Chapter 20
It was at the very moment when he was preparing to return, his heart rotting black with resentment and malice, that the summons from the Empress arrived.
Shortly afterward, Count Calvain, having been called by the Empress, arrived at the Empress’s palace. His face was blank with shock at the sudden summons. His last hope had already vanished, leaving him utterly at a loss. A maid brought tea, but he could not even bring himself to lift the cup.
At that moment, Madam Giggs’s courteous yet stiff voice was heard.
“Her Majesty the Empress is entering.”
Count Calvain hurriedly rose from his seat and turned around.
Through the open door, the Empress walked in. Count Calvain immediately bowed his head, and Adele spoke as she took the seat of honor.
“Please, be at ease and sit down, Count Calvain.”
Perhaps because this was his first private audience of this sort, the count fidgeted so restlessly that it made onlookers uncomfortable. Adele spoke bluntly, stating the reason she had summoned him.
“When was the tower built?”
“!”
At the Empress’s question, the count froze. He stared at her without even blinking, as though he could not immediately understand why she was asking such a thing.
“At first, were there no flying magical beasts, and did they begin to appear as time passed? Has the diameter of the tower been gradually increasing?”
As he stared blankly at the Empress, a light slowly filled Count Calvain’s eyes. The bitterness and pent-up resentment of being driven to the edge poured out at her question, as though a dam had burst.
“The moment we saw the flying magical beasts, we rushed into action. There aren’t even Keepers deployed there, let alone Strikers, so anyone who can hold a weapon—man or woman, young or old—is desperately fighting off the beasts. From toothless old men to children who have just entered puberty—everyone… Please, Your Majesty the Empress.”
His voice trembled violently. The pain was etched deeply into the wrinkled face of the count, who had fled hell itself and run with all his strength toward the silent imperial palace.
“There aren’t even Keepers deployed, let alone Strikers?” Adele asked in disbelief.
The count nodded, recalling that the Empress was a foreigner.
“Support is provided in the form of dispatches. Depending on the grade of the tower, aid is sent from the central authority.”
“If it’s Grade Four, that’s medium to large scale. Are you saying there was no support at all?”
“There are even cases where support is delayed despite it being Grade Two.”
“That’s tantamount to telling everyone in that area to die.”
“Please, save us, Your Majesty the Empress.”
The count knew that begging the Empress would likely do no good, yet he clung to even the smallest straw of hope. Tears streamed from the eyes of the white-haired count.
“Please save us, Your Majesty the Empress. The people are dying miserably. Children and women who cannot move quickly are being torn apart by the beasts’ savage claws and teeth. The trained knights of the territory have collapsed from exhaustion and died, or fallen in battle.”
“Please refrain from such cruel descriptions in the presence of Her Majesty the Empress,” Madam Giggs interjected from the side.
She was worried that the delicately raised Empress might be shocked. The count swallowed his sobs and wiped away his tears.
“I apologize.”
“No. I know you have already softened what is truly hell,” Adele replied.
“……”
The count, who had been wiping away tears with his head lowered, raised his gaze to the Empress. Contrary to Madam Giggs’s concern, the Empress looked at him with a calm expression.
Facing the count’s anguish-filled face, Adele recalled hell.
A blood-red sky. The grotesque howls of magical beasts. Smoke. People’s screams, corpses strewn everywhere, pools of blood. Mothers who had lost their children collapsed and wailed, while children who had lost their parents shook their lifeless bodies over and over, crying for them to wake up. And until the tower was destroyed, those things crawled out relentlessly, stealing away the entire lives of the helpless.
The Empress’s eyes sharpened.
The tower had appeared in this world one day without warning—a dreadful time. After the chaos passed, humanity, as it always did, began to find ways to cope. Mages who reacted to the tower’s mana began to appear. Alongside the existing knights, Strikers and Keepers became the most crucial forces in containing the towers. Yet some humans saw this terrible crisis as an opportunity.
Do you really think you can save everyone in the world? Just close your eyes for a moment, shut your ears. Then I’ll offer the world to you. That tower is an opportunity for us.
Mother.
Yes.
