Valdeus moved before dawn. The morning after the rumors of false charges had been spread through the court the previous night—by the time Frontier Riverside Market opened, the moves had already been made. Kurose Kenji learned of it through a bureaucrat's report. "[serious]Fourteen craftsmen from the soap workshop have abandoned their work as of today," Beyond the stone window, Weltheim in the morning light was visible. Market stalls lined the riverside, smoke rose, people moved about. It was an ordinary morning. But—the people in the market were not facing toward the royal palace. Everyone walked with their backs turned. "The reason?" "[cold]They cannot become the hands of a king-slayer," The bureaucrat lowered his eyes. Kenji did not move his gaze from the window. Three days ago, those craftsmen had been delighted with the soap prototypes. Kenji had given them the designs. They had laughed, saying their hands were no longer rough. This morning, all fourteen had vanished. The merchants Valdeus had planted scattered to the market and taverns with the dawn. "The young king poisoned his father and seized the throne"—that whisper spread from stall to stall throughout the morning. Gares, the proprietor of the tavern "Raven's Wing"—a former mercenary with an old scar on his left arm—heard the customers' conversations and furrowed his brow, but it was already unstoppable. The sanitation reforms came to a complete halt. Kenji slammed his fist on the desk. There was no face of the person he should strike. That was what hurt most. --- Past noon, the next report arrived. One of the eight royal knights, Vice-Captain Gustaf Heine, requested to be relieved of duty "due to a sudden high fever." By evening, four more submitted relief requests for the same reason. Reina Ester placed the relief documents on Kenji's desk. Her face was expressionless, but something burned in the depths of her eyes. "[cold]Gustaf was in perfect health during this morning's training yesterday," It was not illness. They were all lying. They had succumbed to Valdeus's pressure. All five court mages also cut off contact with the king, citing "the need to focus on research duties." Those who remained at Kenji's side were—Reina, and two young knights. Bernt and Filmer, both in their twenties. Then a single proclamation arrived. Written in neat script on parchment. The Nobility Conference—the Noble Convent—under Valdeus's leadership had formally decided to hold a special inquest regarding the cause of death of the previous king, Werner. The conditions for deposition and confinement were explicitly stated in the articles. Reina spoke quietly. "[serious]The inquest is the morning after tomorrow," With that single statement, Kenji felt the weight of time for the first time. In a world without clocks, he had never realized how heavy the words "the morning after tomorrow" could be. --- Past midnight. Kenji was confined to his private chamber. A single candle. The window was closed. Weltheim below the castle was already dark. The first time he punched the wall, he had intended it to be only once. But once was not enough. Twice. Three times—on the third blow, the skin split. Blood marks remained on the stone. He felt the pain. But he could not stop. He ran searches in his mind. —Granveld Kingdom. Special inquest. Conditions for deposition. Result: 0 matches. —False charges. Methods of proving political innocence. Modern legal papers appeared. Defense attorney systems, evidence disclosure, jury systems—all concepts that did not exist in this world. —Power struggles. Intellectuals. Win rates. Historical examples of intellectuals who had won power struggles appeared. Every single one had possessed either evidence, military force, or money. They always had at least one. He had none of these. Not even fragmentary copies of ledgers. He had no physical evidence in his hands at this very moment to demonstrate Valdeus's wrongdoing. Kenji withdrew his bleeding fist from the wall, leaned his back against the dark chamber's wall, and hugged his knees. He remembered the moment of his death in the modern world. The instant white headlights filled his vision. The coldness of asphalt. And—not certainty but a premonition that no one would be there to see him off. The night he was honored as an engineer, he had eaten alone and gone home. He had believed he possessed technology that could change the world. He had thought that if he drew up designs, someone would act on them. Yet now—he was still alone. Technology could change the world. He had believed that. But Valdeus had moved through systems. Through precedent. By buying people. That was a domain that did not appear on the internet of the modern world. The way power moved in this world could not be found through searches. Knowledge alone—could not move people. The