BLOODY MARY IS IN THE MIST

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The radiation emitted by spent nuclear fuel could be blocked off by thick metallic shielding. While it wasn’t perfect protection, it did go a long way toward minimizing the risk of radiation exposure. This was why, when pursuing the weak, unarmed Hail Mary Regiment, the military continually deployed Vánagandrs wrapped in composite armor made from a mix of ceramic and heavy metals. These cornerstones of the Federacy’s ground force, built with similar armored weapons as their intended targets, each boasted a 120 mm smoothbore gun and a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun, and at fifty tonnes, could travel at up to a hundred kmh.

This pack of metallic wolves raced under the thick, heavy mist typical of late autumn on the second northern front.

The fire of their two revolving machine guns mowed down the fleeing soldiers in a cloud of blood splatter. Those who tried to hide behind crumbled stone walls were hit with tank shells that turned them into a mixture of crushed rock and flesh. Some tried to conceal themselves in the shadows, only to be torn apart as multipurpose tank shells burst in midair, releasing scatter shots that swept through them. Others became so panicked by the pursuit that they charged at the Vánagandrs empty-handed, only to be casually kicked away by their metallic legs.

The Hail Mary Regiment’s soldiers carried 7.62 mm assault rifles—which, in the Federacy, where armored infantry was the main force, weremostly considered weapons of self-defense, carried by transport units or combat engineers. Even the Republic’s Juggernaut, the weakest and most poorly armored of all armored weapons, could deflect 7.62 mm bullets, so naturally, they wouldn’t so much as scratch a Vánagandr’s stalwart armor.

And so the Hail Mary Regiment not only failed to take revenge but were instead killed for their trouble. Swiftly, and quite mercilessly—they were massacred.

All battlefields were shrouded in a kind of mist. No matter how carefully, thoroughly, or meticulously one gathered intelligence, there was no way to eliminate all uncertainty. It lurked everywhere—in the enemy army, politics, climate and terrain, and even in the actions of individual soldiers like those of the Hail Mary Regiment. With such factors influencing its course, an operation could never go exactly according to plan.

That was why, to Lieutenant Colonel Mialona, this battle felt so strange, and so horrific.

“…Just what did you fools hope to accomplish?”

In order to ensure none of the soldiers could possibly run off with the “nuclear weapon,” she’d formed a careful and thorough perimeter around them. They maintained radio silence and used the terrain to hide themselves so as to keep their approach and encirclement from being noticed.

In addition, to ensure the renegades didn’t consider detonating the nuclear weapon in a “Hail Mary” moment, the first thing they did was storm and seize the warehouse where the “nuclear weapons” were being stored. They closely examined all their intelligence, then sent out scouts who swiftly but carefully confirmed the terrain and the target’s position before launching the raid.

And yet, the fact that their approach, encirclement, scouting, and combat all went exactly according to plan made this a very unusual battle.

It was like their opponents had neither the planning, the preparation,nor even the will to resist. With their last ray of hope, the “nuclear weapon,” lost, the situation fell apart, and they all fled in fear.

…Yes, all they did was run.

At first, they only ran, like the stupid, cowardly roosters and hens they were. They didn’t act out of loyalty to their country. Perhaps they thought they were acting out of love for their hometown or their comrades, but they weren’t, in the end. And it certainly wasn’t out of a sense of righteous indignation, true feeling, or a desire for justice.

They were simply spurred on by terror. They couldn’t stand the situation, so they ran wherever their legs would carry them. That was the absurd, foolish truth behind this whole upheaval. They were so rattled by fear that they ended up exposing the front, their own comrades, and indeed the entire country to danger—and all in the name of simple, unsightly escapism.

They hadn’t even tried to see themselves for what they were—pitiful fools who couldn’t contain even one of their own emotions. And with that foolish, powerless, and slothful attitude…

“How did you expect to save anyone when you couldn’t even discipline yourselves? What did you expect to happen, you imbeciles?”

“Princess, save me! Save me!”

“Princess, I don’t want to die!”

“Protect us, Princess! Princess!”

With the sound of her dying soldiers thundering in her ears, Noele wept and screamed in an attempt to shut them out.

“It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault! No, it’s everyone else, not me, but everyone else—”

None of them would think, and they simply clung to me, begging to be saved, so I tried my hardest, I—I tried, I tried so hard, and that’s why I had to do this… But I really— I didn’t really want to!

