Not long after I sent Malcoy back, his adjutant came to see me.

"I hear you had a private audience with Lord Malcoy."

Before I could even offer him a seat, he plopped down and asked, his gaze fixed on my hand. Seeing his nostrils flare as he swallowed dryly, it seemed he had caught the smell of liquor.

Unlike his superior, the man was amiable, so I held out the bottle to him.

"I was just craving a drink anyway."

He snatched up the bottle at once.

Percival put the bottle to his mouth and threw his head back with gusto.

His Adam's apple bobbed several times, and then he pulled the bottle from his lips.

"Ahhh. How long has it been since I had this?"

He exaggeratedly wiped the corner of his mouth and returned the bottle to me.

"So Lord Malcoy's answer must not have been very much to your liking."

When I nodded, Percival gave me a look that said he understood.

"War is not just. The many were driven to their deaths for the sake of the few. Something along those lines, I imagine."

"You know him well."

He held out his hand. The bottle was placed in his grip again.

"You are probably confused. Everything about this fortress must go against Lord Malcoy's common sense."

"Common sense... Looking for common sense on a battlefield itself means you still haven't come to your senses."

"That is true, but to be honest, even in my eyes, this fortress is not normal."

Unlike before, Percival took only a couple of light swigs before speaking in a slightly lowered voice.

"The knights and soldiers here seem... as if they are not afraid to die. Especially those soldiers. What are they? I swear, I have never once seen men like that."

He turned his head. Following his gaze, I saw men dancing ridiculous dances and snickering among themselves.

They were the Rangers of Ballorhard, including Yorden.

"Those men fight as if they have already thrown their lives away. When they fight, they seem half-mad with wanting to die, but compared to that, their bodies are nimble, and they know like ghosts when to strike and when to withdraw, so in the end, hardly any of them actually die."

I nodded without thinking.

Just as Percival said, the Rangers were practically flying.

Men who had only ever fought Orcs with tough hides and vicious tempers had met humans as enemies, and now they were running wild like fish in water.

At first, even they seemed dumbfounded by how great the difference in skill was between them and the Imperial soldiers, but by now, if any of them were even wounded by the Imperial Army, the others mocked him for ages as a disgrace to Ballorhard.

At the very least, Imperial Knights would have to step forward to do anything about the Rangers, but those cunning bastards never faced knights stronger than themselves head-on.

They drove them toward our own knights as if herding Orc Warriors, then stabbed them from behind or fired crossbows at them, so the number of Imperial Knights killed by the Rangers since the war began was beyond counting.

"And it is not only them. The others are the same in that they do not fear death."

This time, Percival's gaze went to the Southern Army, who were quietly enjoying their rest.

"Among the soldiers I saw, not a single one tried to preserve himself."

The soldiers of the Southern Army, who already gnashed their teeth at the Imperial Army after suffering from their tyranny, were in a state of venomous rage after the Queen's death.

That desperate will to kill the enemy even if they themselves died was nothing new to the Southern Army.

The same was true of the conscripts.

Since they were men who had volunteered of their own accord for a war they did not have to step forward for, their morale and fighting spirit were no less than that of the Rangers and the Southern Army.

As for knights, who considered it an honor to collapse on the battlefield after exhausting all their strength, there was even less need to say anything.

Percival kept voicing his admiration, saying that if it were only the knights, or only some of the soldiers, he could understand, but he had never once seen everyone take part in war with one heart and one will like this.

Then, suddenly, he spoke in a heavy tone.

"Perhaps that is why."

His gaze turned toward the wall where his superior had disappeared.

"Why Lord Malcoy finds it hard to accept the current situation as it is."

He drained the liquor in one gulp.

"Because the knights and soldiers of Marseille were not like them."

He said the ideal image that the young prince of a now-ruined kingdom had wanted from the knights and soldiers of his homeland must not have been unlike this citadel.

