Chapter 132
***
Elliot, the young crown prince of Ormance, suddenly looked up. The glass windows of the audience chamber—which appeared to be part of the castle’s outer wall—were flashing with a brilliant white light.
A torrent of water gushing from within crashed violently against the transparent glass. Even at a glance, the aura of purity was extraordinary.
“It’s about to collapse.”
Elliot carefully climbed the stairs leading to the food storehouse and emerged into the backyard. Those waiting for their lord had gathered there. They were the knights of Ormance who had been stationed in Mepen since early evening under the pretext of bringing in alcohol from Kairam.
“Are you unharmed, Your Highness?”
“As you can see, I’m fine. Is everyone here?”
“Yes.”
While the Crown Prince and the heir of Dortes, whom he protected, were on the move from the royal castle in Mepen, the knights of Ormance carried out the Queen’s orders.
“The Spring will be revived soon.”
Elliot muttered, as if to himself.
The Queen, Ianna, seemed to have foreseen this day; before they departed, she had warned her son.
“Once the Spring is revived, the Imperial High Command will certainly not stand idly by. We must not let it fall into their hands.”
“Are you considering the possibility of armed conflict, Your Majesty?”
“Mepen is as good as already swallowed up by the Karmanites. The Emperor is undoubtedly watching the royal castle as well. We cannot retake Mepen by force. I don’t know how Diana will react, but the spirits and that child will certainly not choose armed conflict.”
“Then what should we do?”
“Our role, as always, is to provide Diana with as many options as possible. Of course, Ormance must be the one who can remain Diana’s allies until the very end.”
The Dortes Command opened the gates of Kairam, a city just a stone’s throw from the capital, to lure Diana. Ormance wasn’t the only faction to slip into Kairam by exploiting the loosened security checks.
When Elliott set out for Dortes, the Queen secretly sent letters to neighboring nations that maintained friendly relations with Ormance. The letters stated that the “Spirits of Balestega” would soon resume their activities in Dortes.
“Which nations have planted spies in Kairam so far?”
“Grenia, Delos, and Lelon. According to our intelligence, these three kingdoms have dispatched at least five spies each.”
The strange light bursting from the royal palace was bright enough to be seen even in Kairam. The light, emanating from a single part of the palace, was gradually enveloping the entire structure. It was like a mysterious beam of light piercing through the fine, delicate raindrops of a clear, starry night—a scene both strange and beautiful.
Once daybreak came, the liaisons from various nations hiding in Kairam would swiftly relay news of this wondrous phenomenon to their home countries.
That legendary place, whose very name sets hearts aflutter—the Spring of Balestega—was finally coming back to life.
For hundreds of years, once in a generation, a being known as the Spirit Master of Balestega would appear, bringing rain, moving the sun, and summoning the wind.
Though it had been quite some time since the line of Spirit Masters had ended, the power of the name Balestega remained as strong as ever—enough to bring the leaders of the most prominent nations to this very place.
Indeed, Ianna and Elliot’s predictions proved accurate.
Starting the very next day after the mysterious phenomenon occurred at the Royal Palace of Dortes, requests from various nations demanding access to Mepen began pouring into headquarters.
***
“Unless they had already arrived in the vicinity beforehand, there’s no way they could have responded this quickly. Even the nearest Kingdom of Grenia is a good ten days’ ride on horseback from here, isn’t it?”
Hugo, who had stopped by to check on his nephew’s well-being only to end up settling in this foreign land, muttered uneasily. Since no one was listening, it was nothing more than a soliloquy.
“As you ordered, we’ve completely blocked all access to both Mepen and Kairam... but... unless we can somehow shield the entire city of Mepen, it won’t do much good.”
After a long night had passed, the light and water bursting from the audience chamber completely engulfed the royal castle. The entire castle became a vessel for holding the spring water.
The castle’s summit, unable to withstand the force of the surging water columns, burst open like a volcanic eruption. However, the fragments of the castle that were hurled into the air did not fall to the ground but remained suspended in midair, and from each of these fragments, streams of water gushed forth like fountains. The rain fell like this for two days.
