Chapter 176: Those Who Summon Spring
The mood in the Niboria capital had been heavy and quiet of late.
But today, the bell tower rang out, cutting through the cold dawn air. An enemy raid—fear-filled eyes turned toward the city gates.
But it was not an alarm. It was the signal announcing the arrival of a messenger.
"The Allied Forces have won a great victory at the Battle of Rodir!"
A rider bearing a flag passed through the main boulevard, shouting as he went. At first, people could not believe it. The monsters that blanketed the battlefield, and the names of the Legion Commanders, had already become synonymous with terror.
But this time was different.
Among the children blinking open their sleepy eyes, the adults were the first to react, slowly. Someone smiled faintly, and that smile spread in an instant, reaching all the way to the market stalls.
"We won again!"
The news spread faster than fire.
A street vendor flung down a wooden crate, and small children ran to the rhythm of the bells. Women embraced one another. Amid it all, the elders whispered quietly.
'Maybe… My children will come home now.'
By midday, the square was so packed with people there was no room to stand.
Moments after the report reached the Commander of the Capital Defense Forces, a messenger rode his horse into the square. In his grip was a scroll.
The man steadied his breath and cried out in a ragged voice. At those words, the crowd held its breath.
"The Allied Forces have defeated Verhas's vanguard!"
Every gaze in the crowd converged.
"The notorious beast Bandipa and Verhas were utterly helpless against Lord Calix's stratagem. Countless Corrupted were swept away by the current…… All that remained were the masks washed up on the riverbank!"
Those standing farther away could not catch every word clearly, but it spread rapidly from mouth to mouth.
"The Mountain Rabbits won again! They say he split a river this time!"
"They say the Empire's banner has been raised as far south as Elvra!"
Voices mixing belief and exaggeration filled the entire capital. Children scratched Calix's name into the dirt with sticks, and below it, clumsy little rabbit drawings followed.
Not merely the symbol of a mercenary company—it was a scrawl of hope.
Naturally, drinks made their rounds inside the taverns. Men who had lost limbs and hands in past battles pounded their fists on the tables and shouted. They could not fight, but they could speak.
"He's the true Emperor! Is he not fulfilling the conquest we all dreamed of!"
"And against wicked things at that!"
In the end, what mattered to them was this 'hope'. The unshakeable belief that victory would come in the end. And that feeling was confirmed as truth when supply wagons rolled in, laden with all manner of goods.
From the western front of Niboria, the Viale Mountain Alliance sent iron ore. Weapons and shields, armor and warhorses came as a bonus. From the southern front, grain from southern Astria entered in a long procession. That the two groups arrived almost simultaneously was surely mere coincidence.
Yet to those watching the sight, it felt like destiny.
"Are we receiving aid from foreign nations?"
"Not aid—we're receiving tribute! They are the ones bowing their heads!"
"……!"
Though the quantities were small, too little to dramatically transform the capital's situation—they overturned the people's perspective in a single moment.
Perhaps this was—
'Calix. Is he not fulfilling our dream?'
The two words that symbolized Niboria: conquest and revival. At the very least, one of the two seemed clearly within reach. And at last, songs drifted through the streets for the first time in a long while.
Not funeral dirges, but the songs of those who had survived.
Smoke rose from the chimneys of the bakeries, and near the city gates, old soldiers gave speeches to the crowds. The families of expedition soldiers hung banners announcing the victory.
An old woman stroked her grandchild's hair and said,
"This is the Empire. The gods have not abandoned us."
At her words, the people around her nodded with warm expressions. In truth, the citizens of the Niboria Empire were among those who kept the gods farthest from their hearts. But that day in the small shrine, there was something to take the place of the gods.
Calix—that name was held within every prayer.
As the sun began to set, a long line formed before the conscription office. Young men with still-youthful faces came forward to volunteer for the front lines. Some were commoners; some were of fallen noble birth. Even so, all of them wanted to receive neural accelerator implants.
Every one of them wore the same look in their eyes.
"This war is an opportunity."
"Get under Mountain Rabbit command and you can make a name for yourself."
The administrators did not let this opportunity pass either.
「Second Expedition Force Recruitment.」
Magitech engineers were summoned to the operating rooms, and the fires of the forge blazed fiercely. The sound of hammering rang out loud, day and night.
The heart of the Empire beats.
That pulse did not stop at a single city. Soon a new legion rose, and their steps turned eastward.
***
Southern Elvra was still submerged in ashen grey.
Along the roadsides, broken wagon wheels lay half-buried in mud, and torn canvas flapped in the wind with a dry, hollow sound. Iron fragments—impossible to tell if they were once weapons or armor—glinted faintly in the sunlight.
But above it all, smoke rose.
People piled wood atop crumbled bricks and struck fire. What rose from the ashes was not screaming, not weeping, but the sound of hammering. They erected posts, stacked mud bricks, and built again.
"The survivors have returned."
Refugees from across Elvra settled one by one in the ruined regions.
Those who had lost family, those who had lost arms, those who had turned their backs on their homelands—all of them found a new place to take root. No one said it aloud, but each time their eyes met, they carried the same thought.
'We must rebuild.'
The Allied Forces' supply depots turned their hope into reality. Coarse flour and dried meat, medicine and oak barrels of drinking water. Even that alone was enough for people to hold on, dreaming of tomorrow. Day by day the tools—plows and more—multiplied, and there was no moment to wipe the soil from their fingers.
Then one day, a child of about ten peered into a gap in a crumbled stone wall and their eyes lit up. A single sprout poked its head out from snow that had not yet melted.
