Lawrence Reinhardt’s father was an alchemist.
Specifically, he produced mithril alloys used for mining pickaxes and supplied them to a tool-making workshop.
To Lawrence, his father was a source of pride.
His father’s work was never the kind to catch the public eye, but Lawrence believed it was the bedrock that supported the nation.
The dark clouds began to drift over his father’s path when Lawrence was seven.
Young Lawrence didn’t quite understand what was happening, but he remembered terrifying debt collectors visiting the house day after day, and how his father grew sullen and drank much more than usual.
One day, Lawrence threw himself into the fray without a second thought to save his father from being beaten by a debt collector, only to be pummeled by three grown men.
They seemed to have held back enough that he wasn’t seriously injured, but that incident sparked a vow in Lawrence to become strong.
Thinking back on it calmly, it was obvious that trying to drive off debt collectors with martial arts would only lead to more trouble, but that was as far as a child’s logic went.
To protect his family…
The reason the rowdy boy picked up a sword was as simple as that.
Lawrence knocked on the gate of a dojo run by a retired Royal Knight, and in exchange for helping with chores, he was taught the sword for free.
There, Lawrence’s talent blossomed in the blink of an eye.
Eventually, as Lawrence grew older, he learned the truth.
The national regulations had changed, shifting the standards for alloys used in mining equipment; his father, unable to adapt, had fallen into poverty.
As a result of Federation merchants pressuring Ciel-Terra to open its markets, a treaty was established to align Ciel-Terra’s domestic systems with those of the Federation. One of the hundreds of items included in that treaty was that standard.
The Federation, which maintained its own Golem Corps, was a step ahead in magical alloy technology utilizing alchemy and received generous research support from its government. The craftsmen of Ciel-Terra simply couldn’t keep up with the new standards based on the Federation’s criteria. The workshop that had been his father’s client was forced to rely on imports from the Federation.
Though called an alchemist, his father lacked any significant breadth of knowledge or skill, having scraped by on a single alloy. He lost his job and spent his days doing unfamiliar manual labor as a porter while studying to meet the new standards until his body finally broke.
His father’s life burned out like a lamp flame slowly flickering smaller and smaller, and then he died.
Was it his father’s fault for failing to survive the changing times?
One could blame him endlessly if they chose lack of skill or lack of business acumen.
But for Lawrence, it was more than enough reason to hate the Federation.
The sword that was meant to protect his family eventually became a sword meant to cut down Federation soldiers.
With the recommendation of his dojo master, Lawrence was recruited into the Royal Knights at the age of fifteen, the year of his adulthood. To support his mother, who had been maintaining the household alone, Lawrence leaped at the commission without a moment’s hesitation.
But what awaited him there…
Lawrence’s first job as a knight…
Was to serve as reinforcements for the Federation’s war.
A country near Ciel-Terra, roughly the same size, had entered into a skirmish with the Federation. This was a war to give them a painful lesson and bring them under Federation control.
Lawrence achieved many military feats despite it being his first battle. Yet, from start to finish, Lawrence never understood what he was fighting for.
Afterward, Lawrence continued to serve his country as a knight, harboring many doubts and grievances.
Even if he could not fight the Federation directly, he believed his struggle was for the sake of the kingdom, its interests, and ultimately, to protect its people.
And so.
Lawrence…
“Haaaaaaaah!”
A diagonal downward slash, delivered with “Heaven’s Severance” active.
The blow carved into the cobblestones, and the shop behind Renée was sliced through, sliding off diagonally.
Slipping under the strike, Renée closed the distance instantly.
And just before the next horizontal swing…
“What!?”
Renée vanished.
To be precise, she used <<Short Warp>> to move behind Lawrence’s back.
The red blade Renée wielded bit into Lawrence’s armor.
On a trajectory meant to slice his torso in half.
“U-ooooooooh!?”
Lawrence twisted his body.
Refusing to resist the slash, he spun his torso, accepting a shallow semi-circular wound across his chest in exchange for avoiding a fatal blow.
Simultaneously, he slammed Taylor-Ayul toward her.
“Hah!”
Renée blocked the strike with all her might. Taylor-Ayul, imbued with <<Consecration>>, shaved away at the red blade, sending crimson sparks flying. The power of <<Bad Blood>> had already been mostly stripped away as a spell, leaving it as nothing more than mere filth that couldn’t even weaken the holy aura.
However, Lawrence’s blow felt light. No, it was that Renée’s strength had increased. Having gained power from devouring souls, she was also receiving strengthening buffs from the Liches mixed into the encirclement.
Lawrence was also receiving buffs, even at the cost of abandoning his amulets but now, in terms of raw physical strength, Renée had the upper hand.
As soon as Lawrence saw he couldn’t win with power, he switched tactics.
He momentarily relaxed his strength to pull the rug out from under her, throwing Renée off-balance as he reversed his sword.
Judging it impossible to dodge or block completely, Renée moved to evade with a warp.
Or rather, she tried to.
“I won’t let you!”
Lawrence read the move.
The moment she warped to his diagonal rear, “Heaven’s Severance” was already closing in on the space where she appeared.
“Tch…!”