"In order for young Lord Malcoy to endure life as a prisoner, he must have needed people to shift the blame onto. And conveniently, there were suitable targets."

Nobles and knights who betrayed their oaths of fealty, and soldiers who, fearing death, turned their swords around.

The young prince of a ruined kingdom endured captivity by resenting those traitors, and brainwashed himself into believing that even that would never have happened if there had been no war.

"What a childish tantrum."

"It is not incomprehensible. Lord Malcoy at that time was nothing more than a child who had lost everything overnight. When I think of Lord Malcoy back then, I consider it impressive that he did not take his own life."

Perhaps because he still did not like me cursing his superior, Percival defended Malcoy.

I did not bother to step forward and argue against Percival's words.

There was probably no one in this citadel without a story of their own, but I had no intention of saying this or that about another person's past that was already gone.

"So please go a little easy on him. He is an intelligent man, so he will soon realize reality."

Instead of answering Percival, I handed him the liquor.

"Then I will leave him in your care."

After completely emptying the bottle, Percival rose from his seat. He bowed deeply and left, and even after he was gone, I remained still in thought for a long while.

Perhaps the end of the Marseille Kingdom could become the future of our kingdom.

No, if we had not purged the rotten nobles in advance, if the Queen had not reclaimed the cause of this war through her death, it surely would have become so.

Even now, things were just as precarious.

We had merely steeled our resolve; in truth, nothing had changed.

The Empire was still enormous, and the kingdom was still weak.

The sparks the Queen had kindled were burning everywhere, but if the present state continued for long, I could not believe the hearts of the soldiers and the people would remain as they were now.

Nine times out of ten, they would begin to resent the Royal Family, who had provided the cause for the war.

We had to find a way out before the situation became like that.

This war as it stood was nothing more than holding out. And against the Empire, victory was impossible if all we did was hold out.

Even if the enemy suffered several times our losses, the one that would collapse in the end was the kingdom.

Before the flames that had finally begun to burn went out, before the kingdom's forces were worn away little by little like clothes soaked in a drizzle.

We needed to turn the situation around.

"The Eastern Fleet needs to play that role."

I had no doubt that the King and the Eastern Fleet, who had departed to land a blow on the Empire, would return with news of victory.

But no matter how much time passed, no news of the King, who had headed for the Empire, came.

Whether they won or lost, if a battle had taken place, word should certainly have arrived, yet there was nothing at all.

In my impatience, ominous imaginings kept disordering my mind, but each time, I shook my head hard and brushed off those stray thoughts.

Among the troops who had departed for the Empire were the King of Dotrin and the Azure Sky Knights.

I believed that whatever the difficulty, even if no one else could, the King of Dotrin would surely overcome it.

Because the descendant of the Marquis of the Azure Sky was a true monster.

Even as I fought against my impatience, the Imperial Army continued hammering at the kingdom's border.

The Silver Lion Citadel was attacked countless times as well.

So far, not a single fortress or stronghold had been taken, but we could not feel at ease.

That was because intelligence had come in that, aside from the Imperial Army currently deployed at the border, additional forces were marching toward the border.

And it was said that among the enemy forces coming this way were large numbers of Mages and Paladins.

Once they arrived, the fighting would become twice as hard as it was now.

But at this moment, there were not many things I could do.

All I could do was smash the Imperial Army attacking the citadel.

Every day was battle.

The Rangers were still holding out well, but the soldiers of the Southern Legion had long since reached the limits of their stamina.

The Rangers and knights ran all over the walls as if the walls were too narrow, filling the places of those exhausted men.

I did not stay idle either.

I took part in battle even more actively than before.

I ceaselessly recited War Poems and raised the spirits of our allies.

With mana gathered at the tip of my sword, I ran all over the walls.

In the process, the enemy knights I had cut down already numbered in the hundreds, and the enemy Legion Commanders who had lost their lives by my hand alone amounted to five.

