The mages pouring healing magic into the crown prince with solemn faces did not lower their hands until his wounds had stopped bleeding.

The female knight who had watched without once looking away carefully took the crown prince into her arms. His blood quickly stained her snow-white dress red, but she paid it no mind. With a care that bordered on reverence, she simply lifted his limp body.

Karl Ulrich stepped forward to take the crown prince from her. Just then, the prince, whom they had thought completely unconscious, snapped his eyes open.

His lips moved slightly, but his voice was too faint to hear clearly. Only Karl and the female knight heard what he said.

"Yes, Your Highness. Please do not worry."

Only after her quiet reply did the crown prince close his eyes again, looking reassured. This time, he truly lost consciousness.

The king asked her, "What did he say?"

A faint look of discomfiture crossed her face. The king could not understand it. The only person present who could was Karl, who had also heard the crown prince's final request.

Karl not only understood her predicament perfectly; he sympathized with it. That was how absurd the prince's words had been.

It was his. If anyone so much as touched it, he would make them pay.

At first, even Karl had not understood what he meant. When he belatedly realized the prince was talking about the enemy knight's greatsword, he had nearly burst out laughing.

In truth, it was nothing new. When crossing blades with an enemy, the crown prince was a hero fully deserving of being called a great knight. Away from his enemies, however, he was far removed from greatness. If anything, he was like an immature child.

To Karl, who knew that side of him, the request was perfectly typical of the crown prince. But that was one thing, and the present circumstances were another.

Karl glanced around. Countless dignitaries had gathered here, from the kingdom's nobles and knights to envoys from foreign lands.

Still spellbound by the crown prince's extraordinary battle, they regarded him as a great knight without equal in the world. Repeating his request word for word before such an audience would be rather embarrassing. All the more so for Arwen Kirgayen, who was famously earnest.

"Did he tell you some secret that cannot be disclosed here?" the king asked her again.

"It is nothing of the sort, but..."

The knight, who almost never trailed off, left her sentence unfinished.

"His Highness said that the enemy knight's sword is a demonic sword, and that touching it in ignorance could cause considerable harm. He urged us to handle it with the utmost care."

Unable to watch any longer, Karl answered the king in her place.

"He also instructed us to avoid touching it until he wakes, if possible. Since we cannot leave it lying there, however, he specifically asked Dame Arwen to move it."

The crown prince had indeed said those things. Admittedly, he had only said them out of concern that someone might lay a hand on his property, but Karl had not invented anything. He had not lied before the king.

The female knight gave Karl a small, grateful look.

"I will attend to His Highness."

Karl approached and held out his hands.

Looking between the prince in her arms and the demonic sword lying on the ground, she stiffened almost imperceptibly. She seemed to want to carry the prince herself, but she could not bring that ominous sword near him while he was unconscious.

"Dame Arwen."

At last, she sighed and handed him over.

Karl carefully gathered the crown prince into his arms and looked at the king. The king nodded. Carrying the prince, Karl began to walk.

The nobles and knights crowded thickly around them drew back to make a path. Karl walked down its center.

Wherever he passed, people silently dropped to their knees. Among them were the kingdom's nobles and knights, the foreign envoys who had come for the banquet, and even the kingdom's proud Silver Lions.

All paid their respects in the same manner. Their gestures, hands over their left breasts and heads bowed, were so reverent that Karl found himself choking up.

A boy who had lived amid contempt and ridicule. The royal family's eldest son, denied even empty formalities of respect. A prince abandoned by his own father and driven into the bitter winds of the North. To see that crown prince receive such homage now filled Karl's heart to bursting.

Struggling to hide his emotion, he put strength into his steps. He straightened his chest and squared his shoulders, lest any weakness of his reflect poorly on the prince. Thus Karl walked through the gathered crowd and departed.

Watching in silence, the king found it just as difficult to contain his rising emotions. Yet his feelings were different. Where the Royal Knight was moved by joy and wonder, the emotion seething within the king was guilt.

Was this how he had earned the scars on his body? Had he been fighting all this time drenched in blood like this? While I sat on the throne wasting time, had he struggled this desperately to reach where he is now?

Suddenly, the king remembered a conversation with his eldest son several years earlier.

["Fifty-six battles in the past year alone."]

["Where were you all that time, Your Majesty?"]

He had only grown angry at his son's questions, believing that the boy was flaunting his accomplishments to humiliate him. What did it matter if a child boasted a little? His victories had been so hard-won. Looking back, the king's response had been petty indeed.

He regretted it, over and over. But he could not undo what had already passed.

It was an obvious truth everyone knew, yet his past self had not understood it. He had lost so much dwelling in regret on a past he could not change. He had no intention of making the same mistake again.

The king looked not to the past, but to the future. He would devote his life to making the kingdom strong and prosperous. He would make the throne his son would one day occupy shine all the brighter. That was the atonement he had resolved upon.

This was only the beginning. The king surveyed those around him, then addressed the kingdom's nobles and knights in a ringing voice.

"Behold! See how hollow a pact with the faithless is!"

The nobles' eyes began to blaze. Rage spread like wildfire against the lawless intruders who had disregarded even the peace negotiations and invaded the very heart of the kingdom.

The king turned his gaze to the foreign delegations.

"Behold! See the price of having greedy wretches for neighbors!"

Unease and apprehension appeared on the envoys' faces.

"The imperial knight said the nightmare had already begun!"

Rather than reassure them, the king stoked their fears. The Nightmare Knight's words were as good as saying the war had already begun, he told them. Perhaps even at this very moment, the Imperial Army was advancing with weapons leveled.

