chapter02 · 041-interlude
Interlude: The First One Called Was No One at All
The great hall of the castle, on the King's planet.
Before the gear-framed screen, the twelve seats stood arrayed today as ever.
Though today was not as ever.
"—My lords and ladies. All quite ready, are we?"
Wilhelm swept his gaze around the hall as he closed his pocket watch.
The tailcoat was beyond even its usual standard — not one thread astray — and the white gloves were fresh from their box this very morning.
"Ready. 'Twas never in question."
Tiamat answered with her chest thrown out.
Her black-and-white kimono was newly tailored, and her gray hair was carefully braided by the twins' hands. Not asymmetric — today, properly, symmetrically matched.
"My Lord reached Lv100 yesterday. Summoning has been unlocked. Which means, from this day forth, he may call upon us at any moment. Presentation is a retainer's duty."
"Tia-chan, you changed three times this morning."
Nox said it while pinching a baked sweet off Tiamat's plate.
"Four times."
Lux corrected her, setting one of her own sweets onto Tiamat's plate.
"Count them NOT!"
The hall's other seats were much the same story.
Over his formal dress, Vira wore a breastplate polished to parade standard. Kichinana had her nails built fresh and had added one more piercing. Ignia, calling it a warm-up, had been doing push-ups in the corner of the hall for some time now. Azathoth had her cat-ear hood pulled down a little deeper than usual. Probably hiding a blush.
Tvashtri rested a katana very like Nameless across his knees, eyes fixed on the screen.
Adam sat still, eyes closed. The six wings at his back fidgeted now and then.
Akasha had a fresh volume of her observation diary open. On its cover: "Summoning Records, Volume 1."
Deus Ex Machina stood beside the screen. The gears in her chest were turning a little faster than usual.
Leonhart alone was melted into his chair, as ever.
"Old man, you didn't even change."
"I said I go last, didn't I."
"At least chan~ge."
"I'll change once I'm called. Honestly, all of you — getting strung this tight'll just wear you out. Let's be la~zy."
Kichinana's face went pure disbelief — and then the screen changed.
What it showed was an earthen cubby beneath scrub woods.
Owariasahi. Shiroyama.
The King, still in his school uniform, was setting down a bag.
"—Here it comes."
Vira said it low.
The air of the hall pulled taut.
Ignia abandoned his push-ups and dove into his seat. Leonhart raised himself out of his chair by a bare fraction.
The King did not bring out the cloak.
He did not speak his True Name, either.
"...He isn't taking the King's form?"
"Summoning is a power of the Job side."
Akasha said it without raising her eyes from the ledger.
"It can be used without the King's form."
"He means to call us as plain himself."
Wilhelm nodded, impressed.
"My word. So we are to be summoned before the King's untransformed form."
"My Lord, untransformed..."
Tiamat pressed both hands to her cheeks.
"To be called by my Lord, untransformed..."
On the screen, the King put his right hand out.
The Vault of Tomes list rose into the air.
『Stored Volumes』
The Book of the King. The Executives' volume. The subordinates' volume. The weapons volume.
"The Executives' volume!"
Tiamat shot to her feet.
"The Executives' volume is there. My Lord — that one. Open THAT one!"
On the screen, the King's finger passed directly over the Executives' volume.
"...It passed over."
"Passed right over it."
The finger passed over the subordinates' volume as well.
"The volume of my subordinates passed by too..."
Adam's wings dipped, slightly.
The finger paused, briefly, over The Book of White.
『Ohh, this thing.』
"The young miss's notebook, yes."
"He does look nostalgic."
"Cute."
Kichinana laughed, chin in hand.
And then the King's finger stopped on one volume.
『Untitled Notebook.』
The great hall went dead silent.
"...Untitled?"
"What, pray, is that?"
"Don't know it."
"Don't know it either."
Everyone looked at Akasha.
Akasha stopped turning the pages of her ledger and pushed up her glasses.
Those glasses had fogged, ever so slightly.
"...A concept-art practice book, used in the summer of his second year of middle school."
"A practice book."
"Dozens upon dozens of copies of an armored knight. And on the final page, one finished concept drawing."
Akasha's voice stiffened a shade.
"—The Soldiers of the End."
On the screen, the King drew breath.
『—Banner of the End, blade of no name. Come forth, my soldier.』
Far, far beyond the great hall.
On a star of nothing but gray wasteland, a little removed from the King's planet, something glowed.
The star of the basic soldiers. An independent garrison under no Executive's jurisdiction. In a corner of the training ground where countless suits of armor stood in ranks, one recruit — inducted only that very morning — was being wrapped in light from the feet up. The corner of the screen caught it, small.
