Chapter 199

The Incoming One
He runs. He simply runs. For the sake of his homeland.

“Why… why did it come to this… I have to report this immediately.”

Panting, he ran with all his might. He had already been spotted by the enemy.

He was an operative, gathering intelligence on the Empire. He still vividly remembered the moment he left the Kingdom, knowing he would never return to his homeland again.

It was all for the peace of his homeland. He sent the intelligence he obtained within the Empire back to the Kingdom through several routes. Be it economic data, political scandals—or news of the Empire’s invasion.

He had his doubts. Since before winter, the Empire had been raising an army across the entire country under the banner of a northern expedition.

Naturally, he and his fellow agents had noticed this and reported it to their superiors. But the Kingdom showed no sign of making a move. That was impossible. This was an invasion on a scale never seen before in the Kingdom’s history. The homeland had to be taking action. And yet, there was nothing.

When one of the agents who had voiced doubt disappeared, the rest realized: their intelligence network had been taken over. The news of the Empire’s invasion hadn’t reached the Kingdom.

They escaped from the Imperial Capital. Almost all the field agents had already been killed. By the time they reached the border, only he remained.

Someone had to deliver the message. But the pursuers were Inquisitors of the Holy Church. Someone had to sacrifice themselves to buy time.

“Damn those crazy zealots, how long are they going to keep chasing me!”

Without looking back, he threw a knife behind him. A scream rang out. The knife, coated in his personal blend of poison, likely killed the zealot. But that had been his last knife. He had no money or weapons left. Only one final measure remained. But he couldn’t afford to use it. He had survived this far to deliver the message.

The Kingdom’s spies were being systematically eliminated. And if the Inquisitors were moving, the enemy wasn’t just the Empire—it was the Imperial State.

The Inquisitors were the dark arm of the Imperial State, composed of religious fanatics from the Holy Church. They only took on the title of Inquisitors when dealing with targets they couldn’t eliminate covertly—but in truth, they were an assassination squad. “Inquisitor” was merely a front.

They lived quiet lives under normal circumstances. As carpenters, adventurers, merchants.

It was entirely possible that someone you drank with at the tavern could be an Inquisitor. They blended that well into society. But at their core, they were ruthless zealots.

“... Damn it, I can’t shake them. Just a little more… I’m so close…”

He couldn’t keep going through the forest. He had no choice but to dash across the open field and escape into the border checkpoint. Though he was an operative, there should be Kingdom knights stationed at the border.

Only a small number could claim the title of knight in Arland. Kingdom knights. A symbol of elite status. If even one Kingdom knight—a professional in combat—was there, he could turn the tide.

“It’ll be fine. If it comes to it, I’ll use the signal of the dark arm—they’ll believe me.”

But he realized that was no longer possible. An arrow pierced through his leg.

He tumbled across the ground violently. Even so, he crawled, trying to return to his homeland. From behind him, a group of men in various guises emerged from the forest, grinning.

“My, my, even in this pathetic state, the wicked heretic still wants to go home?”

“Hellfire purgatory suits your kind better.”

Their faces twisted with grotesque laughter. Even those who seemed gentle in normal times became brutally cruel when dealing with heretics.

Ignoring the pain in his leg and the screams of his fatigued body, he ran. He didn’t know how he still had this strength in him, but his legs moved on their own. Not only that—his wounded leg, pierced by the arrow, had healed.

Someone had been watching over him. A low-ranking spirit of light. A spirit whose wavelength just happened to match his had instinctively moved to help him. It was a spirit that had traveled to Arland in search of Alicetia.

—I’ll help you~~—

“A spirit! Thank you!”

It was such a miraculous coincidence that tears almost welled in his eyes. But he couldn’t let sobs disrupt his breathing. If his breathing broke now, his body would reach its limit and he’d no longer be able to run.

Then, a sound he had never heard before rang in his ears. It came from the sky.

“That’s… an aircraft…? Then that means the princess…”

He had heard of aircrafts in a newspaper by chance. He had even felt a bit of joy at how amazing Arland’s technology was.

And the one who likely created it was a princess—a member of the royal family they were meant to protect.

He didn’t hesitate to take his final measure. It was a type of bomb—but used for emergency communication. A signal flare to request rescue. Normally, it would be carefully hidden in a safehouse, but he had brought it with him just in case.

A flash of light shimmered in the sky.

Rudolf’s Point of View

“Mhmmm~”

“Hey, Rudolf! Isn’t this past the border!?”

The special aircraft was a twin-engine ground attack plane with tandem seats. It had no official name because it was an experimental prototype never intended for mass production. Not even a temporary name had been assigned to it.

Its intended role was similar to that of the A-10 Thunderbolt, though its shape wasn’t particularly similar. In line with that concept, it was built with abnormal sturdiness, which made it heavy, and compared to a fighter jet, it was severely lacking in aerial combat capability. Within the Air Force, it was mockingly referred to as "the princess’s plaything."

But that didn’t matter to Rudolf. This was the machine he had always wanted.

Of course, he hadn't been fully satisfied. At first, he had wondered aloud, “Why doesn’t it have a turbofan engine?” only to have his partner Delman respond, “What’s that?”

