“You want me to take over your classes? Well...! For my own pupil, I can manage a few special lectures. How many weeks?”

“The rest of the semester.”

“You absolute fucking lunatic.”

After swearing on reflex, Enrique took a moment to collect her thoughts. He wasn’t irresponsible enough to drop all his classes just because he suddenly didn’t feel like teaching... was he?

No, if anything, he was responsibility incarnate...

Had something happened?

That brought something to mind. When something happened to him, it generally involved official business.

“Has Command cooked up another operation? You’re too senior to be running around in the field now. Unless the dwarves have broken out into a civil war.”

“Nothing is certain yet.”

“Then why is the commander going into the field?”

“Because nothing is certain.”

If the operation’s outline and the course of command were clear, there would be no need for him to deploy personally. Assigning an appropriate force would suffice. As he had reflected before, he could not intervene in every incident in the world.

But in a situation like this, clearly tied to the ‘main story’ yet with friend and foe still indistinguishable, he could not leave everything to field agents. Spending agents’ lives on a tactical objective even their commander was uncertain of was not the Extermination Unit’s way.

Besides, having the commander take the field personally offered another advantage.

“Krasilof is weak in foreign intelligence, too.”

“Wow. You cruel bastard...”

Enrique gaped in admiration as his meaning sank in. What would happen to the local branch if the commander of their intelligence unit showed up on the front lines and said, ‘Our foreign intelligence is so weak that I came to handle things myself’?

She shook her head, offering her condolences to the field headquarters, wherever it might be.

“Well, if that’s the situation, I can teach the kids for you. It’s hardly difficult.”

“Thank you.”

“What day?”

“Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.”

Enrique tilted her head. Why three days...?

“Five credits each. I’ll leave them in your hands. I’ll send the teaching materials this afternoon.”

“W-wait. Three? Three classes? Five credits each?”

“Yes. And Isabelle, Oscar, Elpihera, Esidisi, and Yevgeny will apply to have off-campus study count toward this semester. I’ll leave that process to you as well.”

“Hey, wait! What? What?!”

“Thank you. I’ll repay you.”

Fifteen hours a week. Eighteen, counting her own Knight Department class. Nearly enough to fulfill a semester’s entire minimum credit requirement.

Enrique shrieked at Ivan as he opened the door and stepped out.

“You really are an absolute fucking lunatic!!”

The office door closed coldly.

* * *

CLACK, CLACK.

Unlike Niigata in Japan, where emerging from the long border tunnel brought one into snow country, crossing Krasilof’s border felt like returning to summer.

Beyond the train window, green grasslands stretched endlessly beneath the clear midday sky.

“Now this is autumn. This is proper weather. Honestly.”

Seated opposite him, Isabelle had been grumbling like that ever since they left Krasilof’s outer reaches. Most foreigners experiencing their first Krasilof winter said much the same thing.

Ivan turned an idle gaze out the window. Clear weather. Good visibility.

It was common sense that bandits or mounted raiders appeared whenever the protagonist’s party traveled to the next scenario. As a man of common sense, he rested his arm casually by the window, ready to seize his axe at any moment.

The same scenery continued endlessly outside. Thilles was a land of vast plains and low hills. This landscape would stay with them until they reached an urban area.

Her initial excitement apparently gone, Isabelle stared blankly through the window with a somewhat bored expression before suddenly speaking.

“Mister, you were close to my dad, right?”

“To a degree.”

Maximilien was kind to everyone by nature, and Ivan treated everyone much the same, so it was difficult to say with certainty whether they had truly been close. Still, they had spent no small amount of time together, and Ivan gave a slight nod.

“If you were close, you were close. What’s ‘to a degree’ supposed to mean?”

After that brief grumble, Isabelle looked out the window, as though searching for some moment in the past.

“Going home makes me think of Dad. Did you know I really resented him at first? I mean, his only daughter was going abroad to study, and he wouldn’t even come out of those mountains... I thought so many awful things. Said so many awful things...”

She lowered her head, looking forlorn.

She remembered their conversation when Einar had visited. About the curse inflicted on those who killed the Seven Dragon Generals, the corruption of the soul.

Maximilien had slain two of the Seven Dragon Generals and the Demon King with his own hands. Yet right up to the end of the war, he had never once shown any madness.

What an extraordinary feat that must have been. Isabelle could scarcely imagine it. She could not begin to fathom the horror of an evil god’s dying screams raining down upon its slayer.

So she simply thought that her resentment had been childish. She had grown up wanting for nothing as the Hero’s daughter, receiving far more love than her own abilities had earned.

A daughter must not resent the father who saved the world. Her world, too, must have been among the things he sought to save.

It was absolute sacrifice. Giving every last part of oneself.

One day, she would have to follow that path. Not as the Hero’s daughter, but as a new Hero. Steeling herself, Isabelle raised her head.

“Now I remember the old stories he used to tell me. I don’t know when I’ll see him again, so I try to remember, even if I have to force it. It’d be embarrassing if his own daughter only remembered his face from a statue.”

