**Chapter 34**
—
“Kill them all!”
The moment they dared to rob the eldest son of House Saxen not once, but twice—there was never any possibility of them being allowed to live.
Kill, or be killed.
Fortunately, there was still some distance between the two sides. Moreover, Dale’s side held the high ground upon a sloping hill, giving them a geographic advantage as well as superior numbers. Above all, his men had already spread out in a wide encirclement around the enemy.
Clinging to whatever hopeful reasoning he could muster, Baron Perker shouted aloud.
‘Just a few of them. Only a handful.’
Even if they were using aura blades, the enemy’s entire armament consisted of a single sword in hand. No armor, no shields, and certainly no warhorses to enable a proper cavalry charge.
By contrast, his own forces were composed of fully armored knights and archers, arrayed in proper formation.
It was a fight they could take. A fight they could win.
“We can win! This is a battle we can win!”
Baron Perker bellowed with all the optimism of a desperate man.
“Archers! Ready—!”
From atop the hill, his men drew back their bowstrings in unison.
“Fools,” a cold voice murmured.
It came from one of the knights standing beside Dale.
Sir Vale of Baskerville.
The high-ranking knight who, in that same battle, had stood at the Black Prince’s side and crushed the baron’s left flank on the front line. The Black Hound who had sworn fealty to the young heir of Saxen.
“Your command, Lord Dale,” Vale said calmly.
Dale opened his mouth.
“We have already granted them mercy once.”
Even as countless arrowheads were rained upon him from every direction, his voice did not waver.
“Further leniency has no meaning.”
He spoke in a tone devoid of all emotion.
“Kill them all.”
“As you command.”
The instant the order was given, a storm of arrows rained down from all sides.
The five *Aura Knights* standing nearby bowed their heads in acknowledgment of their lord’s will.
Whoosh—!
The next moment, sword winds howled.
A shield of blades rose to deflect the incoming storm of arrows. In the whirlwind of cutting wind, the countless arrows lost all meaning—they could not even reach their targets.
And before the volley was even finished, the knights of the Night Raven had already kicked off the ground.
They scattered outward, charging toward the bandits who had surrounded them.
The tales of swordmasters slaying thousands single-handedly were considered little more than romanticized ‘knightly literature’—even in this world. But a skilled knight butchering dozens of soldiers was not at all unusual.
The black blades swung, and screams followed.
“Uaaagh! My arm—my arm!”
“P-Please! Please spare me—aaagh!”
Before the plea could finish, blood spurted from a severed neck. Every swing of the blade cut through limbs, and from torn bellies intestines poured out like ropes.
“Y-young lord! Please, have mercy!”
Baron Perker, long since broken and trembling on the ground, screamed.
“I—I beg you! I’ll give you everything I own! I swear eternal loyalty! Please! Please, spare my life!”
He pleaded.
“Grant me the mercy of the Twin Goddesses!”
The mercy of the Twin Goddesses.
Dale did not answer. He merely looked down at him with cold, indifferent eyes. All around them, the screams still echoed.
Some cried from pain, others laughed from fear they could no longer contain.
Turning his back on them, the Black Prince tilted his head slightly.
“Why should I?”
—
—
A few days later—
Having departed from Baron Perker’s domain, Dale and his knights barely entered the next territory in central Imperial lands when—
“Stop right there, you bastards!”
Another bandit troop appeared before them, blocking their path.
“Who dares cross Baron Grandel’s lands without his leave?!”
A robber baron—one of those petty nobles who preyed upon travelers passing through their domains. After all, even thievery required strength.
‘Ah, bloody hell.’
Watching the bandits preen and threaten them so proudly, Dale silently cursed under his breath.
If they kept their identities hidden, they’d be seen as easy prey. Yet if they revealed themselves, they couldn’t let a single witness live.
With a resigned sigh, Dale asked,
“Would you consider just letting us pass quietly?”
“Hah! The boy has jokes!”
“Yeah, he’s a funny one, boss!”
“Maybe he’s already wet himself!”
The armored baron, Grandel, burst into laughter along with his men.
Dale, too, smiled faintly—behind him, the silent black swords of House Saxen stood at attention, awaiting their lord’s command.
After a moment of shared laughter, Dale spoke again.
“Funny, is it?”
—
—
Weeks passed as they traced the river branches flowing from central lands northward toward the North Sea.
In that time, they crossed the domains of several robber barons and rogue knights, leaving an unending trail of blood in their wake.
From there, they passed through the Free City of Amber, and boarded a vessel along the “Amber Route,” a sea passage cutting across the continent—
Heading for the Papal State of Sistina, the Land of the Goddess.
A noble heir of power and birth, walking humbly on his own two feet, concealing his identity—that was the respect the Black Prince intended to show the Church through his pilgrimage. A gesture of penitence for the slaughter of the Goddess’s knights by the blades of House Saxen.
