* * *

As the bells that should have announced the beginning of the Misty hours shattered and the fog sweeping into London vanished, a man watched the spectacle with cold eyes.

From the mask concealing his face to his drab cloak, his entire outfit practically proclaimed how suspicious he was. Yet the eyes of those around him naturally passed him by as he muttered inwardly.

'It worked.'

Of course, failure had never been possible. All of this was the result of the great star's guidance. Success had been ordained from the beginning.

'Fools.'

Thus, a cold sneer settled on his face. The Monarch of Magic, who had let himself be shackled by the past and rushed headlong into his obsession with eliminating the Misty hours, and the citizens of London, cheering without any idea what was about to happen, looked equally foolish to him.

Had they possessed the brains to consider why House Seaserpent, which had protected the British Empire for generations, had opposed eliminating the Misty hours to the very end, they would not have rejoiced so blindly.

Then again, perhaps that was only natural. They were the masses, after all—a vulgar, stupid breed no better than animals, ready to expose their bellies to anyone who dangled an immediate benefit before their eyes.

Regardless, thanks to them, the obstacle in his path was gone, and everything had proceeded according to plan.

"Now all that remains is to find it and take possession of it."

The man reached inside his cloak. Taking out a small bell and resting it on his palm, he stepped into one of London's grandest and most venerable buildings.

He had no need to worry about prying eyes. The Misty hours left all of London deserted, and even if someone were there, they would never notice him wearing 『Hermes's Cloak of Invisibility』.

JINGLE.

'So it was here, just as I thought.'

Perhaps it was thanks to his confident stride. He had barely entered the building when the bell rang, drawing a cold smile from him.

He turned to follow its chime, intending to claim the Seven Arcs that lay dormant here, as foretold by the great star.

But when he finally followed the bell to a carefully concealed chamber, he could only freeze.

"Hey, finally made it? You took your time, considering all the trouble you went to."

No outsider should have entered this chamber for at least half a century. The moment he saw someone planted firmly inside it, he involuntarily caught his breath.

"Why are you here...!"

"Why else? The same reason you are."

Limon, the black-haired man with insolent eyes, chuckled. Standing firmly in front of a statue at the center of the countless magic circles covering the chamber, he regarded the man with a chilly gaze.

"A ghost of the Liberation Brigade."

One of the ultimate objectives that had brought Limon to London—and the person behind all this turmoil. In an icy voice, he spoke that person's name.

"Or should I call you Your Highness Edward?"

The masked man codenamed Kaiser ranked tenth among the Liberation Brigade's twelve ghosts. Looking at the young man with faded blond hair who would inherit the British Empire's throne, Limon gave a cold sneer.

* * *

Was it fitting for a ghost of the Liberation Brigade? Or for a crown prince? Edward remained frozen in dismay for only a moment. Soon his expression turned cold again, and he removed the mask covering his face as he asked in an icy voice.

"... How did you learn my identity?"

"Well, it wasn't anything impressive. Just the result of a simple deduction."

"Deduction? You discovered my identity through mere guesswork?"

"That's right."

Limon let out an incredulous chuckle at Edward's rigid expression of utter disbelief. Then he crossed his arms and continued leisurely.

"Honestly, at first I suspected that bastard, the Monarch of Magic, was the Liberation Brigade's ghost. The little prick had been up to so much."

Relentlessly pressuring Rose, scheming against her, and more—Karl's willingness to use any means necessary to eliminate the mist of the Misty hours was suspicious enough on its own.

"But when I thought it over, that prick didn't fit the principles, no matter how I looked at it."

"Principles?"

"Hmm, well. Think of it as style or personality."

The Liberation Brigade ghost Limon was pursuing had summoned Claire all the way to London without contacting her even once. To put it kindly, that suggested extreme caution. More bluntly, it meant a timid coward.

Would such a ghost really act as openly and aggressively as Karl, taking center stage? Having spent his life beating down countless villains, Limon excelled at recognizing rotten personalities, and the idea struck him as distinctly dubious.

"So I started giving more weight to the possibility that someone was using the Monarch of Magic."

Others might have struggled to imagine it, but for Limon, who had already experienced the precedent of Lee Cheon-gi, it was hardly a difficult guess.

"Then I considered who had enough influence to move the Monarch of Magic and stood to gain the most from a clash between him and the Seven Dragons Society. The answer came easily."

"..."

"Someone connected to the royal family was the Liberation Brigade's ghost."

The Blue Dragon Clan and the Magus Guild held almost equal shares of control over the British Empire. Put another way, the royal family's actual influence over the empire was negligible.

But if House Seaserpent and the Magus Guild came into conflict and inflicted devastating losses on each other? That would give the royal family a golden opportunity to reclaim control of the empire.

"... If that were all, my uncle should have been the more likely suspect."

