After meeting Bagrada, Cleo returned to his residence in the inner palace, his face noticeably haggard.
The sight worried Lysithea Noah Albareto, his knight and older sister. “Did His Majesty say something to you? Did it have to do with the succession?!”
Cleo shook his head weakly. “He didn’t say anything in particular about that, although it did come up. Just that I’ll have to settle things between me and Calvin soon.”
“I’d say that’s a pretty significant statement! W-we should contact Count Banfield at once!”
Watching Lysithea grow anxious, Cleo thought, I can’t just let Count Banfield win on my behalf. It’d be bad for the Empire. So what should I do? What do I do? He’d felt out of sorts since his audience with the emperor. For the sake of the Empire’s future, Liam has to be defeated. To make that happen, I…
Cleo hardened his resolve. “Sister, can you call for Theodore?” he instructed the still-flustered Lysithea.
“Theodore?” Lysithea frowned when she heard the name, indicating her distrust of the individual in question. “What do you want with him?”
“I merely want to discuss some things with him.”
“If you’ll permit me to speak frankly, I don’t like the guy. I don’t think you should rely on him any more than you have to.”
“However you may feel about him, he is skilled. You’ll simply have to overlook his less savory traits.”
“…As you say.”
As Lysithea began setting up an appointment with Theodore, Cleo smiled darkly behind her back. If I let Liam win everything, it’ll cause the Empire big problems down the line, just as His Majesty said. Yes… I have no choice but to do this.
Continuing to make excuses to himself, Cleo considered the future.
It pains me to betray someone who supported me in my darkest hour, but it will be for the good of the Empire. Yes, that’s right—it’ll be for the Empire! When I take the throne, I’ll make this country an even more wonderful place than it is now. But in order for that to happen…Liam will have to leave the stage.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Where did I go wrong…?”
Sitting on a pile of trash, clutching his knees, the Guide reflected on his failures.
He was on the Empire’s Capital Planet, but in a dirty area full of refuse, a far cry from the planet’s more glamorous region. Since the Guide enjoyed negative emotions, unclean places like this relaxed him. The reason he was now reminiscing in this calming place was Liam, to whom he was deeply connected.
“Liam’s strong enough to beat us now. What am I supposed to do at this point? I mean, there’s ‘unexpected,’ and then there’s this.”
Until recently, there had been another being who’d enjoyed negative emotions, as the Guide did: G’doire. Like the Guide, G’doire should’ve stood above humanity and toyed with mortals, but Liam had cut him down after mastering the secret of the Flash. The boy’s fighting technique had reached such a height that he could have mortally wounded even the Guide.
“Should I leave him alone at this point? Th-that won’t satisfy me! I swore to take revenge against him, didn’t I?!”
The truth of it was, the Guide was terrified of Liam, but he roused himself regardless. He couldn’t let things end like this. He just couldn’t. Yet Liam was too dangerous: He’d set one foot into the realm of the Guide and similar beings, and he could do real damage to them now. If the Guide was too careless, there was a good chance the tables would get turned on him. All this was due to the Way of the Flash—a sword style that shouldn’t even exist.
“I mean, it’s weird, right?! How the hell did he actually start practicing a fake style of swordplay that some street performer made up?! Who does that?! Who can do that?! If he didn’t know that stupid style of combat…and didn’t have Divine Gold! How’d he even get that, anyway? If only he didn’t possess it…”
Liam used a swordplay style—the Way of the Flash—that had resulted from misunderstanding and obsession. And he had a sword made of Divine Gold, a metal that even the Guide and those like him feared. Those were an absolutely diabolical combination. The emergence of the Way of the Flash had been a miracle in itself, but Liam had to go and obtain a Divine Gold sword on top of that?
It was more than the Guide could accept. Dizzy, he put a hand to his forehead. “If I’m careless, even I won’t escape being killed by that blade of his. And then there’s that giant. I tremble just remembering it.”
He shuddered, recalling the manifestation of power that Liam had unwittingly materialized. That giant being of light embodied Liam’s strength itself, and as if it had a will of its own, it had sought out the Guide and bombarded him with Liam’s gratitude. Chances were that was entirely because of the gratitude Liam felt toward the Guide every day. The fact that Liam could unintentionally create such a terrifying monster was enough of a problem, but the way the giant then went after the Guide and attacked him with thankfulness had been more than the Guide could handle.
In any case, now that Liam had obtained these superhuman abilities, the Guide could no longer approach him carelessly. If he got too close to Liam without a plan, Liam’s gratitude could easily erase him, however powerful the Guide was.
“Now that it’s come to this, I’ll have to destroy him indirectly… There’s no reason I have to do the deed myself. I can just manipulate other humans into getting rid of him for me.”
If doing that was impossible for the Guide, then he’d have to use Liam’s fellow humans to do it on his behalf. Fortunately, Liam had plenty of enemies. Supporting their efforts to end Liam was now the most realistic plan.
“After all, Liam has weaknesses of his own,” mused the Guide. “I’ve got to get him out on the battlefield before he realizes that himself.”
As the Guide was right now, he couldn’t beat Liam. Still, Liam wasn’t invincible; the Guide had already noticed that he possessed a fatal flaw. If he wanted to take advantage of that weakness, then he’d need to assist Liam’s fellow humans.
“I’ve already failed so many times, though…” All the individuals the Guide had backed to take down Liam had met their end, so the Guide had completely lost his confidence.
He slowly lifted his heavy body into a standing position, staring high above him at an image of the night sky projected onto the metal shell encasing the Capital Planet. At a glance, the view was beautiful, but it was entirely manmade. From the outside, all that was visible was the metal shell enclosing the planet.
“This closed-in planet’s air is so stagnant. It’s truly wonderful… Just being here, I can feel the wounds Liam gave me healing.”
The malice and greed that had accumulated here over millennia comforted the Guide, and the metal shell protecting the Capital Planet’s occupants only concentrated the negative feelings in the air further. This was the perfect place for him to recuperate.
“Now, I suppose I should get started. Who’s most promising to me right now…? Probably Calvin.”
Calvin was the enemy of the third prince, Cleo, whom Liam supported. Cleo had no real power, so that conflict was essentially between Calvin and Liam. Liam had become one of the most powerful people in the Empire, so at this point, Calvin was more or less the only person who could actually stand against him. But when it came to his conflict with Liam, Calvin had been on a losing streak lately, and his influence had declined significantly.
“But even Calvin hardly stands a chance against Liam right now. Could he win if I supported him? I’m not sure he could hold his own at all.”
By now, the Guide had assisted several of Liam’s opponents. Each had lost, though. The Guide had even wondered at one point whether it would be better for him to stay out of their conflicts. If he didn’t interfere at all, Liam would simply win—but when the Guide helped his foes, they were still defeated! Liam’s existence was beyond infuriating to the Guide.
“Well, I suppose I should just take a look for now.”
He decided to observe the Capital Planet for the time being. He’d spent time in another intergalactic nation recently, so he was a little out of the loop regarding recent happenings in the Empire.
“I should see what Calvin’s up to before I decide what to do. Hm…? What’s that delicious unrest I detect?”
Sensing a disturbance in the direction of the palace, the Guide began to approach it, letting the uneasy feeling guide his feet.