Awakening the Great Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Those Who Design Destiny

The air inside the cathedral settles once more. The map on the altar is folded away, and the shadow of Kriya's statue falls deep and dark across the floor. The blue eyes of Sier Lagrin, Rank 5 Cleric, glimred quietly in the darkness.

"Now we get to the real matter."

At those words, Royce gave the faintest nod. Calix and Marik, too, kept their guard up and straightened their postures. Ella lowered her gaze, quietly listening to her teacher's voice.

Scraaape—

Sier reached out and pulled open a desk drawer. Inside sat a small but solid circular seal, along with two letters sealed in wax. The edges were gilded, and the surface bore the crest of the Holy Empire.

"Deliver these letters and the seal to the Northwest Mountain Alliance, and to the mage who lives in those mountains."

The leader of the Antelopes feigned composure and asked,

"So……You want soone who can move in secret, rather than a formal envoy."

"Mm, you may have to wager your lives. But it is also sothing that cannot be avoided. To unite the entire continent, we must first break the ambitions of the Niboria Empire."

The elderly cleric traced his fingertips over the surface of the seal. The golden crest glimred coldly beneath his fingers.

"If we can bring the Northwest Mountain Alliance on board, the Kalahim Kingdom of the desert will answer as well. They are very close. And if that happens……"

He trailed off suddenly, turning his gaze to Royce.

"……The Niboria Empire would no longer be able to wage war. The left, the right, and below—the Astria Kingdom as well. They would be surrounded on three fronts."

"That is so."

The corners of his mouth did not move, yet satisfaction seeped through the wrinkles of his face. The rcenary leader's judgnt, it seed, was well beyond ordinary.

"The fee……I will pay it by becoming your 'backing', in whatever way you require. I will provide you with the Order's certificate of faith and the Holy Empire's travel permits. I have also heard you were unable to exchange your promissory note. I will pay the amount written on it, and add one hundred gold coins on top. What say you?"

"……"

But just as Sier had asured the Antelopes' capabilities, Royce did not readily consent—he answered with silence. At that mont, Vice-captain Marik raised his hand to request permission to speak.

"Yes, do you have sothing to ask?"

"When you say the Northwest Mountain Alliance, do you an the Viale Mountain Alliance?"

"That is correct."

"They are not human. It is a federated kingdom composed of non-human races—elves, dwarves, and the like. Would such beings march onto a battlefield for a single letter?"

It was a sharp observation.

Sier Lagrin was a high-ranking cleric. In the Astria Kingdom, he would be the equivalent of at least a Marquis. That alone gave reason not to trust him. That was why Marik had asked with a bitter smile.

"You are right. They despise humans. But in the face of profit, even hatred holds its tongue. That is their way. Much like how your party has a dwarf among its ranks."

"……"

"I an that they hate those who are wicked more than they hate humans—please do not take it the wrong way. To return to the matter at hand, I am not asking you to persuade the Mountain Alliance. I rely want you to traverse the mountains, cross frozen valleys, and deliver word faster than anyone else. The essence of it is 'delivery'. You must beco the legs of a voice."

The Vice-captain stepped forward. Despite having heard the explanation, his face remained rigid, and his words ca out more carefully than usual.

"……To reach Viale, we must cross through Niboria Empire territory. They are at war with the Astria Kingdom. Even if we go over the mountain range, it is far too dangerous."

At this, Calix looked down at the half-folded map. Between the Niboria Empire and the Astria Kingdom lay a long mountain range—once a borderland, now fallen into the grip of the Imperial army.

A brief silence followed.

Royce offered no comnt, simply watching Sier. His gaze carried no edge, but neither did he interrupt Marik's words. He, too, was unconvinced.

Sure enough, the words that spoke for everyone's feelings soon cut through the heavy atmosphere.

"Why the Antelopes? Why do you wish to entrust such a critical mission to us?"

At last, Marik's question forced its way through the weighty mood. Ella quietly drew a breath. All four of them were waiting. A single answer that would decide the relationship between the Antelopes and the Holy Empire.

Silence stretched.

Then Sier opened his mouth in a low, composed voice.

"The outward reason is……That we cannot send a formal envoy. One dressed in splendid robes draws attention, but one caked in the dust of the road goes unnoticed by all. That is precisely what you are. In the northern reaches of the continent, your na has yet to spread."

He placed his fingers over the seal once more, gently tracing the glimring crest. His voice remained calm, yet at its edges lingered a low resonance. And then, as water seeps slowly through a crack in stone, a long-concealed truth quietly bled through.

"And in truth……I have no one."

"You have no one?"

