Wortenia Senki (LN) - Volume 19 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A Wavering Heart

That day, rows of soldiers and cavaliers filled the highway—the one leading from Pireas to northern Rhoadseria—that crossed the Cannat Plains. The road was alive with the neighing of steeds and the shouting of soldiers, and visibility was obscured by the clouds of dust they kicked up and left in their wake. Here and there, angered commanders desperate to secure the forward path would yell out. The column of soldiers was abuzz with heat.

“This is feverish... Suffocating, even...” Asuka said as she wiped the sweat from under her helmet with a handkerchief. Clad in armor, she looked around.

It was like a scene from a movie—not a low budget B movie, but an epic production with colossal funding and countless extras. However, even such a production would be held back just by virtue of it being fictional; it couldn’t compare to the overwhelming, palpable presence around her. This would become a great war, where the queen of the kingdom challenged a national hero who’d been marked as a traitor. This was not fiction like what Asuka had seen in books or movies: it was real bloodshed.

The soldiers were aggressive and radiating bloodlust. The location where the battle was estimated to take place was still far off, but the soldiers couldn’t remain relaxed and composed. They were marching into a fight to the death, after all.

The atmosphere hanging over them was intense—practically sizzling. Even Asuka, who had been born in the peaceful embrace of modern Japan, noticed it, and the sight was enough to shake her high school student’s heart. When she remembered that she was an active part of this moment, one that was detached enough from her normal life to pass for a movie scene, it rattled her composure.

It’s like a sea of people... This is what they mean when they say human wave tactics. It’s nothing like what I imagined war to be, though.

Lupis Rhoadserians’s northern subjugation army officially numbered two hundred thousand people. Asuka vaguely recalled hearing the Tokyo Dome had a capacity of fifty-five thousand people. The thought that an army four times that size was marching before her made her dizzy.

Compared to Japanese cities, the army’s numbers were roughly the same as the population of eastern Tokyo. Yet while that population included women, children, and elderly, the army Asuka was looking at was made up entirely of soldiers.

It could only be described as a vast army, but even so, it was questionable whether its quality was on par with its overwhelming quantity.

There are a lot of soldiers here. Being able to gather and command so many is impressive, but...

Despite being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the army, Asuka could easily pinpoint its flaw.

I’m not sure it’s actually a strong army. Most of the people here aren’t soldiers by trade, but conscripts. Even if you have them hold weapons, at heart they’re still farmers and craftsmen.

Many of these soldiers were commoners who’d been called to arms by their governors’ conscription orders. They were hastily prepared troops who simply had weapons forced into their hands and were ordered to march. Since they lived in a world where monsters prowled and bandits attacked villages every day, most weren’t complete amateurs at handling a weapon, but they weren’t as skilled as a trained soldier. And they certainly weren’t as organized or disciplined as the professional soldiers Asuka had in mind.

Besides...

Asuka sighed, looking at the soldiers around her. All their weapons were mass-produced and had been hastily gathered. They weren’t faulty weapons by any stretch of the word, but they certainly weren’t quality ones either. Perhaps the soldiers were lucky because they weren’t using rusty weapons, but looking at the tips of their spears made Asuka sigh again.

Moreover, very few soldiers actually wore helmets and armor. The only defensive equipment they had, if one could even call them that, were wooden shields. In terms of mobility, opting for light equipment was by no means a bad choice, but there was a world of difference between giving the infantry light equipment out of consideration for their load and giving them poor equipment out of a desire to save money.

It makes sense. Weapons and shields aside, actual armor would have to be fit for size, and doing it for so many soldiers...

In a game, armor was just something one could equip on the inventory screen. One could pick up any armor in a dungeon or a cave and use it as is. Having to take the strongest armor in the game, which you picked up before the final boss, back to town to fit it to your character’s size would take all the excitement out of the experience. Games were just play meant for fun, after all. A setting too absurd wasn’t interesting, but one too realistic and serious was problematic in its own way.

In real life, donning armor wasn’t so simple. Just like clothes, armor needed to fit one’s size. If it was too big, it would be baggy, and the dangling sleeves or hems would get in the way. If it was too small, it became too tight to move in or perhaps completely unwearable.