Her eyes turned to Rilé, running from a Vánagandr. Upon seeing her, Rilé reached out to her with a desperate expression.

“Princ—”

But before Rilé could finish her sentence, a Vánagandr’s foot crushed her to bits. Noele should have never heard her voice—never seen her face again. And yet, she could hear that voice cursing her, see that face blaming her.

“You told us to do it, Princess. You ordered us. You decided to do this, and you got us caught up in your mess.”

“…No!”

We had to correct the mistake. I only acted to protect and save the others. So it can’t be my fault. It isn’t my fault!

“It’s only because all of you couldn’t do it properly! It’s not my fault!”

The fact that we couldn’t make the nuclear weapon, that everyone ended up dying… I wasn’t wrong. I was right! There had to be a perfect solution prepared for me! The world can’t be that cruel… So it’s not my fault I didn’t find that solution. It’s not my fault we couldn’t do it!

“—That’s right.”

Someone caught her in their arms. She turned around and found Ninha smiling at her.

“That’s right, this isn’t your fault. It’s all okay now. I’ll protect everyone.”

Noele felt her breath catch in her throat. In that moment, she completely forgot all the sorrow and fear and tears she’d shed just a moment ago.

Ninha hadn’t saidsave meorhelp meorprotect me.

She’d said,I’ll protect… Did she meanprotect Noele?

“You don’t have to think about anything anymore. No need to make decisions. I’ll protect you from all that. I mean, I’m the only one who’d understand, right? It must have been such a burden, being a princess. But you’ll be fine now.”

I…

Somewhere deep down, Noele did think it was a burden. Being the daughter of a regional knight, having the responsibilities of being an Imperial noble. Those were all things that’d been forced on her. If she could just give up on the title of princess, on all the things forced on her, it would be… It would be so lovely…

And then the revolving fire of a Vánagandr’s machine gun pulverized both girls into a bloody mist.

Most of the nuclear weapons were inside the warehouse seized at the beginning of the battle. Kiahi held the final one in a bucket. He had to hold back the nausea rising up from the pit of his stomach and the weakness setting into his limbs as he walked among the remains of the massacre with unsteady steps.

The nuclear weapon’s bucket was oddly heavy, and though he wasn’t injured, his body felt terribly sluggish. But the anger burning inside him gave him the strength to keep dragging his feet along.

They wouldn’t find that damn leviathan. And all their friends were dead.

And it was all the Federacy’s fault. The nobles’ fault.

The princess’s fault.

Kiahi gritted his teeth. It was because the princess was wrong. The princess had fooled them.

“I thought something was off all along.”

The Federacy, the nobles, the princess. They were all lying to us… Lying to me.

“So I’ll take revenge.”

Like a pathetic rat, he crawled and skulked about, avoiding the eyes of the Vánagandrs, making his way to a spot where he’d be able to stay out of those big machines’ sight. Realizing they wouldn’t be able to pursue him in a confined space, he took cover in a small, stone building.

Of course, unleashing the nuclear weapon in a space enclosed by stone walls would be a useless gesture, since the radioactive matter wouldn’t scatter anywhere, but Kiahi didn’t realize that. He simply believed that this nuclear weapon was his last trump card, and so he intended to detonate the old bucket and thereby wipe the pieces off the board, rather than let his enemy win.

He didn’t even think of the fact that the last time they’d used one of these weapons under the same conditions, it was only strong enough to blow up a single car.

All he had to do was detonate it and destroy everything.

This is revenge. Because it’s revenge, my anger is justified, which means there’s no way this can go wrong.

He tore off the duct tape holding the bucket’s lid firmly in place and stuffed all the plastic explosives he could over the countless eerie metallic pellets filling it. He put in the fuse and got to his feet as he pulled back the detonation cord. Nausea washed over him, and this time, he couldn’t take it and threw up.

…They threw up like this at first, too.

It happened after they opened the fuel rods, and after they detonated the first nuclear weapon and it didn’t work. His friends grew visibly weaker, their appearance changed, and they ended up dying.

It’s like some kind of curse.

They hadn’t been shot or burned by fire, but their bodies started swelling up, their hair fell off, and their skin started flaking. They threw up their own organs, and then they died. Everyone who handled the nuclear fuel died after touching it.

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It probably was a curse. Nothing about the fuel looked wrong. It didn’t make any sounds or smell weird. But anyone who touched it died—so it must have cursed. They were never meant to touch this thing.

And the princess knew about it and stayed quiet. The Empire knew about it when they’d put the power plant in their town.

