“How many days has it been raining?”

“Counting from the first thread of rain, it should be five days now.”

“Too long. This rain is becoming tiresome.”

Celicia stood beneath a crude tent canopy stretched with the hide of some magical beast. Her eyes, cold and clear as a frozen lake, gazed toward the Kingdom’s royal capital, shrouded in thin mist. She said she was irritated, yet the color in her eyes showed not the slightest fading or wavering because of the endless rain.

Five straight days of it had thoroughly turned the open ground around the royal capital into mud, making it unsuitable for cavalry charges and for transporting large siege equipment.

Whether that had been one of the enemy’s objectives or not, viewed solely from the perspective of the siege battle that had yet to happen, those five days of stagnation had indeed caused the Empire some trouble.

But widen that perspective, and it became clear that...

Duke Campbell had already deployed his forces completely and sealed the Kingdom’s royal capital on all sides.

There were signs of troop activity in several territories in the Kingdom’s east, but not in large numbers. Five days was nowhere near enough for them to gather a force capable of resolving this city’s crisis.

Meanwhile, along the border between the Empire and the Kingdom, the army of Grand Duke Borgia of the Kingdom had stopped advancing. That crafty fat rat had evidently chosen to wait and watch. Even with his nation’s capital in danger, he was still unwilling to let his private army be worn down in a direct clash with the Empire’s elite.

With all factors combined, the balance of victory in this war—which had begun grandly and then petered out into something stranger—had already tilted completely toward the Empire. The most dangerous possibility Duke Campbell had predicted had not come to pass.

And if one reasoned backward again from the current situation, it became even clearer: from the moment the imperial army encircled the royal capital, those bizarre decisions the enemy had made had produced no real practical effect. It was as if the entire Kingdom had lost its brain and could only react through the reflexes of whatever nerves remained.

One could even say that Celicia had already reached the summit of history. All she had to do was give the order, and the Empire’s army would storm the Kingdom’s royal capital. She would then achieve what no emperor in the Empire’s history had ever accomplished, and at such a young age she would leave behind a dark, dramatic stroke of ink across the annals of the entire continent.

And yet, faced with that city and its gates standing wide open, Celicia remained calm. For five days, she had kept her temper in check and made no move.

Because she knew the enemy was no longer simply the Kingdom.

The rules of the battlefield no longer applied here.

Unless she intended to simply slaughter the several million people in the entire city and be done with it—becoming a tyrant despised across the continent—or else add fuel to the Salvation Society’s fire and push the situation fully into some uncontrollable, unknown phase...

then because of her particular position and identity, she actually could not move recklessly.

“But are you really going?”

Celicia turned back and looked toward the beautiful girl in the tent, the one with platinum-blond hair and a body suffused with holy radiance.

“Mmf... ob coursh...”

There were no outsiders in the tent, not even guards, so this girl—revered as the “pure Saintess” and worshiped by countless believers as a flawless existence—could not be bothered keeping up her usual bearing. She was stuffing one buttery, milk-scented cookie after another into her mouth.

She moved fast, like a squirrel. Her cheeks were puffed out, and even her words came out muffled.

This was not because she was greedy. It was because she knew that what awaited her next would certainly be a long stretch of ritual, public appearances, and ceremonial greetings, and there would be very few chances to eat anything during it. So she had to fill her stomach in advance, while secretly hiding snacks up her sleeves just in case.

Experience had taught her that much.

“With Archbishop Ision personally extending the invitation, I have no reason to refuse, no matter what.”

Liya took the poisoned tea An handed her and, tilting back her lovely swan-like neck, drank it down in one go.

“And it’s also a better way to learn the truth of the situation.”

“But didn’t you say it yourselves? That you’re already suspicious of Archbishop Ision?”

Celicia returned to her seat and flipped through the documents in front of her.

Since everyone had gathered together to discuss matters anyway, the Church had stopped concealing things and had simply put Archbishop Ision’s earlier abnormalities on the table for both sides to analyze together.

“The communication channel is functioning normally. The identity verification is normal. Procedurally speaking, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Archbishop Ision. And yet he claims to know nothing whatsoever about the so-called loss of contact... Thirty-four full hours missing, and he himself believes everything is perfectly normal. Interesting.”

“That’s exactly what makes it such a headache.”

Liya puffed out her cheeks out of habit and said in frustration, “We know that Archbishop has a problem, but we have no way of knowing what the problem actually is in detail. More than that...”

“More than that, the entire city is still wrapped in fog, and we haven’t even lifted a corner of the veil.”

Anna, resting her cheek on one hand, smiling as always, finished the thought for her. “Looks like the Church isn’t all that impressive either.”

“You’re no better!”

Liya crossed her arms over her chest and gave an indignant huff that nearly shook the room.

“Hmph. If you people had really figured out what was happening inside, you wouldn’t be sitting here zoning out with me!”

“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not zoning out.”

Anna tapped the heavy book in her hands with one finger.

“I’m checking records to see whether anything similar has happened before. Sometimes experience is very important.”

“And have you found anything?”

“What a convenient question. As for results...”

Anna swept back her hair in a languidly alluring motion.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“...”

Liya puffed up angrily again. How were they supposed to get anything done or uncover the truth when they were stuck with people like this?

All they ever did was eat, drink tea, slack off, and think about men!

Utterly useless!

“That’s enough. Stop arguing. The current intelligence is indeed too sparse for us to know the full truth, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make educated guesses.”