The envoys murmured among themselves, their pale faces filled with fear. A few shifted restlessly, as though ready to return home that very instant. The king watched them quietly. Then, when their fear and anxiety reached their peak, he posed a question.

"Will you fight alone and perish? Or will you fight together and triumph?"

At any other time, the question would have failed to sway them. Before assessing their chances of winning a war, the envoys would have sought ways to avoid it. But now things were different.

They had just heard an imperial knight deliver what amounted to a declaration of war. They had witnessed the inhuman power of a Penta Knight. What they had experienced this day was enough to drive them to the brink.

And a cornered rat would bite a cat.

"We will fight together!"

"We cannot simply sit and let them strike!"

Just as they were doing now.

Inwardly, the king smiled in satisfaction.

"Our kingdom supports your choice and will gladly stand as your ally should you need us!"

Outwardly, he played the trustworthy friend.

But not everyone had lost their composure and fallen for the king's incitement. Some had stepped back to observe the situation. One of them came forward and asked in fluent Leonberk speech,

"Does Leonberk possess the strength to do so?"

The heated mood cooled as though doused with cold water.

"I am asking whether Leonberk will have the resources to look beyond its own borders if war resumes."

In the ensuing silence, the envoys waited for the king to speak. His expression did not change in the slightest at the blunt question.

"We defeated thirty-seven of the imperial legions that invaded our kingdom and broke forty-two knightly orders. We burned twenty-nine territories in the Empire's southern and central regions and slew their lords. In the process, we annihilated eleven enemy legions."

He merely listed, in an even tone, the victories the kingdom had won in the last war.

"The kingdom triumphed, and the Empire was driven back. And..."

The king turned his head.

"Here today, our kingdom has triumphed once more."

A scarlet pool of blood. Shattered pieces of metal. Amid them lay the Penta Knight's mutilated corpse. The king regarded it without a word. It was a silent demonstration, more persuasive than a hundred words.

"Indeed. That is answer enough."

The envoy who had stepped forward bowed and withdrew. No one else questioned the kingdom's capabilities.

"All remaining events will be canceled. Rest your minds and bodies without concern. Afterward, I hope you will consider the present situation with clear heads and reach your decisions."

The king declared the official proceedings over.

The envoys bowed in farewell as he walked past them. Then he suddenly stopped, as though something had just occurred to him.

"Dotrin, Teuton, and several other kingdoms have already agreed to join us. Bear that in mind when making your decisions."

He added that those who first extended their hands in troubled times would not receive the same treatment as those who only later followed the prevailing tide.

The envoys' heads snapped up at that. But the king did not look back. He simply left.

* * *

"Exactly two days," Marquis Bielefeld said. "That was all it took for the envoys to begin competing to request audiences with His Majesty."

Listening from my bed, I voiced a question.

"Dotrin was our ally from the start, and Teuton signed an agreement, so that makes sense. But what were those other kingdoms?"

"Several countries had already engaged in close discussions with His Majesty before the banquet began. The envoy who questioned our kingdom's capabilities was from one of them."

I let out a quiet sound of admiration. I had never imagined the king had prepared so much while I was wrestling with my original body. It made saving him, even at the cost of precious Nectar, feel worthwhile all over again.

"I would phrase it a little more delicately: he won them over and coordinated their statements in advance."

Apparently displeased with my choice of words, the marquis began to lecture me.

"Same difference. And if you're going to put on airs, put down that bottle. Isn't a refined noble supposed to pour his drink into a glass?"

I answered indifferently, then frowned as it struck me that all the fine liquor the Teuton princess had given me was disappearing into the marquis's stomach.

"What does it matter whether one drinks from a glass or straight from the bottle? What matters is appreciating the flavor."

Despite the embarrassment on his face and his pathetic excuses, he never put the bottle down.

I wanted to snatch it away from him that instant, but my body would not cooperate. After struggling and groaning for a while, I finally sank back into bed.

Perhaps feeling a little guilty at the sight, the marquis quietly changed the subject.

"More importantly, do you know what people are calling you, Your Highness?"

"What are they calling me?"

At my curt question, he smiled.

"When you swung your blue-shrouded blade and cleaved through the Penta Knight's waning-moon sword aura, they say you looked just like the dawn driving away the night. They call you the Knight of Dawn."

"What?"

At his words, my heart gave a heavy thud.

"The Knight of Dawn. A lofty, grand name fit for some ancient heroic tale, is it not?"

I frowned involuntarily at the sudden pounding.

"You seem embarrassed."

Misreading my expression, the marquis began to tease me.

For some reason, everything began to feel distant.

"You brought this on yourself, Your Highness. You were the one who first spoke of dawn's light awakening people from nightmares..."

Even the marquis's voice grew more and more distant until I could no longer hear it.

Silence enveloped me. From somewhere came the whine of wind. Yet there could be no wind in the bedchamber, not with even the shutters closed.

My vision blurred and faded. Beyond the haze, a scene appeared like a vision.

In the middle of a snow-covered plain was a man. He knelt on both knees, head bowed, a broken sword planted in the ground.

As I watched, transfixed, he abruptly raised his head. His face was strangely indistinct.

Suddenly, the man raised the broken sword high.

THUNK.

Without a moment's hesitation, he plunged it into his own chest.

A stab of pain shot through me. I recoiled and clutched my chest, feeling as though a hunk of metal were gouging out my heart.

At that very moment, the blurred face turned straight toward me. The man's bloodless lips moved.