Come to think of it, what was that? He tilted his head and was laughed at. To this day, Rudolf had no idea why he had even said something like that.

Incidentally, the A-10 Thunderbolt was currently in production. The special aircraft had been assembled from bomber and fighter parts using Alicetia’s catastrophically brilliant mind. She wasn’t a genius—she was a calamity.

In truth, its maneuverability left much to be desired. Even Rudolf, a master pilot, had groaned, calling it “an utterly unruly beast.”

Even so, it was hastily constructed and mounted with a 30mm Gatling gun underneath the fuselage. This was something Rudolf had insisted on having, demanding it even if it was unreasonable. As a result, its other weapons were limited to the bare minimum—just a few machine guns.

Yet Rudolf was a genius pilot who had actually scored a simulated kill against a fighter with this machine. Even though the opposing pilot had the skill of a rookie, the upper brass had been shocked and exclaimed, “You really should be flying a fighter jet!” To which Rudolf had resolutely refused.

“I crossed the border a long time ago, of course.”

“Do you understand what you're doing!? Aircraft are classified assets. Are you trying to defect to the Empire or something? I swear, I’ll shoot you and drag your corpse back if I have to!”

“Hmph. You think I’d ever side with scum like Iwan? The spirits whisper to me. They say their kin is here.”

Rudolf was also contracted with a wind spirit. That spirit had told him that a fellow spirit in need was nearby.

“We can’t keep violating the border like this. We need to return at once.”

“The Empire has violated our borders plenty of times. A little trespassing is fine.”

“This is seriously bad!”

“Hmm? That’s a signal flare from the Special Service. Looks like we hit the mark.”

Rudolf descended to minimum altitude and made a pass over the target. A man was being attacked by a group. Their clothing was unmistakable. During a boring Air Force lecture, an instructor (worse at flying than Rudolf) had described these people as "evil that must be dealt with"—the Inquisitors, garishly dressed in conspicuous white.

“Alright, let’s kill them. Do it, Delman.”

“Damn it, why do I have to babysit this lunatic… Fine! I’ll do it!”

Delman, assigned by the upper brass to act as Rudolf’s handler, shed tears of frustration.

As Rudolf passed over the Special Service agent, the Gatling gun beneath the aircraft began to spin, and 30mm explosive rounds rained down on the Inquisitors. That was all it took. Just that, and the Inquisitors were reduced to piles of meat.

“Incredible firepower, as expected. Magnificent. Let’s head back.”

“Hey, what about the Special Service agent?”

“We can’t exactly land here. We’ll definitely crash if we try. Want to give it a go anyway?”

“… Well, he should be fine now.”

Delman knew all too well how horribly distorted the special aircraft’s performance was, so landing in a grassland wasn’t an option.

He covered his ears against the deafening roar.

“What the hell!?”

By the time everything was over, the mysterious aircraft had flown far into the distance. The man was furious—”Weren’t they supposed to save me!?”—but the vile laughter of the Inquisitors who had been chasing him was nowhere to be heard.

He looked back. Dust still hung in the air, but there were no people. Only scattered chunks of flesh remained.

He had survived by sheer luck. The light spirit had healed his wounds, and the Inquisitors, having assumed he was cornered, had gotten careless and were standing about 50 meters away. Most importantly, the light spirit had made an all-out effort to keep the explosive fragments from hitting him. Without the spirit, he would almost certainly have been struck by shrapnel.

Rudolf had sensed that the spirits were protecting the man, so he hadn’t given it a second thought. Even so, the light spirit had nearly exhausted its power.

But the man couldn’t rest. There were still many Inquisitors in the forest, and it was likely they had already realized he was here. The ones who had become chunks of meat were just a small group.

He began to run again. However, the remaining Inquisitors, upon witnessing the horrific remains of their comrades, were too busy vomiting to pursue him.

They were used to seeing corpses. Even tortured ones only made them slightly uncomfortable. But the sight of their fellow devout believers, mutilated beyond recognition, had shaken even them.

The man burst into a checkpoint near the border.

“The Empire is planning a large-scale invasion!”

“Who are you!?”

He quickly made a hand signal. That alone was enough for the knights to recognize him as an ally.

“The Special Service within the Empire has been annihilated. It looks like our intelligence never reached you.”

“All we’ve heard is that the Empire hasn’t made a move.”

He sat down from exhaustion, breathing heavily as he continued his report.

“We thought that might be the case, so we came all the way from the capital. The Special Service has been wiped out in other towns as well. The people sending information to the kingdom were fakes.”

“……”

The knight was bewildered by the gravity of the news. The Arland Kingdom’s intelligence division—the Special Service—was elite. That it could be destroyed without a trace was hard to believe.

“Please, you have to believe me! The Empire must already be mobilizing its army. If we don’t act fast, the kingdom—our homeland—will be overrun!”

“… Understood. I’ll report to the government immediately. You should get some rest. Someone! Get him a room and some water!”

As the knight let him rest, he pulled a magi-com device from his pocket and sent a report. The higher-ups were also deeply confused, but they promised to act immediately.

“If only this thing had been mass-produced a little sooner…!”

The knight clenched the magi-com in frustration.

That day, a state of emergency was declared in the kingdom.

The Empire’s military had declared war on an unprecedented scale...

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