Then I’ll scatter it all over the place.

He wiped his mouth clean and got to his feet. It was only at that point that he realized that he was in a chapel. On the other side of the altar, the morning sunlight rose through the fog, casting a pale glow through the stained glass like the very light of heaven. On the glass was the image of a willowy woman looking down on him with a compassionate smile.

Her beautiful outfit was a glowing, transparent blue.

The governor’s wife, Mary Lazulia. The very person who introduced nuclear power to their village.

Serves you all right. Just watch me, beautiful holy mother in your blue dress.

Kiahi turned around…

…and found himself staring right into the barrel of a heavy assault rifle held by a woman in steel-colored full-body armor.

“…Hah.”

Somewhere, a loud, sharp gunshot blared.

The deafening roar of Vánagandr cannons and the high-pitched screeching of power packs had all died down enough for it to be audible. Milha crawled through the eerie silence in the dim morning mist. One of his legs had been blown off, so he couldn’t stand, and as his right hand crept against the mud, his nearly severed palm was nothing more than an impediment.

His left hand was still fine, but Yono’s body was heavy and kept slipping from his grasp because of the blood. Having to constantly adjust his grip on her was irritating and vexing.

She was annoying, weak, and cowardly, but she was still like a little sister to him. Despite how much of a pain she was, he had to protect her, and her weak, cowardly nature made him want to keep her safe from the world.

So why had she stopped crying and cowering like always?

Mud splashed over his dirty face.

Raising his head, he saw the shadow of a metallic, spikelike leg come down on the ground. The Federacy’s… The Imperial nobles’ mechanical monsters. A Vánagandr. The voice of a woman condemned him coldly from the machine’s external speaker, with the same northern-province intonation as Noele.

“You’re the last of your group of birdbrained, ground-pecking roosters. Is that tattered rag one of your friends? It’s because you good-for-nothing fools didn’t know your place and did things you shouldn’t have that your friends had to die.”

Milha felt his rage seethe.Tattered rag.She meant Yono.

…Yeah. I know.

She hadn’t been crying or cowering for a while now. He had to pick her up over and over again, but she wouldn’t move on her own. Which made sense…

…given that she was missing her head.

And without it, she was missing her mouth and eyes, so she couldn’t shed tears or cry out. And what made her like this, what reduced Yono to this form…

It was you. You officers. Superior officers. The Federacy.

“It’s because you told us to think for ourselves!”

And then wouldn’t forgive us when we couldn’t.

“I… We never wanted that, but you told us to do it anyway! We tried to think and act on our own, just like you said, and now you tell us to know our place and not act?! If that’s the case, why didn’t you tell us we’re good-for-nothings and we shouldn’t do anything to begin with?!”

Even as he spoke, Milha knew the answer. He knew that telling roosters to know their place, calling them good-for-nothings, were things people couldn’t say in the Federacy, words that were forbidden in a country of freedom and equality.

…No. That wasn’t it.

“…You justdidn’t want to say it.”

Because saying that in a country of freedom and equality wasn’t the just thing to do. They didn’t want to become unjust. They all knew deep down there wasn’t a shred of justice to them, but they didn’t want others to think they were unjust.

“You just didn’t say it because you didn’t want to be the bad guys! It’s unfair!”

“…You’re right.”

As she spoke, Lieutenant Colonel Mialona pulled the trigger. Machine-gun fire blew the last of the renegades to bits. Looking downat the blood splatter, the lieutenant colonel muttered to herself, seated in the cramped gunner seat. Because of the loud noise of the power pack, her Vánagandr’s operator wouldn’t hear her, despite being in the same cockpit, unless she switched on the internal radio.

“You’re right. A just countryisunfair.”

Telling someone to think for themselves didn’t mean all they had to do was think. Telling someone to act didn’t mean they wouldn’t be blamed regardless of what action they took. To people who couldn’t make those distinctions, it all must have seemed terribly unfair.

To Noele Rohi, who didn’t know there was no escaping the consequences of her own actions and simply ran around, weeping. To Ninha Lekaf, who surrendered herself far too late and, despite this, threw herself into the line of fire. To that one soldier who, to the bitter end, never learned or thought anything through and tried to detonate a dirty bomb in a closed space.

