Skeleton Knight, in Another World (LN) - Volume 10 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue

THE CITY OF RONTESTATT sat on the western border of the Great Revlon Empire. Until several days prior, the city had been swallowed by unprecedented chaos, suffering heavy losses as a result of multiple complex sabotage attempts believed to have been carried out by operatives of the neighboring Aspania Kingdom. In addition to the assassination of the lord and mass incidents of arson, a monster invasion caused further confusion.

Though things had settled down now, the citizens’ ordeal was far from over. What was more, there was trouble brewing beyond the city limits. Rumors flying around town claimed that the imperial army had been severely weakened in a border clash against the Aspania Kingdom. A portion of the southern imperial army was recalled from other territories and put in charge of reconstruction and security.

As for us, we were summoned back to the lord’s castle once the situation had settled down. After the masked ninjas withdrew, we subdued the rest of the ferocious bandits remaining in the castle, and provided a report, along with Gramn, about the situation to the lord’s wife. I had fully expected her to blame us for failing to prevent the assassination of her husband. However, after listening to our report in silence, she told us that we would be contacted by the mercenary guild when the situation had settled down to receive our payment at a later date.

Though the mercenary guild’s office had been burned down in the previous attack, the organization itself was still around. One of their former guild branch offices was now being used as a temporary headquarters.

This time, we approached the castle from the front gate instead of the emergency exits located in the sewer tunnel.

Upon showing the gatekeeper the medal with the family crest I had received earlier, I was easily granted permission to enter. A servant arrived shortly thereafter to lead us into the castle.

“Kyii,” Ponta mewed at a familiar figure from its perch atop my shoulder as we waited to enter the castle. Dressed in his usual black armor but lacking his usual battle axe, he stood there, waiting for a servant.

I was still carrying my Holy Thunder Sword of Caladbolg, as per usual. It might have been in bad taste to visit an aristocrat while armed, though the gatekeeper had said nothing about bringing my weapon in with me…

“You’re here too, huh.”

While Gramn finally acknowledged my existence, his voice was quiet and subdued, quite unlike his usual demeanor. Though he’d lost many members of the Black-Fanged Dogs in battle that day, not all his men had died. The mercenary group would survive. Obviously, they were still disinclined to be in high spirits, given the circumstances.

“Here to collect your payment?”

It was only Gramn, Ponta, and me here. I’d felt like it would draw attention to have Ariane and Chiyome along to collect our payment, so I’d only brought Ponta with me to the castle.

An uncomfortable silence fell over us for a while.

Eventually, an older gentleman who looked like a butler came forward and announced that he would escort us to the castle, where the lord’s wife was waiting. Gramn and I followed him in silence. 

The room we were taken to was not the one behind the hidden door we’d previously visited, but a slightly larger audience hall. The lord’s wife, draped in a black mourning dress, sat atop a large chair in the center of the room. I detected no sorrow in her expression. Considering how many nobles married merely for politics, his death might not have affected her all that much, even if he was her husband.

“You have provided us with a great service. As promised, here are the rewards you requested,” the lady said in a light tone. She gestured with her chin to the maid who stood beside her.

The maid walked up to me with three silver tags on a tray made of polished wood—our new Silver Rank guild tags. Much to my surprise, the design was not that of a Third Rank, but a Second Rank, represented by two crossed axes.

The lord’s wife seemed to read my mind the moment I looked up at her.

“There has been no mistake. This is a proper evaluation of your abilities.”

She then instructed her servant to give Gramn his payment—a large leather bag filled with what sounded like money, judging by the clanking. He thanked her for the payment, but his voice was hollow.

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when the lord’s wife called upon me. “Arc, would you and the Turbulent Ponta Patrol be interested in working for me?”

Even Gramn was taken aback by this sudden unsolicited offer.

“I’m very grateful for the offer, but I’m afraid we have plans to head to the imperial capital.”

She didn’t seem terribly offended by my response. “I see…”

Judging by her attitude, the offer hadn’t been a serious one to begin with.

After confirming the final terms of our payment, our business at the castle was complete and we were dismissed. Not that it bothered me, to be honest. The castle still hadn’t been cleaned up after all the chaos from earlier.

“Looks like you’ve made a name for yourself, Gramn.” Guild tags in hand, I waved to Gramn to say goodbye.

“Hey Arc…”

There was something serious about his demeanor. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with him.

Gramn scowled and ran a hand through his hair.

“Thanks for your help. I plan to use this regard to rebuild my mercenary group.”

He fixed me with a determined gaze.

“This time around, I’m going to put together a mercenary group that’s strong enough to protect my friends and hometown.”

Apparently, he wanted to make his resolution clear not only to himself, but to say it out loud so everyone else knew it too. It would probably do him some good to stop arguing with people all the time. Still, it had nothing in particular to do with me, so I offered up a simple reply.

“Well, I wish you good fortune on the field of battle.”

Just then something struck me.

“Hey Gramn, have you heard any rumors about any Hilk cardinals?”

