Wortenia Senki (LN) - Volume 18 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue

Countless cavaliers galloped across the plains outside Pireas. The horses neighed as the scent of grass spread through the area and fodder filled the air. Banners stood side by side, flapping in the wind. Sitting in the tents erected on the fields, soldiers serviced their weapons, the partners that would protect their lives, in preparation for the war to come. Their expressions were all grave. Soldiers and runners bustled along the highway.

In the midst of all this, a man and a woman crossed through the gates of Pireas, slowly riding their horses to the Church of Meneos’s encampment on the capital’s outskirts. It was a strange sight, honestly. They could have gone faster, but instead, they kept their horses’ speed to a normal stroll.

The highway was full of people, after all, and galloping too fast could result in running them over. As this highway led to Rhoadseria’s capital and served as its major traffic route, it was large, paved, and well maintained. It was spacious enough for several carriages to drive on it undisturbed, proof that it had been built larger out of consideration for pedestrian traffic.

Normally, they could gallop along this highway without concern, but sadly, this was not the case today. Besides the army personnel, a constant stream of civilians living in the capital’s vicinity traversed the road, as well as merchant carriages full of trade goods.

The woman sighed as she watched the soldiers. “Still, all of them are here just for the northern subjugation? The nobles must really have it out for Baron Mikoshiba.”

It was shocking that this entire army was gathered to defeat one regional governor. It honestly felt excessive.

“Well, apparently, Baron Mikoshiba is a state criminal who attacked the House of Lords,” the man replied. “From what I hear, his attack took the lives of many nobles, and since the noble families have been in power since the country’s founding, many of them are related by blood. From the nobles’ perspective, the baron killed their own flesh and blood.”

“So they’re clamoring to take revenge on him? I suppose that for nobles, blood for blood is the obvious solution,” the woman whispered, gazing out at the clouds hanging over the horizon.

It looks like what they say about the army having two hundred thousand men was no exaggeration. There might even be more than that, depending on the situation...

The army stationed here wasn’t quite on that scale—maybe half of the total forces, at best, were here. Most of these soldiers belonged to the armies of the governors south of the capital. Many of the nobles with domains in the capital’s vicinity would send their forces directly from their lands when the northern subjugation officially began.

Although it wasn’t the full force, the sight of this army was nothing short of overwhelming. It showed that Rhoadseria was indeed employing its entire military might for this war.

This is all because they conscripted every commoner they could, the woman thought, a twinge of pain filling her heart.

The purpose of this war was to defend the country, and thanks to that, the soldiers’ morale was high.

But is that really the right thing to do?

The woman, Menea Norberg, was one of the Church of Meneos’s Temple Knights, and she couldn’t help but feel very conflicted about this war. She herself had been banished from her homeland in the Kingdom of Tarja and had dedicated her life to revenge. She knew all too well how it felt to lose relatives.

But is this justice?

Menea honestly didn’t know what was right. She was also a member of the nobility, but it had been a long time since she’d lived the life of an aristocrat. She’d left her homeland and now served the Church of Meneos, traveling all around the continent. Thanks to that, she saw both sides of the discriminatory relationship between the nobles and the commoners.

She’d seen a noble carriage running over commoner children and killing them, only for the carriage’s owner to not care one bit. She’d seen men heartbroken by nobles raping their wives or daughters and treating them like playthings. She’d seen victims like that charge at nobles with weapons in hands, even though they knew they had no chance of getting revenge.

She could understand how those people felt, but looking at the soldiers, she didn’t feel like they were acting out of righteous justice. This army only stood for one thing: the sheer scale of the malice and enmity directed at Ryoma Mikoshiba. More than anything, though, she felt uncertain knowing that she was going to participate in this war.

No, it’s not just that.

She thought back to the girl waiting at the inn in the capital, the girl she regarded as a younger sister.

“What? What’s the matter?” the man asked Menea.

Menea looked at Rodney Mackenna, her childhood friend and her superior in the Temple Knights, and shook her head. Rodney still looked concerned, though.

“Are you worried about Asuka?” he asked.

Menea’s expression clouded over. He’d hit the nail on the head.

I don’t want her to become involved in this, but...

Asuka Kiryuu was an otherworlder girl Rodney had taken under his wing. Fate’s whimsy had crossed her path with Rodney’s, and he’d protected and sheltered her. He wasn’t acting entirely out of goodwill, however.