With clothes, articles too small to wear wouldn’t cost one their life; the same could not be said of armor. If one didn’t take the time to fit the armor properly to one’s dimensions, the poor fit could end up being the difference between life and death. However, no one wanted to spend that much on so many rank-and-file soldiers, which was what had led to this unfortunate situation.

In this world, conscripts are expendable, so no noble would be crazy enough to spend that much money on them.

That kind of reasoning made no sense in modern society. The importance placed on human life was so great that a politician who’d given in to the demands of terrorists once famously said that “The life of a single person outweighs the Earth.” And he said this while knowing that giving in to terrorists could lead to further loss of life.

Regardless of whether it was just or not, modern society always upheld the idea of saving lives in danger. This world, on the other hand, with its strict class system and slavery, didn’t operate by this logic. The value of human life was quite low; humans were a replaceable, expendable resource.

Even so, this world had no problem when it came to birth rates. Not even nobles could enjoy the entertainment and distractions people in the modern world had access to, so it was easy for them to succumb to the most basic of impulses: their hunger and their sex drive. It was the same reason that birth rates declined in developed countries, whereas they rose in developing countries.

This was only exacerbated by the fact that life here was far worse than any developing country in Rearth. These conditions incited basic survival instincts, which in turn encouraged people to produce offspring. What’s more, the marriageable age for women was the midteens, and in some cases, they married slightly younger. Going past the age of twenty without getting married drew people’s apprehension and scorn.

Such young marriages meant that, for better or worse, the chances of successful childbirth were higher. In Japan, until the baby boom in the Showa period, it was common for households to have multiple siblings. Though that might no longer hold water in modern society, the stereotype that the poor had many children might not be entirely unfounded.

Well, even back then, there were families with two children, like grandpa and grandma’s.

The Mikoshiba family was an old, wealthy family with a long, uninterrupted history, but either way, even people in this world were, at their core, creatures driven by their base impulses.

If anything, it’s even more pronounced here.

Asuka didn’t like having to admit this, but she knew better than to foolishly ignore it. Although human behavior didn’t fundamentally change, the two worlds were much too different, and those differences were pretty noticeable.

Modern society had the concept of human rights that served to restrain lust, but this world had no such concept to hold people’s desires in check. Here, people’s lives were the cheapest commodity. This didn’t mean they could be wasted frivolously, though, and most nobles realized this. They didn’t send their soldiers to their deaths without so much as equipping them with weapons, but supplying them with armor fitted to each soldier’s dimensions wasn’t realistic.

Honestly, I’m jealous of them for not having to wear this kind of armor, Asuka thought, looking down at her own armor.

Menea Norberg had ordered the bespoke armor that Asuka now wore. It was plate armor worn by the Temple Knights and emblazoned with the emblem of the Church of Meneos. In terms of defense, it was the finest armor available. Putting aside the issue of its weight and the limited mobility of its joints—problems typical of plate armor—it was the best armor one could wear on the battlefield. The only thing finer than it was armor with expensive endowed thaumaturgy applied to it.

In addition to that, this armor was made to be much lighter than ordinary plate armor, out of consideration for Asuka’s physique and stamina. It was literally custom-made for her. Nonetheless, since Asuka wasn’t used to wearing it, it still felt like a weight dragging her down. Plus, with the heavy, feverish heat rising from this row of soldiers, she was sweating nonstop. As illogical as she knew it was, she couldn’t help but envy the soldiers who walked with light equipment.

Still, Menea, who was her guardian and an older sister figure, had insisted that Asuka’s affiliation be made clear, so Asuka couldn’t very well argue with her. Since she was, officially speaking, part of this battle as Rodney and Menea’s attendant, it was natural she would have to wear armor.

Furthermore, there was one other reason Asuka had to wear this armor—to protect her chastity.

Mr. Tachibana’s here too, so I could put it on when we reach the battlefield, but...I guess Menea is right.

