The knights boarded the transport.
Order. Restraint. Precision.
They made no unnecessary movements. They did not chatter or lounge about. Even the angle of the fingers fastening their belts matched the manual exactly.
Some counted their breaths with their eyes closed. Some studied their reflections in the helmets resting on their laps. Others laid a hand on their sword hilts and maintained a prayerful silence.
Perhaps this was the discipline and culture I had instilled in the Sentinels.
This place was no longer what it had once been.
I remembered the Sentinels before my regression.
An organization pushed around by palace officials, stripped of its jurisdiction by the Imperial Guard, and strangled by shrinking budgets.
Not anymore.
The knights now took pride in being the Empire's sword and honed themselves to live up to the honor of the Sentinels.
Discipline had replaced complaint, and pride had replaced cynicism.
The capital and planning into which I had poured my time permeated this quiet cabin.
My efforts were clearly working.
Rumble.
As we advanced through the darkness toward Zerpha, I looked over the knights' uniforms.
Knight descent suits.
At first, they had been little more than wingsuits for gliding. Plain black suits designed solely for practical use.
But Lorenzo Academy had continued its research, and I had poured endless capital into it as well.
In collaboration with the Mage Tower, mana structures for gliding control, deceleration, and offsetting landing impact were inscribed within the suits. Their base layer had been remade into flexible armor capable of stopping gunfire.
Mana stone crystals at the joints calculated falling speed, while the inscriptions on the breastplate instantly accepted the wearer's mana.
A skilled knight could imbue the entire suit with their mana and deploy their own Mana Wings.
A sleek, pitch-black silhouette. An outer shell bearing the Empire's crest.
From the night sky, it would look like a sword descending with its wings folded.
It preserved the knights' style without compromising performance.
Style mattered. It carried its own intimidation and overwhelmed the enemy.
Individual combat strength mattered, but a battlefield was ultimately a place where hearts broke first.
When their beauty as they descended from the sky stirred both fear and awe, the enemy's spirit would be cut in half before a blade ever touched them.
"...We will enter Zerpha's airspace in thirty minutes."
The pilot's announcement echoed softly.
The knights emerged from their silence in unison.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Helmets settled onto heads one after another, like weapons being loaded.
Each knight remembered their own drop point.
Their task was clear.
So was what they had to bring back.
Victory.
* * *
Whoooo...
The Republican faction's camp was battered by a wind carrying the scent of blood.
"The situation is favorable."
The staff officer reported, and confidence had already settled across the command staff's faces.
The reasons were clear. They had already taken nearly half of Pannel Ridge, and the riverside villages and warehouses seized during the night crossing allowed them to supply themselves locally.
There was also the existence of the Izenheim Volunteer Army, which the Royalist faction had failed to identify.
Superhumans who had slipped silently across the border and joined the Republican faction's spearhead.
"What about the Imperial army?"
"They are still in the south. They continue advancing south alongside the Royalist legions."
The south was heavily defended. Even if it fell, victory here at Gandela would leave the enemy trapped deep within hostile territory.
Besides, the Imperial army would not lead the charge anyway.
It was a matter of cost and benefit unique to siege warfare.
They would not grind down their own troops in someone else's civil war. They would put the kingdom's army at the front to conserve their own forces.
The only concern had been the southern legions immediately turning back once the war began. Yet the enemy's tangled command structure had prevented a timely decision, and that weak Crown Prince had, as expected, lacked the resolve to abandon the south.
Everything had gone as Frank predicted.
"Do not slow the offensive. Keep pressing them in shifts through the night. We cannot give them time to sleep."
"Yes, sir!"
After the staff officers withdrew, a shadowy presence approached behind Frank, who was alone in the tent.
Frank spoke as though letting out a sigh.
"...If we succeed, I'll repay this debt."
A man emerged, as if answering him.
It was Elton, leader of the Izenheim Volunteer Army.
"And if we fail?"
Frank turned to face him. Lamplight touched the man's face.
A flawless face. Smooth white skin without a single mark, and long platinum hair falling below his shoulders.
He possessed an old, refined dignity that did not match the common image of a persecuted people at all.
Frank snorted.
"Our failure will be your failure too, won't it?"
Elton laughed aloud and sat down. Frank took a bottle from beneath the field table.
One of the few bottles of liquor from his homeland that he had saved since before the war began.
When Frank poured it into two tin cups, Elton quietly raised his.
"To the exiled."
A people who had crossed the border to escape persecution, only to be cast out again after crossing it. Elton was an activist who had united the Izenheim community living in Zerpha.
He had spent his own fortune building schools and relief centers, sheltering his impoverished countrymen and restoring their lives. A saint of his people.
"...My homeland failed to protect you."
Frank raised his cup in response and spoke quietly.