Rodney was, in essence, a good man. At first, he might have truly taken pity on her, but the sword she carried with her, the katana Ouka, had changed things. Ouka had been left in Asuka’s care by a relative who’d been summoned to this world with her, and it had been discovered that the sword had the power of endowed thaumaturgy.

Thaumaturgy was a supernatural power that was only used in this world. It didn’t exist in Rearth. Similar ideas to it did exist, but they were only in the realm of fiction, which meant that a person just summoned to this world shouldn’t possibly possess weapons with thaumaturgical seals that granted special powers.

But the impossible did happen.

No matter how much Menea might deny the possibility, there was no denying the katana in Asuka’s hands. As a matter of fact, when they found Asuka in the forest of Beldzevia, one of the southern kingdoms, she had just slain a monster called a Third Eye with a single slash. This young girl had performed a feat that even a warrior skilled with martial thaumaturgy would find challenging.

While Asuka had felt the sensation of cutting through the monster and recalled the stench of blood, she’d told Menea that it felt like she did it in a dreamlike state. When Rodney and Menea discovered her, they had also found the corpse of the Third Eye with a slash across its stomach. That told the whole story.

But Asuka is an ordinary girl. She couldn’t possibly have done that on her own, not by her powers, anyway.

Though Asuka wasn’t a complete amateur, she was no match for seasoned warriors like Rodney and Menea. She simply knew a bit of martial arts for self-defense purposes. She was somewhat athletic, and Rodney and Menea did think she had untapped talent, but at the same time, she had a critical lack of combat experience. She wasn’t a warrior.

Despite all that, the girl had been able to slay a Third Eye, and she’d done so with a perfect attack that even Menea wasn’t confident she’d be able to recreate.

It’s safe to assume the endowed thaumaturgy etched into Ouka was triggered.

The answer they arrived at to explain all these unexpected developments was the Organization. Having realized that, Rodney decided to keep Asuka under his watchful eye, with his protecting her becoming merely a pretense. To him, this was a windfall, a precious chance to pursue the truth of this mysterious group operating for years behind the scenes of the western continent.

Of course, there was no proof that Koichiro Mikoshiba, the man who gave Asuka the katana, was related to the Organization, but considering that he’d slain Misha Fontaine, the Beldzevia court thaumaturgist, soon after his summoning; the skill with which he killed her; and the thaumaturgical sword in his possession, everything about the man seemed suspicious. It was only natural Rodney would suspect the Organization was involved.

They didn’t share with Asuka their suspicion that Koichiro might be involved with the Organization. Menea and Rodney had come to this conclusion after taking all the circumstances into account. If the top brass of the Church of Meneos were to discover that Asuka was related to a member of the Organization, things could become quite grim.

After all, formally speaking, the church denied the Organization’s existence. As agents of the God of Light, the church’s purpose was to promote peace and stability across the continent. They couldn’t admit that another faction that rivaled their strength existed.

But many of its higher-ups did unofficially acknowledge the Organization’s existence. After all, many members of the church’s combat units had clashed with armed units of unknown affiliation. When the church looked into the identity of these armed units, their investigations never found anything. Usually, the church’s intelligence unit was capable of unearthing even secrets covered up by entire countries, but whenever they looked into this group, their searches always came up short.

The fact the church couldn’t discover anything about this group on its own implied the Organization was real. So if the top brass of the church were to discover that Asuka might be a clue to finding the Organization, things would end poorly.

She’s in a precarious position as it is...

Asuka Kiryuu was a beautiful girl, but this beauty now placed her at a disadvantage. Even now, there were people trying to woo Asuka to their side. Thankfully, Rodney’s protection meant they couldn’t act directly on these intentions, but it wasn’t impossible for someone to act recklessly.

People were capable of any cruelty if they were confident they were in the right. This held especially true for Temple Knights, the group charged with protecting the Church of Meneos. Having experienced live combat made it much easier for their hearts to lean into animalistic rage. If they were to learn of someone who might hold information about their enemy, they would show no mercy.

In fact, it didn’t matter if that person had any information or not. The mere possibility of someone having intelligence beneficial to them was enough to mark that person as guilty. At that point, whether Koichiro Mikoshiba actually was related to the Organization or not would be completely irrelevant to Asuka’s fate.

Since Rodney and Menea had grown affectionate of Asuka, this was an outcome they couldn’t allow.

Besides, the problem right now is Baron Mikoshiba.

