I’ve really lived my life looking only at my husband.

A memory slowly surfacing while roaming the waterways.

It was probably a warning she heard when she had a private audience with the Emperor before setting foot in Maris.

‘Duchess Bertayu. Do you know what the title of Empire’s Sword means?’

‘……’

‘…Celia.’

‘What?’

‘Duchess Bertayu is the title referring to you.’

‘Huh? You were talking about me?’

‘To begin with, who else do you think I would be calling in this audience chamber besides you?’

‘Hmm, friends hiding here and there ready to cut off my head at any moment?’

‘…Everyone leave.’

Though her forgetfulness had been getting worse lately and things were hazy, was it because her head had cleared up after swinging her sword around for a while?

Celia could vaguely recall the warnings the Emperor had given her at that time.

‘Really, these subordinates just don’t listen.’

‘…Be quiet.’

‘Even if you tell them to leave, they shouldn’t do that! What if that woman harms you! We’d rather die fighting to the end~ They’re just drumming up drama among themselves while staying put in front of a person… Anyone watching would think I came all this way to kill you.’

‘I told you to be quiet.’

‘Well, it’s already sad enough hearing people say things like the Emperor lacks dignity, but I suppose you’d dislike being mocked like this~ Still, Your Majesty… You’re getting on in years, shouldn’t you start considering retirement?’

‘Who do you think takes up the largest portion in that evaluation?!’

…No. Was this not that memory either?

I’m not sure.

To begin with, I’m a person who doesn’t feel a sense of crisis even when hearing warnings.

‘This is why I wanted to call Sion instead of you, but why did he have to be away at a time like this…’

‘Whose fault do you think that is? It’s the fault of the person who has kept dragging on a war that could have been ended immediately until now.’

‘…Celia.’

‘What, did I say something wrong? It was your choice to keep dragging this on until now even though you could have just split the empire into 50 pieces and ended it.’

‘It’s already been 2 years since the war ended.’

‘You just declared that, but it hasn’t really ended, has it?’

‘……’

‘…What, did you think I’d feel embarrassed and apologize if you said the war ended?’

No matter how ignorant of worldly affairs she might be, she’s still in the position of a duchess.

She had already grasped that they were trying to extend the respite arranged because everyone was tired, for 2 years or even longer.

Problems accumulated over a long time are still scattered throughout the continent, and all those conflicts are just being expressed in different ways, not as war.

Through politics and trade, scheming and deals… Or changed into fights of the few that aren’t publicly revealed.

In such a situation, it would be considered rash for a leader to say that the war itself has ended.

‘Yes, I suppose even saying such things to you is discourteous.’

The Emperor belatedly realizing his slip and expressing guilt.

That was by no means empty words.

The fact that he had caused much harm to this continent by his own decisions was something the Emperor himself knew best.

‘I only feel sorry towards you. Knowing the childhood you spent, knowing what happened to your father because of the empire, yet I made such choices…’

That’s why he felt even grateful towards her.

If she hadn’t been born with talents different from others.

If in an era where medicine was shunned, she hadn’t encountered someone who could quell the chronic illness that was the only obstacle to that talent.

Resolving to keep her chastity while waiting for him to return after being dragged to the battlefield as a convict soldier.

Furthermore, if she hadn’t made efforts to turn her back on the world while setting the condition for her marriage pledge that she would ‘be joined with someone stronger than herself’ in order to prove that the means he used to treat her were right, cutting away flesh and blood…

A moment to honestly reveal guilt like this might never have come, even in a lifetime.

‘Does saying sorry make what’s passed disappear?’

Of course, even such comfort of his would feel artificial and disgusting to her.

She was branded as cursed for her entire life.

Despite her efforts to prove otherwise, her father who tried to uncover the empire’s wrongdoings was poisoned, and she had prepared to fight the entire empire after beheading the crown prince who tried to force a marriage by imperial decree saying he would refine a girl who knew nothing but swordsmanship.

The foundations of her life were broken for inheriting the ducal family.

She succeeded in sparking a revolution before that developed into madness, but even that grace had long since turned to hatred because it continued the lineage of the empire that ruined her life.

There is one reason she holds onto her reason while faithfully adhering to those emotions, when she should be cutting down everything that reaches her sword, losing her reason.

‘As I’ve told you many times whenever we meet, the reason I’m keeping you alive isn’t because you feel guilt.’

The reason she can have conversations is because the man who can be called her comrade-in-arms and close friend who changed the empire together with her, and her mentor…

Came to truly love the first patient he saved.

‘It’s just that the person I love wants to see the end of the world you’re cultivating.’

Just love.

Because she came to love one man wholly…

Because that clarity was felt so intensely that it made her turn her eyes away from hatred.

‘…Yes, as you say, too much time has passed to sever our relationship.’

If such a broken woman were to set foot in a place where she turns her eyes away from love, the price would have to be borne by not just the empire but the entire continent.

No matter how much a leader who rules and must rule the people.

Even such coercive power cannot truly move people’s hearts.

‘Alright, as you wish, I’ll stop making meaningless apologies… Let’s get straight to the point.’

So the Emperor decided not to express guilt in front of her anymore.

