Liberi Reader

General, the Mayor is dead.

Your saber still drips with the blood.

If only the blades of the Military Commission and the mercenaries could be as swift.

As long as it's a weapon, there's no real difference.

...Roger.

News just came from the mercs. The fourteen MPs in the plot to assassinate the Regent have been apprehended.

And what stance are the other MPs taking?

They don't have one.

I thought you'd be more direct about your methods.

If the Military Commission requires, I can execute every MP straight away.

With our current situation, this will suffice. The airship is still under construction; we need just a little extra patience.

Pull your men out. The Nachzehrer King's legion has arrived.

...Legion?

When? How?

Whatever direction a Kazdel army enters Victoria from, they'd have to pass through major duchies. It wouldn't matter how they conceal themselves, that large a force could never—

His Majesty has arrived at Londinium's suburbs. Two reorganized Royal Court units directly subordinate to him have been stationed outside the city.

......

I understand. I'll order the mercs to withdraw.

That Lt. Colonel Lettou had his talk with the Regent. He and his Defense Forces will soon be assuming control over all of Londinium's administrative affairs.

On the surface, Londinium will enter a state of semi-martial control led by the Defense Forces, owing to the 'garrisoned rebellion'.

Don't think that'll fool the Grand Dukes... their intelligence networks are well developed in the city. They'll definitely start mobilizing for war within the next few months.

It won't take that long. It's exceedingly likely the quickest army will show up beneath Londinium's walls within twenty days.

But no fear. No matter who arrives first, they won't be hasty to act.

Any duke that dares march alone will become the common enemy of all, just as in the Duke of Windermere's failure of a raid two years ago.

Her high-speed warships didn't even succeed in launching from their berths before her own men obstructed her. It was ridiculous.

The Duke of Windermere... She's clever. She's been warning Parliament since the day the Regent first made contact with Victoria.

Cavendish didn't just invite us to enter Londinium on his lonesome. Each and every duke was hoping to make a 'military vassal' out of the Regent, an assistant to the thorns in their sides.

Understand? This Duke of Windermere is no exception. Behind the guise of the iron-fisted soldier, she obeys the game logic of aristocrats as much as the rest.

She was just the one most impatient to place us back in the toolbox.

From what I hear, Victoria's legendary Steam Knights don't exist anymore.

You do have a nose for sniffing, Hoederer. Not a good quality for a serviceman.

I'm a mercenary, General.

The Regent and Military Commission's scheme was a huge success. Pretty crazy. Somehow, the Sarkaz have a firm hold on Victoria's capital.

The dukes need an easy-to-cut-up army to put down dissidents, and Parliament is desperate for an 'appropriate' defense, to avoid any more action like those two stupid dukes' adventures.

In their eyes, the Sarkaz came fresh out of civil war on a silver platter, table ready, disposable.

Now, we've taken the industrial sector, leashed Parliament, and even The Shard will be under our control any day now. The Regent's taken Londinium, for real.

But we can't shunt this city off.

We can stir up conflict, but then what? We end up buried together with Londinium under a coalition of foreign militaries?

What is the Commission planning?

Do mercenaries have so many problems, Hoederer? Have I given you too much leeway?

I only need to know what the goal I'm serving is.

The mercenaries I know have other tastes. Inquiring as to the more loose-pocketed employer, or mulling over how to waylay a Sankta caravan.

...I just have different personal habits.

'Personal habits'.

Is your eye alright?

...It affects my depth perception in sword combat. I'll get used to it ASAP.

I received your interrogation records. The assassin was an Ines woman, a mercenary alike.

We sure didn't expect a Sarkaz like Ines to get bought out by Parliament, especially for a hit on the Regent.

Ines is dead, and you lost an eye for it. You'll receive commendations from the Military Commission.

No commendations necessary.

Then you'll receive payment, in mercenary fashion.

After all, you and Ines, and that lunatic with the W callsign, led an active mercenary unit for quite some time. The old Sarkaz of the Scar Market, their commendations for you are blinding.

......

Very decisive of you to kill her.

It's the only way a mercenary lives. We'll do anything to survive.

Even gutting your own colleagues?

Even gutting our own colleagues.

Then I'm sure one day you'll come to dispatch me. Won't you?

......

You asked me just now. What could the Military Commission be planning?

Our plan is only drawn up to the point war breaks out. As for what follows, that would be... their plan to make.

This place is the heart of hatred, and it will be buried by vengeance.

Just as you wrote in those booklets. Just as every war we've been through.

So you were...

Never mind that. Carry on writing.

You've a heavy mission. Bear that responsibility.

Done with your notes?

No, I wasn't writing anything.

Just giving this sword another polish. The mercenary claymore... I haven't used this thing in forever.

You're so heartless.

If you want it, you can have it. A present from me to you.

A sword? Low efficiency, zero interest.

*sigh*... And you found the time to fix your hair?

Can't blame you, I guess. We're not going to have the time for hair gel like you did back in Londinium.

It's just more convenient this way.