I didn’t have high hopes—he was just the leader of a Silver-Rank mercenary group here in the western empire, after all—but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Gramn looked confused by my question but put his hand to his chin to search his memories for a moment. “No, nothing in particular.”

That was pretty much what I’d expected. Aristocrats and other powerful people might know something about the cardinals, but I wasn’t in any hurry to ask the lord’s wife about the matter. With no knowledge of what kind of connections the Hilk had out here, it was unwise to be too open about these matters.

“Oh, right. I recall hearing that one of the cardinals is an incredibly beautiful woman,” Gramn added.

He probably meant it as an idle joke, but this was actually useful information to me. But just how “beautiful” was she, and how could we tell? Ariane and Glenys were both quite the lookers in their own right, and it was hard for me to imagine someone else even more beautiful than them. Perhaps it was all just a question of personal taste?

I thanked Gramn and we parted ways.

A short time later, I arrived at the town square where I spotted a tall, beautiful woman with a cloak pulled tightly around her and a petite young girl dressed in casual attire suitable for life on the road. I called out to them, and they quickly walked over to me.

“You’re back sooner than I expected.”

“Good job, Arc.”

I took out the Silver guild licenses I received from the lord’s wife and handed them over.

“Now we can finally leave the city.” I could clearly hear the emotion in Ariane’s voice as the silver guild tag glimmered around her neck.

Chiyome pulled the guild tag over her head as well. “There are no clear signs of the cardinals here.”

I told them what Gramn had mentioned to me earlier.

***

Vittelvarlay was the capital of the Great Revlon Empire. At its center sat the majestic Diyonborgh royal palace, and within that palace’s grand walls was a quaint little room in which an old man sat on a chaise longue covered in gold fabric, his brow furrowed in consternation. He had white hair, a long beard, and sharp hawkish eyes that glared down at the map before him. 

The man let out a low growl. His name was Gaulba Revlon Selziofebs, and he was emperor of the Great Revlon Empire. 

He had just received a report about what had occurred in Rontestatt, a city located along the western border. The Great Revlon Empire was currently being invaded by the Holy East Revlon Empire, which had already established a foothold in his territory. While the empire was arguing about how to deploy their armies to deal with this threat, they’d issued orders to gather as much information as they could about what was happening as the threat of further encroachment from the eastern empire loomed closer. And now they’d learned they were being invaded from the opposite direction—by the Aspania Kingdom, in the west.

The Aspania Kingdom had not set foot in the empire for many years. However, this sudden invasion seemed to be carried out in collusion with the eastern empire.

“Unbelievable as it is, could Aspania and the east empire have some kind of connection?”

Another figure in the room responded to the emperor’s booming voice.

“It seems so. However, it is unlikely they are working closely together, considering the vast distance between the east and west borders. In fact, Aspania only made its move after the east’s invasion stalled. Were it me, I would want to move in coordination with my partner.”

The speaker was an attractive young man named Salwis du Ohst, mayor of the palace and consul to the emperor. The emperor nodded, seemingly convinced by the other man’s assessment.

“Aspania had nearly destroyed the border fort following their invasion. Why did they withdraw so quickly? The invasion may have stalled in the east, but they also haven’t retreated.”

The emperor glared further at the map, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening.

Salwis looked down at the map as well and voiced his suspicion. “Aspania may not be serious about invading our country. Their aim may be to prevent us from allocating all our strength to the east.”

The emperor scowled at this and folded his arms.

“Even if that is their goal, we can’t just ignore them in favor giving the eastern border our full attention.”

Unlike the eastern empire, nobles in the western empire had a great deal of autonomy. Even the emperor himself couldn’t easily move the entire imperial army around as he pleased. If he tried, the entire empire might dissolve due to internal conflicts of interest without the need for external threats.

However, it was undeniable that the east’s built-up momentum couldn’t be held at bay with their current forces. And that the empire would crumble if the east had the opportunity to divide and conquer each of the territories. They had no choice but to develop a strategy that involved fighting on two fronts, while driving back the east empire.

The emperor raised his sharp gaze from the map to look at the man standing next to him.

“Now, more than ever, we need the imperial inception formula. I want you to begin testing the efficacy of the secret medicinal herbs that go into it, while also collecting the necessary materials across the lands. We must make use of the precious little time we have while the east slumbers.”

Salwis bowed deeply and left the room to see to the details of his assigned task.

“One way or another, my generation will see to the reunification of the empire.”

Emperor Gaulba’s hawkish gaze fell once again to the map.

***

The border of the Aspania Kingdom served as a natural stronghold, between the mountains running to the southwest and the dense forest at the base of those mountains. The city of Alawesque was built right on this very land. Anyone who intended to travel to Foulabein, the royal capital of Aspania, would need to pass through this natural fortress.

A large military camp full of tents of all sizes and shapes was built next to the city of Alawesque, and a constant stream of soldiers moved in and out of the area. The powers that be in the empire would have been astonished to see that the soldiers coming and leaving from the military camp weren’t just humans, but also the so-called “mountain people”—the wolf and cat people known for their skills on the field of battle, and even the rabbit people, who weren’t as well known for their martial prowess.