In modern Japan, women didn’t typically have to worry about how they dressed for fear of being attacked. If Asuka had heard a woman back home express such a fear, she would think that the woman was just extremely self-conscious. She knew sex crimes weren’t unheard of, but she felt like being afraid to dress a certain way for fear of being accosted was as unreasonable as being afraid to go outside for fear of getting in a traffic accident. Japan was a safe country.

In contrast, this world was dangerous. Few women had joined this army, and though some knights were female, most of them came from houses of pedigree—meaning they were commanders who had bodyguards and adjutants fighting at their side. Also, like Menea, most of them were seasoned warriors capable of martial thaumaturgy, so the physical advantage men held over women didn’t apply to them.

Asuka was not a knight, though, but a mere commoner. Koichiro Mikoshiba had trained her a little, and she’d been under Rodney and Menea’s tutelage since she was summoned here, but she only thought of those skills as a means of self-defense. She wasn’t a complete amateur, but she lacked a warrior’s resolve. She could be capable of killing someone, but she would struggle to find the will to do so—even if that someone was actively trying to take her life.

In this world, refusing to kill your opponent wasn’t a virtue; it was a weakness. And though Asuka wasn’t much aware of it herself, she was a pretty girl who drew the attention of those around her. A girl with her looks walking among soldiers like this was like an innocent sheep walking among a pack of starved wolves. It didn’t take much imagination to predict what might become of her. Asuka couldn’t deny the possibility either.

But I can’t believe I have to worry about that. This world is so different from Japan.

If she were in her home world, her only concern about her attire would be if it was trendy. Asuka wasn’t that into fashion, but most schoolgirls cared about clothing. Nevertheless, since her looks were above average, people paid attention to how she dressed, so she had to maintain a certain standard of appearance regardless. If she wore something that looked too old or unsightly, it could affect her relationship with her friends.

In Japan, she just needed to worry about dressing appropriately. She couldn’t come to formal events in casual clothes, but if she were to walk through town in revealing clothes or miniskirts, she wouldn’t be particularly judged for it, nor would it place her at a disadvantage. At worst, people with a sense of public decency might glare at her.

By contrast, in this world, it was dangerous for a woman to walk around in revealing clothes—or even clothes that weren’t so provocative. That danger had nothing to do with the threat of ostracization or dirty looks thrown her away. Her life and chastity would be at risk.

Since Asuka was currently in a line of soldiers marching to battle, her armor was appropriate for the situation. However, the sun beating down on her made her sweat profusely in it.

There’s more to it than that, though.

Her feeling so feverish wasn’t solely due to the sun; it was also due to the heat these soldiers burning with bloodlust gave off. It was the kind of passion unique to warriors who were confident they were on the cusp of victory.

What gripped them wasn’t the fear of battle. Instead, they were spurred ahead by the allure of the riches they could gain. Most of the soldiers involved in the northern subjugation were motivated by this because Lupis Rhoadserians, the queen herself, had approved pillaging the Mikoshiba barony and the northern regions under its control.

Free to pillage the Mikoshiba barony...

This was an appealing compensation that was very hard to come by. After all, even though it was currently under the Mikoshiba barony’s occupation, Epirus was still an official territory in the Kingdom of Rhoadseria. The people living there were Queen Lupis’s subjects. Despite that, she had given the soldiers permission to pillage the city.

This was a painful decision for her to make, but she had several reasons for doing so. The biggest reason was to get the nobles to participate in the war. No matter how much they hated the Mikoshiba barony, when all was said and done, it was just a personal grudge. The nobles, for all their arrogance, weren’t stupid. In fact, when it came to calculating gain against loss, they were quite clever. They may have hated and resented Ryoma for slaying the House of Lords’ nobles and killing their blood relatives, but they wouldn’t raise an army to strike at him in revenge for that.

That was why Queen Lupis felt it necessary to approve pillaging against the barony. She also declared that those who performed well in the war would be granted the territories of the ten houses of the north, along with the former Salzberg county.

I can’t believe she consented to sacrifice her own subjects.

To Asuka, it was nothing short of foolishness. No matter its political system, a country was made up of its citizens. Cutting out its own people was like an act of self-mutilation. Asuka couldn’t help but regard Queen Lupis with aversion and disgust, but at the same time, her rational side did understand that the queen’s options were limited.

