Glory normally has no interest in Constellations or outsiders, but right after, by the will of Heaven, he realized Elize was the assassin of the Hero Party, he looked up the House of Xikos.
Short pink hair. A face that had met the storms of the years head-on. And in the eyes that did not look at his own daughter, not a speck of heart.
He was Hiaka’s great [Constellation] who had disappeared long ago.
“...Shadowless Constellation○ Goaten Xikos. Is that you?”
At Glory’s words, the man quietly smiled. It was a warm smile, so warm you’d hardly believe he’d been dead serious a moment ago.
“First time seeing me? I’ll be in your care.”
“...I don’t see anything I’d be asking you for.”
“Why talk like that? For all appearances, I’m a man nearly at the very peak among all assassins on this continent. I want to save the world together with you.”
“......”
At this point, Glory—who had grown the tiniest tail of sociality—hesitated for a moment and turned to Elize, and Elize’s face was washed over with dismay.
The bright expression she’d ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) had the moment the professor came up was nowhere to be seen.
“......Father?”
Elize soon forced an awkward smile and slowly approached.
But Goaten’s gaze reached only Glory.
As if he couldn’t even see his own daughter.
“...Uh, um. Dad—”
When she tried to take one step closer—
“Stop!”
The instant Glory’s command fell, Elize halted on the spot.
The air seemed twisted like a braided straw rope. The tip of an invisible blade was touching Elize.
It was killing intent.
Elize backed away, tilting her head. She couldn’t make sense of it.
“Hero. Think it over. I’m a being completed as an assassin after long training. If it’s to save the world, choosing me is the optimal path.”
“...Goaten Xikos. I have already chosen my companions. This is a phenomenon of fate. Naturally, I have no thought of abandoning my companion.”
“I know. I do. Of course you might not choose me. But you need it anyway, don’t you? The power of the Shadowless Star○. That’s why you came to find that girl, which I happen to know, you see? I’ve known it for a very long time.”
A warm smile once more sat at the corner of Goaten’s mouth, and without looking at Elize even for a moment, he spoke to Glory.
“But I handle the Stigma of the Shadowless Star○ better. She won’t even have the feel for it yet. In the end, who’ll be of more help in saving the world?”
“Goaten. Stop it already! What are you even saying in front of your daughter?”
“Hey now. Don’t bristle at me like that. How honorable do you think the seat you’re about to offer is?”
“......”
“It’s a seat that can exist exactly once in the entirety of this continent’s long, long history. Daughter or whatever. That kind of thing isn’t what’s important right now, is it? Of course I know my words are a bit much.”
Goaten laughed.
“But, me? I’ve prepared for a very long time.”
And then he laughed a little more.
“So won’t you choose me?”
If he had a tail, it would have been wagging.
“You wouldn’t want to see it either.”
“See what.”
Disconcertingly, that face and that smile were the spitting image of Elize.
“An assassin killing his own daughter.”
Elize finally froze.
“...Father... I... I’ve been looking... for so long... why...”
“Would you not call me that? I’m not your old man.”
“......”
If she’d had a tail, it would have sunk.
Elize no longer even managed the awkward smile she’d been wearing.
And Glory was not the style to hesitate even a little before such unrighteousness or to think too deeply.
“No. Goaten. No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“You are not needed to save the world.”
“......”
With those words, Glory drew the demon blade at his waist, 「Warbringer♠」, and violet letters climbed up along the blade’s body.
In the past, right after committing his first murder, Glory had never again killed.
But after meeting Professor Dante Hiakapo, he had, under ‘authorized killings’ from him, committed several.
The evildoers slain thereby numbered in the hundreds.
The demon blade 「Warbringer♠」 swallowed the aura of each and every one of the dead and turned it into a curse. That baleful aura began to ripple the air.
Giiing ──
At that, the face of Shadowless Constellation○ Goaten loosened slightly.
If he’d had a tail, it would still have been wagging, but in a meaning utterly different from just now.
“So I’m not needed, huh...”
As if he’d known already, he nodded.
“...Right. That’s right. Even with a Constellation to my name, over decades I only raised my ranking from 33 to 24. I also thought I was a guy nobody needed. From a very long time ago.”
“......”
“But now it’s different. From what I’ve heard by the Heavenly decree, boy, you’re in a position where you can’t help it, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean.”
“You have a mechanical duty to complete your group, you and yours. And in it there must be one assassin. An assassin who handles the Stigma of the Shadowless Star○. And that seat doesn’t have to be some young girl, y’know.”
What that meant was obvious.
Creak, creeeak ...
He began gathering the killing intent in the air, compressing it into several small regions, shaping it.
“Father. Let’s talk for a second. What is... what is this situation?”
Unable to watch any longer, Elize abruptly raised her voice, but Goaten only shut his eyes with a straight face.
From his waist he drew a pill bottle; from inside it he took out a pill, put it in his mouth, and chewed it—finger and all.
Crunch—
A sound that rang clear. His thumb was mashed to pulp and bled. “Mmm...” At the same time he twisted his body, and a sigh welled up from the bottom of his soul and spilled out.
“...Elize. You really do bother me from beginning to end.”
At last the man’s gaze reached Elize. The gaze of Shadowless Constellation○ Goaten, the world’s apex [Stealth] assassin.
“...I should’ve killed you then...”
It was simultaneous. The memory Elize had kept buried surged violently through her head.
***
After being seized and taken to the Bureau of Public Safety building, I was locked up in the holding cell next to Ikrumba’s private office.
The Bureau of Public Safety was in utter chaos. Famous [Grandmasters] and [Challengers] of the Empire were firing off communications without rest, and even the [Constellation] hotline rang several times.