But scenes like this were nothing special in the Aspania Kingdom. The country had taken a stance of coexistence between humans and mountain people for many years, and these campsites, where various races mingled, served as melting pots.

Despite being considered their nemesis for all these years, the Aspania Kingdom had never engaged in open hostilities with the Great Revlon Empire until their recent lightning strike on the border fort. They left the fort, and the armies within, half-destroyed before withdrawing with their symbolic victory.

Suddenly a strange group on horseback rode into the camp. Dressed all in black and disguised under their cloaks, these figures, who’d been the driving force behind the operation, were nearly unreadable, their expressions hidden behind their blank masks.

Soldiers cheered them on as they rode past.

Once they arrived at the entrance of the large tent at the center of the camp, two figures hopped off their horses while the others proceeded to the stables in the back to rest their mounts.

“Excuse me.”

The masked man announced his presence as he stepped inside, followed shortly thereafter by a masked woman. She stretched out her spine once they were inside.

“How did the operation go, Brad?”

The man speaking so casually to the masked newcomer was Quintil Aspania Gotis, the crown prince of the Aspania Kingdom. His dark gray hair was cut short, and a charming smile graced his fair cheeks.

The man took off his mask and knelt before his master. It was Brad, the blond-haired, blue-eyed leader of the Silver Blades mercenary group.

His real name was Brad von Clavis, firstborn to Count Clavis of the Aspania Kingdom and one of the four royal knights.

The woman standing next to him took off her mask and cloak before joining Brad to kneel before their master. Meel, chief of the Silver Blades, had tanned skin, black hair, blue eyes, and cat ears jutting out from the top of her head.

Her real name was Meel Olsen. Her family had served the Clavis for generations, and she now served as bodyguard to the count’s firstborn.

“A number of things did not go as planned, your Highness, but the assassination of Lord Rontestatt was a success. The former wife of the lord is now in control.”

Quintil nodded in satisfaction at Brad’s report.

“She is an ally we planted in that position many years ago. Rontestatt will remain an ostensibly imperial territory while it is actually under our control. The castle is surely running low on staff after all the chaos, so we should send as many of our own people as we can.” 

The clerk standing at the crown prince’s side quickly rushed to put the ruler’s commands into action.

“And? You said things did not go as planned, but what happened, specifically?” The crown prince’s eyes, the same shade of blue as Brad’s, twinkled with curiosity.

Brad smiled wryly and spoke of the three strange people he met at Rontestatt while the crown prince listened with interest.

“I see. Perhaps they became involved during our plan to use the Summon ability to take the bandits rampaging throughout Aspania and send them to run wild in the empire and destroy their distribution networks and local stability from within?” Quintil chuckled to himself and encouraged Brad to continue.

“Yes. We had originally planned to capture the bandits who were sabotaging the attacks on surrounding areas ourselves for later use at the castle, but we had to hurriedly switch to transporting them, since they were captured much earlier than planned.”

Brad shrugged his shoulders in annoyance, eliciting a brief laugh from Quintil before he grew serious once again.

“So, do you think the medicine could prove useful?”

Brad frowned.

“It didn’t strike me as terribly useful. Anyone who took it began indiscriminately attacking anything and everything that moved.”

“Then why were those three still alive and able to fight you? Even after Meel decided to get rid of them, due to the risk of them interfering with the operation?”

Meel broke her silence to answer the prince’s question. “We noticed they were coming and going from a mansion we had set up in the city to keep monsters in. Once we confirmed they had entered the mansion, we set it and the storage facility ablaze. However, they appeared the next morning as if nothing had happened. We had searched the mansion thoroughly for hidden passages and the like when setting up the storage facility, but came up empty. We have no idea how they got out of the building.”

She continued.

“Later, when we confronted them at the castle, I noticed the young girl is like me, while the other woman appears to be an elf.” 

Brad looked surprised at this revelation.

“Is that true?! What are cat people and elves doing up in the western empire?”

The elves inhabited the southeastern corner of the northern continent, very nearly the opposite end from Aspania. What would they be doing in such a remote area, and hiding their identities at that?

“Hmm, they intrigue me. Are they still in Rontestatt?”

Brad shook his head. “According to the lord’s wife, they said they were heading toward the imperial capital.”

Quintil’s eyes glimmered at this.

“The capital? Well, isn’t that convenient. I want a way to keep in contact with the sisters who are infiltrating the imperial capital. This may be a good opportunity for the Silver Blades to find a new base of operations.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Regardless of what it is that they’re after, we want to ensure our relationship with them does not turn hostile. If they are of the races Meel suspects, then there may be room for discussion. Avoiding hostilities at all costs is imperative for the execution of future plans.” 

After finishing his speech, Quintil looked at Brad and Meel.

“The Silver Blades will go to the imperial capital and continue to carry out our plans. I also want you to build a relationship with this so-called Turbulent Ponta Patrol and uncover their true identities and goals. Be careful.”

Brad and Meel bowed again at the crown prince’s decree.

“As you command!”