She had no other choice. At least, I can’t think of any other option. And since I can’t, judging her for her choice would be unfair.

Considering the current state of Rhoadseria, Lupis Rhoadserians didn’t have much of a choice. She didn’t choose to sacrifice her own people casually, and as a matter of fact, that choice did increase the soldiers’ morale. That much was evident from the sheer number of noble families who participated in the army. Emotions and profit—those two put together were what made this vast army possible.

All the same, that didn’t change the fact that Queen Lupis had made this decision, and the shadow of that choice would surely hang over her in the future.

I don’t have the right to criticize her choices in the first place.

Asuka had no way of knowing if the head of the Mikoshiba barony truly was the Ryoma she knew. At first, she was convinced it was him, and even now she knew it was highly likely, but so long as she didn’t see him directly, she couldn’t be sure. Yet was this what Asuka really felt?

No. I probably just don’t want to believe it.

Normally, it would be absurd to assume Ryoma, who’d suddenly vanished in school, had been called to this world like Asuka had been. At the same time, it was the natural conclusion, which would mean that Asuka’s blood relative was the man behind this war. Of course, since he was her relative, she wanted to protect him. She too was outraged at the absurdity of this cutthroat world.

Even for him, staying alive wouldn’t be easy.

Be that as it may, after hearing about the tragedy in the House of Lords, Asuka found it hard to claim that Ryoma was an innocent victim in this. If it were true, there had to be extenuating circumstances. That was the answer Asuka had given Rodney and Menea when they’d asked her about it, but Asuka knew her response amounted to escapism. Coming from a modern world, she felt ill at ease admitting that she was related to a person who’d caused a war.

Knowing that knucklehead, I wouldn’t put it past him.

The Ryoma Mikoshiba that Asuka knew was a slumbering hero. His grandfather had fashioned him to be the kind of anachronistic hero that would have been more at home in older times. Ryoma knew this even better than Asuka did. He had the strong, firm body of a brave lion and nerves of steel, along with the venomous fangs and wit of a viper. Equipped with those traits, he slumbered through his ordinary days.

That might sound like a contradictory assessment, but it struck Asuka as accurate. Back in high school, she would teasingly call him a hibernating bear precisely because of this, and many other people had instinctively noticed Ryoma’s hidden nature.

Still, despite knowing Ryoma’s true nature, Asuka had never once feared him. She knew that Ryoma was well aware that he was different from others and conducted himself with moderation. A katana’s blade might be too sharp to hold, but as long as it was sheathed, it wouldn’t hurt anyone. Ryoma was much the same way.

If I’m going to liken him to a katana, he’d be less an ordinary one and more a cursed blade of some sort.

Ryoma was the kind of cursed blade that could live through modern society without ever needing to be drawn. At the same time, if it were unsheathed even once, it would have to shed the blood of another.

And who’s to say it was never drawn before.

Asuka knew Ryoma to be a pacifist at heart, and the kind of person who wouldn’t rock the boat, but once things crossed a certain threshold, he immediately became much more dangerous.

One time, during primary school, he reported their homeroom teacher, who’d decided to overlook a series of bullying incidents, to the Tokyo Board of Education, resulting in the teacher’s disciplinary dismissal. Another time, he resorted to physical means to drive away a group of delinquents who hung out in a park near his house.

Even so, there was no definite proof that Ryoma had been involved in either of those incidents. With the teacher, he sent a video recording of their neglectful actions to the police, proving there was a major issue and causing a huge commotion over it, but the email address that sent the recording was a throwaway account from a PC in a public library. It was never discovered who sent it. With the incident in the park, it was deemed to be a case of young delinquents fighting among themselves and wasn’t looked into any further.

Interestingly, both cases had one thing in common: Asuka was at risk of being harmed in some way.

He could never put up with seeing his family being hurt, but the problem is that he springs into action before one of us gets hurt.

Both of those incidents could have been coincidences. Anyone with the legal knowledge and inclination to stop the teacher could have reported them to the authorities and had them dismissed. In fact, that made it much less likely that Ryoma—a primary schooler at the time—had done it.

