Florice was still going on and on, so Kamijou grabbed her arm and leaped out of the open sliding door.

The surface of the water was about ten meters or so down.

Florice, as though terrified of the drop, clung to his torso and, with the blood vessels in her temples bulging, shouted, “It’s all over!!”

“No, we’re fine! If we use the water’s surface as a cushion—!!”

“That river?! That river is only three feet deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!”

“…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​…​!!”

Kamijou’s eyes became points.

He swung his neck around to look overhead. Several knights holding longbows were on the freight train as it passed over the stone bridge, but the way their shoulders had relaxed made it look like they were completely astonished. Yes, sort of in the Well, it’s our job, so we could fire, but it would definitely be a complete waste of taxpayer money kind of way.

“Gah, damn it!!” shouted Florice when suddenly a light came out of both of her shoulders.

There were some kind of metal pieces attached to them. Ignoring the law of conservation of mass, two slim metal rods, akin to umbrella handles, snapped and stretched out to the left and right.

“Grab hold!! I’ll try to cancel our speed with my wings!!”

With a bshhh noise, a film of light spurted out, connecting the two umbrella handles together. It was like a cockroach spreading its wings. When Kamijou saw it, his face drew back slightly.

This was what he was thinking:

Um. Did you hear me explain what my right hand does?

You’re going to slow us down using magic?

…I’ve got a really, really bad feeling about this.

7

Ascalon, shining in a rainbow of colored lights.

The Knight Leader’s longsword, entirely the bloody, dark-red color of rust.

Thirty feet, separating sword and sword.

“Here I come,” announced William Orwell quietly.

“Come on, then,” answered the Knight Leader softly.

Roar!!

The Knight Leader’s long-range slashing attacks flew at William from every direction.

He’d analyzed the spells and Soul Arms appearing in the stories of knights from various cultural spheres and joined them together. As a result of his compression, like a distended star collapsing into a black hole, he’d created a single firing-range attack as an evolution of his references. On top of being a thorough investigation of several attacks that could land a one-sided strike at an enemy from impossible distances, the slender, rust-like sword shards joined together to fire, making the Knight Leader’s slashing attacks come from all sides.

Meanwhile, William used only his right hand to swing his big eleven-foot sword upward, then turned his wrist to brandish its back surface.

The sword glowed crimson.

Like this, it represented an ax.

The mercenary unleashed a straight vertical strike, but not to beat back the attacks coming at him from every direction.

He aimed at the ground.

Boom!! The very earth itself shook.

The earth sank deep around William in a radius of about twenty yards. It reached where the Knight Leader stood as well, and in an instant, countless slashing attacks carved through the air over the mercenary’s head, which was now ten feet lower.

“Wha—?”

Whether because his certain-kill strike had missed or because his footing had become unstable, the Knight Leader’s movements became ever so slightly imbalanced.

In terms of time, it was only a moment.

But by swinging his blade straight down, William Orwell could use his crouched posture to its fullest, explosively straining his muscles to rush right up to his foe.

Ga-boom!! The violent sound of his footstep followed a moment later.

The ground, already sliding away, began to completely fall apart.

Ascalon’s glow shifted from red to blue. He turned his wrist and flipped the double-edge sword over once again, then reset his stance, this time aiming the thin, razor-like edge forward, before swinging it in a horizontal arc to cleave through the Knight Leader’s torso—

All as if to say how long or short his attack range was didn’t matter in the slightest.

As if silently implying it would be impossible to disrupt their fight’s outcome with such petty tricks.

However…

“I don’t remember saying my attack range was the only pattern I could control, you wannabe mercenary.”

Sound disappeared.

Then the Knight Leader simply vanished from before William’s eyes. Even with his kinetic vision, he couldn’t follow the enemy’s motions.

“‘Movement speed.’”

A voice from behind him—

Without turning around, William thrust his sword behind him at the approaching wind pressure.

Kreeeee!!

Steel clanged together.

A dull pain came back to William’s wrist from the contrived position. Resolutely ignoring it, the mercenary pivoted, body and all.