All the more so because he also guessed why she, who had been staying only in her domain to avoid expressing her hatred towards him, had come to see him directly.

‘Your father… You want us to tell you everything we’ve figured out about the guys who robbed the grave of the previous Empire’s Sword, right?’

---

Elder Fanatics.

Remnants of the old era that existed before the revolution, and those who wield dark magic to revive corpses through the remnants of immortality research.

What kind of result she would face with her father’s corpse that they had stolen.

She had guessed since before setting foot in this academy’s territory.

Yes, she was already prepared, and yet.

“…Seeing this directly makes me a bit angry.”

Underground waterways without a speck of light…

At the end of the passage she reached after cutting down fanatics and corpses at every turn while roaming that place, a knight in heavy armor that one wouldn’t think would set foot in such a dark place was standing guard.

What she felt facing that was clearly the emotion of anger.

An emotion that she, who no longer feels stirred by any human affairs, would rarely feel.

“…Ugh.”

It’s only natural.

What exists before her was a person she had a relationship with when she still had human emotions.

Her mother who suffered from the same chronic illness and left the world first.

A person who, unable to forget such a mother, did not have other successors but cherished his only remaining family…

“Didn’t I say I wouldn’t forgive you?”

How would his heart have been distorted when he learned that the curse his daughter received was actually not a disease?

He must have felt betrayed.

Towards the empire that maintained the attitude that ‘the fault lies with the patient, we’ve done nothing wrong’ while bestowing meaningless divine power on his daughter…

After the truth was revealed, the sight of them trying to weaken Bertayu’s power by picking all sorts of faults, unable to acknowledge her improved condition, must have seemed extremely detestable to him.

“Even though you insisted that violence was absolutely forbidden and that you would resolve everything through words somehow…”

Yet what was his end like, crying for peace before the emperor who was a tyrant?

Without even crossing swords, he met his end strangled by those who feared that power, deceived by their sweet words.

“Despite such foolish compassion, now even his successor is being exploited to the point of using his corpse.”

Back then they blamed the allied nations for his father’s death to accelerate the war further.

Now they’re going beyond selling corpses to even use them as guards, what despicable acts.

“Pro, tect…”

But the dead have no right to speak or choose.

The being who was once her father, whose life and death were entirely played by their schemes, began to mutter as he raised his head.

“Protect…”

An undead that speaks…

It’s not that she hasn’t seen them at all until now.

Although most undead are swayed by survival instinct, there must have been some among them who had lingering attachments they considered more important than life at their end.

“Protect.”

Yes, Father. So that’s what your lingering attachment was.

That even if he was hated by everyone, he wanted to protect at least his daughter.

Moreover, because he hoped for an era to come when everyone would know that those like his daughter were not cursed beings, but existences that could someday be saved.

“…Father.”

Although this heart has long since worn out.

But before that, she too was human, and those memories exist.

“Can you hear my voice?”

She, immersed in such nostalgia, spoke to him, reviving the emotions derived from that.

As a child to her father.

“Protect.”

“It’s me. Your daughter… The person you wanted to protect.”

“I, protect…”

“…But what are you protecting now, standing before the person you wanted to protect?”

“Protect.”

Clank.

The sound of armor joints causing friction.

The metal light armor based on chain mail is the combat uniform passed down in Bertayu, a family of swordsmanship, but that which was buried with the grave was now so terribly rusted it could be called a relic.

“Protect…”

Father taking the same posture as in life with such equipment and raising the family’s treasured sword.

“I…”

The words he repeats with the sword tip in front of his helmet surely follow his lingering attachment from life.

“I protect.”

The lingering attachment to ‘protect’ his family and beliefs, and his only blood kin, his daughter.

With all that context cut off, relying only on the single memory of ‘protect’, having fallen to being a gatekeeper who only guards the passage he stands in without even realizing it.

“…So, no further.”

As soon as she realized that, her cooling heart faded, and soon her father’s ghost began to charge at her, raising his sword.

The charge of a rotten lump of meat moving only by lingering attachment.

But his skills must follow those from his previous life.

“I won’t… let you… pass!!”

Lycel Bertayu.

A warrior undefeated in a hundred battles who never experienced a single defeat while going back and forth on many battlefields.

Those who know such a status would easily predict who would win in the current fight.

How the match would turn out between a woman who has never set foot on a battlefield even once since gaining the title of Empire’s Sword.

-Slash!

But when their swords collided, the sound that was heard was too light.

The sword tempered with aura was cut in two from the tip too easily, and the tip of the sword that cut through it was already halfway into its owner’s brow.

“I’m sorry, Father. As much as I’d like to, I can’t spar with you like in the old days.”

Yes, it was a fight that was impossible from the start.

The realm achieved by the strongest of the old era.

It had already been surpassed over 30 years ago.

“Unlike you who bore many responsibilities, I’ve really lived my life looking only at my husband.”

-Rip!!

The moment her father’s corpse was cut in two and the path opened.

Not a hint of hesitation was seen in the footsteps advancing through that gap.

And then…

“My, I didn’t think there would be another visitor reaching here besides me.”

When she reached the space beyond that, she heard.

A voice that certainly didn’t feel unfamiliar to her.