The case with the delinquents, on the other hand, was clearly different. The rumors claimed that they had clashed with another group of delinquents, but all of their injuries had been inflicted by someone using their bare hands. It was also known that the delinquents carried weapons on them, like knives.

Anyone that could beat a group of armed hooligans with their bare hands has to be skilled.

Most damning of all, though, was that most of the delinquents had been so severely injured that they would never recover. None of them died, but someone had inflicted permanent damage, and intentionally at that—as if to ensure that they would never harm anyone else for as long as they lived.

This wasn’t to say that Ryoma was the only one capable of that. Japan had a population of over 120,000,000 people, and many of them practiced martial arts such as karate and judo. While relatively few people were martial artists, there were other people out there who were capable of doing that much damage to the delinquents. That said, would those boys do anything to prompt a random martial artist to hurt them that much? No. It was more plausible that Ryoma had exacted retribution at the possibility of Asuka getting hurt.

I suppose it could have been grandpa too.

In the end, this was all speculation on Asuka’s part with no proof to back it, but if Ryoma had done those things, she wouldn’t be surprised. Rather, it was the natural conclusion. Ryoma was her cousin and childhood friend, and she knew his personality and nature. She knew his firm, self-righteous sense of justice, and she knew that once he had marked someone as an enemy, he would show them no mercy. Because he had that firm and even problematic side to him, she could only imagine how he would react to this unjust otherworld.

He wouldn’t stand for it.

He would be outraged at seeing the upper classes arrogantly trample the weak. His sense of justice and ethics were almost naive, but they were backed by cold, calculated ruthlessness. He would carefully consider when to begrudgingly tolerate this world’s absurdity because it benefited himself and those close to him, and when to oppose it with bloodshed. Depending on the choices he made, Ryoma would either follow this world’s rule of survival of the fittest or forcefully try to bend it to his will.

When the time came to place blame, at the end of the bloodstained tragedies he caused, Ryoma wouldn’t let the guilt fall squarely on him. If nothing else, he surely would come up with some just cause that would spare him from that.

He’s meticulous that way.

The only questions were why Ryoma, in his calculations, had decided to start the war now, and whether he had the means to win against such a vast army.

I can guess what he’s after, but... Does he have a winning chance after making so many enemies?

Asuka knew Ryoma well, and he had a fundamentally lazy side to him, especially toward things he wasn’t inclined to do. He was the type who’d let work pile up and do it all over a short period of time. When he had gotten homework for summer vacation, he had done it all in the last week rather than chip away at it every day.

In that regard, she could see him prompting all his enemies to band together so he could sweep them all away at the same time. What’s more, focusing his wars into one big, decisive conflict, as opposed to sluggishly fighting through individual opponents, would minimize his losses in both human life and material resources. Concentrating the enemy’s forces in order to shrink them down all at once had a certain strategic logic to it. Asuka had to question the validity of that choice in this case, but the only way to determine that would be to see who eventually won the war.

Even though Ryoma was feared and celebrated as the Devil of Heraklion, he was still a single governor going up against an entire country. Asuka couldn’t see a scenario where the Mikoshiba barony won this war.

An army of two hundred thousand... What kind of plan could get him out of this? Asuka glanced at the sight outside her carriage. All these soldiers are his enemies... 

While each individual soldier was by no means strong, there were simply too many of them, and they would all overrun the Mikoshiba barony like a swarm of angry bees.

Asuka narrowed her eyes against the cloud of dust the soldiers and horses kicked up, lamenting her inability to do anything but watch the fight. While doing so, Asuka didn’t notice the man sitting beside her watching her...

Genzou Tachibana glanced at Asuka as he held the horse’s reins. He’d never driven a carriage during his life in Japan, but people were capable of adapting to anything, and by now, he’d become rather good at handling a horse. It all came to him naturally.

However, despite his confident demeanor, his heart was torn.

Don’t say anything unnecessary. Stay natural. Act natural...

As an adult, Tachibana felt driven to reach out to Asuka and soothe her worries. He could tell she was brooding over something, and moreover, he knew what it was. He’d spent quite some time with her ever since they’d been summoned to this world.

