On the bridge of Liam's flagship, the Argos.

There, Theodor was inwardly laughing, though he was careful to keep his expression blank.

(To think their solidarity would crumble this quickly. The bonds of Liam's faction were fragile indeed.)

Projected in the air on the bridge were the faces of the nobles from Cleo's faction.

They were all uniformly indignant, heaping blame upon Liam.

"Count Banfield, this is your responsibility!"
"You'll pay for this when we get back."
"I am so disappointed in you."

Six months after the war began, the tide had completely turned in favor of the Calvin faction.

Having lost most of the territory they held, allied fleets were falling back.

Not a few fleets had even deserted.

Nobles had begun to defect to the Calvin faction.

Now, the nobles were ganging up on Liam.

But—

"Is that all you have to say? Then you can hurry up and run home. I'll take on Calvin by myself."

—Still young and hot-blooded, Liam had misjudged the time to withdraw.

Unable to stop his allies from defecting, he radiated anger, trying to intimidate those around him.

Even though anyone could see the battle was decided, he was still obsessed with winning.

Theodor was overjoyed.

(That's right. Struggle and bleed just like that. Once this war is over, I'll make sure you people can never defy Prince Cleo again. It's a fitting end for a pampered son of a count's house.)

Looking around, he saw Tia and Marie looking down with bitter expressions.

"Lord Liam, any further fighting will only increase our losses."

"The outcome has been decided. We should retreat or begin negotiations."

Despite the advice from his two capable knights, Liam refused.

"Silence! The only thing you are permitted to do is lead me to victory. —Tia, Marie, you two have done nothing but fail since this war began, haven't you? I'll entrust the transport of the wounded to incompetents who cannot obey me."

They were given the role of gathering and evacuating the people and weapons wounded on the battlefield.

With this, both Tia and Marie were driven from the front lines.

Finally, Klaus tried to admonish Liam.

"Lord Liam, this is as far as we go. Baron Glin's home planet is behind us. Even if we commit to a defense, the enemy has more than four times our numbers."

In response to this loyal counsel, Liam brought up his battles against the space pirates.

"Then there's no problem. I've overturned numerical disadvantages like this before. This is well within an acceptable range."

"But!"

"—Klaus, if you cannot obey me, then you too shall stand down."

Seeing Liam dismiss all of his competent retainers, Theodor took action.

(This ended sooner than I thought. And for him to send away his closest aides... how very convenient.)

◇

Alone in his ship, Theodor opened a communication channel with Baron Glin.

If he passed information to the enemy, he would be discovered, but if he was reprimanded for sending a communication to an ally, he could make excuses.

The content of the conversation was a status report, but the important thing was to use the keywords they had decided on beforehand.

"We are in a critical situation. Baron Glin, please prepare yourself."

In response to this line, which was not out of place in the current situation, Baron Glin's narrow eyes widened.

"Understood. I will do my best to resist as well."

It was a conversation for a desperate situation, but the content had been decided in advance.

Roughly translated, it meant, "Liam is cornered. Prepare to surrender." "OK."

Baron Glin, who had no intention of fighting from the start, planned to surrender as soon as the Calvin faction arrived.

Theodor made a final confirmation.

"You had defense forces dispatched from the Banfield family, did you not?"

"Yes, I'll have them do their best as well. My, it was well worth the trouble of borrowing them."

Claiming his home planet's defenses were thin, he had forcibly borrowed a fleet from Liam.

He planned to hand them over to the Calvin faction after surrendering, but if they resisted, he intended to attack them in a pincer movement.

"Well then, I will end the communication here."

"You be careful as well."

When the communication ended, Theodor's face twisted into a vile smile.

"With this, I too can become a true noble."

◇

One year after the war began.

Upon receiving the news on the capital planet, Calvin shot up from his chair.

The young noble who brought the news had tears in his eyes.

Calvin asked again.

"Did we really win!?"

"Yes, Your Highness! Our forces have repelled the Banfield army and occupied Baron Glin's home planet! Baron Glin has surrendered. The defense forces dispatched from the Banfield family that remain on the ground are still resisting, but we've been told they will be suppressed shortly."

If they had subdued Baron Glin's home planet, then this war was an undeniable victory.

"It was all too anticlimactic. Count Banfield had his right-hand man, Klaus, with him, did he not?"

"According to reports from our spy, Banfield insisted on winning even when Klaus advised against it."

Would Liam really do something like that?

For Calvin, anxiety outweighed his relief.

"—How is Cleo?"

The young noble switched from his elated mood and reported with a serious expression.

He must have been concerned about Cleo's situation as well.