"Ah, that fellow—Robert, or was it Robot? He certainly was suspicious too. For one thing, he's a duke-class player."

Every ghost of the Liberation Brigade was a high-level player. In that respect, Duke Robert, renowned as the Archduke of White Music, was certainly a strong suspect.

"But he didn't fit the principles either."

The problem was that he, too, failed to match the culprit Limon was seeking. His power might have amounted to little beside the Blue Dragon Clan and the Magus Guild, but he had still steered the British Empire as its regent.

"So I looked for someone who fit the principles. Someone connected to the royal family who attracted the least attention and could have plotted all this from the background."

"And that was me?"

"That's right."

Limon nodded readily, then continued with an icy smile.

"A weak crown prince pushed around by the regent. But turn that around, and it means you're in a position to pin the blame on the regent, no matter what happens."

Of course, that alone would not have convinced even Limon that Edward was the ghost. It was Rose who had given him certainty.

"Besides, I hear you were considered something of a genius as a child. You simply became more ordinary as you grew up."

"..."

"That's a common enough story. But it's a different matter if your talent never disappeared and you simply became better at hiding yourself."

There was also Edward's childhood interest in strengthening royal authority, and evidence that he had feigned weakness and indecision while walking a tightrope between House Seaserpent and the Magus Guild, subtly encouraging their conflict. Recalling the various stories Rose had told him after their night in the garden, Limon chuckled.

It had been so easy to find the answer. He could only laugh wryly at how long he had wandered about simply because he had lacked a few basic pieces of information.

Of course, they had reached this conclusion only because Rose, with her detailed knowledge of the royal family, and Limon, with his knowledge of the Liberation Brigade, had discussed matters frankly. If Rose had refused to open her heart to him and tried to solve everything alone, they would never have discovered it.

"... So Countess Rose was your source. A hindrance to the bitter end."

Realizing why he had been exposed, Edward clicked his tongue. Then he glared at Limon, his icy face utterly devoid of his usual weak demeanor.

"If you knew that much, why did you let the Monarch of Magic destroy the Great Barrier of London?"

"Oh, that? Because I'd figured out your objective."

"My objective?"

"Don't play innocent. There's only one reason a Liberation Brigade ghost would murder witches of the twenty-seven magical lineages and go so far as to egg on the Monarch of Magic to destroy the Great Barrier of London."

Limon grinned and patted the statue behind him with his palm.

"To find the Seven Arcs."

At that instant, Edward's expression changed drastically.

"How do you know about that...!"

"Well, it pays to have bad friends."

Limon smiled wickedly at Edward's dismay. How could an outsider know about the Seven Arcs, the Liberation Brigade's most closely guarded secret, which only the twelve ghosts should have known?

In truth, Limon had anticipated Edward's real objective ever since learning that the Seven Arcs were a kind of seal. If the Seven Arcs referred to something sealed within preexisting objects, the likeliest candidates were magical artifacts of divine-relic caliber, such as the Violin of Deepest Black.

And the witches of the twenty-seven magical lineages knew better than anyone where London's most precious magical artifacts of divine-relic caliber were kept.

"During the Demon God War, the witches of the twenty-seven magical lineages used magical artifacts of divine-relic caliber collected from all over Europe as focal points for the Great Barrier of London."

The Great Barrier of London was one of the most powerful spells created in the Silver Age. Lacking the strength to revive it on their own, the witches had used various divine relics.

This had been possible because, as the Demon God devastated Europe, divine relics that had originally been strategic assets of various nations flowed into London alongside refugees.

Thanks to them, the witches had revived the Great Barrier of London, but in exchange, the divine relics used as its mediums could no longer be touched. They formed the barrier's core. As long as the Great Barrier of London remained in existence, no one could take them away.

"If the Seven Arcs were among them, there was no reason to stop him from destroying the Great Barrier of London. It would save me unnecessary trouble."

GRIND!

Edward clenched his teeth. Only now did he understand why House Seaserpent had been so strangely quiet since the incident at the ball. It was not because they lacked the power to stop the Monarch of Magic, but because they, too, intended to exploit this opportunity.

Only one thing remained unexplained.

"Even so, how did you find this place before I did? Even I couldn't identify which one was the Seven Arcs!"

Nine divine relics had been used in the Great Barrier of London. Even he did not know which of them was the Seven Arcs. He had merely examined royal records and come here first to begin searching the most likely locations.

So how had Limon found the divine relic hidden in the British Museum before him? In response to Edward's question, laden with frustration and bewilderment, Limon chuckled and waved the smartphone in his hand.

"Mine comes with radar."

"... What?"

"You should've upgraded your model ages ago. A bell, in this day and age? What are you, some old fossil?"

"..."

As Limon treated him like an old man who had fallen behind the times, Edward could not help feeling, for some reason, that this was profoundly unfair.