He’d said it since he was young—that he would save the world. It was what Glory had always held in his heart. Maybe that’s why.
The moment he accepted Elize as the assassin of the Hero Party, Glory felt a swelling emotion. Now all the pieces to save the world were complete.
"Where do we go now? Is the professor doing well? I’ve kept in touch sometimes. I should quit the mission!"
Elize beamed and slid her sword back at her waist. It was a perfect moment. But Glory did not sheathe his sword; he turned his head and cast his gaze into a patch of empty air.
"...Hm?"
Assassins are peculiar people. They know how to hide their breath but not how to see. So it was with Elize. Even as Glory looked around, she only followed his glance and tilted her head.
But Glory knew. He’d heard it from Professor Dante.
— If you accept Elize as a party member, be ready to deploy your magic sword to the maximum.
That had been slightly shocking to Glory.
Because in most fights, Dante always said, “Control your power,” “Hold your heart still.”
— Why is that?
Glory had asked back.
Dante answered.
— Because of insane parents who want to profit off their children.
Professor Dante’s face was usually set in stone, but when he said that, it darkened a shade further.
— I’ll teach you a secret of the world.
— Long ago, through some error, the flow of the world leaked. It became known as the Heavenly Way, and those with good instincts realized it ahead of time. From then on, certain martial experts lived preparing for this day.
— One of them was Agion. The reason that bastard went mad over the Holy Sword was the same. He read the Heavenly Way and tried to boost his ranking by stealing and drinking down the treasure called the Holy Sword.
Glory disliked complicated things, so he asked point-blank:
Were those parents trying to shove their children into the “Hero Party,” humanity’s last-stand corps?
— Hardly. Why would they give that to someone else?
— It’s the only chance to break into the top five slots of a ranking that’s been calcified for decades.
An obsession with rankings grotesque enough to make your skin crawl.
It was time to face it.
"Come out."
Glory spoke to the empty air.
"......?"
In the next moment, Elize’s eyes widened.
The “void” moved. The invisible gathered in one place and began to merge into a shape. Soon it took on the form of a person. And at the same time it began to waft a very familiar scent to Elize.
He was the greatest assassin in this land—and the most secretive. A man who had once been head of House Xikos.
Shadowless Star○ Constellation, Goaten Xikos.
*
At the same time, Eve strode a step forward and blocked Balmung’s path.
Her senses as a Hero surged.
It was good that she’d become friends with Balmung. It was good that he had accepted when she said, let’s save the world together. But there were those who were clenching their teeth to block the completion of the Hero Party.
In an instant, Balmung stiffened, having caught some “scent.” Far off in the air, darkness was settling. Even though it was broad daylight.
Once, Eve had asked Dante:
‘There are two assassins but only one Hero Party member, so are they trying to get their own child in?’
Dante’s answer was a spectacle.
— No.
— They’re trying to get in themselves.
At the same time, Dante had said that to them, “child” was merely a key to pass through that narrow door.
She could not understand it.
Eve didn’t know who her parents were, and she didn’t know what kind of relationship parents and children ought to have, but even she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was grotesque.
"Hey. What on earth is this..."
While Balmung muttered, Eve gripped the sword at her waist.
Srrr-r-ring...
The Holy Sword 「Peacebringer†」 let out a mellow light.
Where the darkness receded, a woman in jet-black garb appeared.
Black Star⚉ Matriarch Nibelung.
And behind her, the Nibelung family’s most elite assassins showed themselves. At this, Eve recalled the very long, very slow explanations Dante had given.
— Their preparations have spanned decades. They gathered gifted children and raised them. They expanded their influence inside Hiaka and brought martial experts into their arms. They cut the talent of competitors with scissors. And as if that weren’t enough, once they felt too old, they adopted a son to move their soul into a new body.
Here “competitor” meant her son.
"...Were you trying to kill me?"
As the very person who had just been the assassination target appeared—
"......."
Balmung’s breathing began to turn ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) rough.
***
My fight with Security Bureau executive Ikmumba ended tamely in my victory.
Like many Guard executives, he was someone who fought with 『Giantification』 as his mainstay, and I was an assassin specialized in combat against gigantic targets. After a few strikes with the 「Giant Soldier’s Sword○」 and then pounding him with 『Armory of the Celestial Soldier』, he collapsed as-is and sank to one huge knee.
"You’re truly a strong professor. Astonishingly so for your age."
Even with blood at the corner of his mouth, Ikmumba marveled.
"I’d heard your mainstay was [Illusion], and yet you don’t even use illusion against me?"
"Concealment is a tool of the weak."
"Khh... The Empire’s Security Bureau executive being utterly disregarded by a mere professor, it seems. So, do you mean to resist Imperial public authority as you are?"
Ikmumba, stiff until we fought, became rounded with me after his defeat. That’s how power is. It gives you the strength to respect others. And if he would show respect, I intended to respect the Security Bureau’s way, too.
I also offered up my wrists without fuss.
"Take me in."
Either way, even if I held out here, it would just be time for a Bureau Constellation to appear, and I needed to go to the Security Bureau on my own feet.
"Arrest Professor Dante Hiakapo."
"Yes, sir!"
