Chapter 665

Frigg had always thought the chances of success were slim, and Knut, grasping at straws, pushed forward with the plan to stop the retreat of the Dane army. As expected, it failed.

Most of the participants were captured or killed, and their resistance was painted as the rampage of traitors who sought rebellion amidst Dane’s chaos.

The head of the Dane Intelligence Department personally stepped in to bury the truth and frame them, so no one ever learned why they had fought.

Except for the higher-ups who ordered their extermination.

“Foolish choice, Frigg. Too reckless and hasty. Not even realizing that an Intelligence Department agent was being watched and exposing your tail. Such clumsy handling.”

The head of the Intelligence Department glanced at the royal decree ordering strict control of public opinion and fiddled with the magical cigarette in his mouth.

“Or perhaps you were certain of failure from the start and planned to escape all along? The clumsier the handling, the more the pursuers would let their guard down.”

Indeed, within just two days, most of the dissidents were discovered, and Ragnar wasted no time in trying to eliminate Knut, Frigg, and the rest of the dissidents.

If he had prepared for just one or two more days, he could have mobilized more than double the forces and sealed the capital without a single leak.

The result of his complacency was the escape of the dissident leaders, Knut and Frigg, from the capital.

“I raised a good subordinate. I knew you were confident in running, but to break through the Holy Warrior Division’s encirclement while dragging a burden…”

The head of the Intelligence Department chuckled as he flicked the ash from his magical cigarette.

He cooperated in branding the opposition, including Knut, as ugly rebels without defying the royal family’s orders, but at the same time, he didn’t report Frigg’s specialty in stealth and escape to his superiors.

It was a small favor from the head of the Intelligence Department to his former subordinate.

“There’s no need to report things no one asked about. Even if Ragnar underestimates Frigg and lets her slip away, that’s his mistake, not my responsibility.”

Ragnar Lokan.

The king of Dane, younger brother of Hestein, and a man who showed exceptional talent in rune engraving, becoming the leader of the Einherjar.

Once a reclusive and silent man, after gaining the power of the runes, this Holy Warrior became as active as a wild horse… To the Intelligence Department, he was a suspicious figure, too suspicious.

“Strange… There’s definitely a foul smell behind him…”

The head of the Intelligence Department harbored feelings far from goodwill—specifically, suspicion—toward Ragnar. The timing of his rise coincided with Dane’s national policies becoming unusually radical.

Whether it was mere coincidence or Ragnar’s involvement was unknown, and it wasn’t something the Intelligence Department, as mere subordinates, should delve into.

So, the Intelligence Department only watched Ragnar with suspicion, taking no further action. Knowing one’s place and refraining from reckless actions is the key to longevity.

—

Knut and Frigg moved north toward the Empire’s border, avoiding people’s eyes as much as possible, sneaking through the forest under the cover of night.

Stopping in villages was a luxury, and walking along the main roads was suicidal. The combination of a one-eyed cripple and a female knight was far too distinctive.

Once they successfully escaped, the Dane Intelligence Department would have spread wanted posters throughout the kingdom. Unless Knut’s eye and leg were miraculously healed, being spotted by others would likely lead to their discovery.

As a result, the closer they got to the Empire’s border, the more disheveled they became, to the point where beggars and bandits might mistake them for colleagues.

“Knut. I forgot to ask earlier… Is it really okay to go to the Empire like this? By now, ‘that woman’ is probably stationed at the border fortress.”

While running through the mountain path, Frigg suddenly remembered and cautiously asked Knut.

“That woman?”

“The infamous parricide who cut off Or-han’s arm, Marquis Median. Now called the Sword of the Starry Sky.”

“Ah… That woman. Right. Ai-shan Gi-or Ha-shal-leur… She’ll be there.”

Knut felt a phantom pain in his empty left eye and his prosthetic right leg. Memories of his fierce battle with Ha-shal-leur a year ago at the academy flashed through his mind like an old film.

A woman who spouted nonsense about slaughtering people to save them. Her fight left Knut with irreparable scars.

“Ha-shal-leur…”

Knut muttered softly, recalling the blue-eyed Ka`har who had charged at him like a beast.