That thought tormented Menea. Ryoma Mikoshiba, a national hero who’d suddenly appeared to save Rhoadseria from its plight, had gone on to work with Helena Steiner to save Xarooda from the tyrannical O’ltormea Empire’s invasion. These achievements alone made him sound like some kind of fairy-tale hero.

Asuka had been shocked when she learned a man by that name existed in this world. Normally, one would expect her to rejoice at this unexpected chance to reunite with a relative, but her learning that he’d achieved feats equivalent to that of a mythological hero had changed things.

But if he has the last name Mikoshiba, that means...

Menea didn’t know if that last name was common in Rearth. Menea’s mother was a Japanese woman summoned from Rearth, and thanks to that, Menea had learned a great deal about her culture, but she didn’t know what last names were considered common. It would be natural to assume that Koichiro and Ryoma Mikoshiba were related, though.

Asuka was half in doubt at first, but based on the descriptions of Ryoma’s appearance, she did admit he might well be Koichiro’s grandson.

But if that was the case, it placed Ryoma in a very complicated position. Koichiro Mikoshiba was suspected of being related to the Organization, and Ryoma Mikoshiba was his grandchild. Nonetheless, all this information was uncertain and came from speculation and hearsay.

Is he part of the Organization or not?

There was so little information at present that even trying to come up with a hypothesis to that question was difficult. Or, conversely, there were too many hypotheses to actually arrive at an answer. This was why Menea was so conflicted.

As far as removing potential risks, eliminating him is a possibility.

That choice could prove to be risky, but at the same time, they couldn’t overlook Ryoma. Rodney, who was looking at Asuka with concern, felt the same way, and the church’s top brass also held the same stance.

This is why the pope ordered Cardinal Roland to observe Baron Mikoshiba.

As Cardinal Roland’s guard, Menea had two missions on this journey. The first was to patrol the land, show off the Church of Meneos’s might, and put the believers’ hearts at ease. Their true goal, however, was to investigate this young hero. This was the real reason a high clergyman with the rank of cardinal came all the way to Rhoadseria from the holy city of Menestia.

But the situation’s already changed.

What started as a simple investigation led to them participating in Queen Lupis’s war with the Mikoshiba barony. Considering how volatile the political climate was in Rhoadseria, to ensure that they would be able to gather intelligence smoothly in Pireas, Cardinal Roland had proposed that they join the war as reinforcements. But even the cardinal himself was shocked when the Temple Knights’ Eighteenth Order was dispatched.

After all, they’re the most skilled of the orders sent to the southern kingdoms. Tried-and-true elites...

One reason this particular unit was deployed here was that they were stationed in Tarja, so they could arrive in a timely manner. Nevertheless it was evident to all that the church’s top brass had decided to move from simply investigating Baron Mikoshiba to the logical next phase.

While those thoughts crossed Menea’s mind, they reached their destination. The barracks before them flew a banner with the Church of Meneos’s crest on it. The sentries, noticing Menea’s approach, took the reins of her horse from her. After that, the sentries led them to a tent. This was where Rodney was to deliver the letter entrusted to him.

But where will things go from here?

That was one question neither Menea or Rodney, who’d been chosen as Cardinal Roland’s messenger, could answer. After all, the Temple Knights were under the pope’s direct command, meaning they only obeyed the pope’s orders. A cardinal was in a high position meant to assist the pope, but the split chain of command meant they sometimes clashed with the Temple Knights.

Very few members of the Temple Knights had close relationships with cardinals like Rodney did, and the captain of the Eighteenth Order was particularly on bad terms with Cardinal Roland. There weren’t any problems when they requested an audience with Queen Lupis the other day, but that didn’t mean they could rest easy yet. To prevent any issues, they’d need to talk things out, but there was no telling what the Eighteenth Order’s knights were thinking.

At worst, they might refuse to hand over the right to command them and turn against us.

In the past, the Eighteenth Order’s violent nature had resulted in the tragedy of Gromhen, which had earned them the title of the Colsbarga Grave Diggers.

Menea followed Rodney, praying that their beloved young charge wouldn’t end up caught in the middle of this conflict.

The following day, the loud blowing of a horn echoed through Pireas. What followed was a tremor. The neighing of horses and the calls of their riders echoed, and the air surged with heat.

The soldiers formed a column and began their march northeast, seeking to claim the head of the fallen hero who’d become a traitor to their country.