A flash intended to reap her legs.
Renée performed a cartwheel, pulling her head into her chest.
Her left shin was sliced shallowly, a searing pain coursing through her.
—What was that? What was that just now!? Are you telling me he read my warp destination through my line of sight!? But… this is only the second time I’ve shown him Short Warp! He can adjust to it that fast!?
As Renée stumbled backward, Lawrence unleashed a succession of thrusts from a low-waist stance.
A distance they shouldn’t have reached. Yet, the thrusts flew.
She slid her feet half a step to the side. A thrust whistled past where her head had been.
She ducked. A thrust pierced the air where her solar plexus had been.
She used <<Short Warp>> to jump two paces directly sideways. A thrust punched through the space where her heart had been.
“<<Shield>>!”
“Nu!”
Clang! Sparks flew in front of Renée.
A barrier of light deployed before her had blocked the thrust of “Heaven’s Severance.”
Fine cracks spiderwebbed across the translucent wall.
“I suppose I really can’t match you in swordsmanship.”
Renée muttered as if confirming something.
In her Dullahan form, Renée possessed the innate, instinctive sword skills of the undead, but those techniques did not reach Lawrence’s level.
The “Tortoise Formation” remained as sturdy as ever.
As a method of breaking it other than direct magic, she had tried using <<Grand Crack>> to swallow them in a fissure, but it was immediately negated by <<Earth Cancel>>. It would be difficult to wage a war of attrition until the knights ran out of mana while fighting Lawrence at the same time.
…If one were to do things the “normal” way, that is.
“Have you finally realized the difference in our abilities? However, since you’ve crawled out before me—”
“I wanted to win fair and square if possible. …But from here on out, I’ll do things my way.”
Ignoring Lawrence, who was about to say something, Renée snapped her fingers.
The undead army, which had been watching the battle from a slight distance, began to stir.
She felt the tension rising from the knights, as if they expected a total charge.
Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t going to be that simple.
“Please stop! Stop it!”
“Help me—!”
Ear-piercing screams echoed from within the ranks of the undead.
Skeletons emerged from the back of the army. In their hands, they carried sobbing young girls. There were a little over ten of them in total. All were around Renée’s age, and though they varied in state, they were all well-dressed enough to suggest a privileged upbringing.
As the knights stood frozen, the skeletons stood the girls up at the very front of the army and held swords to them in a mock embrace.
Seeing this, voices rose from the “Tortoise Formation.”
“Sasha!?”
“Gillian!!”
Hearing those cries, the surrounding knights and Lawrence seemed to understand what was happening.
And who these girls were.
To the terrified girls, Renée spoke in a pointedly sweet, cloying voice.
“Welcome, all you good little boys and girls, to Renée-chan’s fun, fun slaughter showtime! Your papas whipped me, crushed my fingers, branded me with irons, stuck needles in my mouth, shoved my head underwater, and did all sorts of other things before finally killing me with a guillotine, but don’t you worry about that at all! Just stay and enjoy yourselves until you d-i-e!”
Each time Renée recounted the calamities that had befallen her, the girls trembled with expressions of frozen terror.
There was no way Renée didn’t harbor a grudge after being subjected to such things.
…Now, where would Renée’s grudge be directed in this situation?
The girls must have heard the rumors flowing through the capital. What the knights had done.
It was no longer someone else’s problem.
They had been dragged onto the stage of a revenge play.
“Now then, starting from the friend closest to me, let’s say your name and your papa’s name. If you can’t say it properly… you know what happens, right?”
“A-a-ah…”
The girl Renée pointed her red blade at was shaking so hard she had wet herself.
“A-auau… I’m Gillian… Grevy. My… my papa is… Aston Grevy…”
“Gillian!”
“P-Papa, uwaaaaaaaaah!!”
A knight who almost leaped out of the “Tortoise Formation” was pulled back by those around him.
The girls the skeletons had dragged out; they were all daughters of the First Knight Order.
There was no such thing as a national census in this country, but the Order kept track of the residences of its members in the capital for communication purposes. Renée had obtained that list under Duke Gerald’s name.
The tearful introductions continued.
Renée sensed the anger, impatience, and despair radiating from the knights.
—Five of them reacted particularly strongly. The others are reacting to the “Father’s Name” too. Exactly. The shock is much greater when it’s your colleague’s child rather than some random kid.
There was no guarantee they could capture the children of those actually participating in the “Tortoise Formation.” Hence, the move Renée had devised was to make them say their fathers’ names.
Every time a colleague’s name was mentioned, it acted as psychological damage.
“…Oh?”
Renée paused as she was about to point her sword at the next child.
Among the girls brought there, of all people, was a face she knew.
Though she looked terrified, the girl held her head high and glared back.
She had lustrous orange-honey hair and heterochromatic eyes of ash and crimson. She wore a relatively neat (though excessively ornate by commoner standards) dress for going out.
Catherine Margareta Kealy.
The person Renée had guarded as her employer during her time posing as Iris.
—Why is she here…? Ah, right, I think the families of the provincial lords were gathered in the capital. Was she out visiting an acquaintance and got caught up in the sweep?
Renée would kill Catherine if necessary.
