On a Certain City's Morning Star

"Seven Imperial Weapons intel?"

"Truthfully — heavy weather. Source-text simply too thin. As Elma's account also suggested, post-Dark-War-Era, the Seven Imperial Houses, intentionally, set out to erase the information."

What Merea had asked first was that.

Answering: 〈Knowledge (Razlas)〉's squad-head, Lilium.

She, with her crimson hair swept fully back, fringe tucked behind her ear too, having shifted into a fully work posture without minding the look — answered.

"Right. — On Elma's side, anything you've remembered?"

"No — apologies — beyond my own house, I have almost no concrete intel either. That my grandfather and the elders were able to dig up the 〈Sword Emperor〉-house's history at all is, by my own measure, a strong return; on the other houses…"

"…Right. — Mind, no lead at all should not be the read."

"What lets you say so?"

To Merea's hand-on-chin line, Elma asked back at once.

Catching the voice, Merea turned his face to Elma, raised a finger, and threaded the line in clean tone.

"Because Serius held the 〈Spear Emperor〉's demon-spear."

"— That's the angle."

Elma, eyes rounded, nodded small as something landed.

"Unless it turns out Mūzeg's house is the 〈Spear Emperor〉, Serius, when he took the spear, got the Seven Imperial Houses' information from somewhere. The current 〈Spear Emperor〉, or — even if not formally Demon-Lord-classified — the descendant carrying 〈Demon-Spear Kurtad〉. That existence, Serius pinned down from somewhere. — Mind, even if the descendant isn't Demon-Lord-classified, the moment they hold the demon-spear, they're effectively classified."

Merea, on a bitter set of the mouth, opened his hands wide.

"True. So — it's safer to think information on the other Seven Imperial Houses is not non-existent either —"

"— and 〈Knowledge〉's morale runs better that way."

Lilium added, in a small breath through her nose, to Elma's line.

"Pursuing what you yourself have decided does not exist — tiring doesn't begin to cover it. Barren. Barren. One of the three great labours of a hired scholar. At Aios's 〈Blue Rose Academy (Mies Aios)〉 there weren't many like that, but at 〈Red Rose Academy (Zalas Aios)〉 there were a fair few."

"For reference — the other two of the three great labours?"

"On opportunity, I'll explain."

Lilium had noticed the spark of curiosity in Merea's eye.

Reading that letting her run on it now would derail the meeting, in the manner of an owner withholding the treat, she cut the conversation off for the moment.

Merea, on his end, also evidently doing the don't-derail arithmetic, let a small no, no out under his breath in self-rebuke.

"Right — so, in net, no harvest. — Mn — Serius, presumably, won't publicise the true mechanism of the Imperial Weapons either, but it's a slight worry."

The 〈Demon-Spear Kurtad〉 Serius had been holding, Merea, on contact, had taken in a moment of opening.

Likely, in that scene specifically, and only because Serius had not been on guard against Merea, taking the spear had been within a single window's labour. Merea read it that way.

That was a one-time-only opening — drawable only because it was the first square-on encounter.

To extract a Kurtad-sized yield in that single window — large.

— If he gets another Imperial Weapon and shows up in front of me again — bothersome, that.

Imperial-Weapons aside, the experience of having crossed blades once sets the foundation on which Serius drafts countermeasure after countermeasure.

— …

Merea did not, in any sense, underestimate Serius's combat-genius.

— Mind — for individual combat, fine — but the Mūzegan army, as a single large body, receiving an Imperial Weapon, would be a problem.

Were it Serius — he'd build a brigade specialised just in swinging Imperial Weapons.

One swing did that.

Multiple swings, repeatedly — standard war-doctrine reduces to splinters.

A war-zone reduced to scorched earth — Merea pictured, behind his eyes.

Serius, almost certainly, was picturing the same.

So Serius, naturally, would also do the if the other side brings one too arithmetic.

Above all — Serius is, in this present age, the side that took the first Imperial Weapon strike.

To feel the threat of that, Serius likely received a hit equal to or greater than the one Merea, as the deliverer, registered.

— Will not want to let it be used.

Naturally — as user, he will want a monopoly.

He'll also want to avoid both sides using it simultaneously.

Once it becomes an Imperial-Weapon trade, normal tactics fall outside the curtain.

War goes gamble.

Mūzeg, having grown by gambling to the present scale, would want to avoid disappearing in more gambling.

