In the kingdom of Igrein, where swords and grace decide everything, commoners are trampled by nobles, and the law refuses to protect them. Allen, once a servant in the royal castle, knew Princess Juliana's hidden affection but retreated because of their difference in status. One night, he finally brought shame upon her and vanished from the castle. Carrying that sin and humiliation, Allen reincarnates and now stands on the battlefield as a young soldier of the Liberation Front.
Meanwhile, Julia
Until I Call You My Enemy - At dawn through the mist, I see the Silver Queen.
The fog concealed everything.
Beneath his helmet, his field of vision was clouded milky-white, and even the backs of his comrades five meters ahead wavered indistinctly. The helmet was stuffy with sweat, and the stench of rusted iron clung to the back of his throat. Allen Weiss grabbed the collar of his leather armor with one hand and let out a breath. The white, clouded exhalation dissolved into the pre-dawn fog and vanished.
*(...This dream again.)*
He bit the inside of his lip. The pain pulled his consciousness back.
He knew where this was. The southwestern edge of the Brenham Plains—the place where the Kingdom of Igrein and the Liberation Front, "Levan's Flame," were supposed to cross blades for the first time today. Sixty kilometers southwest of the royal capital Vernica, this grain belt where wheat had once rippled golden was now farmland in name only. The earth was trampled, and dry ruts ran across it in every direction like the ribs of a beast.
In this country, where the sword and "Grace"—a divine blessing that dwelled only in noble blood—decided everything, commoners had been treated as nothing more than insects. They could not own land. They had no right to appeal to the law. Their lifespans were short, and they were forbidden to carry swords. The founding law known as the Caled Compact had kept those chains of status from rusting for three hundred and forty years.
And yet, in such a country, there were those who had risen up.
About eighteen years ago, in the slum known as the "Ashwall District" built on the outskirts of the royal capital, a massacre disguised as a purge order had occurred. There had been no reason. Commoners had been suspected of harboring rebellion. That was all.
From that day forward, the former blacksmith Levan Holt traded his hammer for a sword and led the survivors in revolt. The Liberation Front they formed was named "Levan's Flame." Their watchword: *The flame burns brighter the more it is trampled.* It had now swelled to twenty-two hundred fighters and turned this plain into a battlefield.
Allen Weiss was nothing more than a foot soldier at its lowest rung. Twenty years old. A single infantryman with a gray-iron sword at his hip—a mass-produced blade forged from smuggled iron, two grades duller than the regular army's steel swords.
He removed his helmet and roughly swept back his black hair, matted with sweat. His soot-dark hair was tied short at the back. His bangs fell over deep gray eyes—eyes of a sedimented color that returned no warmth even when struck by light. Anyone who glanced at them thought they looked "like a dead man's," but no one ever said it aloud.
Beneath his leather armor, a soiled, unbleached shirt clung damply to his skin. His gaunt, bony frame was not, however, thin-fleshed like other men his age. Hardened, lean muscle stirred quietly beneath the skin. Countless small scars scattered across his arms and chest. Each one was a trace of the survival he had imposed upon himself to get here.
The scar running from his left shoulder to his collarbone, especially vivid, was an old wound he showed to no one, yet its strangeness was apparent even from a distance. When Allen fell silent, his presence faded with an eerie thinness, dissolving into the veil of night.
—He had woken three hours before deployment.
On a rough straw-stuffed futon in a shabby barracks, Allen had abruptly surfaced into consciousness. He had been dreaming. A white corridor. The cold of stone. Candlelight from the altar sconces casting long shadows on the walls. That was the White Chalk Castle—the corridor of Caled's White Chalk Castle, built atop the hill of the royal capital Vernica.
*(Again.)*
Lying on his back, he moved a hand to his chest. His fingertips touched the trace of an old burn. A clearly raised, palm-sized memory of heat. Every time he traced it with the pad of his finger, the heat of that night slowly resurfaced from beneath his skin.
The continuation of the dream clung to the back of his eyelids.
That was the story of when he had still been "him." The story of a nameless boy who had once worked as a menial servant in the White Chalk Castle, tasked with everything from the king's bath to the privies.
He had memories of a past life.
Memories of living in a country called Japan, far across the sea. A common surname: Tanaka. Memories of being an ordinary office worker, swaying on packed trains, working until late at night, and one day, his heart's exhaustion exceeding its limit and dying without fanfare. He didn't remember the moment of death. What he remembered was only that when he opened his eyes, he was in an unfamiliar world, in an unfamiliar body.
And in this world, he was supposed to start over as a menial servant named Allen Weiss.
*(I thought I could start over.)*
He pulled his finger away from the burn scar and shook his head from side to side. He must not watch the dream's continuation. That night in the corridor, when he had placed wildflowers in the young princess's hand. How, afterward, the way she looked at him had come to hold a purity close to worship. And how he had failed to answer it. No—far from answering it—
He bit his lip. He tasted blood.
*(Stop. Don't remember. That is over.)*
It was not over. He was here to end it.
He stood on his first battlefield to punish himself.
—The morning air had grown especially cold.
From all across the encampment came the sound of rough leather armor scraping, hushed curses exchanged in low voices, the lingering smell of last night's rice gruel. All of it mingled together, gently stirring the gray depths before dawn.
Allen Weiss stood in silence and walked, crushing grass underfoot, avoiding the stones at his feet. *I might die here,* he thought. *That's fine*—the thought passed through his chest like something belonging to someone else.