Moreover, Tachibana had served in the Community Safety Section before being summoned, but he’d originally been in the fourth criminal investigations section and was a skilled investigator who’d faced off against criminal organizations. This gave him insight into the human heart, which had made him adept at reading people. To him, reading the heart of a girl less than half his age was easy, but just because he could tell what she was feeling, it didn’t mean he knew how to properly handle this situation.

I wish I could help her, but with things being what they are... I wish I could at least say something considerate to make her feel a little better, but I’m no good at that.

Tachibana had spent his life fixedly pursuing his career as an officer, so he was still an affluent bachelor, but that wasn’t to say he had problems with women. He wouldn’t go so far as to claim he was good at handling them, but he wasn’t lacking in experience. Nonetheless, when it came to a girl who was so much younger than he was, he struggled with what to say.

Moreover, Tachibana was beginning to feel something special toward Asuka Kiryuu—not romantic feelings, of course, given their age gap, but a sense of affinity separate from his innate sense of duty as an officer of the law. He saw her as a younger sister or a niece. Those feelings made him err in judgment, though, and Asuka’s current circumstances were far too complicated and confusing for him to set her at ease.

What would be right? “Don’t worry?” “It’ll be fine?” How could I tell her that?

If Ryoma Mikoshiba really was who Asuka thought he was, then her blood relative was about to be executed for treason, and she was currently in the midst of soldiers who were all intent on killing him. Regardless of whether she knew for sure if Baron Mikoshiba was her cousin, she would still be hard-pressed to stay composed in this situation.

To begin with, would anything I say even matter? I’m powerless.

Menea and Rodney might have been able to ease her worries, but in his current state, any eloquent words Tachibana might have come up with wouldn’t have felt credible. In this world, he was nothing but a commoner with no backing.

I’m a nobody in this world...

When he was a police officer, his words had been genuine and brimming with confidence. His position, his badge, his sidearm—his tools of the trade gave him power to soothe or scold others. That was the kind of invisible trust and power given to police officers. That trust has been shaken in recent years due to corruption, but being an officer of the law still gave one an air of authority.

Now that he was in this world, his job was a thing of the past. He still had his firm body and martial arts experience, and thanks to Menea and Rodney, he’d learned martial thaumaturgy and gained a position as an official attendant in the Church of Meneos. He could even go on to become an official knight serving under Rodney. At present, though, he was but one of many prospective knights in training, his social position was still that of a powerless commoner, and his words, no matter how sincere, held no sway over anyone.

All I can do is ask Rodney to talk to her. This is pathetic.

Tachibana glanced at Asuka again, sighed, and drove the horse onward, praying that all her doubts would soon be resolved.

♱

That night, the northern subjugation army stopped its march and set up camp on a field outside the highway’s barrier pillars. The moon hung in the starry night sky, casting its faint glow on the earth as if it were lighting the army’s path north. In the midst of this scene, Rodney Mackenna sat alone in his tent, lost in thought. He was occupied with what Tachibana had told him earlier about Asuka’s state of mind.

What should I do?

Unable to organize his thoughts, Rodney grabbed a bottle of ale from the shelf and took a swig directly from it. The alcohol spilled from his lips and onto his chest, forming a stain on his expensive silk shirt. As he drank, the tent’s flap opened and Menea entered. Seeing him, she gave him a criticizing glare.

“That’s a waste of expensive ale,” she said as she snatched the bottle out of his hand. “And you’re staining your shirt too. I swear. You better wash it later, understood? You’re not a child.”

She poured the ale into a glass sitting on the table and handed it to Rodney.

“Hmph. Mind your own business,” he said, his expression visibly displeased. Despite this, he reluctantly took the glass from her hands, which made it clear that Menea was the stronger one in their relationship. It wasn’t uncommon in friendships that had lasted since childhood for the woman to have a stronger say over the man.

Giving him a wry smirk, Menea settled into a nearby chair. “So, what are you going to do?” she asked without specifying a subject.

Nevertheless, Rodney knew what she meant, and his expression contorted unpleasantly. “I’m of two minds, honestly.”