The child touched it lightly with a fingertip. It was so delicate that the moment the fingertip made contact, its head bent. The child carefully propped a small pebble beside it.
As though erecting a stone fence around it.
The child's mother watched, then murmured softly.
"It survived through the bitter cold…… Spring must be coming at last."
The breath of spring rode the wind and spread to the village entrance. Aged farmers sensed that the time had come and turned the earth. They went into debt with merchants and somehow managed to obtain seed grain.
Before long, the fields were full of those tilling the land.
The earth where the stench of blood had not yet faded. Every time the soil was turned, fragments of shattered armor and Rite-Stone shards came flying up. They buried the Rite-Stone shards deep and gathered the armor fragments together. As hands touched the surface of the metal scraps, a faint heat transferred through.
The people took it as 'a divine omen'.
"The breath of Kriya lingers here."
The story spread quickly. It was not a topic confined to a single village—the same phenomenon was occurring across the entire south. Those who had been cowering straightened their backs and rose, and around key areas, markets reopened as well.
Along the Allied Forces' supply routes, refugees numbering in the tens of thousands gathered, and Niboria's merchants carried goods from all corners of the continent.
And at last, the croaking of frogs was heard. A wave of green blanketed the meadows, and the wingbeats of birds skimmed the waterside.
Spring has returned.
The survivors looked into the distance, watching the banners of the Allied Forces' supply convoy flutter. Crests symbolizing each nation were emblazoned upon them, but at the very top, a mountain rabbit leaping with vigor was drawn.
"……Mountain Rabbits."
The people gave yet another name to the ones led by Calix.
'Those who drive away the darkness and summon spring.'
The decisive battle with Legion Commander Verhas was not far off, yet no one regarded its end as tragedy. At the very least—they believed so.
***
After the battle, the banks of the Rodir River still reeked of rot mingled with the raw smell of earth. Soldiers laid planks over the wet mud and set up a temporary camp. With the calluses on their fingertips, they knocked the clods of earth from the horses' hooves.
Every day, debris washed up along the river's edge.
Dented helmets, torn armor, charred scraps of leather. Among them was mixed the mask of the beast Bandipa.
Dwarf Basim wrapped it in a strip of cloth and lifted it. The river's reflection shimmered across the black metal.
It was not heavy. But the vibration transmitted to his fingers felt strange.
He stared at the mask for a long while. A treasure that had been worn by his ancestor, Dwarf King Bandipa. His dwarven bloodline, Basim's instinct, whispered to him to make that mask his own.
What belongs to the defeated is taken by the victor.
For Dwarven warriors, it was a succession as natural and rightful as any.
"……No."
Basim muttered quietly. He covered the mask back with the cloth. The desire to grow stronger reared its head, but he had not yet earned that right.
At least, not now.
Watching that scene, Volga, who had been tending the fire nearby, opened his mouth.
"Master, why do you look like that? Did something blow up again?"
"No. Only my insides blew up."
"That happens every single day, doesn't it."
"……"
The two exchanged playful punches.
It was hardly a new occurrence for master and disciple to quarrel, so those seated around them—Calix, Gregor, and the rest—laughed it off quietly.
But Volga, too, was different from before. He knocked away Basim's hand as it shot out to grab his collar and slipped back out of reach. He was now a proper Upper-Rank Swordsman in his own right.
"Blasted thing. I thought you only chased after women's heels, but it seems your skills have actually improved."
"Zahira is a woman?"
"Er…… what I mean is……"
Volga shot back with a look of surprise. It was a matter of course, yet coming from Basim's mouth, it caught everyone off guard. Even Zahira was staring with wide, rounded eyes.
Basim let out a false cough, then at last gave up and accepted reality.
"Damn it, your mouth is truly light—like a cheap hammer."
"But it's accurate, isn't it? It only picks out the right answers, enough to blow up Master's insides."
Just then, a faint resonance stirred from within the metal. Basim looked quietly down at the mask he had wrapped in cloth. It was a thin vibration that only one who could read the veins of stone could hear.
"Master."
"What!"
"So then, you're a true king?"
The Mountain Rabbits all turned their heads at once. Even Calix, who had been in conversation with Royce, paused and looked at them. Basim's face went rigid, then a thick palm gave Volga's back of the head a thwack.
"Who's saying that sort of thing?"
"Vice-captain Marik. He said Master is of Dwarven royal bloodline."
"……Hrrmph, nonsense. All of it nonsense."
"Really not true?"
At the repeated questioning, Basim furrowed his brow.
"Does it matter?"
"It does matter. You've done nothing but tease everyone all this time. Calix is 'Young Lord', Adrian is 'Your Highness', and Airien you called 'the big-eared folk'…… Yet now that it's your own turn, it seems you're not so pleased?"
"……"
How did he end up picking up something like this?
Basim looked up at his towering human disciple and felt a wave of deep regret. He could no longer hold the upper hand through force, nor through words.
Above all, it was far too sensitive a subject to answer on the spot. The Dwarves and Elves of Viale were watching.
"……Not yet. I must wait until the stone gives its answer."
As he muttered under his breath, Volga asked one final question.
"Then when that time comes—will you become a king? The King of the Dwarves?"
"Why, shall I give it to you?"
At the sardonic reply, his foolish disciple brightened instead.
"Then I…… become the successor? For real?"
"……"
No amount of regret is ever enough.
Just then.
"Calix!"
Beneath a night sky thick with stars, from the outer edge of the camp, Hadiya came galloping in urgently on horseback.