The strange phenomenon did not end there. As three dawns passed and the sun emerged, green trees began to grow wildly from the water-soaked royal castle.
The thicket grew so rapidly that it became impossible to station troops inside the royal castle. Tree trunks, twisting as freely as snakes, entangled the castle’s knights and servants, flinging them over the castle walls. It was clear that the castle would tolerate not a single stranger here without its permission. Even the command center inside the castle had no choice but to move outside the walls, near the square on Mepen Street.
Now, another day had passed, and the castle, completely overgrown with forest, had lost all trace of its original form, no matter how hard one looked.
However, the biggest problem lay elsewhere: the light emanating from the castle.
The light was so bright that even after the sun had set, it was as bright as day—a veritable white night. Reports came in that the anomaly in Dortes was visible to the naked eye not only in Kairam but even from unimaginably distant locations.
The news spread faster than the rumors. Like moths drawn to a flame, the neighboring nations surrounding Karman and Dortes moved swiftly.
With the situation unfolding this way, the Empire had to find a way to respond. Hugo glanced at the Emperor with a sense of resignation.
“Since Mepen is officially a colony of Karman, it would be reasonable to interpret any military movement by any nation as an intention to invade the moment it occurs. Shall I convey the Emperor’s orders to the home front?”
It was an indirect question asking whether he intended to increase the garrison in Dortes. It was only natural that a large-scale redeployment of troops by the Empire would lead to military tensions among the neighboring nations.
'We mustn’t let them get interested in war.’
No answer came from the man slumped in his chair, rapidly flipping through his correspondence. That was a relief. It seemed he wasn’t quite mad enough to draw his sword without a second thought....
Just as Hugo breathed a sigh of relief, Felix slammed the transit requests from various nations down on the table as if tossing them aside. His movement was so rough that the table shook with a loud thud.
Felix spat out sarcastically.
“Seeing them act so arbitrarily, I guess they think I’m an easy target?”
Wasn’t he the one who’d lost his mind? Hugo felt a wave of gloom wash over him once more.
No matter how capricious his nephew might be, he was born into royalty. Even when his temper hit rock bottom, Felix had never thrown away the refinement he’d acquired through years of training. The dignity and etiquette of royalty, his eloquence and tone of voice—these were elements ingrained as part of his very being, things that could never falter unless the man himself changed.
Even when he had holed up here with the maid, he had not shown undue anxiety nor revealed his greed in a vulgar manner. Whatever his true feelings might be, on the surface he remained a solitary hunter, having set his trap and waiting.
Yet, ever since the uproar in the audience chamber three days ago, the atmosphere surrounding Felix had shifted. It was so menacing that it made one’s blood run cold—so much so that it felt almost unfair to compare it to what had come before.
The man who had been completely distracted when Hugo first arrived in Mepen had vanished. His gaze, now openly revealing his obsession and fixation, was dark and chilling. It must be because, after a year of waiting, he had once again failed to capture the maid.
‘And his hands are in such a state again.’
When Hugo found him, the Emperor was standing in the middle of the audience chamber, water lapping at his knees, laughing as if he had lost his mind.
The veins bulging on his right hand made his movements as sluggish as they had been the previous year.
The man brushed his wet hair back with his trembling hand and muttered grimly.
“If this keeps up, it’s going to be a real problem, Diana.”
The handwritten letter sent by the rulers of Grenia and Ormance lay crumpled in Felix’s hand.
“I don’t need anything. Diana is the only one I want. I’d rather not have the rabble swarming around me.”
What had changed, aside from his increasingly harsh tone? The answer was not hard to find. The leisure and arrogance he had enjoyed all his life as the designated master of Karman had vanished. He looked impatient and was seething with rage.
Felix checked the time and rose from his seat.
“It seems I’ll be able to speak face-to-face with one of them right now.”
“Who… are you referring to?”
“Let him in.”
The door to the temporary command post swung open. Imperial knights dragged someone in by the scruff of the neck. It was a young boy. A small, pretty boy, no more than twelve years old, looking like a glass doll.
It was Elliot.
***
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