You say that because you haven’t seen the people who are dying.
……
You say such cruel things because you haven’t seen the miserable sight of those dying. The world… you don’t need to offer it to me.
It must have been that day—the day her relationship with her mother began to fracture. In the end, her mother stripped Adele of her position as Crown Princess.
Coming out of her brief recollection, Adele returned to the present.
The count’s hair, whitened as though frost had settled upon it, was completely unkempt, and his deeply lined face was gaunt and hollow. The aged, white-haired count bit down hard on his rough, bloodless lips, then forced a smile.
“Your Majesty the Empress. Thank you sincerely for your concern. I apologize, but I believe I must return to my territory as quickly as possible, so I will take my leave.”
When even the faint thread of hope that was the Empress vanished like a dawn star, overwhelming despair surged in like a tidal wave and struck him from behind. His throat burned, parched and dry, and he could not even swallow his saliva.
Supporting his trembling knees with both hands, the count barely managed to stand and bow respectfully. Just as he turned his creaking body to leave—
“Evacuate your people to nearby territories.”
When the count turned his head back toward the Empress, she was already standing.
“The best shelters against flying magical beasts are caves or underground spaces, so move the elderly and the young to such places. Flee as far from the tower as possible and join forces with multiple lords—this will allow you to hold out longer and put pressure on the central authority as well, making it effective.”
“……Yes, Your Majesty the Empress.”
“You already know this, of course,” the Empress added bitterly.
The count shook his head.
“No. I will do so. Please do not worry too much.”
In truth, her advice would not be of much help, but the count said so anyway, because he could see the genuine concern on the Empress’s face.
As he weakly turned away, Adele’s heart sank heavily, like a stone dropped into still water. She had no power at present to give him immediate, effective help. She had summoned him merely to understand the situation—and that filled her with guilt.
Adele stopped the count briefly, then hurried back to her room and opened a box filled with gold bars. She put two into a pouch, then shook her head and added two more. Even as she thought that spending like this would quickly deplete her emergency funds, she pressed them into the count’s arms.
“W-What is this, Your Majesty the Empress?”
“I’m sorry I can’t be of greater help. That should be enough to temporarily ask another territory to take in your people.”
The count reflexively opened the pouch, then gasped in shock when he saw four gleaming gold bars. As he tried to refuse and return them, the Empress firmly pushed them back into his arms and hurried the old count out.
“Didn’t you say every moment counts? Go.”
“……Thank you for treating a stranger like me so kindly, Your Majesty the Empress.”
Deeply moved, Count Calvain left the Empress’s palace with tears streaming endlessly down his face.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Why do you think the Empress summoned him?”
At Theseus’s question, spoken while gazing at the late-summer scenery, Lionel answered as he looked down at the documents he was handling.
“Perhaps she was curious about the situation?”
“Still, it’s unexpected that His Majesty abandoned Count Calvain’s territory. Count Calvain is someone who would submit to the imperial family.”
This time, Lionel lifted his gaze to look at his older brother.
“I find it unexpected as well, brother. Until now, most of the lands His Majesty abandoned belonged to families that did not submit to him.”
The brothers pondered the reason the Emperor had abandoned Count Calvain’s territory, then soon frowned and returned their attention to their respective tasks.
“To think we must speculate on why a ruler would abandon his people. How absurd.”
Having finished processing the documents, Lionel rose from his seat.
“Will what you have be enough to deal with it for now?”
“If it isn’t, are you planning to help?”
“If you ask for help, I’ll give it as much as you need.”
“For now, it’s manageable, so please don’t worry.”
What Lionel intended to handle was the pay of the guard knights under his command. Their wages had gone unpaid for three months already, and those without means were struggling to survive. Lionel planned to use his own assets to cover their living expenses for the time being.
“You often come up with methods I’d never think of,” Theseus said with a chuckle.
“In any case, that’s a relief. I was thinking of giving Count Calvain some money as well, so I wasn’t exactly flush.”
“The Duke of Baldur saying he’s not flush—passing dogs would laugh.”
“Enough. Let’s go out. It looks like Count Calvain’s carriage is arriving.”
