Among the Divine blood, including the Darkness-Eating Sword, right around the time a fierce debate had broken out over who had left the greatest impact(?) on Alon—

“...A jewel?”

“Yes.”

Alon accepted a jewel from Yutia.

It was an extremely peculiar jewel, one face dyed blue, another dyed red.

Quietly observing it, Alon asked Yutia,

“Where did you get this?”

“After Blackie absorbed all of the corpse, I noticed this was there.”

“If that’s the case—”

“I think it came out from inside that Divine blood’s body.”

Alon’s gaze returned to the jewel.

It was fascinating, but at the same time, it raised questions.

‘...Is this the thing the Seeker was talking about?’

Alon turned the jewel this way and that.

But aside from the impression that it was unusual because each face was a different color, he could not sense any particular power from it.

Alon raised his head.

“...Thank you for finding it.”

“It was nothing. Are we leaving?”

“We should.”

It did not seem like there was anything else here.

After giving the ruins one last look, he headed back toward where Yutia and Blackie were.

Perhaps because it had feasted its fill, Blackie was lying on its side, all four limbs sprawled out, yawning.

[Kyuu—]

The little thing seemed to glance at Yutia once, then slipped right into Alon’s chest.

Soon after, Alon asked the others,

“Did anyone find anything?”

“No, we walked around the shattered areas just in case, but we didn’t find anything in particular.”

Evan scratched his head.

But for someone saying that, his pockets had gotten quite a bit fuller.

Alon tilted his head and asked,

“...What is that?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Your pockets.”

“Ah, ah—this? Well, how should I put it, it’s sort of like a reward for me for diligently exploring ruins like these.”

Evan’s words dragged on for no reason.

But then Penia, standing beside him, smacked his pocket from behind with a look of pure exasperation.

Clatter—!

The gold coins stuffed inside came pouring out in an instant.

“Ahem—”

Evan immediately cleared his throat and began hurriedly scooping the coins back up.

When Penia and Alon both looked at him with utterly unamused expressions, he hastily tried to explain himself.

“No, you don’t seriously think I was mindlessly going around looking for nothing but this, right? I just thought that if anything valuable was here, then maybe it could be part of the territory’s treasure hoard, that’s all!”

“How pathetic...”

Penia clicked her tongue at Evan like she found him pitiful.

Evan refused to let that slide. Letting out a sharp little laugh, he glared at her.

“You’re not exactly in any position to say that to me.”

“Me? Why?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice? The way you were casually checking your surroundings and then headed for the library.”

“!”

Penia froze with the expression of someone who had been struck right on the mark.

“No, that was only because I thought there might be something there—”

“So in the end, you’re exactly the same as me!”

“No, I’m not! I was only thinking about the advancement of Lord Alon’s magic!” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“I think you’d be more convincing if you weren’t saying that while holding a book.”

“Ugh—!”

She hurriedly hid the book in her hand behind her back and started making excuses with a face like a flustered cat.

Watching the two bicker, Alon let out a sigh and made a decision.

“Let’s get moving.”

Because he had a strong feeling that finding anything in these collapsed lands was, in truth, practically impossible.

‘Besides, Yutia said it came out of the Seeker’s father.’

Alon looked down at the jewel.

A jewel that still gave him no real impression beyond being somewhat unusual.

Even so, Alon felt this was likely the “necessary thing” the Seeker had mentioned.

No matter how roughly the Seeker had relayed most of the information, it did not seem likely that the Seeker would have been careless about that.

So there no longer seemed to be any reason to waste more time here.

And once again, the journey west began.

####

It had been over a week since they started moving west.

As Alon was preparing camp in the middle of the same barren grasslands they always found themselves in, he suddenly realized something anew.

“...How strange.”

“In what way?”

“That we haven’t encountered Divine blood even once.”

“Ah, that part...”

Evan nodded.

“To be honest, at first I didn’t really think much of it either, but now that we’ve come this far, I can kind of feel it too.”

“Right?”

“Yes.”

He had already heard several times over that there were many Divine blood in the western region.

Naturally, he had expected to run into them, but surprisingly, they had not encountered a single one.

Even Evan, who at first had asked whether not meeting Divine blood wasn’t a good thing, was starting to think something about it was odd.

“...Honestly, if the territories had all still been normal too, I would’ve thought maybe the rumors were just wrong... But the rumors we’ve gathered in the west, and the territories we’ve seen ourselves, they’ve all been completely destroyed.”

“Mm.”

Alon nodded.

As Evan said, the current situation was clearly strange.

In order to cross into the Empire, Alon had passed through the eastern part of the Empire.

He had not stopped at any territories, but he had already heard countless times that the Western Empire had fallen because of Divine blood.

Of course, according to Nataman, the Western Empire had not been completely destroyed, but it was true that most of its territory had fallen to Divine blood, and that was how it looked to Alon as well.

After all, what Alon had seen while traveling through the Western Empire was nothing but destroyed territories and grotesque creatures that were clearly the work of Divine blood.

Though, of course, all of them had only been corpses.

...In any case, despite so many traces, they still had not encountered a single Divine blood.

“...Is something happening?”

When Alon muttered that,

“...Mm, I don’t think we can rule that out, Teacher.”

