The two swords closed in on the Black Tiger. However, the Black Tiger calmly drew the odachi hanging from his hip, and split the man clean in two with a diagonal slash. When he did…
“?!”
The moment after, the bisected man’s body was enveloped in flames. He must have intended from the beginning to die to silence himself, and to incinerate his body to eliminate the evidence.
Disgusted, the Black Tiger shook the blood from his tachi and returned it to its sheathe. There was a time when the Black Tiger would have thought it was a splendid display of loyalty. Now, however, he could no longer see it that way. If there was to be any meaning in dying for loyalty, it had to come from a master who would mourn your death. To die for a master who used and then cast aside his followers like this was to die in vain.
When he returned from his thoughts, the Black Tiger… Kagetora was surrounded by men in black masks. These were the elites who served directly under Souma, protecting Friedonia from the shadows: the clandestine operations unit, the Black Cats.
“Master Kagetora,” a Black Cat said.
“…What of the rest?” he asked.
“The same as this one.”
“I see…”
Kagetora thought for a moment, then gave an order to his Black Cats. “Handle the cleanup. I will report this to his majesty.”
“““Yes, sir!”””
Once Kagetora had watched the Black Cats scatter, he recalled the words the shadow had spoken.
“Curse you, you infidel.”
The shadow had spoken that last word under his breath, and Kagetora had only barely been able to hear it.
Infidel, huh. This… could be troublesome, Kagetora thought as he melded into the darkness.
Half an hour later — Governmental Affairs Office in Parnam Castle
It was a night in March, when the weather had started to warm considerably.
Today, like most days, I had Liscia helping as I did my paperwork. Something happened just as we were saying it was around dinnertime, so we ought to call it a day.
The glass door to the terrace flew open. When I turned in surprise, there was Kagetora, his black metallic armor stained with blood. It was a good thing we were the only ones in the room. If one of the maids who occasionally came in had seen this, she’d probably have fainted. No doubt he’d been aiming for a time when no one else would be here.
“Blood?!” Liscia tried to wipe the blood away with a cloth she had handy, but Kagetora held up a hand for her to stop.
“It’s not mine. Nothing for you to be concerned about, my princess.”
“Oh… I see.”
“Also… the odachi that Your Majesty presented me with has an incredible cutting edge.” Kagetora placed a hand on the odachi that he wore at his hip, then bowed his head to me.
Oh yeah. I had given the odachi we’d developed while researching Nine-Headed Dragon katanas to Kagetora, hadn’t I? I’d created it for improved sharpness and range of slashing attacks, but its length had ended up working against it. Unless a person was tall, they would have trouble using it well. (It was hard to draw it from its sheath, among other issues.) For someone as tall as Kagetora, I’d figured that would be no issue, so I’d given it to him. It was good to hear it was serving him well.
“Well, as long as you’re okay, that’s good enough for me,” I said, half in exasperation.
I heard a slight chuckle from beneath his mask.
“…What? Did I say something strange?” I asked.
He chuckled again. “I was just thinking I’ve been blessed with a good master.”
“Hm? Are you being sarcastic with me?”
“No, I meant that sincerely.”
Maybe it had touched on something he was thinking about, because Kagetora sounded pleased when he said that. I wasn’t entirely satisfied, but… Well, it wasn’t important right now. There was no way that the head of the elite clandestine operations unit, the Black Cats, was here to engage me in idle banter.
“So, do you have something to report?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. The grass has grown more active of late.”
The grass… Spies, huh. In other words, there were spies from another nation operating in the castle town.
“Is it the Gran Chaos Empire?” I asked.
“If it were the Empire, we wouldn’t have such trouble with them. We have some ‘connections’ with them, and we would come to terms before we came to killing one another.”
“Connections…? You make deals with them?”
“We frequently trade intelligence about other countries.”
“I suppose the darkness has its own rules…”
This was an area where I was best to keep my mouth shut and let him do his thing.
“So, these spies we have running around, what country are they from?” I asked.
“They’ve destroyed the evidence, so we have no proof, but… most likely, the Orthodox Papal State.”
“…The Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria, huh,” I muttered.
The Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria. It was a theocracy ruled by the Lunarian Orthodox pope. The most recent thing I’d heard about them was that they’d incited their believers in Amidonia to revolt, then tried to intervene.
“But we’re not openly hostile to the Orthodox Papal State, are we?” I asked.
“Spies do not exist solely to be dispatched to hostile countries. Even if it’s a country you want to establish friendly ties with, spies might be dispatched to gather intelligence and lay the groundwork for negotiations.”
“Hm… Well, if they’re becoming more active, that means…”
“It is likely that they may make some move in the near future.”
“That’s troublesome…”
I recalled some things that Roroa had said when I’d first met her.
“Because that country hates the Star Dragon Mountain Range and the Gran Chaos Empire, that’s why.”
“In Lunarian Orthodoxy, the pope is the only one who can recognize someone as a saint. In fact, there’s a woman in Lunarian Orthodoxy who’s called a saint. That’s why the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria sees Madam Maria as an unforgivable villain who’s misrepresentin’ herself as one.”
“That’s why, now that Elfrieden’s grown bigger by absorbin’ Amidonia, the Orthodox Papal State won’t be leavin’ you alone. Somewhere, somehow, they’ll try to make contact. Could be they’ll offer you some made up title like ‘Holy King’ and try to drag you into their conflict with the Empire.”
If it was like Roroa said… this was going to be another hassle.
And some days later, a request for an audience came from the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria’s saint.
“…And that’s how I ended up agreeing to holding an audience with the saint of the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria,” I finished.
“I see…”
I was in the Jewel Voice Room in Parnam Castle. For some reason, the face of Saint Maria Euphoria of the Gran Chaos Empire that was projected in the simple receiver there bore a look of anxiety. Though the Empire was the mightiest of all mankind’s nations, the maneuverings of the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria must have concerned her.
It had been one week earlier that I’d received the request for an audience, and yesterday, I’d received word that the Orthodox Papal State’s saint had entered the country. Tomorrow, I was set to hold an audience with her.
When this situation had arisen, I’d immediately used Hakuya and her younger sister Jeanne as my intermediaries to arrange for urgent talks with Maria. There was no way the Lunarian Orthodox saint was coming just for idle chit-chat.