But she wasn’t a target of revenge. There was no particular need to kill her; right now, she was just an annoyance.
“That one isn’t the child of a Royal Knight, so she’s useless. Just toss her aside somewhere.”
Renée gave the command dismissively, but Catherine’s eyes widened upon hearing those words.
“…………How do you know that?”
“Eh…?”
Renée didn’t think Catherine had the guts to say something like that in this situation.
No, that wasn’t the problem.
Indeed, thinking about it, it was unnatural for her to know Catherine’s identity.
Renée fretted for a moment over how to answer Catherine’s question to maintain the script and complete “The Renée-chan Theater.”
“When you’re troubled, that habit of rubbing your shoes together…”
Catherine whispered in a trembling voice.
Renée gasped. It was a habit of hers. Catherine used to tell her to fix it…
—This… this is bad!
“Take her away!”
“Iris! It’s you, isn’t it, Iris!? Hey! What is the meaning of this!?”
Catherine’s voice trailed off as she was dragged away by a skeleton and disappeared into the throng of corpses.
Renée shook her head (or rather, used her hand holding her head to make it look like she did) to regain her composure.
That was just a minor technical difficulty. She should erase it from her memory immediately. Surely, she would never see Catherine again anyway.
“No-w then, next friend. You’re the last one. What’s your name?”
“Karla Placken… daddy is… hic… Halm…”
“Okaaaay! Very well done!”
Once the last girl finished her introduction, Renée turned back to the knights.
“So, what will it be? If you all agree to die, I’m happy to return them safely, you know?”
“Villain…!!”
Lawrence roared, his anger palpable.
“You call me a villain? Then what does that make me, after my mother was murdered? Don’t you think I’m being kinder than you, since I’m not just killing them without a word?”
The “Tortoise Formation” showed no outward signs of breaking yet. However, the knights’ hearts were far from peaceful.
Sensing the agitation in the rear, Lawrence shouted to galvanize them without taking his eyes off Renée.
“Stay calm! If the hostages die, she loses her shield. She won’t dare harm them easily! Think only of defeating her!”
“I could always just kill them one by one at random, though.”
“Furthermore! If we were to sacrifice ourselves based on her demands, her next target would be His Majesty! It would be the end of this nation!”
“…I can’t deny that.”
Did Renée’s words reach them? Regardless, Lawrence charged.
She knew she was outclassed in skill, yet Renée met him head-on.
A god-speed triple strike, a crushing overhead followed by an upward scoop, a thrust, and if the distance opened even slightly, “Heaven’s Severance”!
Furthermore, <<Holy Arrows>> flew from the “Tortoise Formation,” but they were weak shots, perhaps due to a lack of concentration. Neutralizing them with <<Pain Whip>>, Renée lunged toward Lawrence.
She warped behind him with <<Short Warp>>— or so it seemed, as she actually warped three meters into the air!
“Nun!”
Just as she appeared to strike from above, Lawrence looked up.
In that instant, Renée lightly tossed her own head, which she held in her left hand, upward.
“What!?”
Renée looked down on herself and Lawrence as if from a bird’s-eye view. Like this, she had no blind spots, and he couldn’t read her gaze.
The head dancing in the air seemed like an easy target, but in reality, destroying it was the equivalent of “only taking out the main camera.”
Her body could still move. She could sense her surroundings through magical perception. And if Lawrence reached for the head, she could kill him in that opening!
Renée warped her body alone to Lawrence’s diagonal rear and slashed.
However, in that exact moment, Lawrence flipped Taylor-Ayul to a reverse grip and unleashed a “Heaven’s Severance” thrust backward, passing it under his own armpit!
“Ah…!?”
It was a pain as if her body had exploded.
An invisible thrust had pierced deep through Renée’s torso.
The impure mana animating her body was being negated by the holy energy of <<Consecration>>.
“If you throw your head up…”
Lawrence sneered triumphantly.
“Isn’t it only natural to think you’d warp to its landing point to catch it?”
Renée’s torso collapsed, losing its strength. Her tossed head fell onto it, bounced, and rolled away.
After a beat of silence, cheers erupted from the “Tortoise Formation.”
“O-oooooooh!?”
“He did it! He actually did it!”
“As expected of the Commander!”
They had been cornered; it was no exaggeration to call it a crisis for the nation’s survival.
In the midst of that, the hero Lawrence had snatched a come-from-behind victory.
Though they still sounded as if they couldn’t believe it, the knights roared with joy at the dramatic win.
However, Lawrence remained on guard. He scanned the area suspiciously.
Despite having defeated the supposed mastermind, Renée, the undead army had not moved an inch. He seemed to find this highly suspicious.
“…Did I fail to deliver the finishing blow?”
Lawrence muttered, looking down at the fallen Renée.
From her head, which lay rolled on the cobblestones, Renée glared up at him.
“If you think this is the end, you truly have a festive brain.”
“Do you intend to kill the hostages? Go ahead and try. My sword will mince you before that skeleton’s blade can even twitch.”
“Hostages. Hostages, you say…”
Renée laughed lowly.
“You really are looking down on me. …Those things are something far more wonderful than that.”