The blade’s color went from blue to green. He turned his wrist over and put Ascalon’s blade spine forward. The can opener–like spike attached about midway up shot for the Knight Leader, who had taken his back.

“‘Armament weight.’”

But then came an unexpected impact.

An even more powerful recoil than the earlier strike he’d parried from an unstable position assailed him. It was like someone bashing a shovel into a boulder, and William’s body almost careened in the other direction.

The mercenary’s feet slid, inch by inch, over the black soil.

A preparatory movement of only one inch.

During it, the Knight Leader raised his dark-red longsword aloft.

“‘Severing power.’”

“?!”

The eeriness in those words made William give up his parry.

He immediately jumped back to create distance instead. He dodged the Knight Leader’s blade by millimeters, and it struck the black soil with a clatter.

Kaboom!!

The earth split.

William hastily jumped farther to the side, lest the crevice swallow him whole.

And as he did—

“‘Attack range.’”

—dj-bah!! rang an unpleasant sound.

A shallow cut opened in William Orwell’s side.

It seemed the man could walk the walk, too, he thought.

Attack range wasn’t the only thing he could control. “Severing power” to slice through anything, “armament weight” to create immense destructive force, “movement speed” that nobody could catch up with…and—though he hadn’t seen them yet—in all likelihood, “durability” to absolutely prevent destruction, a “specialty usage” needed to kill a specific monster, and “precision” to make it aim for vital spots on its own.

As a result of performing compression upon compression upon the mythical Soul Arms and spells that appeared in warrior cultures from across western Europe and elsewhere, he’d arrived at simplified attack patterns…and he had obtained them, now using them freely as his method of attack.

“You’ll die,” the man holding the dark-red “weapon” said quietly, looking at the blood flowing from William.

The Knight Leader’s weapon was no longer Hrunting.

It wasn’t even a sword.

“I’ve seen your all. As you are now, you cannot overcome my blade.”

Just a weapon.

It would annihilate all its foes, human and monster alike…A tool that never should have been made.

A single strike from it was overwhelmingly sharp, overwhelmingly heavy, overwhelmingly fast, overwhelmingly hard, overwhelmingly long, possessing exclusivity to cleave through monsters that blades could not cut, and accurately guiding their destruction through the most efficient weak points.

Earlier, the Knight Leader had compared his attacks with a stellar explosion. In contrast to those stars that never accumulated enough mass and changed into neutron stars or interstellar clouds, one should call his current attack an “ultimate black hole” created at the end of a star’s overexpansion.

One could try to dodge, if not for its “attack range” and “movement speed.” One could try to block, if not for its “severing power” and “armament weight.” One could try to break it, if not for its “durability.”

If the Knight Leader used all his power, he’d end this with his next attack.

If he cut William Orwell in two, the battle would be decided.

Why hadn’t he done so before now?

Was it sentiment?

“Will you throw down your sword and leave the United Kingdom?”

The Knight Leader slowly moved the “weapon” gripped in his hands.

“Or will you and your sword become part of its soil?”

The longsword’s tip pointed at William in the distance.

“I’ll let you choose. Which would you like?”

The result was plain to see.

William Orwell was not unharmed. Thanks to the gash in his left shoulder, he’d lost feeling in one hand. Because his side had been cut, he’d been losing even more blood. And more importantly, because he’d lost his battle in Academy City, he couldn’t even display his true potential.

If the Knight Leader’s strongest-class attack was as he’d advertised, then no matter how much the mercenary struggled, he would never have a chance at winning.

Which made it obvious what he should do here.

“…Before I choose, I will ask this,” said William, still holding Ascalon. The Knight Leader frowned, and William continued, “Do you believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you support the second princess and kill the third princess, this nation will be saved?”

Mercenaries didn’t normally speak much.

Which meant there was a reason he had to deliver these words.

“The first princess’s intelligence, the second princess’s military prowess, and the third princess’s virtue…Can you state for certain that the one you choose and the ones you forsake are the correct ones?”

“…I cannot call it ideal,” said the Knight Leader after a pause. But the light in his eyes never wavered. “But history is already on the move. We cannot turn back time, so all we can do is join a side. The most beneficial side for this nation’s future.”