To them, freedom and equality was more than they could handle. And the Federacy, which forced those things on them in the name of justice…

“This is what we get for forcing rights on people who don’t want education or seek to learn, who don’t think and plan when given time, on sheep who don’t try to make decisions even when given freedom. Some people want to be sheep who don’t have to think or make choices, who simply follow their leader, and this is what you get for forcing freedom and equality on them.”

They hadn’t considered the hardships that came with freedom and equality, or else they’d irresponsibly believed that simply because they could handle it…

Indeed, to those with the qualities of a ruler—the capacity to be one’s own master—freedom and equality were wonderful things. With the freedom to decide how to live their own lives, they would take no orders, nor would they be forced to do anything…and in the name of equality, they wouldn’t carry responsibility for the lives of others.

They would have the strength of a ruler, but they wouldn’t have to use it to protect the sheep too weak to shoulder that burden themselves.

They lied, saying that under the freedom and equality of democracy, each civilian would be their own king. And those who couldn’t be masters of their own fates would still be responsible for themselves. While willingly accepting their own freedoms, they wouldn’t grant their fellow citizens the peace they desired.

And in Lieutenant Colonel Mialona’s eyes, this was irresponsible.

Those were her thoughts as a former Imperial noble of the Giadian Empire, who’d been responsible for ruling over her people and, as such, had been squarely charged with the duties and concerns that came with the right of dominion. As someone who oversaw the fates and lives of the people.

It was arrogant for the citizens to enjoy their own strength while turning a blind eye to the weakness of the sheep.

“Freedom and equality… To those who simply wish to be sheep in a flock, those ideas are nothing short of cruelty.”

Both the switches for the external speaker and the internal radio were off, and so the lamentation of this governor, who’d been forced to slay the sheep she loved, went unheard.

“—It must have been such a burden, being a princess. But you’ll be fine now.”

He didn’t hear how Noele answered those words from Ninha. The loud, heavy gunfire that followed tore through Noele, Ninha, and, indeed, even the main unit’s radio transmitter itself.

“Huh…?”

As the radio ceased crackling and fell silent, Mele stopped in his tracks.

When the Strike Package’s combat at long last died down, he’d finally recalled his role. He’d tried to report to the princess about the leviathan.

But when he called in, what greeted him was the sound of all his friends, of his princess, being massacred.

“No… No!”

He attempted to reconnect the radio, but there was no response. Kiahi and Milha and Rilé and Yono—none of them answered.

“They’ve been wiped out…?” Otto said, dumbfounded. “Everyone… Everyone but us was killed…?”

Mele fell to his knees in shock. Kiahi. Milha. Rilé. Yono. So many of their comrades…and the princess.

Anger and sadness built up within him—toward the enemies who’d killed the princess, toward the leviathan that wouldn’t save her, and toward himself.

Honestly, he’d known how the princess felt about him. But she was a princess, someone from a different class. A former serf, a commoner like him who couldn’t do anything, wasn’t worthy of such a beautiful princess, so he’d pretended not to notice.

If things had to end like this, maybe he’d have been better off answering her feelings. Maybe the previous night, when he last saw her, he should have kissed her.

The bright rays of the sun shone irritatingly through the trees. A white Reginleif descended from the dam, and the light reflected off its armor. Its crimson optical sensor turned their way. And unaware that Mele and Otto, the last survivors of the Hail Mary Regiment, were standing there in grief among the trees, they passed by and left.

Mele didn’t know that the optical sensor’s control was set to track the gaze of the Processor inside the cockpit. He saw this as a show of the operator’s indifference. He assumed that since he could see them, the Operator must have noticed them, too, and chosen to look away indifferently.

At that moment, Mele felt every hair on his body stand up in humiliation and rage.

I’m in so much grief. The princess I loved died. So why won’t you be sad for me? Why won’t you grieve, too? Get mad for me? Why don’t you ever understand our pain, our sorrow, our agony?

We… You… You…!

“You’re strong, and yet you…”

You’re strong, unlike us. You can do everything, choose anything, and act on your choices. So why didn’t you protect us, help us, guide us? Why didn’t you save the princess?

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You’re strong. If you’re strong enough to do this, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.

Having to make choices and think is such a difficult, complicated, scary thing. We can’t do it, so you should protect us, guide us, save us. Us, the princess, everything.

And yet you people abandoned the princess… You good-for-nothing, slothful, arrogant, cruel…

“You abandoned her… This is all your fault!”

A figure sprung out of the fallen red leaves, howling like a wounded animal. Kurena was the first to notice it.

—A self-propelled mine…?! Wait, no!