"But once this war ends, I promise that the first law of the new republic will ensure that those born on this land and those who defended it will not be divided by bloodlines. We will not commit the same madness as the Empire."
"...Those are welcome words."
Elton nodded with a gentle expression.
Frank felt himself slowly being moved by the sight.
Anyone who had spent their life being hunted and robbed would have every reason to resent the world.
Yet this man held responsibility instead of vengeance, mercy instead of hatred.
Was this the face a person wore when persecution failed to break them?
"That's enough for me."
At Elton's words, Frank lifted his cup.
"Cheers."
Clink.
Their tin cups touched.
A modest drinking party between two men standing shoulder to shoulder beneath the shadow of the great evil called the Empire.
The lantern in the tent flickered warmly over their cups.
...
Gandela, the Royalist faction's command tent.
"According to the reports coming in, there are definitely superhumans mixed into the enemy's ranks."
The general glared at the pins stuck into the map.
Superhumans. Those who wielded mana.
Of course, they were not invincible. Stepping on a mine would tear their flesh apart, and they would die if grenades and artillery shells turned them into sieves.
The snipers on the ridge had already taken down several of them.
The problem was that their weapons were limitless.
This side's ammunition ran dry, but their mana did not. As long as they ate well, it would eventually recover.
"What does headquarters say?"
"...They keep repeating that we should wait."
"General!"
At that moment, a messenger ran into the tent.
Reinforcements? The general hurriedly rose, but then the messenger spoke.
"General! Headquarters has ordered us to launch an offensive!"
"...What?"
Not an order to hold out. Not an order to wait. An order to advance head-on.
"Now?"
"Yes, sir!"
It was impossible. There were wounded everywhere, and ammunition was scarce.
Above all, not even half a day had passed since the last battle.
"What about reinforcements?"
"..."
The messenger had no answer.
"...Madness."
"But, General! They said now, it must be now! They said Imperial aid will definitely arrive!"
The general looked outside the tent.
If the Imperial army was coming, there would be signs. A large army on the move would raise clouds of dust.
But the earth and sky were quiet.
What was coming, and from where?
"..."
The general remained silent for a long time, but found no answer.
This was still an order.
"We advance. All units, prepare to deploy."
"...Yes, sir."
The staff officers nodded as though they had no choice.
"But how should we encourage the soldiers? They are all at their limit."
The general closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them after letting out a deep sigh.
"Tell them reinforcements are coming."
Could they believe those words when he himself did not believe them as they left his mouth?
"Um, General."
Without warning, the messenger handed him a small slip of paper.
"Can you read the Imperial language?"
"The Imperial language?"
"Yes. A note was enclosed with the order."
The handwriting in Imperial language was elegant.
There was no signature, but it contained a single sentence.
"The Empire's sword shall soon come to you."
...
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
Drums echoed through the night. Beyond the ridge that had been our trench only three days ago, the enemy had settled in.
Could they really be called enemies?
Citizens of the same country. People who spoke the same language. Faces they might have passed at the entrance to a market.
They shared the same border and the same sea, yet had become enemies simply because their flags were different...
"Advance! We will retake it today!"
"Reinforcements are coming!"
The counterattack began. The Royalist soldiers climbed out of their trenches, clutching the promise of reinforcements like a talisman.
Boom! Craaaash!
Artillery smoke swallowed the ridge. Flares tore into the night sky, and beneath their pale light, waves of bayonets crawled up the slope.
Rat-a-tat-tat! Bang!
When the enemy machine guns brought down the first line, the second line stepped over their backs and moved forward.
The knee of the comrade running on the left buckled without a sound, and the comrade on the right fell while calling out the wounded comrade's name.
A slope where dirt, blood, and stone fragments burst together.
Yet nobody turned back.
They knew their legs would stop the moment they did.
Reinforcements are coming. Reinforcements are coming.
The words repeated in their minds held the collapsing formation together, as though stitched with thread.
"Advance!"
"A-advance!"
One soldier ran while clinging to that thread.
His name was Carlos, a young man in his early twenties.
Conscripted without any special talent, he simply ran.
"Advance! Advance!"
Before he could even wonder whether he was moving forward of his own will or being pushed along, he took another step.
Boom!
An artillery shell exploded nearby.
Whooo...
His body rose into the air.
Time seemed to stop. The world turning upside down played out in slow motion.
Thud.
His back struck the ground.
"...Cough."
Blood welled up in his mouth.
All strength drained from his body.
Something seemed broken. He could not move even one finger.
Haa... Haa...
Dazed, he breathed in and out.
Beyond the smoke, the night sky was strangely quiet.
Step.
Someone approached and blocked half his view.
It was an enemy soldier holding a rifle.