“I see...” Menea nodded like she’d expected him to say that. “But leaving her like this wouldn’t be right,” she added hesitantly.

When Tachibana approached them about Asuka earlier, it hadn’t come as a surprise, but that didn’t mean they knew how to handle it.

“I know. But what am I supposed to do?” Rodney asked.

“Sending her to the Mikoshiba barony is an option?” Menea suggested.

That would have been a valid choice, but due to the many risks it involved, they couldn’t do that.

“I considered that already. While that might be the best thing to do for her, we can’t exactly do much in this situation, can we?”

“True...” Menea sighed. “If nothing else, it’d be difficult without definitive proof that Baron Mikoshiba is the Ryoma Mikoshiba she knows. Asuka herself can’t tell for sure.”

“Yeah. I think so too.”

In nine cases out of ten, Baron Mikoshiba would be Asuka’s cousin. When they left Menestia, they had been very much convinced of that, but once they entered Rhoadseria, Asuka had started doubting it. Since they spoke to her every day, they could sense the change in her right away.

When she first heard Ryoma’s name mentioned, Asuka had been so excited that she didn’t stop to consider the information’s authenticity. However, the more intelligence they gained about the Mikoshiba barony, the more she began questioning if he was really the man she knew.

That’s understandable, considering Asuka’s position.

People had a way of believing whatever they wanted to believe. After being summoned to this world so suddenly and separated from her guardian, Koichiro, Asuka had latched onto any information about Ryoma, no matter how vague and uncertain. Rodney and Menea couldn’t fault her for doing so.

But that means...

They brought Asuka all the way here because she believed Ryoma was her cousin, and Rodney was at a loss as to what to do if that was proven wrong.

For now, though, it’s obvious what we have to do, isn’t it?

There was only one way of confirming the truth, and that would be to meet Ryoma in person. Rodney and Menea knew this, and so did Tachibana and Asuka, but it was easier said than done. Now that they’d been integrated into Queen Lupis’s northern subjugation army, contacting Ryoma became much more difficult. If news that they were trying to get in touch with him reached the queen’s ears, they could be punished for high treason.

Plus, Asuka’s feelings aren’t the only problem here.

As long as Rodney’s misgivings remained at large, he couldn’t make the decision to send Asuka to Ryoma.

“The biggest issue is that even if Baron Mikoshiba is related to Asuka, so long as the barony remains at a disadvantage, it’s questionable whether it would even mean anything,” Rodney muttered.

Menea nodded. “Right. As her guardians, it’s hard to say this would be the right decision in this situation. If the Mikoshiba barony can’t win this war, we’d be sending her to her death.”

They wanted to send her to the Mikoshiba barony with the hopes that it would be her salvation, but not if it meant placing her on a sinking ship. The risks they’d have to brave to contact Ryoma would be great, and with the stakes of the war stacked against them, they weren’t worth taking in the first place.

“We could do something after the war, but at that point, it would be even harder to contact Ryoma Mikoshiba.”

“Yes, I imagine so. Given our position, it’s very likely.”

The reason for that was simple: Rodney and Menea had come all the way to the eastern kingdoms from the holy city of Menestia, on the other side of the continent, to serve as bodyguards for Cardinal Roland. Cardinal Roland had made this long journey with the final objective of gauging what Ryoma Mikoshiba was capable of and trying to win him over to the Church of Meneos’s side. On paper, the purpose of this journey was to inspect the different sites across the continent, but that was only a trivial pretense.

In actuality, it’s an espionage mission.

That might have sounded like an incredibly corrupt task for a religious organization that was otherwise detached from worldly affairs, but the term “espionage” wasn’t limited to its most common meanings. It wasn’t just spying, sabotage, and infiltration. People in high social stations used it, and it occurred much more often than most would believe.

Rodney’s role was to assist Cardinal Roland with this task, so ensuring the cardinal’s safety was Rodney’s primary objective. Helping Asuka with her personal problems was secondary.

It’s clear where our priorities lie.