"The black ops are watching him, but they say they've seen no suspicious movements. There's no sign of him being in contact with Liam, and he's acting according to plan. To be honest, I find that more unsettling."

No one would believe that Cleo, who had been leading the succession race, would surrender to a cornered Calvin.

Calvin himself had no choice but to take his hand at that time.

If he had killed Cleo on the spot, Liam would have just backed someone else.

That would have been meaningless, and besides, the one Calvin feared was not Cleo, but Liam.

He had cooperated with Cleo because he was less to be feared than Liam.

But he still couldn't believe it.

Neither Cleo's cooperation—nor Liam's defeat.

"Tell our allies not to let their guard down. If he—if Count Banfield could be finished off this easily, we would never have been cornered like this."

As Calvin spoke, as if to steel himself, the young noble straightened his back.

"I will relay the message immediately!"

"Yes, and I will also drive the point home later when I commend them for their efforts."

Normally, he would have been relieved that it was over, but it was so anticlimactic that Calvin was struck with the fear that it might be a trap.

The young noble left the office, and Calvin held his head in his hands.

"It should be over. I should have won. So why am I still so terrified of him?"

To dispel this anxiety, Calvin couldn't bring himself to rejoice until victory was absolutely certain.

◇

Baron Glin's home planet.

Above the barony's fully-enclosed city—the arcology—thousands of battleships floated, blocking the light of the sun.

On the bridge of one of those battleships, a noble of the Calvin faction—the commander—was giddy with the anticlimactic victory.

He was one of the commanders of a detachment fleet leading several thousand ships.

"The Crown Prince sent us a secret weapon, but we never ended up using it."

His adjutant also seemed to have let his guard down.

"Isn't a secret weapon best kept secret precisely because it ends up remaining a secret?"

"You're right. And it's best to let sleeping dogs lie, as they say."

It was a secret weapon delivered from Calvin, but a large amount of space within the ship had been taken up for its maintenance.

It was difficult to handle, and specialized staff had been sent over, so even the commander had not been informed of the details.

He wanted to know, but his true feeling was that he didn't want to get too involved.

The commander looked down at the arcology visible from the window with his adjutant.

"Still, what a desolate domain. I am a lord myself, but I can declare with confidence that my domain is not as terrible as this."

"Baron Glin has a reputation for being a great fool. I'm surprised Prince Cleo managed to recruit that man to his side."

"That's politics for you. Though, it's a matter for our superiors that I know nothing about."

The commander had not been informed of the circumstances.

The adjutant confirmed their future plans.

"Be that as it may, we won far too brilliantly. We need to revise our schedule."

"It's not over yet, is it? There should be Banfield troops on the ground. Aren't our allies heading that way?"

"It should be taken care of shortly. Baron Glin provided an accurate report of the ground forces' numbers, after all."

"—He really is a man I wouldn't want as an ally."

The end of the war was in sight.

Just as the two were feeling relieved, an allied ship floating a few kilometers away exploded, and they turned to see what had happened.

The battleship, exploding as it fell, crashed near the arcology.

The adjutant shouted at an operator.

"Situation report, now!"

"It's an attack from above!"

"The enemy? No, but, our allies are in space."

As sirens blared and the ship shifted to a level one alert, the number of allies being pierced by light and exploding increased.

Some allies began to fire towards the sky, but what fell from above were allied ships.

Crushed by the falling allied ships, more allies began to fall one after another.

"The Banfield family? Such poor losers."

Just as the commander sat in his seat to issue orders, the operator identified the enemy's affiliation.

"N-No, that's not it. This is—the crest of the House of Baron Exner!"

Hearing the name Baron Exner, the commander was momentarily confused as to which house that was.

Then, he remembered there was a baronial house among the enemy that was close to the Banfield family.

"The upstart barony!? But they were supposed to have defected—"

Immediately after, a white mobile knight appeared before the bridge of the commander's battleship. He saw it swing down the sword held in its right hand.

And there, the commander's consciousness ceased.

◇

In the cockpit of the white mobile knight, the pilot, Kurt, was fighting while confirming the surrounding situation.

"Making us fight right after atmospheric entry is just reckless."

Kurt's mobile knight was a state-of-the-art model gifted to him by Liam.

A specially customized version of a mass-produced model, the mobile knight was called the White Knight.

The white-painted machine held the sword that Kurt favored.

Similar machines followed Kurt down, but the others were a drab gray, a plain finish.

It was hard to believe they were the same model.

"We'll strike before the enemy mobile knights can deploy!"

When he gave the order to his subordinates, they replied in unison.