William nodded. “I see.”

And then he moved.

He brought up his bloodied left hand to join his right on Ascalon’s hilt. Its white cloth, wrapped to prevent sliding, quickly turned red.

“Have you made your decision?” asked the Knight Leader, still not moving. “Will you flee in defeat or die?”

“No.” William Orwell rejected the choice itself. “These are my two options: kill you or not kill you.”

“…I see. You’ve made your choice, then.” The Knight Leader sighed.

He didn’t say it directly, but William’s goal was probably to rescue the third princess.

The mercenary’s retreat would secure a perfect success for their invasion and subjugation of the entire nation, which would ensure the third princess’s execution. As the last bastion against this fate, he was unlikely to run.

“You will not withdraw, no matter the outcome?”

“There is no point in talking,” answered William immediately.

The head of the knights sucked his teeth. “Frankly speaking, I haven’t the heart to pass judgment on the third princess. And there are distasteful things about how the second princess, Carissa, does things, too.”

“…”

“But Carissa is already on the move for revolution. Any knight in this nation would tell you she isn’t the type of person to let excuses stop her.”

The battle was already over.

The Knight Leader, his finishing blow at the ready, spoke his final words to his old friend.

“Now that history has begun its upheaval, no half measures can be allowed. If this revolution drags on in the form of internal strife, the United Kingdom’s national power as a whole will diminish, and foreign enemies will take advantage of it to easily attack and defeat us.”

Was it in accordance with a knight’s chivalry, which asked for mercy unto enemies?

That was where the reason lay for the head of the Knights taking up his sword and fighting, from beginning to end.

“To save this nation, our only choice is to lay down our arms at once and create a new order. And the question there is who will stand at the top. If Her Majesty returns to the throne, we will not escape our current crisis. Which means it must be someone else. Between the first princess’s intelligence, the second princess’s military prowess, and the third princess’s charisma, which of them will be able to fight back against the approaching crisis should she ascend the throne? One barely needs to think about it.”

“Nonsense.” William Orwell cut it all down with a single word. “Did you think adding more unnecessary words in the name of justice would fill the hole of your own barbaric acts?”

“And yet you still do not speak of your own intentions even now.”

“Is it something that needs to be spoken of?”

That was all the mercenary said, ignoring the pain from his wound-covered body.

The Knight Leader, however, had predicted this response. “You want to warn me of the danger of the nation losing its virtue to engage wholly in military matters. But I would answer that there exists no absolute, correct order of precedence. We can only decide which card to choose.”

William, possessing many a means to attack, wielding a sword that had the gall to have his knight’s crest on the side, said, “I see. But I have already shown you my reason.”

“What?”

“Pah. That is something I’ve no need to speak of.”

He didn’t need prospects of victory.

Gripping his bloodstained sword hilt even more tightly, the mercenary stared straight into the face of the knight.

He was always that kind of man. The Knight Leader narrowed his eyes slightly and brought the tip of his sword away and directly above, assuming a downswing posture.

“Severing power,” “armament weight,” “movement speed,” “durability,” “attack range,” “specialty usage,” “precision”—an ultimate attack that connoted all of them.

“Then…”

The Knight Leader had no hesitation.

He said one last thing to his enemy he’d known for so long.

“If you will not withdraw, you will die here.”

The two moved at the same time.

Bang!! The blast of a shock wave rang out through the night.

William Orwell sprinted only forward, using all the strength at his disposal to close with his enemy as fast as he could.

Meanwhile, the Knight Leader took a step but not to move. It was to shift his center and bring the sword he held in both hands down with all his might.

He had no need to run up to his enemy. All he had to do was swing his sword down to unleash an attack with incredible range. Its overwhelming movement speed would prevent evasion, its overwhelming severing power and armament weight would prevent defense, and its overwhelming durability rating would prevent the Knight Leader’s blade from breaking.

This was what it meant to kill for certain.

Sure enough, the Knight Leader swung the longsword down without mercy a moment before the mercenary plunged into close range.

