Previously, back when he was in Border Guard, three servants of the demons had come calling. When one of them, the merchant draped in gold, offered him immortality, what had the other bastard said he would give him again?
"The entire continent."
Enkrid dredged up the memory. There had been three servants who came to Border Guard. The mage bastard had talked about the path to becoming a demigod.
Every one of them put some goal forward and used a reward as temptation, but never discussed the road there or how it would be accomplished.
Did it not matter how you got there, so long as the objective was fulfilled? To put it another way and fit it to his current situation, if the goal was to erase the Demon lands, would it be fine if some people died in the process? Would it be acceptable if an entire kingdom burned down?
Of course not.
The goal was to protect what stood behind him, not to destroy the Demon lands. Enkrid had not forgotten that. Once he organized his thoughts, it became obvious what the servant had wanted as well.
"What that servant wanted back then was corruption."
What those he had fought this time wanted was corruption too.
They put forward people ensnared by demons and asked whether those people were worth protecting. That was how they planted doubt in one's heart and left soot behind.
Of course, Enkrid had simply brushed it all off. It was only now, thinking back on it, that he felt he understood just how cowardly and petty demons were.
Kraiss had probably already guessed it.
"They don't come out of the Demon lands."
If the remaining five joined forces and attacked, the gap in strength might become so great that it would be hard even to properly begin the fight, and yet they schemed from inside the Demon lands without stepping out.
That fact meant only one thing.
What, really, were those so called lords of the Demon lands?
"Cowards flailing to keep from losing a single thing clutched in their hands."
Then what about the emperor those imperial envoys were speaking for now? Was he a different kind of person?
This was a place for receiving an envoy from a foreign nation, and from the Empire at that. Officially, they should have met in the audience chamber, but this was an unofficial gathering first.
It was the largest reception room in the royal palace. There were dozens of chairs around a long oval table.
Fewer than ten people sat there. Servants had brought tea and refreshments, and steam curled up from the tabletop.
Crackle, crackle, the sound of burning firewood rang from the fireplace. It had grown warmer, but there was still a chill drifting through the castle. The warmth from the fireplace brushed the flanks and underarms of everyone seated there, yet the mood was as cold as if a bitter wind were blowing through.
"Welcome."
Crang welcomed them with an expression that was not happy in the slightest.
"On the way here, two mages blocked our path."
Whatever the king said, Valphir Valmung said only what he had come to say.
"We're fate, you know."
The curly blond mage with drooping eyes and a face that was strangely irritating kept incessantly making passes at Esther from one side.
Esther acted as if she couldn't hear a word he was saying, and Rem, seated beside her, wore the same face as always as he sat next to Enkrid and whispered,
"I'm thinking that bastard's nickname has got to be something like Fate Mage."
Rem adjusted his volume just right so that only Enkrid could hear, and Enkrid gave the slightest nod without letting the other side notice. He agreed.
"Ah, us too."
In the meantime, Crang answered Valmung's words. They weren't the only ones who had been attacked.
At that, Valmung's brow narrowed. It was the sort of look that said he didn't like something. Enkrid watched him from the side with indifferent eyes.
The process of dressing things up in pleasant words, showing mutual courtesy, and exchanging niceties had been omitted. Before getting to the point, they were measuring each other.
The Duke of Octo felt as though he were sitting on needles, because the air was thick with discomfort, while Duke Marcus remained calm because he knew the king he served was every bit as mad as Enkrid, commander of the Mad Order of Knights. At least on the surface.
The head of the Royal Guard reacted openly to the force shown by the foreign knight. The spear tip did not tilt forward, but veins stood out on the back of his hand. It made his intent clear, if things turned bad, he was willing to fight.
The sparring sessions he had with Enkrid over the past few days had hammered the head of the Royal Guard solid once more.
If one asked why there were no formal courtesies or surface politeness, the reason they were meeting in the reception room instead of the audience chamber was exactly this.
To lay their true intentions bare.
If things did not get tangled up and broken here, pleasant words would be exchanged in the audience chamber.
And if not, then it would be war again.
The great power of the South had come pressing with force from the beginning, and with the Empire, the only difference was that they had sent envoys before starting the fight.
"What does the emperor want?"