As she focused her gaze on it, a holo-window popped up and zoomed in, showing the figure was wearing the Federacy’s metal-black uniform. They had the face of a young man, unlike a self-propelled mine, and as far as Shin’s ability could tell, the screams of the Legion were distant. So this boy wasn’t a self-propelled mine.

He was human—a Federacy soldier. Kurena’s eyes, which were accustomed to the battlefield, instantly recognized him as a soldier on their side. But then why was he showing so much hostility? So much…bloodlust? Why was he approaching the leviathan youngling, which was passing by in an attempt to avoid attack, with so much hostility and bloodlust?

And the assault rifle he was holding, with his finger on the trigger—

“…H-Hail Mary! Shin!” Kurena shouted, feeling every hair on her body stand on end. Kurena was too far from him; she wouldn’t make it in time from where she was. “There’s a survivor! He’s trying to shoot the youngling!”

As Mele bolted out, bellowing, Otto and their friends were inclined to follow, set off by Mele’s scream and anger.That’s right. It’s all their fault. We have to take revenge for our friends. This is all their fault. So if we can just kill the leviathan, if we can just kill it, the other leviathan will kill everyone else. The terrible Legion, the Federacy, the officers, the nobles, and these guys who abandoned our friends.

It will destroy everyone we hate and everything that wronged us.

Let them all be destroyed!

“It’s all your fault!”

Was it Mele who shouted this? Was it Otto? One of their comrades, maybe? They couldn’t tell one another apart anymore. They were all dyed in the same shade of indignation, fanning their mutual anger.

“It’s all your fault! All this is because of you!”

“We can’t do it, so it’s not our fault! But you’re just lazy, good-for-nothing, arrogant pricks who abandoned us! You walked all over us, over and over and over again!”

“It hurt, it was terrible, and you still did it! It was frustrating and miserable, and you never understood, you never even tried to understand! So this is your fault!”

“You people never tried to protect us, not even once!”

They screamed. They ran. They howled and shouted as one, making their indignation known. All of them, together.

They felt the elation of thinking the same thing, feeling the same emotions, shouting the same words, running in the same direction. The joy of a group sharing the same feelings and choices and actions, of becoming a singular creature.

The peace of becoming one with everyone. It was oh so pleasant, oh so soothing.

Mele and the Hail Mary Regiment survivors he’d become one with were all intoxicated by this pleasure.

Freedom, justice, free will, individuality—none of them could match the euphoria of this feeling of oneness.

Aaah… This is how I always wanted to be. This is what I always wanted to become. To reach this wonderful realm—this vast, grand, boundless flock.

And the symbol of this grandness, the incarnation of their greatness, this force of violence that would destroy everything was right in front of them. He need only hold up his gun to it.

In his sights was that beautiful, fleeting, glasswork mermaid. And they were going to break it—that stunning, rare, and valuable creature. People as weak and foolish and incompetent as them would break it.

All our strength, everyone together. How wonderful.

Serves you right.

But just then—

Undertaker was just descending from the dam’s arch to the riverbed, spurring on the Fisara. It arrived with a heavythud, using the brakes that allowed the Reginleif to go from its maximal combat speed to zero. In a stroke of luck, he landed in a position between the Hail Mary Regiment and the Leuca, shielding it.

A shower of crimson, red, and vermilion leaves rained soundlessly down on him. Morning had just dawned over the woods, and with the soft sunlight shining through the fallen leaves, Shin faced the last of the renegades.

Assault-rifle fire couldn’t penetrate a Reginleif’s armor, and if they had any explosives, it had to have been an amount small enough for them to hide on their person. Unless they attached them to the Reginleif itself, they wouldn’t do any damage.

But they didn’t stop running. And if they came any closer, Shin would have to shoot them.

Reginleifs weren’t equipped with nonlethal armaments. They had 88 mm smoothbore guns for penetrating tank armor, high-frequency blades, and anti-armor pile drivers, as well as 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, which were only effective against lightly armored units but were far too powerful to be used on humans.

And to begin with, the unit’s ten tonnes of weight alone were a lethalweapon against human opponents. This made even the wire anchors, despite not being weapons, or a simple kick from the unit’s legs fatal.

If they weren’t going to stop, he’d have to kill them.

He placed his hands over the trigger. The system fired its laser sight, and the tank turret automatically quivered. The invisible heat of the laser and the muzzle of the imposing turret made the soldiers flinch. Shin prayed to himself, wishing this would make them stop in their tracks—but unfortunately, every ounce of their fear tipped over into rage with strange swiftness.