The soldier aimed at Carlos's chest and pulled the trigger.
Click.
The rifle was empty.
"...Slaves of the monarchy."
The enemy soldier calmly changed the magazine, using the remaining moments to hurl curses.
"Living your whole lives in chains."
Click. The bolt slid into place.
"Even when you die, you are used by others."
The rifle aimed at him again.
"Worse than dogs..."
The moment the soldier placed a finger on the trigger, Carlos suddenly looked above the enemy's head.
Across the dark sky, gliding through the brilliant moonlight...
Whoosh!
The wind died down.
That was how it felt.
The gunfire sweeping the ridge seemed to hold its breath for an instant, and a silence fell as though the sounds of the world had grown distant.
A darkness fell from the sky.
Craaaash!
It landed in the heart of the enemy formation, where machine gun positions were densely packed.
That landing itself was a bombardment.
Crunch!
Flesh and steel were crushed together with a deafening roar. The trench where the blackness descended overturned, machine guns flew into the air with their barrels still attached, and sandbags scattered like snow.
The enemy soldier turned toward it in shock.
It was his final movement.
Whoosh!
A violent gust swept in.
It was the wind of something that had passed through.
As though it had folded the hundreds of steps from the heart of the ridge to this spot into nothing.
Whoooo...
The wind cleared, and the enemy soldier's face flew into the air.
The severed head spun through the air, then dropped.
It rolled through the mud.
"..."
Carlos stared blankly at the scene.
Then he looked at the being standing before him.
A black silhouette shaped like a person, its helmet reflecting the night, the tails of its pitch-black suit fluttering like a cape.
Was it an illusion, or a myth?
...
The figure briefly looked down at him.
Carlos felt as though their eyes met through the helmet.
Even through his blurred vision, the figure's form remained clear.
Only then did he think he understood.
"Ah..."
He was only a common soldier who knew nothing of battle, weapons, or tactics, but he could recognize the shape of salvation.
They were reinforcements from the sky.
Knights of the Empire.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Automatic fire poured in from the flank.
The knight released mana. A blue barrier spread out in a sphere, and the barrage scattered against it like sparks.
The knight turned their head toward the gunfire.
Crash!
A boot kicked off the ground. A crater-like mark was left where it had been.
Carlos could not see the knight's movement with the naked eye.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Six screams followed three sounds of wind cutting through the air.
Each time darkness slid along the trench line, another muzzle flash went out. The gunfire grew more frantic, then abruptly stopped.
In an instant, an entire unit had been erased.
* * *
"Knight Royce, drop."
Whenever a designated point approached, a knight threw themselves into the darkness.
"Knight Hanna, drop."
They were composed. There was no hesitation or wavering.
At the call of their name, they stood and crossed the horizon's threshold in that same stride.
"Knight Ruin, drop."
One by one.
"Knight Tiana, drop."
The transport's seats emptied in order.
"Knight Leon, drop."
And now, only the two of us remained in the cabin.
He said nothing. Neither did I.
We had spent years together. No words were better than silence.
As the designated drop point drew close, we stood at the same time.
"Knight Julian."
I looked at him.
I could not tell whether his eyes behind the helmet were meeting mine.
"Drop."
He stepped forward as though walking through empty air. The dark wind swallowed him, and he disappeared beneath it.
Whooooo!
Alone in the cabin, I took a deep breath against the rushing air pressure.
The point I had chosen was a detention facility where the Republican faction held Royalist prisoners.
I would descend quietly into the place where they had gathered prisoners for future negotiations.
"..."
I looked around the empty cabin, then suddenly smiled.
Cliff's words had come to mind.
That strong-boned knight had once acknowledged me.
"You may not be the best on the ground, but in the sky, you are second to none."
Today, I would confirm it.
"Drop."
I threw myself out.
Whooo...
As the world overturned, the roar cut off.
There was no moment freer than this, with the wind gripping and shaking my whole body.
The weight of the earth, the rank on my shoulders, Sebastian's face, even both of my lives, all were swept clean away the moment I fell.
With my eyes closed, I savored that complete freedom for a moment.
A few seconds of pure descent, when falling and flying had yet to separate.
Tick.
I opened my eyes again.
The full moon suddenly hung where my gaze fell.
The moon was beside me.
In the cloudless sky, the full moon seemed to gaze quietly at me from close by.
Tick.
Moonlight poured down.
Beneath it, I released my mana.
...
There was no sound.
Silent mana unfurled in silver-white along the contours of my shoulders, back, and entire body.
The scattered mana caught the wind of my fall and changed its flow, and I controlled my glide upon that current.
It was the warm-up, gathering the sky's energy before pouring it onto the ground.
The moment a fall became a descent from above, a knight became the Empire's sword.
...Perhaps the Empire itself.
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