A slaughterer who had plundered the Dane border for years, leading warriors.

A warrior who built overwhelming martial prowess by cutting down countless enemies.

A descendant of the Twelve Knights, fighting tirelessly to protect the lives of the Westerners, as if atoning for the past.

Thus, she rose from being treated as a barbarian to becoming the Empire’s guardian, a legendary knight.

In short, she was a bizarrely complex and contradictory woman.

One moment, she seemed to enjoy killing and plundering, the next, she was devoted to saving people.

She took pride in being a Ka`har warrior, yet betrayed the Ka`har and sided with the Empire, even cutting off her own father’s arm.

Excluding her brutally cruel hands, there was an enormous gap between Ha-shal-leur’s actions two years ago and after her defection.

It was as if she had become a different person right before her defection.

“…Just to be clear, if you swing an axe to settle a score as soon as we arrive, that axe will end up lodged in our foreheads.”

Frigg cautiously advised, watching Knut’s expression. Knowing Knut, he might not be able to control his anger and charge at Ha-shal-leur the moment he saw her.

“Last year’s duel was close to mutual destruction, but you’ve heard the rumors about the Empire’s Greatest Sword, right? Median is a monster now. Even if you fought a hundred times, you’d lose a hundred times.”

Once he charged in, it would only end in disaster.

Judging by the rumors the Intelligence Department confirmed, the Empire’s Greatest Sword was not an opponent Knut could face now. And it wasn’t just Ha-shal-leur alone in the Imperial Army’s camp.

“…Don’t worry. I have no intention of doing that.”

Of course, contrary to Frigg’s concerns, Knut had no intention of swinging an axe at that woman now.

With the original plan failed, to stop the Ka`har from slaughtering the kingdom’s people, they had to plead with the Empire. Only a madman would attack the Empire’s most crucial force in such a situation.

‘…Even if I attacked, it wouldn’t work. I heard she blocked Or-han’s blade with her bare body.’

Knut had also heard rumors about Ha-shal-leur.

And in those rumors, Ai-shan Gi-or Ha-shal-leur was no longer human—she was a monster.

Twelve crimson tentacles sprouted from her back, her body harder than steel, wrapped in flames, flying freely through the sky.

A superhuman who could split the sky with her sword, collapse barriers with a gesture, breathe fire, and kill people just by looking at them… It was like a mythic demon god.

How a woman who barely escaped the Spear of War became such a monster in just a year was beyond comprehension.

Knut himself had grown stronger after obtaining ten runes, but he couldn’t even begin to think of fighting something like that.

Unless there was an absolute reason to fight.

‘That woman slaughtered and plundered countless Dane people. That’s an undeniable truth.’

If you asked whether she was an enemy or an ally, she was undoubtedly an enemy.

‘But…’

Honestly, the number of Dane people Ha-shal-leur had plundered and killed over the years didn’t exceed three thousand. Even including those killed by her personal guard.

And the number of Ka`har she had killed during this war was more than double that. Knut judged that if the war ended in the Empire’s victory, it would likely be more than five times that.

‘The fact that she killed Ka`har doesn’t absolve her of slaughtering my people. But… no one in this world could match her achievements.’

Then, suppressing his resentment and aiding Ha-shal-leur, or at least not hindering her, might be the best way to kill the most Ka`har.

‘…In the end, questioning her morality is pointless. Dane wasn’t much better.’

To Knut, what Ha-shal-leur did to the Dane people wasn’t much different from what Dane did to the Panam people.

His homeland, Dane, also invaded and plundered other countries as soon as it gained strength.

So Knut could no longer condemn Ha-shal-leur on moral grounds. That left only his personal grudge…

‘I can’t hold a grudge against a ten-year-old girl. Unless she maintained her identity as Or-han’s daughter, but she cut ties with her father by wielding a sword.’

Practically, Knut no longer had any grounds to condemn Ha-shal-leur.

Pouring his resentment toward Or-han and the Ka`har onto her, when she had already severed ties with the Ka`har, would just be ugly stubbornness.