「Assume that the Ninth Prince made use of our Liberation Army's act of terror, and investigate the possibility that information leaked from within the Liberation Army.」
Creina stroked the back of her hand.
A fearsome directive to root out the existence of a spy. But instead of feeling bleak, she began to work it through.
Just yesterday, the Ninth Prince had gained an enormous profit.
The nominee futures trading in the rice market, Blen Industries' stock, and even Dechion's and Reijo's collateral.
He had swept up the entire stake of the gambling table he had been playing at with the three of them.
And thanks, of all things, to the Liberation Order carrying out an act of terror.
'Winter Flowering. He was a greater talent than I thought.'
There was no spy in the Liberation Army. At least, there was no spy who had passed information to the Ninth Prince.
The reason she was certain of that was that she had already grasped the measures Winter Flowering had taken.
Judging by his spending a large sum to buy up back-alley thugs, had he not been preparing a violent uprising?
In other words, the Liberation Army's act of terror and the Ninth Prince's gamble coinciding was nothing more than coincidence.
'Should I consider a reversal, or a reversal of the reversal... no, there is no need.'
That the source of the information which led to the decision on the terror was the Ninth Prince. That Winter's preparations might have been a smokescreen.
None of it mattered.
There was no chance the Ninth Prince had leaked the information on purpose in expectation of the Liberation Army's terror. Because there was a far easier and far greater profit he could have seized.
Namely, Creina herself.
The single merit of rooting out a Liberation Army agent embedded in the upper class would surpass every profit the Ninth Prince had obtained this time.
Drip. Drip drip.
Perfumed oil falling drop by drop. A scar engraved on the back of her hand that would never fade.
The memory of that night rising up. The smile of her young lord when she had seen him for the last time.
"Creina. I will most certainly go shopping at your gallery, so have formal wear prepared in advance. Understood?"
Someone's voice crossing over it.
"Madame. Will you prepare formal wear for this prince?"
Displeasure surged up.
The familiarity steeped into that revolting golden-haired, blood-eyed exterior.
Why in the world should her young lord's refinement be felt in the Ninth Prince?
To settle her heart she stroked the smooth back of her hand, or more precisely, the scar.
"Trash he may be, but the bloodline is noble, is that it? To give off the same air as His Highness the Crown Prince, of all things."
Perhaps that was why Winter Flowering was serving as the Ninth Prince's aide.
Judging by his conduct over the past month, Winter was without question an outstanding talent.
Enough that the thought of reporting to headquarters and making him a member of the Liberation Army had occurred to her.
Though from the fact that he possessed Deber's gray hair and had attached himself to the likes of a trash prince, his nature itself seemed beyond saving.
'Still, a talent is a talent. It gives me pause.'
Creina was deliberating when.
A mana signal denoting emergency contact was detected.
[18X4X: Urgent. Stem of the North Star missing again.]
[18X4X: Immediately root out any anomalies occurring within your assigned district.]
The kingdom's sacred relic, recovered through the help of someone whose identity remained unknown.
It had been a joy among joys, but it was hard to say the Liberation Army had the relic perfectly in hand.
Because the Stem of the North Star had vanished of its own accord not long ago.
'I heard that strict sealing measures were taken after its return.'
She would have to move first.
The moment Creina thought so and began to rise.
Another message arrived.
VWOOM.
This time it was contact from one of the informants under her.
[86X15: Dechion missing. Flight by night suspected. Will pursue.]
It seemed a hole had opened in the surveillance net.
More than half of the informants had been deployed to investigate whether there was a spy within the Liberation Army in connection with the anomaly involving the Stem of the North Star, so it could not be helped.
"Tch!"
This was more urgent than the Stem of the North Star.
Creina immediately handed down orders to her subordinates.
***
A single point of starlight formed on Dechion's retina.
Though it shone brightly, it was not dazzling.
A light that flickered gently, as if guiding one who wandered in darkness.
The North Star.
'Your eyes have lost the right to hold this light, Dechion.'
FWSSSH!
Black, translucent mana gathered piece by piece and veiled the Stem of the North Star.
The feathers of a crow. The reason Zion Bliese bore the byname of the Raven of Credia.
"Y-Your Highness the Crown Prince......."
Dechion had no choice but to acknowledge it.
The Ninth Prince Zion Riobelt was Deber's Crown Prince, Zion Bliese.
"So you believe me now. Then stand. You were originally a man who did not kneel before me, were you not."
Dechion of the Five Enemies Outside the Palace. Fifteen years old at the time of Deber's occupation.
He had entered the Five Enemies Outside the Palace on the strength of his deeds after the Empire devoured Deber alone, so in a way he was an impressive bastard.
At any rate, Dechion had never once knelt before Zion.
"You said that the king and crown prince of a fallen nation were in effect of the same standing as a commoner like yourself."
"Th-that was......."
"Stand. A salutation is too fine a thing for the crown prince of a fallen nation, haha."
Every time he knelt before the Ninth Prince Zion Riobelt, Dechion had harbored ugly feelings in his heart.
Because he had not lived diligently for all his sixty-five years in order to kneel before some discarded piece of trash, prince of the Empire though he was.
But now it was different.
Both his body and his heart refused to rise.
Intimidation. A gulf. Fear.
The formless weight a human being possesses was pressing Dechion down.
"You seem to have no intention of rising. Well, you are to be executed shortly, so it is a fitting posture for a criminal."
"......Your Highness the Crown Prince."
Perhaps he thought that, whatever was happening, he had to run his mouth in order to live.
Nonsense began to spill out of Dechion's mouth.
"I will prove my usefulness. Use me as a card."
"Oho?"