Shh-pow!! went the sound of slicing air.

And a moment later, a slashing attack that was too enormous to be from a sword crashed toward William from directly above. The warrior reacted instantly and repositioned Ascalon above his head, but—

Ga-keeeee!!

Their slashes collided and bounced away.

Even the Knight Leader’s attack, which should have been a certain kill, was canceled out.

“?!”

…It’s not worth talking about, thought William as he ran. A certain-kill technique that is sharp, heavy, fast, hard, and long-range…If he could really attack in such a way, I would never have survived with a mere gash in my left shoulder!!

Yes.

The Knight Leader could certainly use all those categories of spell freely, especially as methods of attack.

However.

William had never seen him wielding more than one at once.

Which meant he could use only one pattern at a time. If he prioritized “severing power,” he’d lose “attack range.” If he prioritized “attack range,” he’d lose “armament weight.” Each one of the Knight Leader’s attacks had brought that specific facet to its extreme, which meant he couldn’t use them together.

He hadn’t held off from using this omnipotent certain-kill attack earlier because he’d been hesitating. On a real battlefield, there was no point in keeping combat power in reserve.

That hesitation existed simply because there was no such convenient certain-kill move to begin with.

And that gave William a chance.

If the Knight Leader prioritized only “attack range,” then the mercenary could physically block it!

“O​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h!!”

And now William had the Knight Leader in his own range.

He swept his eleven-foot sword sideways.

“!! ‘Movement speed’!!”

The Knight Leader’s arms moved at a high speed and barely blocked the mercenary’s strike.

“Not enough.”

But there was no weight or hardness there.

The Knight Leader’s body tilted backward at the full-force attack.

It was a loss of less than a second.

But in that time, William turned the blade over with his wrist and focused on the spike at the base on the back. Then, he swung Ascalon again.

Its light color shifted to white.

Large swords like the ones William and the Knight Leader were using lost power at super-close range. The sharp spike had been attached to the base of the sword as a means of dealing with that.

William’s magic consolidated to one point, giving it even more penetrating power.

If this couldn’t be stopped, it would be the Knight Leader who would fall.

“‘Durability rating’!!”

“Too slow.”

A moment after William Orwell spoke the words:

The spike that was attached near the sword’s base for use in close combat—probably made originally to rip out an evil dragon’s thick nerves from the inside using the principles behind levers—slipped past the Knight Leader’s defense and stabbed mercilessly into his right breast.

Everything.

Everything was to save the third princess, embroiled in a military coup d’état and soon to be put to death.

Da-paaaaaa!! came the blast.

There were no birds still around to fly up out of surprise.

After all, every bird and beast had run away after over half the trees around them had been cut down.

8

Meanwhile, there were others hiding on a train aside from Touma Kamijou.

Agnes, Lucia, and Angeline.

They were riding an extremely normal passenger train made of ten cars. It was headed from Edinburgh to London. The line was a straight one, going from north UK to south.

Still, probably because the political chaos had stopped all the trains, it was bounding along at a speed that was normally impossible, racing past every station it was usually supposed to stop at.

The cold wind struck Agnes Sanctis on the cheek.

They weren’t lingering inside a car or on a roof. Their plight was the wall. Lucia was good at causing her giant wooden wheel to burst apart and using those fragments for attacks, but this time, she’d stabbed the sharp fragments into the aluminum wall to use as footholds and railings.

In a state like a free climbing practice ground, Agnes twisted and peeked through the window. Normally it would be filled with crowds of students and employees alike, but now only the bald-faced fluorescent light lived inside. However, there were tools and devices to adjust swords and armor inside, along with what looked like a communication Soul Arm—the knights had probably brought them on board.

As she scanned them, Agnes muttered to herself. “…It looks like they’re still concentrating on keeping watch over the sisters captured in the next car up. The extra knights seem to be gathered in the next one back, too.”

Lucia and Angeline nodded to her.

“…That must mean we’re halfway between the two groups,” the former hissed.

“…I-in that case, if we disconnect the cars, we can set all our friends free without fighting the knights head-on,” the latter whispered.

