The leader of the 4th Group Army, General Erik Essen—now a co-conspirator with the Society of the Most Honorable Sons of Lotharingia, or Young Lotharingia, looked down at the letter on his desk with a grim expression.

  His aide, Captain Raoul Ramberg gulped a bit on the side as the old general grunted, frustrated.

  “So the brat is running rings around us,” Erik said.

  “She indeed seems like she’s a growing threat,” Raoul admitted.

  “Hmm.”

  “What did Sir Henry say?”

  “He said that he needs more support in Perlenstadt.”

  “Are we being deployed there?”

  “In a month or two. The rest of the Imperial Government is returning to the capital. It is our task to guard them.”

  Suddenly, a smile grew on Erik’s face.

  “General Essen…?”

  “Yes…yes, that’s right.”

  “Sir, what are you planning right now?”

  “That’s right, Captain Ramberg. Why are we even following that man’s whims? He’s just a mere upstart.”

  “To be fair, we are also being treacherous upstarts.”

  “Yes, but I hold the Imperial Army. Not him. If a brat is giving him trouble, who does he think he is to order me around?”

  Erik frowned as he looked back at his meetings with Henry. Sure, Erik admitted that he respected Henry to some degree, especially his promises about restoring the Imperial Army’s greatness.

  And he also liked his ideas about removing those fat cats in the Regency Council, and getting rid of the nobles that soldiers like him served. After all, they had the nation’s martial arm. What right did people born in the right womb have to order them around?

  Erik was quite ambitious.

  As a general of the Imperial Army, he hadn’t had much prestige or achievements to his name. By the time he got into the officer corps, Lotharingia had already subjugated most great nations of the continent, and all Erik had in his name were less than desirable acts.

  The 4th Group Army had been used only to suppress a vassal kingdom once, then they were used most of the time to get rid of demihuman revolts that kept cropping up in the Empire’s peripheries. Now, they were being used as a tool by the Regency Council to beat the living hell out of civilians in the interior, and as a tool by this Young Lotharingia group for an eventual coup against the government.

  Once this all ends, all that will become of me and my men is the fate of playthings—grave dishonor.

  No glory, no greatness, no nothing. They would become a bunch of soldiers who killed while following the whims of those around them. Erik wouldn’t let that happen.

  And so, knowing that the Regency Council was on the move, the gears in his mind began to move. Yes, indeed…it was a perfect opportunity soon. But for what reason would Erik take power for himself and his friends?

  An interesting question for sure, but it doesn’t matter.

  He could chalk it up to personal survival. What else would guarantee that they would live through these chaotic times, other than securing control of the Imperium?

  “Challenging Henry sir…” Raoul’s voice seemed dry. “Is a dangerous gamble.”

  “Why so?”

  “You know what that man is capable of.”

  Erik scoffed.

  “Mere adventurers and knights,” He waved Raoul dismissively. “He got rid of them because they lacked the numbers and will. The 4th Group Army is a hundred twenty thousand strong. Who do you think will stand up against us?”

  “The Defense Forces?”

  “Those fools will always remain locked in fighting up north. He won’t have a chance to call on them. Besides, I don’t think our colleagues there care much about the affairs of the South. This is our turf. I’ll talk to Defense Minister Hindenburg once and we’ll have an alliance struck in days!”

  “How are you so confident?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? We’ve gone to the same school together. We only took different paths to defend the motherland. Surely, he’ll understand why the Imperial Army has to take control of the rear. Without the nobles standing against us, we’ll be able to mobilize the continent to aid them!”

  Raoul’s eyes widened, as Erik snickered. Erik for his part was sure of his plans. Sure, he didn’t have much love for the rats fighting up north, but he understood them well. All they wanted was support in fighting the demon horde.

  They were simple men driven by one goal, an unfortunate symptom of their collective mental decline due to demonic corruption. It was something Erik found pitiable, but it was something he could easily use to his advantage.