You should've kept that outfit. Maybe you could keep acting the merc leader, treasure of the army?

What's that thing army guys say? It's your calling to serve?

A mercenary's calling is to get paid, not get bereavement. Knock it off and save your spittle, you two.

Defense perimeter, scouting radius. Is this the opening?

Until they started fighting, yeah.

As for now... they're marching. No matter how much the dukes hate each other's guts, this front's gonna close in sooner or later.

You're sure your guy's gonna pass this position? You can literally see The Shard's Catastrophe clouds from here.

The Catastrophe's landing point is the line of fire between the Duke of Wellington and the Nachzehrer King. Chances are the Iron Duke will retreat his front.

As for Windermere, she probably won't have the spare energy to deploy her own forces until she gets her daughter back inside a nomadic fortress.

My 'guy' doesn't have a lot of exit routes from Londinium.

Wait. Incoming.

The shadow's very fast. It's like...

Er, a polygonal... yarn ball?

A what?

The overall shape is polygonal, but highly irregular.

It's Arts. High chance the naked eye can't follow it, or else she wouldn't make it here.

Target confirmed. We can only afford a little rough play.

W—

*sigh*... After her!

...Mercenaries?

What a coincidence. Come at me, then.

This is where the strange sensations truly start.

Did she run? I told you, you can't blow a Lich up with bombs.

No. She's still around.

We have to catch her.

Something's not quite right. We never passed by any area like this.

Nothing here casts any shadow. Is it an illusion?

I think there's a bunch of big guys over there, right by the mountain.

Those are some crazy swords. How do they lift 'em?

(In ancient Sarkaz) The ash-bleached city lies ahead. Let us hasten.

(In ancient Sarkaz) It will admit us. The children of the soil and stone have built city walls on Sorrow's Ground.

(In ancient Sarkaz) Kazdel. Each syllable is a bitter journey unto its own.

(In ancient Sarkaz) Where is it? From dreams we have departed, seeking to this day.

(In ancient Sarkaz) The age of exile has come to an end—

What are they saying?

It's an ancient Sarkaz dialect.

'Sorrow's ground'. 'Ash-bleached city'. I'm having trouble with the rest—I can only guess.

I think they mentioned Kazdel too? Which one?

(In ancient Sarkaz) Diαblo Balor'sača of the Condemnor Clan and Qui'lon the Errant Overlord will meet us on our way.

(In ancient Sarkaz) Oh, and he is here too...

(In ancient Sarkaz) Gul'dul, 'The King of Sarkaz'—

—

What these shadows tell of is the second Kazdel that could be called a city.

After the very first Kazdel was laid to waste by the Elders and Ancients, there passed over a thousand years where Kazdel was no more than a tiny hamlet, a mass of thatch and wooden fencing.

Frail, easily destroyed, it was ravaged by the wills of colonizers again and again, and again and again the Sarkaz were sent into exile.

Until this moment, where the Sarkaz had once again accumulated strength, once again rebuilt... a true city.

They left the wastes that we now call Columbia, and came to the heartlands of Terra, and there they lived, and there they died.

And then... a betrayal. Another migration east. And before they'd gone far, the blue flames of fury were again betrayed.

It seems as if Sarkaz history were cursed from that moment on.

History's waves have rolled on, to this present day, where citadels are incessantly scrapped and rebuilt and still amble about in arm's reach.

But the names they speak, those are that city's first Kings of Sarkaz.

The Kings of Sarkaz, seven thousand years ago.

How—

How did you produce these things?

......

Considering this Kazdel's historical significance and its impact on the generations to come, the legend of the Kings of Sarkaz have found such wide spread in song.

But these vagabonds? Even we lack for such trifling... er, accounts.

This is scarcely even witchcraft... it is absolutely not. No Originium Arts could attain this degree of effect. Oh, or perhaps it could, but at the very least a historian would be needed.

Is it a trick of physics? A projector that forms images from the mist? When did our brother and sister gain such technology? How rude not to share!

Hm... no, it's off. These pictures are too close to the recorded truth. Be it a technological feat, whence came the material...?

So this is some kind of Arts, then...

But it's of no known category of Arts... it's highly likely, even, that it isn't Arts.

How very strange—a Feranmut? If Victoria wanted to tame a Feranmut for battle, it should've started long ago...

What's this bitch even doing?

It seems you are not Artists.

You are simply and purely the ones who blew up my beloved cube. It was very comfortable sitting in it.

Messenger to the Lich's Court, Lady Ermengarde, we deeply apologize for using such a method to contact you.

...I don't know what misconception you have of Liches, but honestly, I'm not that old. Stop kowtowing.

I fear this is not your Arts, either.

I certainly don't have the knack to conjure a band of seven-millennium-old vagabonds.

Hm... what if I use Arts to stimulate it? Just the most basic, tiny tiny amount, of energetic irritation...

What is this?

I checked this area three days ago. There was nothing like this here.

Guys, we... Hey, Hoederer, W, snap out of it.