"To cross the Niboria Empire, you need a small, elite force. At the very least, twenty knights. But with even the Pope now at the front lines, where am I to draw that kind of strength from?"

Sier realized that the Antelopes had glimpsed the Holy Empire's reality but had not yet truly grasped it. So he laid before them a dispatch that had arrived from the front not long ago.

A brutal one-act.

* * *

Three weeks ago. Elvra Holy Empire, southeastern region. Erhardt Fortress.

Near dawn.

The fortress walls had crumbled, and the watchtowers leaned as if they might collapse at any mont. Bloodstains had dried across every surface, and the dust would not rise. The occasional gust of wind wound its way through the rubble and stopped dead.

'This is no longer a place where life dwells.'

At the base of a pillar, a young knight sat leaning against a broken stone wall. He was Laverck, a knight of the Purificationist faction.

'Before the Holy War began, I was a commoner……Is this enough to call it a success?'

In the midst of drafting a dispatch to send to command, he tried to push back the despair inside him by letting his thoughts drift uselessly.

War had done more than simply elevate his rank—it had seen him implanted with neural accelerators taken from the dead. From new recruit to squad leader, from centurion to squire knight, and finally to the full-fledged knight he was now. In exchange for crossing countless lines of death, Laverck's neural accelerator had, at so point, begun to emit a blue light.

And yet it was nowhere near enough.

The young knight felt his own limits with brutal clarity. Supplies had been cut off long ago, and reinforcents were beyond expectation. The fortress stood on the verge of collapse. And beyond the walls, in terrain as narrow as back alleys, the wicked things were packed in densely.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"……They co again."

Without warning, the ground trembled in the distance. The grim vibration drew ever closer. The soldiers, their eyes dead and hollow, moved chanically to their positions, and he climbed up the wall to look down upon the enemy lines.

The gorge was filled with beings called 'The Corrupted'.

Once human, but no longer fit to bear that na. They wore horned masks, were draped in blackened beast hides, and their garnts were thick with clotted blood. Their eyes were hollow and empty, their mouths slit wide to either side.

Their armant was poor. They held axes and swords, spears—all crafted from stone, crude in shape. But no one who had faced them on the battlefield ever laughed.

These were no re stone axes. The enemies' weapons were hewn from runestones. A violet hue swirled across their surfaces, and through them flowed a malevolent force.

Stone harder than iron.

"Form ranks!"

"I-It's the gut-grinder!"

He tried to gather himself and issue the order, but before he could, soone scread. And then, from beneath the ground, far away, sothing began to wail. Not tal, not living—yet a strange vibration that seed to squeeze the heart spread outward through the rubble.

Crack, craaaack!

A horrific being erupted from the earth. Like a massive pillar wrapped in dark crimson flesh. It resembled a heavy siege weapon, yet at the sa ti it writhed, its pulsing heart and viscera exposed.

At the top of the pillar was a gaping maw, which split into hundreds of segnts and began to rotate with ominous intent.

In the silence, everyone swallowed their breath.

"……It's moving. It's moving—ahhh!"

"W-We're all dead! Dead, I tell you!"

And in the next instant.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The structure—neither machine nor beast—slid forward toward the walls. It hurled itself in a straight line, tearing through the ground like an enormous worm, plowing through everything in its path as though tilling a field.

Rummmble.

"Stop it! Throw sothing, anything!"

Resistance was aningless.

The bio-weapon accelerated further, and the mont it made contact with the base of the wall—

CRAAAASH!

Faith and prayer, hope and the will to fight—all of it burst apart at once. To say the wall 'crumbled' would not do it justice. It was as though it had been chewed through. Only as wide as the monster's body, the stone was ground to rubble.

Three soldiers caught in its path were torn apart in an instant. Iron plate shattered, flesh was stripped to the thigh, and in a blink, entrails were dragged out in long ribbons.

Above the deeply gouged breach, crumbling stone rained down as the wall collapsed, and the Corrupted ca pouring in with bestial howls.

Laverck looked up at a sky consud by endless wailing, screaming, and agony.

'……This is the end.'

He grabbed a young ssenger huddled in a corner behind the crumbling line. The boy had not yet grown a beard. His helt fit so poorly he could barely lift his head.

"Get ahold of yourself! You still have a sacred duty to carry out."

With trembling hands, he pulled out a blood-sared letter and pressed it into the boy's grip. The corners were singed by fire, and the ink had bled in places, but the letters were still clearly legible.

* * *

Sier opened his eyes. The young knight's final monts rippled through him like still water disturbed, then passed. The mont he raised his head again, a weight settled over the room—one that silenced even reality itself, beyond what words could carry.