  “Captain Ramberg,” Erik perked up. “Fetch me some papers. I need to write to our colleagues in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Group Armies.”

  +++

  “So he’s planning to betray me,” Henry said, looking at his colleague, who had also infiltrated the Grand Academy. “How unsurprising.”

  Gregor von Helmke, a former member of the Royal Guard, now a professor teaching spellcasting basics in the academy to support Henry and the rest of the Young Lotharingia society here, scowled.

  “I told you. Dealing with those commoner—”

  “Calm down for a bit,” Henry laughed as he waited for nearby students to get out of hearing range. “Now keep going.”

  “I knew they had no honor. Why do we even work with them?”

  “Because the 4th Group Army has its use.”

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  Henry understood lower nobles like Gregor here. Sure, they were definitely close to commoners in their interests at removing the corrupt government, but at the same time, it was clear that like him, they had a lot of pride too.

  So it was no surprise that there was a growing rift between his friends in the Young Lotharingia group and the Imperial Army’s officer corps. Of course, there were a lot of nobles in the Imperial Army’s officer corps too, but recently, more than half of them were now the sons of wealthy merchants and local bureaucrats.

  General Erik Essen was no different. He came from a family of city mayors who have been vying to become nobles themselves for ages. It seems that now, as he predicted, he would take matters into his own hands.

  After all, if he took control of the Empire by going ahead with a planned coup, glory and accomplishment would be on his hands. He wouldn’t even need Henry anymore to appoint him to a prestigious and cozy position, he’d have it for himself!

  But, Henry wasn’t going to allow some equally ambitious upstart to get the best of him.

  “Alright,” Henry nodded. “We’ll try to clean up our team.”

  “Right now?” Gregor seemed skeptical.

  “Sure. It seems that the 4th Group Army is moving back to Perlenstadt soon.”

  “But aren’t you teaching the crown princess and the saintess not to arouse suspicion?”

  “Whatever do you mean? I’m just here to assess them,” Henry smiled. “I think I’ve learned enough.”

  “Taking a detour like when we have our hands full isn’t ideal…”

  “Oh come on, why whine now? You signed up for this.”

  “Right, but at this rate, we’ll have our cover blown.”

  “Our cover’s been blown before we even stepped in here.”

  Gregor’s face looked at Henry with confusion, before he sputtered.

  “W-what?”

  +++

  “Henry’s moving fast,” Wilhelm said.

  Alexa was eating cupcakes in her little office as Wilhelm finished that report, and she nearly spat out what she was eating.

  “W-what? But he was teaching us combat magic for weeks! I didn’t see anything wrong.”

  “Because what’s wrong only happened today,” Wilhelm said.

  Alexa tilted her head, demanding answers. Wilhelm then placed a letter on her desk. It was a letter sent to the Headmaster.

  It was stamped and approved by Sir Manfred.

  All it said was that Henry and a friend of his, Gregor, were taking some time out to gather necessary catalysts for magecraft outside of the Grand Academy.

  But why…

  Wait.

  “Surely, he wouldn’t be this sloppy,” Alexa squinted to read the letter twice, no, thrice, just to be sure. “Like come on! This is so obvious!”

  “Which means he’s not that worried about us poking into his business,” Wilhelm took a swig out of his canteen. “As your tactician, it’s quite clear to me that he knows he has the advantage of force.”

  “I still don’t understand why we can’t confront him…” Alexa deflated.

  “Again, your life will easily be in danger if we do that. You’ve already seen what happened to the members of the Regency Council.”

  “Have your investigations into his abilities yielded any results?”

  “No. Only crumbs and speculation.”

  “Then please give me some of those crumbs.”

  Wilhelm shook his head with a groan, before continuing.

  “I hypothesize that he has the same ability as the two of us,” Wilhelm said. “My domain is telepathy. I can understand the intentions and locations of other creatures. Yours on the other hand is control of the mind. If I’m not correct, that white crown of yours and the Holy Mandate give you the ability to influence people’s actions.”