With resolve in her expression, she smiled brightly.

“It’d be awkward if we felt like strangers when we met again someday. Somehow, I feel certain I’ll see him again. Like it’ll happen if I keep traveling with you.”

“... Mm.”

Ivan nodded expressionlessly and turned away.

A reunion with Maximilien.

It was not a prospect he particularly welcomed. He did not know what condition the man would be in. If it was worse than expected—if Maximilien had to be stopped—there would be serious trouble.

‘In the optional Quest objectives Eugene checked, Gilles Vert’s was “survival,” and Maximilien’s was “encounter.”’

The simplest interpretation was that Gilles Vert’s life was in danger, while Maximilien’s was not. Who could possibly threaten that man’s life? Perhaps that was only natural.

But if that was not the reason... if Maximilien himself was already an enemy who had to be defeated.

‘No. Then the Quest would have demanded Maximilien’s elimination.’

Ivan narrowed his eyes. Eugene had once received a Quest to eliminate him. In terms of difficulty, there would have been little difference between Ivan and Maximilien to Eugene. The moment he became either man’s enemy, he would die.

Thus, Quests issued orders when necessary, regardless of difficulty. Under that interpretation, it was too early to conclude that Maximilien must have become an enemy.

And most importantly, Ivan did not want to see that man’s face bereft of its smile.

A symbol of hope succumbing to despair would seem to imply that humanity could never go any further.

Four of the Seven Dragon Generals still remained in this world, and behind the shell of peace, monarchs and ambitious schemers were preparing for the next war. Unlike the last war, fought solely against demons, it would be the United Kingdoms’ final war.

Yet even at its end, humanity could still live with hope. That was what the title of Hero represented. What Maximilien had embodied, and what had passed to Isabelle.

Ivan watched her chatter with a deep, distant gaze and thought.

The late king had passed away before the Hero’s arrival.

It had been a battlefield where the righteous fell first. Those who carried the weak on their backs and volunteered to stand as breakwaters against death’s onslaught had always been the first to fall.

No more.

One peace built upon the corpses of the righteous was enough.

The Hero of this age would have to arrive before despair did. It must happen, and he must make it happen.

Fortunately, Ivan was well versed in ‘common sense.’ With his guidance, Isabelle could be ready all the sooner.

Koreans were experts at optimizing efficient leveling, after all.

Ivan watched Isabelle chatter, then turned his gaze out the window.

Three days later, he arrived in Saint Matilene, the capital of Thilles.

* * *

Ivan’s train stopped at Matil-Etoile Station, the largest station in Saint Matilene.

Matil-Etoile Station lay on one of the main trade routes running from the port cities of southeastern Thilles through Saint Matilene and onward to Krasilof.

The station was extraordinarily busy for a weekday afternoon, packed so tightly that the crowds filled the enormous building.

Isabelle began giggling and showing off to Esidisi, who stood gaping. Sadly, neither Elpihera, who had seen Kallion’s aerial ports, nor Eugene, who came from Earth, showed much of a reaction.

“What do you think? You’re a complete country boy, mister. Amazing, isn’t it? Right? Prizhenkaya Station is nothing next to this!”

“Mm.”

About the size of Seoul Station.

An odd comparison, but an impressive scale for this era. Ivan nodded in genuine acknowledgment. He had seen countless military supply trains on the battlefield, yet a thriving station like this could not help but stir something in him.

He had known countless men who fought in the hope that such scenes might become ordinary.

“...”

And in the distance, he spotted one of those men standing askew, smoking a cigarette as he gazed at the sky.

“One moment.”

Ivan gestured to the brightly chattering Isabelle and stepped forward. The man in the corner of the station, sighing heavily with a cigarette in his mouth, raised a listless hand.

“You’re here.”

“Pavel.”

Pavel looked at him through tired eyes, then ground his cigarette out on the floor and let his shoulders sag.

“Why must I suffer like this...?”

“Why are you here?”

“Her Highness’s orders. She told me to go as a diplomatic envoy.”

He took a small booklet from inside his coat and handed it over. It was an official document bearing brief personal particulars and the royal seal.

[Ivan Petrovich Yeremov.

Grade 3 Assistant Diplomatic Officer for Political Affairs.]

Pavel dusted off his hands and shrugged.

“I’m here to keep an eye on you. She was biting her nails, saying there was no telling what you’d do if she gave you diplomatic credentials on top of everything else.”

“Ha.”

Ivan pictured the scene for a moment, then broke into a smile. At the sight, Pavel heaved a sigh and held out his hand.

“Well, it’s official business. I suppose we could call it a promotion if we wanted. I look forward to working with you, Assistant Ivan.”

“Likewise.”

Diplomatic envoys had long been the quintessential spies in friendly nations, and nearly everyone in Counterintelligence Command’s foreign intelligence branch was deployed as part of a diplomatic delegation.

In other words, this meant he could operate as a legal, royally sanctioned spy in an allied country.