Most of the sisters in the former Agnes unit had been captured in Edinburgh. They hadn’t been beheaded on the spot, either because they wanted to go through a proper religious court to make it a lawful enactment of justice, rather than an unreasonable massacre, or they were going to have a grand execution of all former enemies during the second princess’s coronation ceremony.

Either way, it was clear what Agnes and the others needed to do.

“…Let’s get started,” Agnes whispered. “Sister Lucia, Sister Angeline, use your projectile weapons to attack the knights keeping watch through the window from outside the car.”

By targeting the knights from outside the window, they could trick them into thinking the attackers were attacking them from somewhere off the train. They might eventually deduce where the snipers were, but that wouldn’t present a problem if they settled things quickly enough.

“…I’ll destroy the train-car link with the Lotus Wand, then launch a direct attack on the knights while they’re confused. You two back me up,” she went on.

“…P-please be careful. Surprise attack tactics when we have the initiative are okay, but if we fight head-on, I don’t know if all three of us combined could take down even one of them.”

Angeline looked worried. Without thinking, Agnes tried to lightly smack her upside the head, but she was holding on to only the wood shards sticking out of the wall. Her posture shook, and she hastily regripped the stakes.

They all nodded to one another, then got rolling.

Lucia and Angeline shifted footholds, going from one wood shard to the next as they headed for the train’s roof. Without watching them go, Agnes used the wall to proceed to the rear of the car. She was after the connection linking the two train cars.

“Tutto il paragone. Il quinto dei cinque elementi. Ordina la canna che mostra pace ed ordine.”

Her weapon, the Lotus Wand, was hanging from her shoulder by a rope.

When the words formed on her small lips, the wings of the angel statue crouching on the wand’s tip began to open up like a flower.

“Prima. Segua la di Dio ed una croce, due cose diverse sono connesse.”

When Agnes got close enough to the connection, she used one hand to regrip a wood shard sticking out of the wall and the other to grasp the Lotus Wand.

Her wand ignored distance and struck space itself directly. The power of this spell depended on the force with which she swung the wand—in other words, Agnes’s physical strength.

But I know a naked arm won’t rip off a steel connection. She glanced at the gravel speeding by her feet. If I hold the wand to the ground and use the overall force of the train itself, then hit the connection with it, I should be able to destroy it…

Twisting slightly, she checked the connection’s position coordinates, then slowly lowered the bottom of her wand to the gravel.

That was when it happened.

All of a sudden, the door connecting the cars opened and a man clad in silver-colored armor exited.

Agnes, who had been essentially clinging to the automatic door in order to get to the connection, quickly tried to hide herself, but she was too late.

But.

The communication Soul Arm sitting in a seat in the car made a soft noise. If the knight moved his head just a little, he would have noticed Agnes, but he hastily ran over toward the Soul Arm.

As he listened to what was coming through, he said, “That Imagine Breaker snuck onto the freight train headed for Folkestone? Damn him. Was he trying to take a swing at Her Highness Carissa…?”

“…Nice one, kid! I freaking love you!!” Agnes hissed.

She gestured to Lucia and Angeline, who were standing by on the roof, then took a different aim with the Lotus Wand.

Ga-boom!! went a thundering sound.

At the same time that the train’s automatic door crashed inward, the ceiling above the knight’s head collapsed all at once. The knight frantically tried to pull his sword from his waist, but the three sisters let a concentrated attack rip.

Even presented with a surprise attack from three directions, the knight accurately parried Lucia’s and Angeline’s attacks.

It didn’t seem likely they’d be able to defeat one of the knights borrowing the power of the Curtana Original and the all-British Continent, even if they landed a clean hit.

So Agnes, instead of aiming for the knight himself, attacked the floor of the train at his feet.

“…?!”

The fact that the knight immediately reacted with all his strength may have been the deciding factor. No normal human would have ever fallen through the train’s floor, but the silver-colored armored foot broke through it like a sheet of Styrofoam.

Of course, it would take more than that to bring down a battle-hardened veteran knight.