"Roger!"

Kurt glanced at the arcology and saw small landing craft descending one after another.

From them, armed soldiers disembarked in droves, beginning the ground battle.

"Don't forget to support the ground troops. This is a crucial mission to rescue Baron Glin!"

"Sir!"

Rescue—as he said that, Kurt sighed inwardly.

(I feel bad for lying to my men who are risking their lives.)

◇

It was Tia's ground combat unit that had infiltrated the arcology.

"Where are you~, Lord Baron!"

Tia, in a pilot suit that also functioned as a power suit, held a rapier-like weapon in her right hand.

In her left hand, she held a pistol, and whenever an enemy jumped out, she shot them down instantly.

Inside her helmet, she wore a smile, and her eyes were bloodshot.

When she found enemy soldiers resisting behind a barricade, Tia kicked off the ground and leaped over it.

Landing in a place full of enemies, she swung her rapier, cutting them down.

The blade of the flexible rapier easily sliced through the enemy's armor.

Then, Tia approached a single soldier who had been lucky enough to survive and was now on the ground, pinning him down with her foot on his chest.

The enemy soldier dropped his weapon and raised both hands.

"H-Help me! I was just ordered to fight!"

"Where's the baron?"

When Tia questioned him while threatening him with her rapier, the enemy soldier answered.

"Oh, him? He ran away immediately. I don't know if he's hiding or if he escaped. He just told us to buy him time to escape, even if we died."

Tia kicked the enemy soldier, knocking him unconscious, and ordered her subordinates to restrain him.

"Capture this one. Can you confirm any vehicles that escaped into the sky? A small craft, anything will do. Just investigate."

When the communications officer checked, an answer came back immediately.

"They say all have been restrained, but the baron was not among them."

"I see. So he's hiding. —Find him, no matter what. Lord Liam has ordered that he atone for his sins."

Tia led the knights and ground troops, rampaging through the mansion.

Then, one of the soldiers noticed something.

"—It's here."

What the soldier found was an ordinary-looking shelf, but it was the entrance to a hidden room.

However, there seemed to be some kind of mechanism.

"It has an elaborate mechanism."

"Oh, is that so?"

Hearing the soldier's words, Tia kicked the shelf, forcibly discovering the hidden room.

Inside was Baron Glin, cowering in the corner of a rather luxurious hidden room.

"Hiek!"

A pile of rare metals.

Numerous antiques—they must have been Baron Glin's assets.

When Tia sheathed her rapier, Baron Glin, for some reason, misunderstood and felt relieved.

"A-Are you here to rescue me? Oh, what a relief. I was captured by the Calvinist nobles and didn't know what would happen to me."

"That's wonderful."

As Baron Glin stood up and approached, Tia smiled and slammed her fist into him.

The punched Baron Glin was sent flying and crashed into a wall. Tia approached and grabbed him by his long hair.

Then she spoke in a deliberately theatrical tone.

"Oh, what a tragedy! We rushed in to save Baron Glin, but we were too late and he was killed!"

"T-Too late!?"

Realizing he wasn't being rescued, Baron Glin tried to escape, but he couldn't break free from Tia's grip.

"There are people waiting for you. The citizens whose home planet was ravaged because of you. They resent you quite a bit. So unlike Lord Liam."

She dragged Baron Glin out and threw him before the citizens the ground troops had brought with them.

They had been told beforehand—they were citizens who resented Baron Glin.

Baron Glin tried to run, but his calf was stabbed by the weapons the citizens held.

"Ouch! It hurts! Help me!"

The citizens surrounded Baron Glin and beat him with their weapons—not firearms, but tools like swords and spears.

These were items that had been displayed as decorations in the mansion.

"What do you mean, 'it hurts'?! Because of you, we—"

"My family died because of you!"

"What reforms?! Because of you, we!"

Baron Glin's political skills were terrible, and he was transformed into a gruesome sight by the citizens he had tormented.

Even if he had a sturdier body than the citizens, there was no escape as he was surrounded by Tia's and Liam's soldiers.

Watching this, Tia's face showed her displeasure.

Her adjutant questioned Tia's dissatisfaction.

"Is something wrong?"

Citizens killing their lord—an unforgivable act in the Empire. The adjutant worried that Tia was angry, even if it was part of the plan.

But Tia was angry for a different reason.

"—I just wish I could have fought up there. I would have preferred to take care of Theodor myself."

She wanted to kill Theodor, the one who had tormented her—that was her source of dissatisfaction.

Her adjutant shrugged.

"Lord Klaus will handle things over there just fine."