Their faces were different, and yet somehow, they all looked the same to him. They were different people, but for some reason, he couldn’t tell their faces apart. Shin shuddered. He didn’t know why, but he was scared from the bottom of his heart.

At the same time, he came to the realization that threats wouldn’t stop them. He had to shoot.

Shin steeled himself, and he forced his stiff fingers to move.

He made to pull the trigger. And then—

—a second before he could do so, the armored infantry and scout unit hurried over and fired their guns without a second thought.

The armored infantrymen’s 12.7 mm heavy assault rifles were just barely usable thanks to the support of the reinforced exoskeletons, as they were originally armaments meant to be boarded onto a vehicle or an aircraft. This wasn’t the kind of firepower an infantryman could typically wield.

These heavy machine guns unleashed a full-auto barrage, accompanied by fire from anti-light-armor full-size 7.62 mm rifles, which tore into the soldiers from the flank. The young man leading the charge, as well as the soldiers following him, vanished from Shin’s optical screen. Their faces, contorted with hellish fury, were instantly swept aside. Their gazes alone, full of hatred that billowed like fire and blood, were burnedinto Shin’s eyes—but nothing else of them remained. They were blown away, torn apart, and disappeared.

Shin was dumbfounded for a moment. It was too sudden. Even to Shin’s eyes, which were used to how abrupt and merciless death on the battlefield could be, this was an absolute display of death. Even hatred, hatred so intense that it gripped them until their last moments, was gone without a trace.

As he glanced about, stunned, Ishmael spoke, standing there as he shouldered his 7.62 mm assault rifle, which still steamed from the heat of its full-auto fire.

“I told you, Captain. The people you can’t save aren’t your responsibility.”

“…Captain.”

“And that’s especially true of idiots who had nothing to do with you until today, caused everyone trouble because of their ignorant stupidity, and then had the gall to ask why you didn’t save them. Just because they demand that you help them doesn’t mean you have to do it. You’re not some kind of saint, you know.”

Seeing Frederica shudder next to Gadyuka’s open canopy, Vika narrowed his eyes. This was a gesture meant to hide the way the pit of her stomach trembled. Based on the glow in her bloodred eyes, her ability was active, and what she saw went without saying.

“—I told you to abandon them, Mascot.”

A powerless symbol like her ought to have abandoned those it couldn’t save. Better that than to let them get throttled by her self-righteous wishes, only to die. And there was no need to spare them sympathy or force herself to watch the death of such fools.

Frederica threw a sidelong glance at him.

“Nay. To begin with, you have no place ordering me about, Serpent of Shackles.”

Frederica turned to face him and glared at the serpentine prince.

“Indeed, the only thing I would not betray is my own conscience.And my own conscience is also the only thing I can truly protect right now. True, as I am, I cannot protect or save anyone. But if I choose to abandon people, at that point, I would fail to protect even my own conscience. And in that case, right now…”

Her eyes, the color of burning flames, shone bright with the crimson of newly shed blood.

“…not looking away is what I must do. I shall fight this war by watching how people fall and how destruction comes, never looking away. So that one day, when I am strong enough to protect others like you and Shinei, I will not let lives slip through my fingers. And so, you haven’t the right to comment.”

“Conscience, you say.” Vika narrowed his eyes ever so slightly in thin, unpleasant dislike. “Harboring that feeling will only get in your way.”

It was nothing but hollow restraint, one that only had idealistic beauty to it but lacked any power or reality.

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“I care not,” Frederica spat out, her crimson eyes burning bright. “You once told me. Even if you cannot become king, you can conduct yourself as a noble. That this is how you wish to be. That even without the title of king, you can hold on to your nobility. So yes—I shall take after that. I shall act and conduct myself not upon a crown granted to me by others, but as the master of my own fate.”

Vika sensed something was off with what she had just said.Master of my own fate.That was no different from the Eighty-Six—that was fine. But…

…not upona crown granted to her by others?

A moment later, Vika realized. Even the serpentine prince couldn’t help but be shocked for a moment. This girl before him. She didn’t draw on the blood of an Imperial noble…

Looking at him, Frederica spoke in a low voice.

“I see. Truly, surprise does not show in either your conduct or your expression. I should take after that, as well.”

“You—”

“I thought you weren’t interested in my affairs?” She cut him off.

“…Well, I suppose that’s true, but…”

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