"I have assets hidden in a foreign land. Together with what I carry now, I will offer all of it. Give the order and I will go wherever you send me. Since Your Highness killed the Ninth Prince and stole his form, you can report my identity to the Empire at any time. So this old man is one whose very life is pledged to Your Highness......."
"Hush."
"......."
"Quere Stellam Orbita."
He cleansed his ears with clean water generated in the air.
"Spew no more filth. Has your crime not grown all the heavier?"
Dechion's mouth opened and shut, but the warning must have taken effect, for the barking did not continue.
"You are some fifty years too late. If it had been fifty years ago. No, generously speaking, if it had been just one year earlier."
'If it had been before I was cornered enough to go out and assassinate Zion Riobelt myself.'
He would have accepted Dechion's offer without hesitation.
Because personal revulsion was nothing before the greater cause.
But now his circumstances had changed a great deal.
He felt no regret.
Now that he had obtained Zion Riobelt's status along with the privileges granted by an unidentified miracle.
The assistance of a mere traitor was nothing to regret.
"It was a vain dream. Even as I swore to punish every one of the Five Enemies Within the Palace and the Five Enemies Outside the Palace with my own hands, I thought so inwardly."
When the Stem of the North Star gave off a brief light, the silhouettes of ten rats were drawn in the air.
An X was carved over one rat, proclaiming Dechion's fate.
"Regret it, Dechion. Die by my hand and become a vengeful spirit. Dwell in the Dechion of fifteen and stop him from repeating the mistake."
"......."
There was no answer, so he looked at his face.
Dechion was regretting.
He should have killed the young crown prince in the past and crushed the bud.
If he was going to sell the nation, if he was going to fatten his belly through betrayal, that was what he should have done...!
"What is it that I did wrong!"
It was the beginning of his death throes.
"The nation had already fallen. If I, one of its people, could patch even the planks of a ruined house and sleep in warmth, is that not precisely the duty of a state, Crown Prince!"
"Go on."
"You would have made the same choice as I did! A new age had come! One where commoners need not be crushed beneath a ruling class! Where lifting one's head could not be dressed up as treason!"
Commoners who held the power of wealth, the birth of a new class called the bourgeoisie, was the very proof of it.
"You too wish to be free before your own greed! Speak on your heart, Zion Bliese! Do you think you would have been any different had you been me!"
"Of course."
An answer as swift and sharp as a blade. Dechion faltered.
"You did not enjoy freedom. This present moment is merely where you arrived by indulging in license under one pretext or another."
The Heavenly Garden was proof of it.
"However, going forward I intend to enjoy some license myself."
Zion Riobelt was permitted to.
Further still, he ought to regard it as a duty.
Because the more gladly he enjoyed the freedom that must be called license, the closer he would come to the homeland's liberation.
Even now, it was so.
At the end of that license, had he not gained the chance to execute one of the ten thieves he had longed for?
'Pay for your crime with death, Dechion.'
And so Zion carried out Bliese's duty with Riobelt's face.
"Quere Stellam Orbita."
FLASH—
The starlight that had been flowing along the engravings rose in an instant into a pillar.
No blast, no flash, no flux of mana. None of it existed.
Blank. No one could detect the fact that magic had been manifested on this dark street tonight.
FWSSSH!
Black, translucent crow's feathers enveloped Dechion.
When the light withdrew, that spot was blank.
Dechion had been erased without even leaving a corpse.
"Dechion. You who fell to a hunger for honor beyond your due. The world will remember you thus."
Zion continued.
"As a pathetic old man who fattened his own belly to the point of selling his country, then chose to flee by night after utter ruin and went missing in the end."
The headlights of the automobile that had lost its master. The Stem of the North Star returning to its original place, vanishing as though seeping into the air.
He gathered every one of Dechion's physical assets from the car.
'I should spend all of this money on Creina.'
A traitor's last assets would become the Liberation Army's funds.
The moment he thought so and raised the corners of his mouth.
VWOOOM—
He stroked the ring on his finger.
Lavishly gilded with gold, yet in substance a sacred relic of the royal house.
What the Ring of the Guide was responding to was Dechion, more precisely, Dechion's death.
It was a familiar space.
The royal capital Seiel, Deber's royal palace... the northern plaza of the palace that must now be called the Deber Colonial Governor-General's Office.
'An execution ceremony. Is it me this time as well?'
"The execution of the criminal Zion Bliese shall now be carried out!"
It seemed so.
It meant the future in which most of the Liberation Order was captured with the false execution ceremony as bait had disappeared.
"For the Empire!"
KABOOOOOOM!
No, it was not gone. It had been postponed.
KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOOOM!
Blasts and pillars of fire erupting here and there.
At the same time, familiar figures threw off their hoods and robes and soared up.
Loyal retainers who served Zion himself as their lord. The Liberation Order, one of the two heads of the Liberation Army, was here.
"The bastards have come!"
"Fire!"
"Kill them!"
They were like moths hurling themselves at a flame.
Watching the backs of his comrades as they charged past him.
The scene ended.
The newly obtained power of unknown origin, the Guide of the Fork.
The scene the power had shown was the worst this time as well.
'So it was not something I could only see in dreams.'
Even so, he was glad.
Worst though it was, the future was the future, and through the scene he had witnessed he would be able to avoid that worst.
Moreover, worst though it was, it was clearly better than last time.
'It means my conduct after the first scene changed the future in a more positive direction.'
That aside, if the ring had responded to Dechion's...... to the death of one of the Five Enemies Outside the Palace, and as a result the Guide of the Fork had shown him a scene of the future.
"One of ten. And the smallest one at that."
Nine still remained.
It occurred to him that nine tasks might perhaps be nine opportunities.