The map was spread across the improvised wooden table at the center of Dreisburg.
It was not a glorious object.
Stained with mud, marked with charcoal, folded at several corners.
But to Kaito, that piece of parchment was more powerful than any holy sword.
"Here," Adelheid said, pressing a gloved finger against the map.
"The eastern trade routes."
"Here," she slid her finger with precision. "Guard posts with poorly managed rotating shifts."
"And here…" her voice grew colder. "The lower districts of Avernor."
Kaito watched in silence.
"They are not fortresses," Adelheid continued.
"They are not walls.
They are people."
She lifted her gaze and looked straight at him.
"We don't need to take the castle.
We only need to cut what keeps it standing."
Kaito closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, there was no doubt left in them.
"Then we start from the inside."
---
The soldiers who had deserted from the Kingdom of Avernor stood lined up before him.
They didn't look like heroes.
They didn't look like revolutionaries.
They were tired men, with worn armor and hollow eyes.
"Listen carefully," Kaito said.
"You will not return as traitors.
You will return as shadows."
Adelheid stood at his side, motionless, like a statue of war.
"You will go back to Avernor," he continued.
"To your former posts.
To your old routines."
"Do not recruit," Adelheid added sharply.
"Do not promise anything.
Just observe."
Kaito nodded.
"I want names.
I want faces.
I want to know who hates this kingdom as much as I do."
His voice hardened.
"I don't want fanatics.
I want people who are already broken inside."
The soldiers swallowed… and nodded.
"Understood, Commander!"
One by one, they vanished into the forest paths.
Not like an army.
But like an infection.
---
Inside the Kingdom of Avernor
The city was still alive.
Too alive to notice its own rot.
A soldier leaned against a wall, counting coins that weren't enough to pay for his meal.
A guard was publicly flogged for falling asleep after a twenty-hour watch.
A minor official bowed his head while a noble insulted him for a mistake he hadn't made.
"Why do we even defend this place…?" someone whispered in a tavern.
"Because we have no choice," another replied.
But doubt had already been born.
And doubt… is more dangerous than any sword.
---
In an alley of the lower district, a veteran sergeant drank in silence.
Adelheid sat across from him without announcing herself.
"They've cut your pay three times this year," she said calmly.
"Your son was rejected from training for not having a surname."
"And yet… you keep obeying."
The man looked up, startled.
"Who…?"
"It doesn't matter who I am," she replied.
"What matters is who you could be."
She activated her power.
There was no explosion.
No screams.
Only an invisible pressure that crushed the man's doubts… and reorganized his will.
"…This kingdom…" the sergeant murmured.
"…does not deserve my loyalty."
Later, elsewhere in the city, a leader of the lower districts heard similar words.
It was not absolute domination.
It was direction.
Adelheid did not force them to die.
She showed them where to aim their anger.
---
Back in Dreisburg, Kaito watched children playing with freshly baked bread.
Laughter. Dirty hands. Lives that were just beginning.
"We have to move them," he said at last.
Adelheid turned.
"Evacuate?"
"Yes.
Children and the elderly first.
To the northern hills.
Temporarily."
For the first time since they met, Adelheid hesitated.
"That weakens our position," she warned.
"The kingdom could—"
"A kingdom that sacrifices its children," Kaito interrupted firmly,
"has already chosen its end."
Silence fell between them.
Adelheid studied him for several seconds.
Then she lowered her head.
"…Understood, Commander."
---
That same night, a torch was lit atop a distant tower.
A messenger from the Kingdom of Avernor rode without rest toward Dreisburg.
He carried no questions.
He carried an order.
Adelheid watched the distant light from the improvised wall.
"The kingdom has noticed the infection…" she said quietly,
"and has decided to cut it out."
Kaito clenched his fist.
"Then let the surgeon come."
Because Avernor did not yet know—
but its collapse
could no longer be stopped.