Celicia lifted her teacup and took a light sip.

Mm. No wonder that busty Saintess drank it so happily even knowing it was poisoned. That wretched maid really did have some skill when it came to brewing tea.

At the very least, it tasted good.

“A guess? Your Majesty means the line about the capital burning?” Anna asked, closing her book and tilting her head.

“Exactly. The message our scouting teams only recently sent back.” Celicia nodded.

Over the past few days, neither the Empire nor the Church had simply done nothing, of course.

While completely sealing off the Kingdom’s royal capital, the Empire and Church had jointly formed scouting teams and continued infiltrating deeper into the city without pause, trying to find anything useful.

To be honest, this broad, brute-force method of casting a wide net had produced far less than Celicia and the others had expected. The overwhelming majority of teams that entered the city had found absolutely nothing abnormal even after several days.

The lower classes, living in poverty. The middle classes, struggling endlessly not to fall into poverty. Even the upper classes, feasting every night while draining the blood of this country—none of them showed the slightest abnormality.

They were all still living their lives in their usual ways, as though they had not noticed disaster approaching...

or perhaps as though it had already arrived.

Some of the scouts were people very familiar with the Kingdom. But if even ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ they could not identify what was wrong in a city whose “normality” was eerie in itself, then Celicia and the others had concluded that, as outsiders, they would not be able to find the problem on the level of the city itself either.

Fortunately, the scouting had not been entirely fruitless.

On the first day, one team out of more than a hundred vanished. Before disappearing, they left behind a single sentence:

“The rain stopped.”

In reality, of course, the rain had not stopped. It had already been raining five days and five nights straight, long enough to irritate everyone to the point of exhaustion.

Precisely because of that, no one could make sense of the message, and they had no choice but to set it aside for the time being.

Then, on the second day, two more teams vanished. They left nothing behind.

On the third day, no teams vanished, and nothing happened.

On the fourth day, another team disappeared. This time there was no information either, except that just before communication was cut off entirely, there had been screams and a vague, furious roar.

And finally, there was the fifth day—just recently.

This time, five full teams vanished, and one of them finally managed to send back another baffling line.

“The city is burning.”

But it was not burning.

All the other hundred-plus teams had confirmed that nowhere in the royal capital was burning at all. One inn had caught fire, but the blaze had been put out quickly. It was nowhere near enough to justify the phrase “the city.”

“Is there something wrong with that line?”

Liya thought it over carefully. “To me, it feels just as impossible to make sense of as the earlier one about the rain stopping.”

“The problem lies precisely in the fact that it makes no sense. Haven’t you noticed? Both the earlier message, ‘The rain stopped,’ and the recent one, ‘The city is burning,’ share one thing in common.”

Celicia looked at them.

“You mean...” Anna said, stroking her chin, the first to react. “The information those teams sent back at the moment they vanished completely contradicts the situation we ourselves are seeing?”

“Exactly.”

Celicia gave a light nod. “As if... their disappearance was actually a transfer to some other place. And that other place...”

“Was also the Kingdom’s royal capital, because the later message mentioned ‘the city,’ and there is only one city here.”

Anna’s beautiful brows drew together as she followed Celicia’s line of reasoning.

“Wait!”

Liya, a beat slower than the others, raised her hand and widened her beautiful eyes.

“You mean there are two Saint Blancfazeysias, and the one in front of us is fake? An illusion?”

“The only explanation that fits perfectly is a false construct.” Celicia said, “We hadn’t gone that far before because the idea itself didn’t quite fit logic. But now...”

“But no matter how you look at it, an illusion on that scale? One that deceives everyone? That seems a little impossible...”

“No. Under the present circumstances, rather than calling it an illusion, I think it’s more like...”

Celicia suddenly lifted a finger. An ice mirror formed before her.

She angled its surface toward Liya so Liya’s reflection appeared within it, then tapped it again.

Liya’s reflection seemed to freeze completely inside the mirror, indistinguishable from the original. As Celicia turned the mirror, the image inside did not change at all.

“A mirrored image. A duplicate. Or a false construct that perfectly replicates the original. In any case, something based on reality but entirely false in existence. It’s more like this.”

What Celicia did not know was that, without realizing it, her reasoning had begun to align with Muen’s by an entirely different path.

“But that’s still unbelievable...”

Liya clutched her head, unwilling to lose to these women who only knew how to eat, drink tea, slack off, and think about men.

“With the magic available now, could anyone really create a false construct that vast and that perfect...”

“Yes.”

Someone suddenly entered.

It was the Judgment Archbishop in her blood-red robes.

No one knew where she had just returned from. She still carried the chill dampness of the rain with her. She sat down in her own seat and looked at the others with a smile.

“With present-day magic, it would indeed be very difficult. One could even say that almost no great mage could accomplish it through their own power alone. But if we’re talking about the legendary Ancient Magic... then yes, it can be done.”

“Ancient Magic...”

An, who had remained silent and disdained joining the discussion, finally let her gaze flicker.

“The enemy used that before at Notasia Fortress too, didn’t they?”

Celicia’s tone sank slightly. “Your Grace is certain?”

“Of course not. We’re still only speculating, after all. However...”

The Judgment Archbishop waved a hand lightly, and the Liya inside the ice mirror began to move, her pouty expression vivid and lifelike.

“Even Ancient Magic cannot reproduce a false construct with perfect accuracy. But it is still something beyond this age. Producing one giant flawed counterfeit to fool everyone? That much it can certainly do.”