“I understand that this decree comes straight from His Majesty,” General Rancius, commander of the Twentieth Imperial Regiment, said with a scowl. “However, I would have preferred some advance notice.”
“I apologize.” Jurgen Barthel—adjutant to the vice commander of the Imperial Magic Division—bowed before him.
Rancius read the order again. There was no doubt about it: Emperor Rupert VI had written it himself. That alone made it unusual. Most imperial decrees arrived as documents drafted by the Empire’s premier and the emperor’s right-hand man, Count Hans Kirchhoff.
A decree was absolute, and this one ordered them to “create a map of the Kingdom of Knightley.” To carry it out, Jurgen needed to lead ten members of the Imperial Magic Division with support from the Imperial Association of Alchemy’s new alchemical tools. Their work just so happened to overlap with General Rancius and the Twentieth Imperial Regiment’s. Fortunately, neither side wasted any time squabbling over jurisdiction.
In the Empire, Rancius understood that you followed orders first and asked questions later. Even so, the complaint slipped out all the same—less out of ignorance and more out of pride for the Twentieth, which carried another name: the Shadow Regiment.
Jurgen Barthel served a man whose fame reached beyond Debuhi and spanned all of the Central Provinces: Oscar Luska, the Inferno Magician. Both men belonged to the Imperial Magic Division, the emperor’s private army. It was even commanded by his eleventh daughter, Fiona Rubine Bornemisza. People called it Debuhi’s trump card, in both name and substance.
Conversely, General Rancius’s Shadow Regiment was the ace up the Empire’s sleeve. It operated in the shadows, unseen.
Rancius sighed softly. “No. It’s an imperial decree. Of course our superiors acted without informing us. Forgive my lapse.” He bowed his head.
The gesture only bewildered Jurgen. Speed mattered, yes—but Rancius had been operating inside the Kingdom for some time. Even if it was an imperial decree, a warning felt like common sense.
In fact, Jurgen and his team had ranged across the Kingdom, collecting details for the map’s creation. They had moved without alerting the Twentieth Imperial Regiment, which worked just as quietly throughout Knightley. But they couldn’t slip past General Rancius himself, who had shifted his base to Acray in the south.
“Topographical certainty is the backbone of war. A good map can determine the success or failure of military operations. His Majesty made the right call to entrust the task to the elite Imperial Magic Division.”
Jurgen nodded.
Both men were part of the Empire’s military core, so they knew what these preparations meant. A large war loomed: the Debuhi Empire’s invasion of the Kingdom of Knightley. The Twentieth’s sabotage and the Division’s surveys were both setting the stage, and nothing more. Though they served the same army, their movements were kept separate to prevent leaks. Incidents like this were inevitable, but it was an unavoidable precaution. Field commanders would have to sort things out as they came, and that was all there was to it.
After their discussion, Jurgen prepared to leave the Twentieth’s base and return to his mapmaking.
“My lord,” one of his subordinates called. “We’ve received word that two individuals, most likely adventurers, are tracking the scent.”
“Their noses are that sharp? I’m impressed. We will need to lure in more wyverns, so eliminate anyone who threatens that goal. How far have they gotten?”
“They’ve already reached the second checkpoint.”
“So they’re already on our doorstep! What in the blazes were the guards doing? Kill them. Now!”
At Rancius’s command, his subordinate hurried away.
Then the general turned to Jurgen. “The second checkpoint I mentioned—it’s where we met you. Have you managed to collect the data for that area?”
“No. Your people brought us here before we had the chance.”
“Ah, my apologies. Once we’ve dealt with these adventurers, you may proceed with your work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
General Rancius opened the hideout’s door and stepped outside. The moment he was gone, Jurgen’s subordinate, who had been silent until now, spoke up.
“Sir, this is not good...”
“I couldn’t agree more, Klimt. This is why I didn’t want to get involved...” Jurgen murmured.
Jurgen’s strategy had been to gather information in secret and return it to the Empire—all while avoiding contact with the other imperial units stationed in the Kingdom. Despite his and his team’s best efforts to evade the Twentieth, Rancius had discovered them. It was hardly a surprise. Still, Jurgen had hoped to slip away the moment he’d gotten the information he needed.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about all of this...”
It was just a hunch. Jurgen was the second son of the Barthel family, which had a long history of producing warriors. He’d been training since childhood, and that, coupled with his battlefield experience, gave him experience beyond his years.
And those instincts were telling him to tread carefully. Unfortunately, his intuition couldn’t tell him what to be cautious of...