Ikrumba raged without pause as he worked the lines everywhere, and in the midst of it I realized the cause of this incident through 【Script】.
“Dominion❆—that cult has finally laid hands on the Imperial Family!!”
I was startled on the inside.
Dominion❆, huh.
‘Don’t tell me Kaiser...’
There’s still almost nothing known to the world about the relationship between me and Dominion❆, but Kaiser did indeed proclaim me a god, and I also at one point acknowledged myself to them.
And the fact that Dominion❆ venerates Dante Hiakapo is, inside Dominion❆, a matter of course. No way the Bureau of Public Safety hadn’t figured that out.
“......”
Sure enough. Ikrumba glared at me with vicious eyes.
“You bastard... Dante Hiakapo... you’ve really gone mad.”
From here on it was the hour of wrongful accusation.
“You dare plot the overthrow of His Majesty the Emperor and Hattengraj?”
“......”
Because I never did any such thing.
Right then.
Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep!
Ikrumba’s emergency hotline rang.
“This is Elder Ikrumba. Ah, yes. Yes! Grand Elder, sir!”
I realized who was on the other end.
It was “Tirangstein.”
He was the Archsage, the master of the Soltia Conference, and the Peaceful Constellation☮.
He was also the Grand Elder of the Bureau of Public Safety who moved first whenever an emergency broke.
“What? Ah, yes! I have him here now! Uh... yes? Yes? Is... is that true? T-that’s... i-impossible... Yes, damn it......”
Ikrumba’s face began to go pale, and I quickly realized why.
【 Peaceful Constellation☮ Tirangstein: <It’s confirmed that His Majesty has died. In a state beyond revival. He was wholly assassinated.> 】
Insane.
Truly, an insane situation I never imagined was unfolding.
Assassinate the Emperor?
Why?
I, of course, had personally affirmed Kaiser and affirmed Dominion❆.
But I hadn’t contacted them at all. I had no grasp of what they were doing.
That was Kaiser’s intention. While saying he respected me, he restricted contact. (For some reason he regarded me as sacred.) He’d take action on his own without troubling me, or so he said.
【 Peaceful Constellation☮ Tirangstein: <Bring Dante Hiakapo to Central Room 17.> 】
And so I was called to the Bureau’s maximum command-and-control room.
It was a shocking report.
Kaiser killed the Emperor?
‘No, more than that—how did he even kill him?’
What flustered me even more was Kaiser’s capability.
To kill an Emperor, you need to perfectly control at least three or four high-tier Constellations.
From what I’d pieced together since last year, Kaiser had been taking [Challengers] into the Dominion cult and forming some kind of death squad, or whatever.
And now he had even subjugated [Constellations]? I couldn’t help but admire the bastard’s ability as a shadow mastermind.
‘...While I’ve been gathering and molding the Hero Party, the bastard’s been controlling Constellations.’
But the timing was terrible. From where I sat, the situation had suddenly flipped to the worst.
‘I’m gonna lose it.’
I’d only come here of my own two feet to dig into Abraxas’s past.
‘Of all times, now...’
Maybe this was what Quan had talked about.
In the Hero Party Selection Match, the “problem that would occur if I rushed to uncover Abraxas’s past.”
Right then.
From far off, Ikrumba stormed toward me with a face of maximum fury and called the troopers. “Hey, you there!” “Yes, sir!!” They came at me carrying three shining ropes.
“Dante Hiakapo! How... how dare you plot the overthrow of the state!”
“...I don’t know anything about that.”
“Silence! You’d brazenly deny it before me? In the heart! Of Hattengraj, the Empire! Of the Bureau of Public Safety!?”
“...No, I really don’t—”
“Shut your mouth!! Y-you lunatic...!! We’ve long known you’re the head of that cult. You devil, you curse-worthy, you wretch due Heaven’s punishment...!! You dare make sport of His Majesty the Emperor, of Hattengraj and the Imperial House!!”
He let out a scream.
To the people of the Empire, the Emperor is akin to faith. Not like a president, but like a god.
And so Ikrumba was practically on the verge of tears, shouting in a fit.
I was simply dumbfounded, and I had no sense of what I was supposed to do now.
Somehow, we killed a god.
‘What do I do now.’
I truly have no idea......
“You are going to Central Room 17 now! And there, before the Bureau’s Constellations, you will confess your crimes!”
“...I haven’t committed any.”
“Enough, enough! Will you not shut that mouth oooof yours!?”
“......”
Soon three ropes were thrown over my wrists. Ropes of Peaceful☮, Cursed♠, and Reaper Ω. This is the maximum binding system that can be placed on a Constellation-class criminal, and as a matter of course it prevented any and all abilities or [Illusion] from being used.
“......”
I stared blankly at the ropes binding my wrists, then slowly lifted my head to the sky.
We know this.
Even if plans begin in human hands—
Execution depends on the sky.
That is why great kings, generals, strategists... lift their faces to the heavens and pour out their true hearts.
Zhuge Liang, who prayed for Heaven’s mandate every Northern Expedition and was thwarted nonetheless. Yi Sun-sin, who with twelve ships crushed 133 at Myeongnyang, yet confessed in the Nanjung Ilgi that Heaven aided him. Napoleon, who despite killing himself with effort was thwarted at Waterloo by a sudden downpour. They tell us that truth.
“......”
Looking to the sky, I thought.
At this point where everything had begun to tangle—
Perhaps, now, there was no refusing it anymore.
< ⁺₊⋆ is watching you. >
And if this is fate,
I was ready to accept it.