"Allen."
Someone called his name from behind.
He turned to see a girl with a braid running toward him through the fog. Her rich brown hair was gathered over one shoulder, the tie swaying at her collar. Her pale brown eyes were always glistening, as if she were about to cry.
Sara Barton. Nineteen years old. A medic for Levan's Flame. In an army where no one had received formal medical training, she had kept countless people alive until now with nothing but battlefield knowledge of medicinal herbs and a heart almost too honest with its emotions.
"Allen, let me see your hand."
Breathless, she looked up at the old cloth wrapped around Allen's left hand. His fingertips were covered in old scars and calluses, and over them, blood-stained bandages had been wound in layers. During training, the sword's grip had rubbed like a blister and torn the skin. It was only that much of a wound, and Allen had told no one. He did not need his own wounds tended.
"...It's nothing."
He answered low and dismissive. He did not meet her eyes. He knew Sara would not back down over something like this, and still he did not soften his expression.
He did not dislike her. If anything, her brightness was too dazzling for his heavy, stagnant self—approaching it felt like being scorched. Sara, even as the misery of the battlefield wore her heart thin, still smiled bravely every morning and slapped everyone's cheeks to rouse them. She was a girl who desperately wished to be needed by someone and had found her life's role as a medic.
And Allen understood. The temperature of the gaze she directed only at him was different from the one she gave anyone else.
*(Don't notice. I'm not worth stealing your time.)*
"No. It's bleeding. As a medic, I can't overlook that. At least let me treat it."
Sara loosened dried herbs between her fingertips from the cloth pouch at her hip and stepped in toward Allen.
"I don't need it."
"...Come back. Promise me you'll come back."
Her voice suddenly grew thin.
Allen turned his back. Saying anything more felt like it would only add to her tears. He must not add to them. The longer he stayed by her side, the more certain it was that this girl would one day be hurt.
He walked away alone, quickly, into the deepening fog.
Sara's gaze pierced his back. But he did not turn around.
—The march began quietly.
The Liberation Front's column, heading for the Brenham Plains, stretched from the eastern edge of Hazel Forest, threading through breaks in the fog. From here, their base, Elda's Fang, lay about seventy kilometers to the southwest. Food was running out, and every time feet were caught in the mud, the carts without saddle rests let out shrieks.
"Allen-san!"
A young man approached, practically bouncing through the mire. His unruly red curls were grown out carelessly and tied back with a cord. His blazing green eyes let anger and joy overflow freely, and even in the pre-dawn darkness, there was heat in that color.
Milos Grant. Nineteen years old. A new recruit facing his first battle as the youngest this year.
"My first battle! It's my first time. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. But finally. With my own hands, I'll—those nobles—"
"You're too loud."
Allen said it shortly, but not too coldly.
Milos's reckless heat was troublesome, but he didn't dislike it. The boy was pure. With commoner's pride in his chest, he genuinely raged at the injustice of the vile nobles, genuinely ran to protect his comrades. That straightforwardness had the shape of something Allen had lost long ago.
"Come on, a little's fine. You're always so quiet, Allen-san—people tell me to learn from you. But I think that silence of yours is deep and cool."
Allen said nothing.
But somewhere in his heart, he found the boy's innocent heat dazzling.
*(I have to protect them. At least, in front of him and Sara.)*
It was close to a vow, but a prayer without foundation.
—And then, the enemy appeared suddenly.
It was a scout. Three riders of the Kingdom's army burst through the fog. The neighing of warhorses. The sound of hooves kicking earth. Through his helmet, a low war cry split the air.
"Enemy attack—!"
Milos shouted. At the same moment, Allen's body moved half a step—faster than anyone—forward.
His vision was strangely quiet. The sound of his own breathing echoed inside his skull. It wasn't a matter of drawing his sword in place of a gun, taking aim, scooping upward. It wasn't logic like that.
The enemy's thrust came. Allen dropped his body, grazing past the horse's belly to cut the distance. The air tore, and then his arm moved on its own.
The gray-iron sword severed the enemy's thigh.
Blood sprayed onto his face.
It was warm.
The man fell. He couldn't see the other's face clearly.
*(Ah.)*
From the pit of his stomach, an unidentifiable mass surged upward. Nausea. Not like a night of too much drink, not like a morning after forcing down spoiled gruel—something far deeper, a nausea as if his very organs were being crushed.
"Allen-san!"
Milos's voice.
He snapped back. He had been about to drop to one knee on the ground, sword still in hand. His palm was slick and wet. His throat was expelling nothing but hot air.
"Face forward. ...They're coming."
He said it in a slightly hoarse voice and pressed his lips tight. The taste of blood.
Milos stared at him with wide eyes. That face forcibly pulled Allen's heart back into a single thread.
*(Protect him. I will protect him.)*
He re-gripped his sword. His fingers stuck to the hilt. Slippery. Even so, there was nothing to do but advance.
—When they emerged onto the hill, the fog thinned just slightly.
"...I can see it. The enemy camp."
Someone said it in a whisper.
At the southwestern edge of the Brenham Plains, with the Three-Oak Hill at their backs, the Kingdom's main camp spread out. Countless white flags hung heavy, as if soaked, in the fog.
And beneath those white flags.
She was standing there.
Her long silver hair was bound high, pearl ornaments swaying in strands. A small figure clad in silver-white armor.
Blue after rain.
The color of the eyes that had looked up
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