Every suit of armor on the training ground turned as one.
And the next instant —
the recruit stood before the King.
『—My King. Soldier of the End, one. Before you.』
Time in the great hall stopped.
No one said anything.
Vira's smile had frozen exactly in place. Tiamat, on her feet, did not move. Ignia had halted, half-risen from his chair. From Azathoth's mouth, the fry she held dropped — plop. Tvashtri set the katana off his knees and onto the floor without a sound.
After a long, long silence.
"...A recruit."
Tiamat said it, voice trembling.
"A recruit...?"
"A recruit."
"The kid who joined this morning."
The twins' voices were, uncharacteristically, small.
"Before us... on his first day in service... a recruit..."
Tiamat slid, slowly, out of her chair and onto the floor.
"MY LOOOORD!!"
From there, the hall collapsed.
"Hah?"
Ignia kicked his chair back and stood.
"Hah?? A recruit?? Not me?? Not even Vira?? A RECRUIT??"
"...Quite so."
Vira answered, smile intact.
Smile intact, and only his eyes staring somewhere far away.
"It is what the King has decided."
"Vira, your face isn't smiling."
"I am smiling."
"Your eyes are dead."
"I am smiling."
Beside them, Kichinana was rolling on the floor, clutching her stomach.
"I'm DEAD. I'm dead. A recruit. Nobody called that, right?! Told you my probability-sight can't see King-sama? THIS. This is what I mean. It's the BEST!"
"Kichinana, this is hardly a laughing matter..."
"It is EXACTLY a laughing matter. King-sama skipped the Executives' volume! Every last one of us got skipped!"
"Please stop saying it..."
Vira at last covered his face with both hands.
All six of Adam's wings hung down to the floor.
『—How many times did I cry 'call me'...』
A voice like thunder leaked out.
Adam clamped his own mouth shut, wordless. He stayed clamped a good while.
"...Forgive me. That was not me."
"We know."
"We know."
"But today, I understand how he feels."
Leonhart, still melted into his chair, gazed up at the ceiling.
"See? Told you last was fine."
"Old man, you didn't get called either."
"..."
"Old man. You didn't get called either."
"Don't say it twiiice."
Azathoth was staring at the fry fallen on the floor.
"...You're not going to pick it up?"
Lux asked.
"...Shock. Hands won't move."
"Here."
Lux held one of her own fries out to Azathoth's mouth. Azathoth bit it, wordless.
"No fair, I want one too."
Nox suctioned a whole heap of fries off Azathoth's plate.
"......I forgive you."
Only Akasha's pen had never once stopped.
"Record. Summoning number one: Soldiers of the End, one recruit. Source, the Untitled Notebook. Time from chant to manifestation, 2.4 seconds. The King in untransformed form. Executives' volume: skipped."
"You could leave off that last line, you know."
"It is a record."
Deus Ex Machina stood beside the screen, watching the recruit within it, intently.
"......The chant."
"Machina-dono?"
"......On that soldier's page...... a chant...... was never written."
The gears in her chest gave a small click.
"......The King decided to call. In that moment...... it surfaced, and was carved."
On the notebook within the screen, sure enough, a pencil line had been added at the bottom of a page blank until moments ago.
"......Then."
A brief pause.
"......Me, too. Even if...... the details...... are unwritten. If the King...... decides to call."
Her mechanical wings opened, just a crack.
Tiamat, still sprawled on the floor, stretched a hand out toward Machina. It didn't reach, so instead she had a baked sweet from her own plate carried to Machina's side by thread.
Wilhelm's thread.
"......Thank you."
"Mm. We are the same. We wait for my Lord to decide."
Tvashtri picked the katana up off the floor once more.
Studied it.
Then looked at the recruit's longsword on the screen.
"...Not bad."
He said only that.
It was an ordinary longsword. The lowest rung's, standard issue, a sword with nothing whatsoever remarkable about it.
But perhaps a smith's eye could tell: this was the blade the middle-school King made "settle for plain."
On the screen, the King yelled.
『HE TALKED?!』
The great hall went dead silent again.
This time, for a different reason.
『Wait — you can talk? It doesn't say anywhere in the notebook that you talk?』
"...His untransformed voice."
Wilhelm pressed a hand to his chest.
"That the King's untransformed voice should be spent on one of our soldiers, from so close at hand..."
『Sorry — right now I'm not the King. I mean, I am. Sort of. How do I put this. Day to day, I'm like this.』
Tiamat, from the floor, covered her face with both hands.
"...'Tis adorable."
"Adorable."
"Adorable."
"Adorable~."
"......Adorable."