Blast. If I add too much more force, it’ll split this car clean in half. If that happens, the Puritan captives gathered in the next car up will slip out of our grasp…!!

Thinking that far in an instant, the knight immediately stopped, which one could probably call a wise decision.

But when he did.

Wham!! A dull noise rang out as a blunt strike from Agnes’s space-ignoring Lotus Wand crashed mercilessly into the knight’s body. Directly hitting a sensitive spot, ignoring his thick armor.

Where she’d hit was a vital spot on a human body.

Put more precisely, she’d hit him in the crotch.

Like the losing samurai after an iai match in a period film, the knight remained still for several seconds.

Eventually, he croaked, “…That…that attack…was unchivalrous…”

He didn’t go down in one hit, probably once again because of the Curtana’s magic.

Agnes Sanctis sniffed, stuck out her chest, and argued, “Well, good thing we’re freaking nuns, then!!”

Wha-bam-bam-ga-bam!! Several more unpleasant sounds repeated, coming from the same place, and the knight’s armor shook and trembled. They couldn’t read his expression behind his helmet, but it probably would have been a sight to behold.

“Hmm. Just like I thought—looks like my attacks that can ignore distance are the most effective. I can hit their physical bodies behind their thick armor with them,” said Agnes, poking the body of the now-disabled knight to check if he would resist.

Angeline’s face went red with panic, and possibly to take her mind off it, she headed for the communication Soul Arm and listened in on the other knights’ information.

“U-um…It looks like that spiky-haired boy is running away from the freight train with a sorceress from New Light?”

Lucia sighed in spite of herself. “My word. What on earth is going on? Well, perhaps it’s business as usual for that young man.”

“A-also, they tried to dive into a river, failed, crashed into the river, then got washed downstream and coincidentally picked up by the third princess, Vilian, as she was fleeing. They’re saying they’re making a mad dash for it while going at it with the Knights’ pursuers.”

“What is going on?! Japanese Momotaro?!” snapped Lucia unconsciously.

Angeline’s shoulders gave a start. “W-well, don’t ask me……?! S-Sister Agnes, please help me out here— Eeek!!”

When Angeline looked over at Agnes again, a yelp escaped her.

She watched as Agnes, who seemed to be trying to get information out of the defeated knight, had her hands moving in a somewhat questionable manner as she used her Lotus Wand.

“Oh. I see—you like being stroked better than being hit, do you? Ah-ha-ha. You’re trembling. What are you trying to say? Oh—oh, oh my. You’re reacting in that spot, too? You’re even more sensitive than before. Fu-fu-fu. For a gentleman to feel it more when his hole is played with—you’re a pervert. In that case, why don’t I shove this wand in directly, all the way?”

“U-ugyaaaaaahhhh!! Wh-when did Sister Agnes change into full-power forbidden mode?!”

“…Sister Angeline. Is this worth being surprised over now? Sister Agnes acted like that during the Book of the Law incident in the under-construction Church of Orsola, remember?”

“Well, no, b-but I thought Sister Agnes was actually a pretty, purehearted maiden!! I mean, that boy saw her naked and that was enough to make her faint!!”

“Yes. Sister Agnes is the sort of person who takes great delight in the skirts of others being flipped but deplores her own skirt being flipped.”

“I-isn’t that the worst sort of person?!” cried Angeline in a flurry.

Lucia sighed painfully. Angeline did the same kind of thing. “Let’s stop there,” she advised Agnes. “This is nothing more than a simple way to rip information out of him, no love or lust involved, but if we don’t cut it out now, this knight seems like he’ll be corrupted on his own.”

“Y-you think you can stop Sister Agnes when she’s tripping to the max like this?!”

“Returning her to her senses is a simple matter. I just gave you the answer, too.” Lucia set her stare on Agnes’s rear end—she was too engrossed in handling her Lotus Wand to notice their conversation. “Sister Angeline, it’s your turn. After all, Sister Agnes is the sort of person who hates her own skirt being flipped.”

9

Two silhouettes stood out against the dark night.

One was William Orwell.

One was the Knight Leader.