Watching how things were unfolding, Enkrid thought to himself. Kraiss was busy silently observing the imperial delegation. Crang smiled faintly.
"I was told you didn't come here to fight. Was I mistaken?"
He said it with that same smiling face. It was like forming a dagger with words and stabbing with it. If you came to fight, then fight; if not, then why are you here?
That was practically what he was asking.
***
The Empire had unified the continent's currency and language. That fact alone was enough to prove the magnitude of their power.
The hegemon of the continent. That was why they were the Empire.
And so, the attitude people took toward envoys of the Northern Empire was generally always the same.
Either they revered them, or they feared them.
From that attitude, they always made room beside them in hopes of getting along.
Valphir Valmung was someone who knew very well how to make use of the Empire's prestige, which was why he found the king sitting before him now interesting.
"Is he fearless?"
Or was he simply shallow?
"Or maybe he has something he trusts in."
Cradianat Randios Nauril was different not merely because he was the ruler of Naurillia. The man himself was different. That was how Valmung saw it.
"Should we take a walk in the garden instead of staying here?"
The mage, heedless of the mood around him, kept throwing flirtatious remarks toward the witch on the other side. Hearing Crang's question, Valmung stared into his eyes for a while before speaking.
"Nepir Tesher, your presence here was by His Majesty the Emperor's command."
At those words, the curly-haired blond mage shut his mouth.
"I know."
He answered curtly, then leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed. Only then did Valmung speak again.
"How about a spar?"
It was abrupt, but no one looked surprised. Among the people here, who would be startled by something like this?
Every one of them had iron in their guts. And no one needed to ask who he was talking to. Naturally, everyone's gaze turned to Enkrid.
"I can do it."
Rem cut in with the answer. If he missed out on something like this, the title Hero of the West would go to waste.
"He came here to see me. Don't cut in line."
Enkrid scolded Rem.
"Come on, isn't it a bit much trying to hog all the fun for yourself?"
The few words the two exchanged sounded like provocation to Valmung. In truth, that was surely the intent.
"The king's one thing, but."
This side really was more to his taste. The Mad Order of Knights, what alluring prey.
The epithet Valmung had received was Beastly Knight.
He bared his sharp fangs. A child born with his mother tainted by vampire blood in her womb, and therefore a child who should have died cursed, that was Valphir Valmung's past.
His time as a centurion in the Ilai Mercenary Company had lasted only a very short while.
He had escaped the fate laid out for him and became a knight of the Empire. It wasn't as though no helping hands had reached out to him along the way, but the reason he had come this far was his own talent, luck, and effort.
"I will prove what I have built."
Those who chose to live in the world by making strength their trade, swordsmen, mercenaries, the like, what they desired most was proof of their own power.
To show off what one possessed was one of the innate desires of mankind.
And if all of that was for the sake of the person one loved most, then how joyful would that be?
Besides, it was not all that different from the countless things he had done before. This was the sort of thing he mainly did.
"For His Majesty the Emperor's sake, I'll have to break your pride."
Valmung spoke and shoved his chair back with a scrape as he rose. Even with the fire burning in the hearth, the subtle lingering chill seemed to whoosh away like it was fleeing.
"Then for the sake of my king and friend, I suppose I just need to pluck one of those pretty little fangs of yours."
When it came to provocation, Enkrid yielded to no one. He gripped the chair with his left hand, pulled it back, and stood.
"Mol."
At Valmung's word, a man who appeared to be his attendant handed over a belt. He strapped it on and took up his weapon again.
To behave like this in a place where he was meeting a king was, in itself, a major breach of etiquette. Even if they had agreed to lay their intentions bare.
He had even left the disarming to one of his own people, and now, without permission, he was rearming himself?
There would have been no grounds for complaint even if soldiers immediately surrounded the area and leveled spearpoints at him. But Valmung didn't care about any of that.
"Is this the arrogance that comes with being from the Empire?"
The Duke of Octo thought so and was displeased, but Marcus saw it differently.
"He's a born fighter."
Sure, there was undoubtedly an ulterior motive here too, but right now, all he wanted was to display and prove the strength he possessed.
Marcus had swallowed enough politics to recognize what was in front of him.
"When His Majesty sent this man as an envoy, he must have factored in even this sort of thing."
A man with an inborn disposition like this would never have been sent here merely to bow nicely and make peace.