"……This is what is happening, right now, in the southeast."

His voice remained composed, yet it bore the gravity of sothing dredged from deep within.

"This is no simple border dispute. Neither a territorial conflict nor a struggle for power. Have you yourselves not encountered signs of the anomaly?"

Then, looking past the altar toward the window draped in deep darkness, he added,

"The land is consuming itself."

"……!"

"The water has rotted, and the earth holds what is rotten within it. Wicked things are closing in from every direction. The Corrupted are no longer out there. They are now growing in our own land—beneath our very feet."

Sier paused to steady his breath, then spoke in a voice heavy with grief.

"This is not sothing that ends simply because you look away. It cannot be avoided. As it is with us, so it will be with the Antelopes—you will be swallowed in the end. It is only a matter of ti."

"……"

"So help us. Na a fair price, and accept the call of an age that beckons to you."

Royce exhaled softly after hearing the explanation through to the end. Fate, of all things. Lately, that very word had been circulating among the Antelopes themselves.

The inco earned over the past year alone had rivaled the combined profits of several years before—and the difficulty of their missions had climbed to match it, seemingly in equal asure.

'Perhaps……All of this may be fate', they had said.

As a rcenary leader, it was not sothing he could accept. Life was ant to be guided by firm reason, decided upon with cold precision.

"I understand the outward reason. Then what, may I ask, is the inward one?"

At that, Sier suddenly fixed him with a direct gaze. There was no intimidation in those eyes—only sothing that looked like contemplation.

After a mont's pause, he spoke in a voice that seed on the verge of being extinguished.

"I have been, by an undeserved stroke of fortune, appointed to the post of Doctrinal Chancellor. I manage all manner of records, and so I can say that I am closer to the Pope than nearly anyone. Most of our exchanges are minor conversations, but there are occasions when I speak plainly. It was through that closeness that I ca to know."

"Ca to know……"

"……There was one who prepared for war in advance. Long before we ever readied for the Holy War."

The Doctrinal Chancellor's gaze drifted, unexpectedly, to land on Calix. A small gasp escaped from Ella's lips.

"The Pointer!"

"He gave warnings. Even the present crisis was foretold. For a mber of the clergy, being close to a mage borders on taboo—but his abilities were of the kind that simply could not be denied."

"So we are……Part of a 'prophecy', is that what you are saying?"

Her question was threaded through with hesitation and doubt. At so point, Ella had stopped taking her teacher's words at face value. He was a cleric, yet he stood at the heart of politics. And true intentions had a way of hiding themselves neatly within the wrapping of a greater cause.

This ti might be no different.

At that, Sier laughed softly under his breath. Teacher and student were so very different, and that was precisely why he cherished her.

"My apologies. I once asked that sa question myself. There was a ti I debated the very subject—whether fate is predetermined. Allow

to share the conclusion I reached then."

"……"

"Fate is the process of retracing the choices one has made and imbuing them with aning. We do not follow fate. It is the accumulation of individual choices that cos to feel like fate."

It was true.

And yet, paradoxically, Royce felt the exact opposite.

His past flashed through him, mont by mont. When he first ford the Antelopes. The mont his son died in his arms. The day he first t Calix.

Looking back, there had been so very much.

He had beco entangled with Duke Saitz, taken a commission from Marquis Hoover to persuade Count Mozak, driven back the Draug, and even co face to face with a mage in the Storm Forest.

Indeed, he had made choices. He had judged each mont and selected what he believed to be the best decision, and at the end of it all—

'……It beca fate.'

The leader of the Antelopes looked ahead with a cold and unflinching eye.

'Refusing the commission won't make us safer. If the battlefield is everywhere, it's better to choose our missions ourselves and carry them out on our own terms.'

Yes—they had to rise. Not rely as a large rcenary band, but to advance to a position one step higher. That was where the path to survival would open.

And he knew with certainty: this was not being dragged along by soone else's hand. Not by Duke Saitz, not by Mage Yelayen, and least of all by the high cleric before him. It was simply that the accumulated choices of each individual had woven themselves into fate.

Marik had chosen. Basim and Zahira had chosen. Ella had chosen. Calix had chosen. Every last Antelope had made their choice.

And so they would move forward.

That was the conclusion Royce had reached.

"Very well. We accept the commission."

"That is welco news. A decision that will benefit us all."

"……"

Not one mber raised an objection. Vice-captain Marik opened his mouth to speak, then swallowed it back down. Ella gave a slight dip of her head in quiet agreent. But Calix was shooting a fierce look in his direction, so at this point he passed the baton over.