Such was the duty of a Temple Knight devoted to defending the Church of Meneos, yet Rodney had never told Cardinal Roland about Asuka’s background. His reasoning for staying silent was that none of this information had been confirmed yet. Of course, Cardinal Roland had seen Asuka a few times before, and had even spent some time in her presence while they were traveling from Menestia, but the whole time, he knew nothing about Asuka’s past or position. He probably thought she was merely a girl Rodney and Menea doted on.

But if Cardinal Roland were to learn the truth...

There was a chance he would welcome Asuka as a guest of the Church of Meneos. Many members of the church were ruthless, but Cardinal Roland was a compassionate man. It was possible that he would sympathize with Asuka’s predicament and offer to help.

It was also perfectly possible that he’d take her hostage and use her as a bargaining chip. Compassionate man though he might be, he’d still clawed his way through internal strife within the church to reach the position of cardinal, and no purely benevolent man could have done that. What’s more, depending on how negotiations went with the Mikoshiba barony, it was possible Cardinal Roland would order the baron’s death.

“That day, we ran into her standing next to a Third Eye’s corpse when we passed through Beldzevia on our way back to Menestia. When we took custody of her, we had no idea this would happen...” Rodney shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Was he giving up, perhaps?

Menea gave him a strained smile. “Yes... Agreed.”

At first, Rodney had only taken Asuka under his wing out of goodwill, but when he found out that the katana Asuka was holding had the power of endowed thaumaturgy, which shouldn’t have been possible, things had changed. Rodney and Menea would have normally seen Asuka purely as a connection to the Organization or bait to lure out Koichiro Mikoshiba—at worst, her safety would have only extended as far as she was valuable—but after spending many days with her, they began seeing her as more than just a pawn.

For a moment, the image of his dead father flashed in Rodney’s mind. His expression was grave, like he was scolding Rodney.

As a knight of the Kingdom of Tarja, Rodney’s father was given the rank of duke, but he was a wise man who did not deride or oppress the lower classes. That wasn’t to say he was a softhearted man incapable of making hard decisions, though. He knew how to deaden his emotions and make difficult calls.

If he saw me now, my father would scold me for this, but...

Rodney hadn’t had it in him to sacrifice Asuka for the sake of gaining information on the Organization or Koichiro. All he’d seen was a kind girl, and all he’d wanted to do was to create a safe future for her in this ruthless world.

To that end, he and Menea had secured her an official position as their attendant. It was by no means a high-ranking one—attendants followed their officers and handled miscellaneous affairs for them—but within the Church of Meneos, it wasn’t a particularly low-ranking position either. Compared to a noble, it was like being a baron, if not higher.

In addition, Rodney and Menea in particular were high-ranking Temple Knights. They were respectively captain and vice-captain of one of the ten knights orders defending Menestia. They and their attendants had their futures guaranteed.

Rodney’s position might not have always been completely rock solid—Cardinal Bargas, who disliked Rodney, had once dispatched him as captain of a platoon to spy on the southern kingdoms—but that was a thing of the past now. Cardinal Roland respected Rodney’s skills as a warrior, and thanks to the cardinal’s assistance, Rodney had been promoted to captain of the Temple Knights, knights who guarded the cardinals’ lives.

Normally, anyone serving under such a high-ranking knight would have to come from pedigree. Commoners without any background, like Asuka and Tachibana, wouldn’t be considered for the role. For that reason, securing their appointment as attendants had taken some effort. Cardinal Roland had voiced no objection, but sizable bribes had been required to silence his followers’ complaints.

Rodney had gone that far to protect Asuka’s smile.

And I know Menea feels the same way.

After going this far to help Asuka, cutting her off wasn’t an option anymore.

We’ll just have to wait and see for now.

Rodney elected to maintain the status quo, a choice borne of escapism, in a sense. He chose not to decide for the time being.

“There’s nothing we can do right now,” Menea said, her smile still tense. “The situation might change once we get closer to the Mikoshiba barony.”

They didn’t know enough at present, so they decided to take their time and think things through rather than jump in to making a decision. Still, Menea wasn’t as optimistic as her words might have made her seem, and neither was Rodney. Their morose expressions spoke to their true feelings—their concern for Asuka. Unfortunately, that concern weakened their sense of caution, so neither of them ever noticed a third person gazing into their tent...