And on top of that, if a knight of this level decided to run wild, it would be hard to stop him unless one had another knight to do it, so that kind of confidence was only natural.
A knight was a walking army, a disaster with a will of its own. Why else did every kingdom struggle so desperately to raise knights?
Why, even Count Molsen, who had started a civil war, had tried to create chimera knights through magical experiments.
"My name is Valphir Valmung. His Majesty the Emperor decreed and bestowed upon me the epithet Beast, and thus I am the Beastly Knight."
In the Empire, the emperor gave every knight their epithet.
That was something Crang, Marcus, Octo, and Enkrid did not know.
They simply took it at face value because the other man had said it.
"Enkrid."
Enkrid stated his own name plainly. In the kingdoms, whatever it was like in the Empire, epithets were given by others. That was why there was no need to say his with his own mouth.
If he were speaking from the heart, then maybe he would have, but this was not such a moment.
It was one of the cultural differences between the Empire and the kingdoms. Instead, Crang recited Enkrid's epithet for him.
"He's the Demonic Knight."
At that, Rem snickered. Enkrid rose from his seat and took up his sword belt. The moment Today settled at his waist, it sent a small tremor through not just the belt but his entire body.
It was curious, if one wanted to call it that, but Enkrid read the emotion his sword conveyed. In truth, the sword itself did not possess emotion.
Look more closely, and the engraved weapon Today merely reacted to his Will.
Which meant it was responding to the anticipation he himself held.
"How well do they fight?"
The fame of imperial knights stood truly high across the continent.
This was a chance to compare them against his present self, who had crushed the great power of the South, butchered demons, and come to be called the Balrog Slayer. It would have been a lie to say he felt no curiosity or anticipation.
"Your Highness, grant your permission."
Valmung spoke while looking at Enkrid, and Crang replied with a smile,
"Do as you please."
So he was confident of victory.
Valmung bared his fangs further. Smiling, he tried to read the king's true thoughts. It was a guess half right and half wrong.
Naturally, it was true that Crang hoped for Enkrid's victory, but to be honest, he also thought it wouldn't matter even if Enkrid lost.
Crang turned things over in his head and felt relieved.
What did it mean that they were putting on this kind of display of force?
"It means they have no intention of rushing straight into war."
That was the conclusion Crang reached. Kraiss had reached the same one.
Kraiss carefully examined the delegation that had followed behind Valmung the entire time.
"One knight, one mage."
They were strong enough to have repelled even an attack by Astrail's mages and the servants sent by demons.
And besides them, there was a young man who looked like the knight's attendant. He too was a combatant.
Other than those three, there were three more people who were neither merchants nor attendants.
One was a man, and two were women.
Of those, the man looked over fifty, had little hair left, and wore priestly robes of reddish cloth lined with countless buttons.
"A priest."
A holy priest, most likely. He must have come along as a healer for the long journey.
Then had the knight and the mage requested him? No. Those two had no need for a priest.
More precisely, there was no need to go out of their way to keep one with them.
Therefore—
"That priest came because of the other two."
A woman standing behind Valmung with her hands folded, dressed in fine fabric and a triangular hat, and another woman with her brown hair tied tightly back and a comparatively healthy complexion.
The latter woman sat between the mage and the priest.
If the woman standing behind was an attendant, then who was the woman seated there?
"And that position is perfect for protecting her."
While Kraiss thought to himself, the two disasters who had turned even their brains into muscle and wielded the unprecedented power called Will went outside.
The king, accompanied by the Royal Guard, and everyone present moved to the royal training grounds.
The people they passed along the way all stepped aside to either side of the hallway and waited for them to pass.
And so the two came face to face in the center of the training grounds.
"Have your skills improved a lot?"
Valmung tossed out the question. Instead of answering, Enkrid took another look at Valmung's stance. What was interesting was that he could now see something he hadn't been able to see before.
"A river that changes without cease."
This man knew how to change his Will as well. Right now, Valmung was deceiving him by subtly shifting the position of his hands, the direction of his toes, and the parts of his body where he placed strength. Even the words he spoke were a part of that deception.
"Any technique could come out of him."
In response to what the man's body was saying, Enkrid brought his sword down.
It was a fast vertical slash with no preparatory movement at all.