The name Rognir once meant the most noble bloodline in a country called Aeolia.

Once, it was so.

The rulers were noble and pure simply because they were rulers.

The blood flowing in their veins gave them the qualification to rule, and it was a “natural thing” that needed no reason.

However, war changed everything.

Countries devoured countries, and victors made the defeated kneel.

Aeolia was no exception to this trend.

It didn’t matter whether they started eating because they were hungry or started eating to avoid being eaten.

What mattered was that they too were caught up in the flow of turbulent times, and to overcome these times, they needed power.

In that sense, magic was an easy-to-understand power. Mages were easy-to-understand strong ones.

The royal family, which at first treated mages merely as convenient military strength, soon realized that the people’s respect and fear were directed at the mages, not themselves. They also realized that the mages’ military power and authority had grown too large to cut off.

To avoid being pushed out of the ruler’s position, the royal family chose to become mages themselves.

When they found excellent mages, they made them marriage partners even if they were of a status they wouldn’t have even looked at in the past.

Because that way, magic talent would flow in their blood.

They made those without character or background their close associates and gave them power.

Because that way, those who tasted the sweetness of power would become their firm supporters and shields.

As long as it helped strengthen the tower’s power, they accepted even those who were avoided and feared by others.

Because that way, they could fill the gaps in history and knowledge that were lacking compared to other towers.

As a result, the Tower of Control was able to obtain various things.

Skills no less than the Tower of Annihilation. Knowledge no less than the Tower of Foresight. Support no less than the Tower of Protection.

While they weren’t the best in any single field, no one could match the Tower of Control in overall strength.

Those deployed in this operation were among the most skilled, even in such a tower.

They were elites raised by the once-supreme royal family to reclaim that position.

And now, these elites were all rolling on the ground.

“Gack.”

“Urgh…”

“Cough, cough!”

Almost no one properly understood what had happened.

All they recognized was that something flashed in the raging blizzard, and immediately after, everything was overturned.

Those who barely regained their senses opened their mouths in shock at the scene before their eyes.

Like a prank of sweeping the ground’s dirt with shoes.

As if a giant had personally performed such an action, the ground was overturned.

Not only the ice walls set up to block the enemies’ path, but also rocks that once stood firmly in place and deeply rooted trees were all tangled with mounds of earth, rolling on the ground.

“…Is it a top-tier… earth spell?”

“No, it could be a localized storm created.”

“Surely, to use something like that alone, one would need to be at least at the level of a tower head!”

The mages, who got up, tried to interpret the scene before their eyes with their knowledge.

Only by correctly analyzing the opponent’s strength could they respond properly next time.

However, considering that this was in the middle of a battle, it could be said to be an excessively leisurely action.

As if to prove this, black hands and cursed magic bullets flying from somewhere cut off their consciousness and silenced them.

Well, even if they had been given the leisure to calmly contemplate the situation, it was questionable whether they would have reached the correct answer.

The fact that such a phenomenon occurred “the mere aftermath of swinging a sword” was something incomprehensible to their common sense.

The only one who fully understood the situation was the Tin Knight who was nearby.

And the only one who understood it crudely was Jeras Rognir, who was directly hit by the attack.

Having barely avoided a fatal wound thanks to his familiar acting as a shield, he leaned against a tree, heaving.

The young man’s eyes, distorted like a demon’s, stared directly at Adelaide’s figure.

Her true appearance, which had completely blown away even the disguise magic cast by Dorothea due to the excessive flow of power.

A voice filled with hatred flowed from Jeras’ mouth.

“I see. It was all your plot, Lennart…!”

Adelaide didn’t answer.

She was too busy managing the aftermath of momentarily exceeding her limits and making that experience fully her own.

But that silence seemed to be interpreted differently by the opponent.

“What’s your purpose, you should have already gotten what you wanted! Or, do you really intend to wage war?!”

“──.”

For a moment, Adelaide’s mind went blank.

The words Jeras spat out scattered into several pieces and began to reassemble like a puzzle in her mind.

They got what they wanted.

Who? Lennart and the Tower of Control.

Do you really intend to wage war?

Then, before? Was it fake, not real?

“—What do you mean by that?”

At the question that leaked from Adelaide’s mouth, Jeras’s eyes momentarily filled with various emotions.

First, anger and distrust, as if looking at someone playing dumb.

Next, suspicion and bewilderment, wondering if she really knew nothing.

Finally, a look of dismay, as if he had spoken a fact that shouldn’t have been said in anger.

“You—“

Thud.

Jeras’ words couldn’t continue to the end.

A sword, stained black with grudge, had pierced through the tree he was leaning against—exiting his chest.

Blood flowed back up his throat, dirtying his beautiful face hideously.

Jeras’ hands grasped the sword.

The cold air flowing from his hands traveled along the sword, forcibly stopping the blood.

It was an obsession with life that seemed tenacious.

“With this, mere—gack?!”

However, even that struggle was meaningless.

Like air escaping from a fully inflated ball, Jeras’ body began to dry up in an instant.

Jeras’ body, drained of blood, mana, life, and even soul, crumbled like dry mud.

Clank.

A heavy metallic sound rang out.

The body that was once as faint as a ghost now had a solid and heavy substance.

Adelaide didn’t know that this was the result of sucking up others’ lives.

Nor did she know that the death knight, which had once been driven to the brink of subjugation, had succeeded in a counterattack due to the disruption of the encirclement caused by their party’s intrusion.

“You bastard!!”

The tower’s survivors who were still alive pounced on the death knight.

Fire, cold, storm, rock, all sorts of attacks emanated ominous killing intent and mana as if to crush the death knight.

If it had been the death knight from the beginning of the battle, these attacks would have undoubtedly been effective.

However, the death knight that emerged from the explosion didn’t have even a small scratch.

The death knight raised its sword high.

The black mana that extended from that sword transformed into something like black tentacles and spread in all directions.

The familiars that should have protected the mages from this attack had long since perished due to the battle so far.

The mages tried to avoid it with flight magic or spread barriers, but the black tentacles saw through and pierced all of that, slaughtering the mages.

Crack! Snap! Thud!

Hearts were pierced, necks were broken, heads exploded.

The remaining mana in the remaining bodies and the souls that had left the bodies were the best food to fatten the undead.

The continent’s top-level elite mages were all annihilated in a single moment without exception.

The more such slaughter occurred, the denser the mana and presence emitted by the death knight became.

Suddenly, Adelaide’s and the death knight’s eyes met.

Due to an inexplicable nostalgia and familiarity, Adelaide unconsciously hesitated to point her sword.

However, the already fallen knight did not hesitate.

Whoosh!

In the blink of an eye, the death knight’s body approached Adelaide, and its sword came down without the slightest hesitation.

A clean and elegant trajectory drawn by the black sword.

What the death knight, the souls that make up the death knight, had repeated hundreds and thousands of times.

“Father…?”

The swordsmanship of Friedel, taught by their lord.

The sin of wielding the sword learned from their lord and teacher against his daughter. That terrible sacrilege.

The death knight no longer had the reason to understand this.

The death knight no longer had the conscience or morals to be ashamed of this.

The pieces came together.

The tragedy was complete.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ shouts that he doesn’t forgive bad manners like last hit stealing!]

***

And, saying it was none of his business, you intervened.

***

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