After the war, Lavirata declared a closed-door policy. A complete rejection of all outsiders.
In truth, it meant she would continue to rule the southern wasteland as she had before, but Lavirata had no other choice.
Lavirata was collapsing. The damage to her Magic Circuit was not something even the greatest relic of the Empire of Ashit could easily heal.
[Are you leaving now?]
“Didn’t I order the expulsion of all outsiders?”
[You are not an outsider. I wish to grant you a few days’ grace.]
Fernandez smiled at her words and adjusted his attire. Lavirata was seated within a complex Magical Formation. She had to use five of Odin’s Rune Glyphs to construct a spell to heal her body.
-No matter how I think about it, the loss seems greater.
‘Stop thinking about opportunity costs.’
Fernandez adjusted the relic placed on her lap one last time and stood up.
[When will we see each other again?]
“When the moment calls for it. Perhaps soon.”
The conversation ended there. Fernandez turned his back and left the palace.
In sync with his footsteps, all the Wraiths standing in the palace knelt one by one, bowing their heads.
A grand farewell, indeed. Fernandez approached Kirhas, who was waiting at the palace entrance. Kirhas, leading two mounted horses, whispered quietly to him.
“Your Excellency, the Wraiths are a no-go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re just dead corpses, after all. That woman is a no-go.”
“Not worth answering.”
Fernandez tapped the horse’s nose to calm it and mounted the saddle.
In the distance, a crowd could be seen exiting the city gates. Beyond the wide-open gates, the military forces of the Beastman Nobility were visible.
Fernandez smirked.
The first to leave Ibalis was Duke Erbe’s army. Lavirata herself had opened the gates to let them out.
Only after their procession had completely exited could the Imperial Army leave the city.
It was one of the commands Fernandez had given Lavirata. To strictly follow the order of expulsion.
“Look at those beasts. How dare those insolent mongrels…?”
The knights felt an indelible sense of humiliation as they looked down at the Beastmen who had set up camp beyond the ridge.
The Beastmen stood in silence, arrayed around the city of Ibalis, watching them.
Their eyes were as if they were looking at defeated soldiers. And indeed, they were nothing more than defeated soldiers. Defeated soldiers relying on the goodwill of Duke Erbe and Lavirata.
Nearly half of the forces that had led the charge had died buried beneath the city walls, and the remaining forces were not in good shape either.
“Sir Everard. Sir Bernard is coming.”
A knight whispered softly. Beyond the ridge, the military forces of the Beastman Nobility split in half, and the Imperial Army’s flag wavered. Against the backdrop of the setting sun.
The knights welcomed Bernard’s troops with the feeling of looking at a savior. Just as the Beastmen, who had been staring blankly at them, began to tense up, the arrival of the rear guard, which had suffered no damage from the siege, was a great relief.
“Sir Everard. You’ve had a hard time.”
“Sir Bernard. Thank you for coming out personally. Please take care of the wounded. Damn those beasts. How dare they act so arrogantly without even setting foot on the battlefield…?”
Everard clicked his tongue as he looked at the Legion of Beastmen still staring down at them.
Pathetic creatures. This war started because of their request for support, and yet they treat us with such coldness.
Then, Bernard smiled bitterly. He wasn’t looking at Everard.
His gaze was fixed further away, on the rear guard of the soldiers.
“Sir Bernard?”
Everard’s intuition sounded an alarm. He slowly placed his hand on the sword hilt and turned his head to follow Bernard’s gaze.
Someone was approaching from the rear guard of the soldiers.
A familiar face.
Pernin. The Chieftain’s favorite. Had he participated in the battle…? Beside him, Hearttaker was walking.
And beyond that. Beyond the wide-open city gates, Wraiths could be seen kneeling and bowing their heads. The monsters who had slaughtered his soldiers without emotion… were now bowing to that man as if in submission.
“What is this…?”
Everard was a sharp man. The alarm in his head was ringing madly.
Someone who could influence the Chieftain of the Beastmen, someone who could exert influence over Duke Erbe. And… someone who could command the Legion of Wraiths like his own limbs.
A monster that shouldn’t exist…
“Ha.”
Everard laughed hollowly. Duke Erbe wasn’t just incredibly lucky or born under a strange fate.
It wasn’t that the world had struggled to make him a hero, to give him power…
It meant that one man had made it so.
“Sir Bernard.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Betrayal… What did you betray us for?”
“……”
Bernard stepped back without a word. At his gesture, the Imperial rear guard began to spread out and form a defensive formation. It was a textbook-perfect assault formation.
And from beyond the ridge, the Beastman Nobility slowly approached, beginning to surround Everard’s forces.
“Will you struggle?”
It should have been a great distance, but the tension in the air made his voice carry.
“Monster…”
“The Empire is a strange country indeed.”
Fernandez spoke in a calm tone as he slowly approached. The soldiers dared not oppose him, standing alongside Kirhas.
With the Beastmen who had not been exhausted in the last battle surrounding them, a single word from the Chieftain would mean their deaths.
“Maintaining a rotten soil with an astonishingly excellent system. Corrupt officials and decadent nobles abound, their stench piercing everywhere, yet the solid system and wealthy territory remain intact even after a thousand years.”
-Clop, clop.
As his horse approached, Everard felt as if he couldn’t breathe.
“The technological prowess, administrative power, and accumulated knowledge of the eastern continent—there is no part that does not belong to the Empire. Beyond military and administrative reach, in the realm of culture, the Empire has already seized half of the continent. Now, after the fall of the Empire, will the civilization of the eastern Great Wilderness remain the same?”
The eastern Great Wilderness. In the vast domain spanning the Empire, the southern small states, and the Eastern Kingdom Alliance. There is no nation untouched by the Empire’s influence.
The Empire has succeeded in maintaining a solid system for a thousand long years. And the time built upon that solid soil can be directly translated into the wisdom of civilized society.
Engulfed in the chaos of war…