Once it reached that point, even the enemies gradually stopped attacking our citadel recklessly.

Thanks to that, our citadel regained some breathing room, but the burden on the other fortresses grew heavier.

It was because the Imperial Army units that had been attacking our citadel turned toward the other fortresses.

I left the citadel with only the Black Lancers. Malcoy and Percival were with me as well.

We swept madly from east to west. If news came that an allied citadel was in danger, I would leap up even from sleep and ride to the battlefield. Malcoy suffered terribly from this insane forced march.

He did not complain. Somehow, he clenched his teeth and struggled desperately not to fall behind.

I kept Malcoy at my side and ran him ragged. And naturally, the place beside me often became the place where the fiercest battle unfolded.

Malcoy crossed the threshold of death countless times.

With me and Percival helping him each time, he barely made it through the crises, but there was nothing to be done about the small wounds accumulating on his body.

And the more wounds gathered on his body, the more Malcoy's face became that of a soldier.

"A few words would have been enough. That a war to protect is the true war."

But he was still searching for something grand in this war.

"Looks like you need to be worked harder."

Each time, I smiled and drove him into deathtraps.

I firmly believed that if he swung his sword frantically to survive, the stray thoughts filling his head would disappear too.

But Malcoy was persistent. When the battle ended, he came to me and rattled on about the "true war."

It was long-winded nonsense not worth listening to.

"What in the world is the answer? Is there even an answer?"

After he went to the trouble of talking until his mouth hurt about what he called an answer, and I did not so much as pretend to listen every time, Malcoy finally lost patience and protested.

But I had no intention whatsoever of resolving his curiosity with my own mouth.

"You are still far off, Malcoy."

I told him to find the answer on his own and turned away.

As we roamed the border so much that the broad front began to feel narrow, at some point, Malcoy no longer spouted nonsense.

"Why, are you not going to keep going on about what the true war is?"

One day, when I asked, he answered me with an exhausted face.

"I am no longer even curious."

His eyes seemed to be asking whether such a thing mattered when he was about to die at any moment.

I laughed.

I was sincerely pleased, thinking that now he finally looked suited to the battlefield.

In truth, there had never been any answer from the beginning. It would be stranger if war had an answer.

I had merely wanted to shake the stray thoughts and arrogance out of Malcoy's head, as he had acted as though he had mastered the ways of the world with his half-baked insight.

And there were countless ways in this world to shake off useless thoughts, but among them, the method I preferred was running someone so hard they had no room for useless thoughts.

The result was satisfying.

Malcoy no longer prattled nonsense, nor did he waste precious rest time on useless worries.

"We return to the Silver Lion Citadel."

Smashing the enemies we encountered on the way back, the Black Lancers and I all headed for the citadel.

The Imperial Army deployed at the border had slowly begun pulling out its forces, and to me, it looked like they were preparing to join up with the reinforcements that would soon arrive.

And my prediction proved correct.

"Your Highness! We have received word that enemy reinforcements have arrived within a week's march of the border. We will know the exact scale only once those who went out scouting return, but it is believed to be at least forty thousand."

A sigh escaped me on its own.

During that time, we had annihilated or broken apart more than fifteen legions. And yet, as if to mock our efforts, the Empire had thrown even more legions than that onto the front.

It was a moment when I once again felt the difference in strength.

On top of that, it was said that among the enemy troops newly投入ed in that way were large numbers of Mages and Paladins.

From here on was the true crisis.

But the world did not simply leave us to die.

This was exactly such a case.

"Your Highness! Reinforcements have arrived!"

With a glad heart, I ran to the North Gate and looked out over the distant plain, where I saw figures with pure white cloaks pulled low, coming under the escort of Rangers.

They were the Mages of the White Night Tower, whom the High Lich had said would finish their preparations in half a year.

They had finally achieved minor accomplishment and appeared on the front.

But that was not all.

People I had never expected were with the Mages of the White Night Tower.