Before, they’d been moving with the drive to exceed the speed of sound, but now they were stopped. The Knight Leader’s longsword, having failed in its defense, remained fixed in an awkward pose in the air, while the spike near the base of William’s sword had avoided the block and pierced the knight in the right breast.

The spike attached near the base on the back was not nearly so kind as to be the size of a regular nail.

No: It was almost a stake, suitable for a greatsword totaling over eleven feet in length.

While it may not have resulted in instant death, any honest prediction would have involved the ribs on his right side all breaking.

Hidden in the darkness, their expressions contrasted.

One in agony.

One in transcendence.

However—

The one making the agonized expression was William.

And the transcendent, aloof one belonged to the Knight Leader.

It may not have been a strike certain to kill, but William’s attack should have had enough destructive force to comfortably disable his opponent.

But in reality, there wasn’t a single scratch on him.

Supposedly stabbing into his right chest, the spike didn’t draw a single drop of blood—it didn’t even tear the fabric of the Knight Leader’s shirt.

It felt unnatural, like a sponge, and even William found himself giving a confused look.

…He redirected the impact…No, that isn’t it. This is…?!

“Do you know of a Scandinavian warrior named Thororm?”

With the spike pressed to his right breast, the Knight Leader spoke, his expression unchanging.

“Legends say the warrior used sorcery and had the ability to bring a sword’s sharpness to zero. Therefore, it is said that no attack would wound him, and his sword would carve into enemies without fear of retaliation.”

“That…can’t be…”

“I have created a spell that can bring the attack power of any weapon I am able to perceive to zero. Whether the attack is born of science or magic, for that matter. Theoretically, it could disable even nuclear weapons, but as for actual proof…Yes. I’m sure it would manage against the anti-divinity slashing attacks the Far Eastern saint uses.”

The Knight Leader slowly shook his head.

“I told you—always have more than one trump card ready,” he continued. “Its effects on an individual weapon last ten minutes at most. Arrows and bullets need only fall to the ground, and once bombs fail to explode, they certainly won’t suddenly go off after ten minutes without an additional external factor to initiate them. But none of that has to do with you. I can only create a ten-minute reprieve…but when an enemy gains that much time on a real battlefield, it’s clear what sort of fate lies in store.”

The Knight Leader glared straight at William.

“You caught me with a terrible surprise attack at Dover. It’s no wonder I came up with a countermeasure.”

“!!” William, feeling the Knight Leader would grab Ascalon’s blade with his bare hands, quickly pulled the sword back behind him.

Then, with the slight distance he’d made, he let loose one slashing attack after another, each one using a different method.

The light was red—a thick blade like an ax to rip a dragon’s flesh.

“Zero.”

The light was blue—a thin blade like a razor to slice a dragon’s fat.

“Zero.”

The light was green—a spike like a can opener midway up the blade to strip away a dragon’s scales.

“Zero.”

The light was yellow—a jigsaw wire running along the blade to remove a dragon’s organs.

“Zero.”

The light was purple—a giant saw on the back to cleave a dragon’s bones.

“Zero.”

The light was pink—a hooked spike attached to the pommel to tear out a dragon’s teeth.

“Zero.”

The light was white—a close-range spike near the back of the base to scoop out a dragon’s nerves.

“I’ve already made that zero!! …Finally out of options?!”

The continuous rumbling, clattering noises suddenly ended.

The Knight Leader grabbed Ascalon, its attacks unleashed from point-blank range, as though handling a sheet of Styrofoam. William gripped his sword hilt even more tightly, and the two stared at each other.

The Knight Leader, who stood in a position of absolute advantage, used his other hand to regrip his dark-red longsword.

“It’s over.”

The two of them, having stopped moving, glared at each other at point-blank range.

The Knight Leader spoke in an unwavering voice as he admonished the mercenary’s greatsword. “Perhaps sorcery that doesn’t utilize a weapon—your runes, I’d say—may be able to kill me. Would you like to try?”

It was obvious from his tone that his proposition wasn’t serious.

William and the Knight Leader were equals in speed. If William neglected his body-controlling spell to use different magic, that would get him cut down immediately.

