to convulse and shudder, it seemed he did not believe even 1% of it.
Well, believe it or not, it made no difference.
"Then I shall see you both tomorrow. Ah hahaha!"
***
Glasses holding golden liquid clinked together in midair.
"Winter. Well done!"
"It is Your Highness who has labored greatly."
Winter laughed pleasantly and drained his drink.
Considering the money brought in this time, it was impossible for his mood to be anything but good.
"Seventy-five percent of Blen Industries, 0.3 percent of Brown Defense, Reijo's farms, and the profits from the futures investment on top."
The futures profits, moreover, could fairly be seen as receiving Reijo's liquidated investment funds intact.
That was thanks to holding the exact opposite position to Reijo's.
'With this money, kuh. I do not think I have ever handled such a large sum in my life.'
"Shall I pull out one more handcrafted magitech automobile made by dwarves?"
Heh heh heh heh, just imagining it makes my shoulders dance on their own.
"Winter, I am going to the Madame de Gallery, so be aware of that!"
"No. That is not allowed."
Winter's expression turned serious.
"What? Why!"
"You said you would not sell the Brown Defense securities. Your wallet has grown thick, but there are many places for it to go."
"Such as?"
"You could invest in Blen Industries and accelerate its growth, or park it in another investment and keep generating returns."
Neither one whets my appetite in the slightest.
Ah, if he absolutely had to spend money on business, there was one destination already decided.
"They say Brown Defense's share price rose because of this affair as well?"
"Yes. You may take it that the profit increased by about 7 percent."
It was a laughable thing. That an act of terror should increase one's assets.
It was because Brown Defense was a place that manufactured military supplies.
A business whose value rose as the danger of war increased, one might say.
"But is there a reason you must hold Brown Defense securities? The stake is better the larger it is, so holding a security with no favorable news right now is a loss in future value."
"There is something I know, information-wise."
He had seen it in a dream, so it was not a lie, though if asked whether he truly knew anything it would be awkward to answer.
Because he did not know why it would rise.
"Winter. Let us suppose Brown Defense's securities surge to three or four times their price. What would have to happen?"
"Hmm. The easiest would be war, would it not......."
Winter trailed off. He maintained his distinctive poker face, but his nostrils twitched ever so slightly.
What in the world is this fellow thinking?
"Your Highness. Surely not...?"
"You are thinking that a prince who caused an act of terror would not hesitate at a war either, surely?"
"So my guess was right. Your Highness truly is a terrifying man."
Right about what, when everything you guessed is wrong.
And if it comes to terrifying, the wicked schemes this bastard Winter draws up are worse.
"Enough of that. Tell me how you think Reijo and Dechion will come at us. We have to see their faces again tomorrow, so it would be well to prepare in advance."
"There is no need to bother."
Winter continued calmly.
"At the gambling table, the ones who lose their entire stake usually show one of three reactions. Either they turn violent and demand every coin back, or they beg to be let off just once, or they steal the stacks of money piled on the table and run for it. Would it not be similar?"
Winter's attitude suggested it made no difference which one Dechion and Reijo chose.
But Zion, no, Zion Bliese, needed to know which choice they made.
"The drink tastes especially good today. How about one at a fine establishment? I will take you somewhere spectacular. There is nothing to do for a while, so let us go and enjoy ourselves."
"I have something."
"Pardon?"
"Something to do. I have it."
He rose to his feet.
***
"F—k, f—k, f—k, f—kkk!"
Dechion spat out curses without pause. When he put his full weight on the pedal, the automobile raced swiftly down the main road.
VROOOOM!
"Ninth Prince. I will repay this debt without fail."
Dechion was, at this moment, fleeing under cover of night.
Even though the building into which he had poured his entire fortune had been blown away by terror, he still had physical assets left, such as real estate, gold, and bonds.
That was precisely why he had to flee under cover of night.
Because for the sake of the Heavenly Garden he had gathered in even dangerous money.
The slush fund of the personage he served, for example.
If he remained in Seiel, the only fate waiting for him was to have every remaining asset seized and be left a beggar.
Rather than that, it was better to give up part of it, such as the real estate, and gather up every small, expensive physical asset and vanish.
'At times like this it is a blessing to have no family.'
He intended to leave Deber. If he went to the neighboring Gizkal Republic, or across the sea to a foreign land entirely, he would not need to worry about pursuit either.
The only thing that weighed on him was.......
'The three syllables of the name Dechion will be remembered as a wretched bastard who fled after utter ruin.'
The Five Enemies Within the Palace and the Five Enemies Outside the Palace. The ten thieves who had sold the nation most zealously.
Among them, Dechion held the least wealth and power.
It was the source of an enormous inferiority complex that had piled up over decades.
'If only the Heavenly Garden had been completed. If I could have made it a place where gold sprang up as planned. I could at least have surpassed all of the Five Enemies Outside the Palace.'
It was all because of the prince. So one day he would repay this debt without fail.
"Zion Riobelt. My rage shall never......."
"Did you call me?"
Dechion's words cut off abruptly. Though the automobile was speeding along, someone was seated in the passenger seat beside him before he knew it.
Golden hair as though spun into threads from gold.
Blood-red eyes darker than blood.
It was the Ninth Prince, Zion Riobelt.
"You may omit the salutation. Be grateful for this prince's magnanimity."
"......."
"You do not seem in the mood to trade jokes. Understandable, I suppose."
Dechion kept his silence and was devoting himself to grasping what was happening, when.
"It has been a long time, Dechion."
The Heavenly Garden had exploded only yesterday.
He had seen him a single day ago, and called it a long time?
"It was when I was five, was it not. The last time was while the late king still lived, I believe."
In that instant, gooseflesh rose all down Dechion's back.
"Your Highness. What are you saying just now?"
In that instant Zion seized Dechion by the collar, and the bodies of the two men cut through the air.
The automobile, having lost its master, ran on alone for a while before burying its nose in a wall.
In the meantime the two bodies floated briefly in the air and landed on the ground.
"It is I, Zion Bliese. The Crown Prince of the nation you sold off."
Dechion's whole body hardened like the ice of a snow mountain that never melts.
"Your Highness. What sort of vicious joke is this?"
"You cannot believe it?"
"How did you use magic? A member of the Divine Race, using magic? Ah, a magitech device......."
At that moment, a change unfolded before his eyes.
Thump.
Dechion's knees touched the ground.
The old man whose stubbornness and pride had been such that he felt displeasure every time he performed the salutation was nowhere to be found.
"Will you still deny it, Dechion?"
Empty air folded, and space was joined to space.
Through the passage that formed, a single sacred relic revealed itself.
The North Star is the one star that never wavers.
For that reason it is a star like a guide, one that all people trust and follow.
The Stem of the North Star bore the shape of a single tree grown toward such a star.
A silver-white form, created by magically working frost-struck birch.
It split like branches the higher it went, and cradled a single point of starlight that occupied the space within.
Light stretched along the engravings and gave off its distinctive mana pattern, and this was also the symbol of Deber's royal house.
"You recognized it. Yes, there is no way you could fail to."
"A member of the Divine Race with the Stem of the North Star...... what in the world is this, how is this......."
"You ask how I was granted its power when I am not even of the royal bloodline? Did I not say it, that I am Zion Bliese."
The dignity that wrapped his whole body. The majesty overflowing from him.
And at the center of it, settled like a counterweight, conviction.
It was far too elegant and far too immense for the likes of a trash prince to possess.
"The royal...... Your Highness the Crown Prince......."
Zion leveled the Stem of the North Star at Dechion.
"Betrayer of the homeland. It is time to pay for your crime."