  I…wait, now that I think about it, he does make sense. Civila Mandato to make them more likely to follow me, and then I have Rose Eyes to give my commands…

  “Then what does this mean? About him?”

  “I think he has the domain of time,” Wilhelm said. “Though, since his moves and actions indicate great caution, I don’t think he has control over it long-term. I think he can control time in a more limited manner.”

  “You’re confusing me with your big words, Wilhelm.”

  “It just means that in combat, he most likely is manipulating time. With his strength and skills, he can’t defeat the opponents he had, unless he knew perfectly their tactics, weaknesses, and strengths in advance,” Wilhelm shrugged. “It’s the same with me, though I do it differently.”

  “Your hypothesis sounds so far-fetched…”

  “Yet, can you make any other explanation for the foes he defeated on his own? I’ve worked with him for years in the Defense Forces. He seems to defeat everyone using a bullshit trick out of nowhere. I remember him being scared of a demon back when he was new. Then he fought it, defeated it utterly, and came out of it unscathed and composed. Changed. You can’t explain that without something happening in the background that normal eyes wouldn’t see.”

  A toothy grin appeared on Wilhelm’s face.

  “To be honest, all I needed was confirmation by staying here and observing.”

  “Is this…what you meant by him seeing reality differently than us?”

  “Yes. Now you’re getting what we’re up against, Lady Alexa.”

  +++

  A slash—and Henry was cut in half.

  And in a second, Henry was back to his reset spawn point—ten seconds before he and his opponent, General Erik Essen, drew swords on each other.

  Twelfth time. He sure has some surprises up his sleeve, huh?

  Henry readied his stance as he stared at the military officer in front of him. Around him, his men and Erik’s men were in desperate melee, blood and guts flying everywhere.

  Today, they caught General Essen and his command staff in an ambush while they were in transit to their new HQ near Perlsenstadt. It was his most vulnerable point.

  Regardless, killing the leader of the 4th Group Army was proving to be tricky.

  “You damned bastard!” General Erik Essen growled. “Who are you to believe you can stand against me? I’m a level 65 [SOLDIER]!”

  Level 65, huh?

  Henry himself was only level 25 [SPELL BLADE]. He had this class after he reached the third magic circle, where people generally received a class from the system.

  Before that, most people, except perhaps the saintess, were unclassed, and thus received neither the perks of having a class alongside class-based skills.

  General Erik Essen was however no low-level opponent.

  Yes, [SOLDIER] was a basic class, and its class skills were mainly focused on strengthening a person’s speed at wielding a blade, alongside increasing their precision, stamina, and everything else. It was a standard, cookie-cutter physical-focused class granted by the system.

  But, at level 65, General Erik Essen was going to be quite the formidable opponent.

  Most soldiers, adventurers, and in rare cases, [KNIGHTS] and [PALADINS] of the Royal Guard and Holy Church respectively would fall while confronting him.

  Henry imagined that even unclassed Wilhelm, who wielded glyphs powered by Archdemon blood, would have a slightly tricky time when confronting Erik.

  So yes, he did have a point.

  Henry wouldn’t be able to defeat him—and Erik already defeated Henry twelve times in quite brutal manners.

  But you see, this fight was over when we started.

  A psychotic smile grew on Henry’s face as his sword glowed, activating his [BLAZE AURA] skill. Both his body and his sword glowed a cool blue, and as if he were tracking his opponent’s previous moves, he charged in.

  Their swords clashed again, but this time, Henry was getting the hang of this old man’s fighting technique. Until he made another wrong parry, and the old man’s sword found itself dislodged in Henry’s heart.

  No matter though, because in seconds, he was back. Alive and well.

  Round thirteen then, I see…

  And on and on did Henry fight and die, until it was General Erik Essen and his men’s turn to finally drop dead on the cold ground.