“This power was lent to me through the Curtana Original in order to protect the United Kingdom. A lowly mercenary who gives no thought to consequences and disrupts the state for naught but his own emotions cannot kill me.”

The Knight Leader’s dark-red longsword aimed at William.

Ready to kill the man with a single stroke, the knight offered these last words:

“Go to heaven—along with the third princess.”

“…You still don’t get it,” William spat. “This really isn’t enough to go through the trouble of talking about.”

“What…?”

The Knight Leader, dubious, looked at Ascalon, whose movements he’d prevented by grabbing it.

More specifically, to its side—attached with a metal fitting, to a single emblem.

“You…What are you thinking? What are you plotting?”

“How persistent. After all this, you’d still ask with your words?”

Upon hearing that, the Knight Leader’s face grew even more dubious.

William Orwell was no mere optimist. He could have possibly been more intimately familiar with the tragedies of war than the Knight Leader himself, who had remained in Britain this whole time.

A mercenary like that should understand which politics to back to save the nation at this stage—military prowess or charisma. If he removed Carissa and supported Vilian, with her ideals, they wouldn’t even be able to fight off France alone, since it was now a pawn of the Roman Orthodox Church.

This man always had his feet on the ground.

But it didn’t seem like this path toward destruction was what comprised William’s unwavering spirit.

Wasn’t the Knight Leader misunderstanding something?

What on earth was this mercenary named William Orwell fighting for?

The Knight Leader looked once again at the weapon William gripped.

More specifically, at what was attached to its base—the escutcheon.

No…

The escutcheon was originally made to be used by a certain mercenary upon being knighted.

In the end, the opportunity had been lost, and it left an unignorable, eternally blank space in the hallway in Buckingham Palace.

No.

The escutcheon divided the shield into four parts, with each of them painted in a blue-hued pattern.

On top of them, in green, were three animals distributed around them: a dragon, a unicorn, and a silkie.

No!

Four partitions and three animals.

Those could represent only one thing.

No!!

The blue undercoat was England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The green animals were the Royal Family, the Knights, and the Puritans.

The escutcheon represented perfect harmony among the groups in the United Kingdom.

This mercenary wasn’t trying to kill one and back another.

Even the second and third princesses didn’t matter—he wanted to combine the strengths of the three sisters and the queen.

“…Are you serious?” The Knight Leader moaned. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

Meanwhile, the stiff muscles in William Orwell’s face loosened just slightly.

As if to say welcome to his opponent who had finally thought that far.

“I already told you. There is no point in speaking of it.”

“It’s impossible.”

“I don’t care,” said William with surprising lightness. “My reason is not one I need to explain or defend, nor one I need everyone else to understand. As you said many times over, these are merely the trivial personal emotions of a mercenary. I won’t use words to tell you to understand. All you need to do is silently carry out the acts you believe in.”

“…”

Oddly, after all that, the Knight Leader was at a loss for words.

Nevertheless, the mercenary was right. He couldn’t stop his blade here.

However he considered things, making this revolution succeed was for the sake of the United Kingdom.

If the second princess didn’t ascend to the throne in this critical situation, there was no telling how many enemies would be upon them.

Therefore…

…In the end, what I must do doesn’t change.

They’d both given their reasons.

They didn’t need words for them.

One of them would win, and the other would lose.

That was all that existed in their world.

But now that you’ve lost all your weapons, you’ve lost your chance at winning.

The Knight Leader had already grabbed Ascalon’s blade and stopped it, and his own sword could be upon William at any time.

Thororm’s Spell, which could reduce a weapon’s attack power to zero, had a duration of about ten minutes. He would need to discharge his duties before this strong enemy named William Orwell regained his weapon.

“I’ll end things now.”

“I’m sure,” came the flat response, which the Knight Leader winced at.

A moment later, William Orwell used all his strength to pull Ascalon’s hilt to him—and suddenly, the hilt itself fell out.

The Knight Leader was left holding Ascalon’s temporarily powerless blade, and now he was the one about to lose his balance.