"......I will not deny it."
The women's voices overlapped almost as one.
The last was Akasha. Her pen had not stopped; her ears were faintly red.
『Hey — can I watch you fight?』
On the screen, the King said it to the recruit.
His eyes were shining.
For the thirty minutes after, the twelve in the great hall watched the screen in silence.
Watched the recruit fell a boar in a single stroke, and the King yell "SO STRONG!"
Watched the King say "so cool," every time the recruit re-set his sword before his chest.
Watched the King summon Nameless partway through, and take his place fighting beside the recruit.
『Right one — you good?』
『Yes.』
『Then I've got left.』
Ignia glared at the screen, fists clenched to white.
"...Lucky him."
He said it, quiet.
"Fighting at his side. At the King's side. I want that so bad."
No one teased him.
Every last one of them was thinking the same thing.
And then the hour of return came.
On the screen, the recruit took a knee and was wrapped in light.
『That I was the first you ever called, I will tell them all — as the honor of the Soldiers of the End.』
"Mm. Go and tell them."
Wilhelm nodded, satisfied.
『And the honored Executives as well. All of them have waited so very long for your call.』
"...Hm?"
『The Third Seat and the Ninth Seat in particular were most anxiously awaiting.』
"DO NOT SAY IIIIT!"
"Oi, recruit!"
Tiamat and Ignia yelled at the same time.
『The Tenth Seat has been keeping a journal.』
"It is not a journal. It is an observation diary."
Akasha corrected the screen with a perfectly straight face. As if they could hear her.
『The Seventh Seat's subordinates, every time Your Majesty's form appears on—』
"Wait wait wait. Don't you DARE tell on my girls!"
Kichinana panicked for the first time.
『W-wait, hold on—』
On the screen, the King stopped the recruit.
『The Executives... all of them... huh? They exist? Where?』
『Outside the universe, all of them are. Because the King so wrote it.』
The light climbed past the crown of the recruit's helmet.
The magic circle vanished.
On the screen, the King was left alone in the cubby.
『Huh.』
『They're all... there? All of them...?』
The twelve in the great hall held their breath, watching that face.
The King sank into a crouch.
Hugged his knees and stared at the earthen floor.
Then, slowly, raised his face.
Toward the ceiling — no. Probably, toward us.
『Watching?』
Everyone flinched.
『AAAAAAAAGH—』
The King covered his face with both hands and rolled on the earthen floor.
"—My lords and ladies."
Wilhelm said it quietly.
"Avert your eyes. ...That face is telling us not to look."
The twelve averted their eyes from the screen, all together.
All of them, sincerely.
Only Akasha kept making the scratch of pen racing across ledger.
"Akasha."
"It is a record."
"Akasha."
"......I will keep it to audio only."
A while later, a small voice came from the screen.
『I'd kind of like to meet them.』
The twelve of the great hall turned back to the screen as one.
The King lay sprawled face-up on the earthen floor, watching the roots in the ceiling.
His face wore the faintest smile.
No one said a thing.
From Vira's eye fell a single tear. He himself seemed not to have noticed.
Silently, Wilhelm held out a white handkerchief.
On the screen, the King got up. Brushed the dirt from his uniform, picked up his bag, returned the blue-cover notebook to the void.
Before leaving the cubby, he looked back once.
And, toward the ceiling — toward us — he waved.
『Um. See you.』
The twelve chairs of the great hall toppled, all at once.
A while later, a knock came at the doors of the great hall.
"Pardon the intrusion."
What entered was a soldier in full armor.
Dulled iron. The horizontal slit of the helmet. In the right hand, an ordinary longsword.
The recruit — the first one called, today.
The instant he stepped into the hall, the soldier stopped short.
All twelve chairs were toppled.
All twelve Executives were sprawled across the floor.
"...Um."
The soldier tilted his helmet, slightly.
"I was granted words from the King. I must convey them to you all as well."
The twelve sprang up as one.
"SPEAK!"
"What words?"
"Quickly."
The soldier held his longsword upright before his chest and straightened his spine.
And he conveyed, word for word exactly as he had heard it, the most important words of his day.
"—'Thank you for today. I had a really, really good time.'"
The great hall fell silent.
Then, Tiamat said it, small:
"...I wish to hear those words as well."
"Me too."
"Us too."
"Me too."
"Both of us, too."
"......Me, too."
"I, as well — not for the record. To my face."
"My lords and ladies."
Vira laughed, pressing the handkerchief to his eyes.
"Then let us wait for the call, so that we may hear it. The King did say he would like to meet us."
The twelve of the great hall fell to the floor once more.
This time, every one of them was laughing.