And so, held by the Guard, I started toward the Imperial Security Bureau.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
Now I would go to the Security Bureau and learn about Abraxas. According to the <Synchronized> senses of Dante, we would certainly be able to learn Abraxas’s identity and objective there—and grasp what happened when he visited Hiaka about twelve years ago.
Following that, regarding the Lord of Eternal Return... in other words, we would seize a thread leading to the “Demon King.”
‘And by now...’
The two Constellations who had avoided even approaching Balmung and Elize while stockpiling strength would be moving.
The might of the two Heroes, the two brats who are the assassins of the Hero Party, the Holy Sword and the Magic Sword—it would be time to put them on the test stand.
‘.......’
Even with everything going to plan thus far, one line of doubt remained in me.
Because of what Quan had said when he met Betelgeuse a little while ago.
‘ At the place where the Hero Party is decided this time, there’s not only assassins—there’s one more problem that is very important and dangerous. ’
I kept thinking on what that could be, but had no feel for it whatsoever.
So when I realized it late, it was absurd.
— Zzzt...!
Sitting quietly in the back seat of a Guard vehicle,
I heard noise, and then a frantic voice came through.
— Elder...
— Uh, Elder. Broadcasting an emergency.
It was a Security Bureau employee. When Ikmumba said, “Transmission,” the other side spoke in a trembling voice.
— C-code 00. We have a Code 00...
At the same time, Ikmumba’s breath stopped.
"Are you sure?"
— Yes... At present the Peaceful Constellation☮, the Strife Constellation ж, the Blazing Constellation 火, and so on—five Constellations total—are providing emergency military protection...
The elder’s face hardened.
"Who—what lunatic is this!"
Terror seeped into the driver’s expression as well. His hands shook on the wheel. The Guardsmen seated to my left and right also began to have thundering hearts.
It could not be helped. According to the Abraxas memories in my <Synchronized> mind, Code 00 meant the Empire’s most urgent situation.
‘A terror attack on the imperial house...’
Someone was attempting an assassination on the imperial house.
***
The person who can hide most secretly in the world is the Shadowless Star○.
Conversely, if he wills it, there exists someone who can even watch that Shadowless Star○. His identity was the Prying Constellation │ㅅㅇ).
Quan.
In some dank, dark room, he wore a single magitool [Glass] over one eye and exchanged communications with someone.
"Coordinates are 334ld. 4425mf. They’re moving in an armored vehicle from there now. It’s a vehicle layered triple and quadruple with the Peaceful☮ [Stigma], so it’ll be hard to bomb it by ordinary means."
— Understood.
Someone beyond the receiver spoke in a low voice. Quan laughed. A truly strange man.
Just because the imperial house wants to kill the professor he respects, and just because they fabricated the Obel Prize selection—he’d made the insane judgment to strike the imperial house?
‘And he’s not a Constellation, not a noble, not an Imperial citizen—just a commoner...’
Maybe he was someone the whole sky was helping. Ridiculously, a few Constellations who usually looked askance at the Emperor had voluntarily inserted themselves.
Of course, their aims would be [Empire-Designated National Treasures] buried in the imperial reports, and the 「Elixirs」 of [Myth] rank, and the like, but who cares? What mattered was that suddenly, strong power had gathered.
Right in 「Dominion❆」.
‘...Which is what makes it interesting.’
Quan smiled.
It was too fun.
At the same time, curiosity rose.
"Kaiser."
— What is it.
"Do you think a human can become a star?"
This question, by the question alone, contains the impossible.
A human cannot become a star.
It’s not as if a human grew and became a star.
From the beginning, thirty-three stars hung in the sky.
Their number and shape have not changed.
"If you’re someone as clever as you are, did you find some way, no matter what it is?"
— No. Humans still cannot become stars. I went through ancient documents, Constellation networks, the Empire’s top-secret research materials, and found not even a hint of possibility on that subject.
"Then what is going on with all these acts now? What is the reason for the existence of an organization like Dominion?"
— ......
Kaiser fell silent for a moment. Quan smiled at that.
He couldn’t say, “There is none.”
So he was at a loss for words.
Quan loved it when people fell into self-contradiction like this.
A sudden, out-of-nowhere line came through the receiver.
— Quan. Do you know about the can opener?
"Eh? The can opener?"
— Yes.
"If you mean a machine that opens cans, I know it."
— The tin can was invented around Imperial Year 104. Before that, without [Stigmata] or magic, you couldn’t make long-preserved food, and the cost was very high. At that time, an inventor of the Khan Federation, Jose Apere, had a thought—he recalled their local custom of cooking rice by putting it inside bamboo.
"Hoh?"
— By the same principle, if you put food materials straight into a can and reached sterilization by external cooking, you could avoid spoilage while sealed perfectly. But Jose Apere did not invent the can opener. The can opener was invented around Imperial Year 217.
"I see... So for over a hundred years, people tried to open cans without a can opener? With a knife or something."
— In human history, nothing is completed alone. Sometimes the most important thing arrives after more than a hundred years.
"......."
Miming the hard act of opening a can by hand, Quan narrowed his eyes.
Because he had grasped Kaiser’s intent.
— For now, I intend to place this world beneath His feet. Until, someday, someone makes Him a star.
The man was a madman.
After that, Kaiser Truman turned off the receiver, and in that gap Quan was able to overhear the order.
— Assassinate the Emperor... zzzt...