He knew well enough what the man wanted to say.

"However, the matter of paynt shall be discussed separately."

"Hmm……Have you already thought of sothing? To be frank, increasing the amount is difficult. Even two hundred gold coins was an offer made by stretching our limits. We are at war, after all."

At that, Calix stepped forward.

"I will speak from here."

"Oh, please do."

"First, we need warhorses. We cannot go on pulling supply wagons as before. We must secure both mobility and the ability to transport goods. The number of personnel for this mission is forty-seven."

"Forty-seven horses……The warhorses of the north carry quite the reputation. It is no easy request, but I will see what I can arrange. That said—does everyone in your group know how to ride?"

"Most cannot, which is precisely why we need them. As I said, securing mobility is the key. In the worst case, we may need to consider using the horses as bait. The finer the breed, the more the enemy will covet them."

"……Understood. Anything else?"

Sier Lagrin reflected that he had underestimated the other party. Calix's demands were varied, and simultaneously precise.

That was evident from the very beginning—when he asked for part of the commission fee to be paid in salt rather than gold coins. The mont they crossed into Niboria Empire territory, the Holy Empire's gold would be worthless. But salt could be used in place of money, and it served broadly as a preservative and for dical purposes.

Not only that—he also included items that veteran rcenaries had muttered about as a matter of habit.

"Diluted physical enhancent agents? What would you use those for? They won't do anything to strengthen one's abilities directly."

"Correct. But they will be of great help in recovering stamina."

"……"

"We will also need a map of the Niboria border regions. In so ways, that is the most important thing. We must be able to distinguish disguised areas and estimate, at least roughly, where troops are stationed……"

The demands kept coming without end. He extracted maps that no amount of money could ordinarily buy, high-quality military-grade equipnt, and even boldly requested a mission brief bearing the Pope's seal.

Sier showed his reluctance—but,

"You will need to provide at least this much for things to be balanced. Risk must be shared by both parties. Otherwise……Wouldn't we be nothing more than a hand you intend to discard?"

"……"

Having observed Volga once negotiating with a black-market dealer, he now ca at it even harder.

"Well……Is that everything, then?"

"There is one more thing."

"I can't even rember them all anymore. Very well—what is it? Go ahead."

Calix let the silence stretch deliberately. A difficult request, by its nature, always ca last.

"To succeed in this mission, the rcenary group as a whole must grow stronger."

"That much is true. Which is why you've been shaking down this old man so thoroughly. How about it—would so physical enhancent agents do?"

"……Simply having strong individuals is not enough. As I have said, the overall level of ability must rise."

"Then what exactly are you asking for……"

In an instant, the wrinkles across Sier's face went taut. His eyes widened to their limits, and his lips parted slightly, revealing the edge of his teeth.

He had realized what the other party wanted.

"We need Neural Accelerators. They must be of stable output and properly registered with the Holy Empire so there are no complications afterward. They must be at least mid-tier. And we will need forty-seven of them. Ah—it will be sowhat fewer than that. I will give you the exact number later."

"You……You are……"

His stumbling lips ca to a full stop.

Complete silence.

Should it be called audacious? Or reckless? Royce did not let it show on his face, but inwardly he was stunned. Marik choked and coughed. Ella, for her part, lost all composure—jaw dropped, mind gone elsewhere.

But even that was nothing compared to what Sier was feeling.

"……Listen here. Do you have any idea what you are asking for? Forty-seven Neural Accelerators. That is practically speaking of founding a knightly order! I cannot accept this. It is too……Far too much!"

"You are right. The situation itself right now is……Too much. The enemy's numbers, their weapons, the number of nations we must forge alliances with, the choices facing each of us—all of it."

"……Are you threatening ?"

"No. I am saying that we will reduce all of those choices down to one. Simply reinforce our strength. Everything else, we will handle ourselves."

The old man opened his mouth to say sothing, closed it, then let his lips move again—repeating this several tis. After a mont, he finally spoke. Very, very slowly.

"I see. Now I understand. You had learned that mid-to-upper grade Neural Accelerators were sitting unused in the Holy Empire. Because knights are dying on the battlefield. And when you think about it—this was a mont that could never have been offered or received at any other ti. Am I right?"

Calix chose not to give an answer.

He simply kept repeating what he wanted, and nothing else.

"……Forty-seven Accelerators and prompt implantation surgery. Without them, the mont we cross the border, half of us will die. This is not a threat—it is a calculation."

"……"

"Forty-seven are the absolute minimum—"

Knowing the other side was just as pressed for ti made it possible to push this hard.

Every bit of it, learned by watching Volga.