And since he came bearing such sincerity, the Church could hardly fail to respond in kind.
—
—
The Holy See of Sistina—Sacred Seat City of Füsel.
Within a chamber of the *Palazzo Apostolico*, facing Saint Magdalena Square—
“Your Eminence, Cardinal Nicolai.”
One of the twelve high clergymen at the pinnacle of the Goddess Church, a white mage who had reached the Sixth Circle.
A counterpart befitting the station of the Black Prince who had come to the Holy Land on his own feet. He was none other than Nicolai Machia, Cardinal and Elder of the White Tower.
“I heard much blood was spilled in that battle, young lord.”
Dale of Saxen—
Son and heir of the Black Duke, Archmage of the Black Tower, mortal enemy of the White Tower.
Nicolai knew well the boy’s reputation—the genius of the Empire, and the dark infamy that followed that name.
“The brothers of Saint Magdalena were paragons of faith. Their loss was… truly grievous.”
“My excessive competence led to more casualties than necessary, I’m afraid.”
*Too good at killing, that was the problem.*
“……”
From first to last, this was an opponent the Church found utterly incompatible.
“The outcome of the Black-and-White Battle is deeply regrettable, I must say,” Nicolai offered.
Yet that very adversary now bowed politely before him.
A child from the northern reaches—the Church’s own wasteland—
and not just any child, but the heir to one of the Empire’s mightiest duchies.
‘Did he truly endure such a pilgrimage merely to atone?’ Nicolai wondered.
Even a prodigy, for all his brilliance, was still only eleven years old. It wasn’t impossible that the horrors of the battlefield had sown guilt deep in his heart—guilt that now drove him to seek refuge in faith, as many young nobles once had.
‘If so, all the better,’ the Cardinal thought.
Guilt—debt toward God—was one of religion’s strongest chains.
“I, too, worry about your… cruelty, young lord,” Nicolai said with a kindly smile. “But the Goddess’s mercy is open equally to all.”
“……”
“There is no sin in this world that cannot be washed clean.”
*Washed clean. Forgiven.*
Just as the Cardinal prepared to continue his gentle sermon—
“No sin that cannot be cleansed, you say?” Dale asked softly.
“Indeed,” Nicolai nodded.
“──Then is that why you sold the land of the Goddess to the Empire?”
*Sold the land of the Goddess.*
For an instant, Nicolai’s face turned deathly pale.
“When the previous Pope—who refused the treaty of annexation—was assassinated…”
Dale continued, ignoring the Cardinal’s silence. He spoke of a truth known to only a handful in the entire Empire.
“You were there, weren’t you, Your Eminence?”
Just before the forced annexation treaty between the Empire and the Church State—
the previous Pope, High Pontiff and King of the White Tower, resisted to the end.
And as a result, he was eliminated by the Empire’s hunting dog—its summoned Hero.
All with the betrayal of twelve cardinal bishops, Nicolai among them.
“Tell me, Your Eminence—did the Goddess forgive the sin of the Cardinal who sold out his own country?”
“H-how could you possibly know that—!”
The Sixth-Circle white mage’s aura of pure light burst forth, his composure shattered. Yet even as holy magic swirled violently through the room, Dale’s face remained calm, unbothered.
He did not even seem to care that none of the Saxen knights were present to protect him.
“Killing a mere envoy of the Duke—do you really think that would silence anyone?”
It was a lie.
The Duke of Saxen had no idea what was happening here. But Nicolai had no way of knowing that.
As proof, the storm of light magic faltered after a few hollow surges, then dissipated into nothing.
‘Is that truly an eleven-year-old child?’ Nicolai thought, stunned.
Even seeing it with his own eyes, he could scarcely believe it.
The legend of the Black Prince far exceeded even the wildest of rumors.
The titles of “Empire’s Greatest Genius” or “Prodigy of the Duke’s Line” suddenly seemed laughably inadequate.
“…What is it you want?” Nicolai finally asked.
“The Duke has no interest in exposing the Church’s scandals,” Dale replied smoothly, speaking as the Black Duke’s representative.
“On the contrary, he wishes to pledge silence regarding that day’s events.”
He cloaked his own intention beneath the guise of his father’s will.
“All we ask is a small token in exchange for our silence.”
*A price for silence.* Nothing in the world came for free.
“Beneath this Apostolic Palace lies a secret vault where the Church keeps its forbidden tomes, does it not?”
“……!”
At those words, Nicolai’s face once again froze in shock.
It was a place few within the Church were even aware of—fewer still permitted to enter.
“S-surely you don’t mean—!”
“Grant me permission to read the *Library of Hell*.”
The Library of Hell—
the name given to the deepest vault beneath the Apostolic Palace, where the Church kept all *prohibited grimoires* it had confiscated.
Including *The Book of the Black Goat*—
authored by an ancestor of House Saxen, the most terrifying magical tome in existence.