pain in his fist pressed that answer into the floor. --- Past 2 in the morning, the door opened. There was no knock. Reina entered. Still in her usual knight's armor—but a shallow sword wound ran from her right cheek to her jaw. The wound had been staunched, but it was still red. Dried blood seeped from her sleeve cuff. In her hand, she held a bundle of papers. Before Kenji could even try to stand, Reina knelt on one knee. Adjusting to Kenji's line of sight, she offered out copies of ledgers. "[serious]I copied them from the Chancellor's third vault. I slipped in during the guard change, but was discovered when the patrol returned. I took a blade while escaping—it is not deep," Kenji looked at that wound on her cheek. Words would not come. For him. This person had shed blood. A solo infiltration of the Chancellor's office—Kenji was not so foolish as not to understand how dangerous that was. If caught, it would be the end. She would be immediately disposed of as a knight who had attempted to remove evidence. She had done it alone. Kenji accepted the copies of the ledgers. Indeed, portions of the Chancellor's office tax revenue ledgers were copied there. Numbers lined the pages. But the pages were fragmentary, and the context could not be fully grasped. Reina continued. "[serious]Your Majesty. I am certain that the death of the previous king, Werner, was not a natural death. And it was the Chancellor who stole that sealed document. However—this alone is insufficient as evidence," While pressing the wound with her sleeve, the odd eyes looked directly at Kenji. The left gold, the right deep purple. Wavering in the candlelight. Kenji asked quietly. "[angry]Why do you go so far," There was a beat of silence. Reina answered. "[serious]The previous king gave me a place to live. I cannot abandon his child. My sword will not permit it," My sword will not permit it. Those words pierced through Kenji's chest. Not from fear, not from duty, not from loyalty. As a response to a debt that could never be repaid—this person had shed blood. Kenji stood and searched for clean cloth. In the drawer of the shelf, there was cloth that could serve as bandages. He took it and knelt before Reina. "Show me the wound," "[serious]It is fine," "Show me," Reina paused for a moment, then tilted her cheek. It was a shallow cut, but it had not been properly disinfected. As Kenji pressed the cloth to the wound, his mind was thinking of something else. What had been lacking was not knowledge. It was the power to move people's hearts. Technology alone could not save anyone—unless he faced people, won their trust, and gained comrades to fight alongside him, nothing would change. That conviction quietly took root in the depths of Kenji's eyes at this very moment. --- As the night deepened, the desk transformed. Kenji spread out the copies of the ledgers and ran continuous searches in his mind. —Forensic accounting. Structural characteristics of fraudulent accounting. —Methods of identifying fictitious budget items. —Tax revenue embezzlement. Concealment patterns in ledgers. Textbooks from modern certified fraud examiners appeared. Papers on accounting audits appeared. Typical patterns of fictitious entries, structures of diverted payments, methods of identifying double-entry books—all of it appeared. One by one, Kenji fit the fragmentary numbers that Reina had copied into logical structural diagrams. The flow of tax revenue from royal territories entering the Chancellor's office budget, then exiting as "administrative subsidies to various noble territories." Funds diverted through fictitious national border defense expenses. The pattern of substantive profit transfers to the Twelve Houses of the Iron Crown—the noble faction centered on Valdeus. There was no complete physical evidence. But—the numerical contradictions that Valdeus could not deny in the Noble Conference became visible. Reina sat beside Kenji throughout the night. She showed no sign of fatigue, continuing to examine maps and rosters. Occasionally pressing the cloth to her wound, her hands moved relentlessly. As the light of dawn began to paint Weltheim's stone pavement white, Kenji placed a single sheet of paper on the desk. A structural diagram showing numerical contradictions. The entire picture of Valdeus's tax revenue diversion, reconstructed from fragmentary evidence through inference. "[serious]The special inquest is the day after tomorrow. We have 48 hours remaining to gain the support of noble houses not bought by Valdeus," Reina looked up from the ledger fragments. The odd eyes met Kenji's. "[serious]I have two houses in mind," The answer was brief. But the weight of those words fell into the silence of dawn. From the depths of despair, crawling upward into the dawn—the counterattack of two people alone began to move.