Considering all of the above, the prediction surfaces — Serius will, for the foreseeable, keep the Imperial Weapons' true power hidden.

At least until the Imperial Weapons are back in their own hand — suppress.

Where exactly he opens the information, Merea also does not yet know.

"It's as if we are carrying an unseen bomb in our pocket."

"Truly."

Merea, finally, let a small line out.

To it Elma nodded and answered, and the other Demon Lords gave the same reaction.

In that interval, almost certainly, all of them had run the same imagination.

"— Mind, Hasim will, actively, cooperate on that point. For the moment-of-impact information-suppression, Serius and Hasim will, country-by-country, mobilise. We ride that wave first. — Mind, information, if we have it, is a bargaining chip too, so search continues. — 〈Knowledge〉 — making you all chase information whose existence we can't even confirm, sorry. Asking it of you regardless."

Merea said it on a wry smile.

The 〈Knowledge〉 contingent, in a clump on the dining hall's left back, on a similar smile and a shrug — even so —

"— Leave it to us."

— closed strongly.

"Right — leaving it to you. I'm completely useless on that side, after all."

A slight embarrassed scratch at the head, and Merea voiced his trust in them.

---

"Right — on to the next. — Shaw, anything?"

"Oh — me?"

Where Merea's voice landed next was on Shaw, in the right-centre of the dining hall.

Two seats over from Salman.

Between, of course, the twins — Riina and Miina.

"Speak quickly — fiend (mōja)—" "Furry (moja)—"

"The back half of that has become an entirely different thing. I am not particularly furry, I'll have you know!"

Shaw, theatrically tossing his gold-thread fine hair, displayed the texture for the twins.

"My word — got worked up there. — Ahem. — Right — yes — alongside trading, did I pick up any information, was the question."

"Filling in my elliptical line perfectly — much obliged."

Merea laughed.

He added —

"Currently, the most-out-on-the-road squad is 〈Wallet (Listale)〉. With trade as the centre, certainly — but compared to 〈Knowledge〉, which has work in and out, the side specialised on outside information is Shaw's."

"Just so."

"Anything?"

"Mn. — Ah — speaking of."

Shaw, with theatrical flash-of-inspiration gesture, dropped his right fist into his left palm.

"I mentioned that western-side trade was set to resume — and, while exchanging that round of intel with merchants from other firms, I picked up a slightly interesting story."

"Oh?"

In Merea's red eyes, a light slid into wavering.

"〈Art-City Vergilia〉 — know it?"

"Art-city?"

"Yes."

Shaw straightened the collar and put on a slightly serious face.

The expression was serious, but the gestures still ran on a theatrical register.

"A city that aggregates art. Music, drama, painting, literature, antiques, opera that combines them, and even new this-or-that whose art-status is somewhat dubious. — In short, a city aggregating an art-volume that doesn't fit in a single line. As a city-state — technically a state, but not particularly independent. Best read as the *amusement-quarter for the idle-rich, perhaps."

"Hm. Where is it?"

"East-continent's north-east. Sea-side."

"Mhm."

Merea, in his head, unfolded the world-map Marisa had recently rammed in.

The other continents wouldn't come up clean, so for now he expanded just the east-continent map and pinned a rough location for Vergilia.

"With the resumption of trade, the surrounding-state nobles and power-brokers have, evidently, picked up some spirits, and the projection for this year is that more people than usual are heading for Vergilia."

"Hm."

"And — here is the main subject."

Shaw, on a clean smile, raised an index finger in front of his mouth.

"In that Vergilia, ahead of the upcoming amusement-season, there is — apparently — an actress-in-the-egg who may yet become the morning-star of the season."

"An actress."

"Yes. Strictly — an opera-actress-in-the-egg."

"And this connects to us how?"

"Speculation, this. — Mind — by the talk going round, she is —"

Shaw, on an exquisite pause, finally let it out —

"Called — apparently — 〈Bewitching Queen〉."

For them, that theatrical kind of by-name was, in many senses, a familiar register.

Compared with the short prefix-by-names in the Hero / Demon-Lord title system, this one read long — but even so —

"— That phrasing lands strangely on the ear. Position, perhaps."

Merea, on a small self-amused laugh, gave the line — and that line accurately mapped what the present Demon Lords were holding inside. </parameter> </invoke>