Yutia unexpectedly offered that thought.

“So you think so too?”

“Mm, it’s only one possibility. But... there’s no reason for reality to differ this much from public rumor, so in that sense, I do think something else we don’t know about may be happening.”

At Yutia’s reasoning, Penia, who had been quietly watching the others, raised her hand.

“I-I think I may have a thought too.”

“What is it?”

“We’ve been going around from one ruined territory to another this whole time, right?”

“We have.”

“And every time, we saw how the Divine blood had changed humans into different kinds of things.”

What she said was true.

Because while crossing the Western Empire, they had indeed seen scenes where humans had been reduced to tools of the Divine blood.

“But starting from the territories we began seeing a few days ago, the types have been similar.”

“...The types have been similar?”

“Yes. Up until then there had clearly been all sorts of different forms, but recently, most of them were...”

As Penia trailed off, Evan, who had been thinking, let out a low sound of realization.

“...That’s true. The humans we saw recently were almost all in the form of red eggs. Most of them had burst open, though.”

“Ah.”

Alon remembered too.

Most of the territories they had seen recently had been filled with red eggs.

“...Ugh—”

Penia must have recalled the scene too, because she made a sound like it sickened her.

“Well—what if somebody’s helping out or something?”

“...Somebody?”

“Yes. Like, maybe someone’s quietly slicing through the Divine blood while we don’t know it, or something...”

When Evan offered up that hypothesis, Penia’s eyes narrowed with exasperation.

“Honestly, could you try saying something that at least makes sense?”

“Ahem... Was that one a little too far-fetched?”

While Evan awkwardly scratched his head, Alon let out a sigh.

“...Well, if someone like that really exists, I’d like to thank them.”

And just as the group was chatting about one thing and another, far away, at a distance where Alon’s group looked like no more than dots,

“...Thank them...”

a woman was watching them with eyes marked by a distinctive hexagram.

...Quietly, atop the corpses of countless Divine blood.

####

Contanias, the imperial prince who ruled the capital of the Northern Empire.

Up until the moment he arrived in the capital, he had been in quite a good mood.

There was no reason he wouldn’t be.

He had only gone there because of the dead emperor’s words that he “could obtain power,” but he had never imagined he truly would gain something there.

Strictly speaking, he had not obtained it yet.

The Seeker had only given him the possibility of gaining power and the method for it. The “power” itself still had to be acquired by his own hands.

But Contanias did not much care.

To begin with, he was the prince who ruled the Northern Empire, and at his command there were plenty who would line up to create and bring him even a legendary elixir said to exist only at the ends of the continent.

But there was another reason Contanias displayed such absolute confidence.

Because there was a special existence no one else in the Empire had.

A being permitted to Contanias alone.

A dragon that, centuries ago, had become the guardian protecting the Empire in exchange for the Empire offering up the many dragon hearts scattered across the continent.

The Weeping Dragon, Arculainysis.

That was why, the moment Contanias returned to the capital, he went to see Arculainysis.

“I greet the great dragon of the covenant.”

“Mm.”

As always, the Weeping Dragon sat upon the most splendid stone throne amid countless treasures and looked down on him.

“It has been quite a long time since I summoned you, yet you took rather a while.”

The voice carried clear displeasure.

Contanias lowered his head even further.

The head of an imperial prince should not be bowed lightly, but the matter was different when the other party was the guardian dragon.

To begin with, the only reason the Northern Empire could still flourish even now was because the guardian dragon remained.

“My apologies, Guardian Dragon. Please, calm your anger.”

“That is enough. More importantly, I heard that you had business with me the moment you returned. What is the reason?”

As though formalities were enough, Arculainysis lazily flicked a hand and asked.

The corners of Contanias’s mouth twisted upward while his head remained lowered.

Because it was the very question he had been hoping to hear.

And so—

“There is one thing I wish to beg of the Guardian Dragon.”

“What is it?”

“I ask that you punish an insolent human.”

“...An insolent human?”

“Yes. A king of a small nation among the Allied Kingdoms. Palatio Alon.”

In an excited voice, Contanias continued.

“He insulted me, an imperial prince of the Empire, and beyond that, insulted the Empire itself. That is no different from insulting ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ the Empire protected by the Guardian Dragon! I was so grieved by it that I could not sleep.”

He spoke of Palatio Alon, who had treated him so insolently.

“...Palatio Alon?”

At the guardian dragon’s reaction, Contanias grew even more impassioned.

“Yes!”

“Did you just say Palatio Alon?”

“Yes. He insulted me, and beyond that the Empire! Beyond that, he insulted even you, Guardian Dragon! Please, punish him with the harshest sentence and make known the dignity of the Empire!”

Contanias shouted, somewhat exaggeratedly but full of solemn force, and waited a moment.

“I see.”

At the answer that finally fell from the guardian dragon, he smiled viciously.

Because he took it as agreement.

But then.

At some point, Contanias felt something strange.

No, it was not strangeness.

It was—

“...Hk?”

pressure.

In an instant, a horrifying pressure so dreadful it nearly stopped his breathing.

And in the midst of that utterly sudden situation, he heard it.

“...Are you saying to me,”

He heard it.

“that I should kill my father?”

the Weeping Dragon’s voice, filled with fury.