At the same time, elsewhere—Valetta didn't bother retrieving her subordinate's body.
A living subordinate was a useful tool.
A dead one was nothing but a pile of rotten meat.
Valetta's expression was foul, but not because someone had died. It was because she'd realized what it meant.
That subordinate—whose name she couldn't even remember anymore—had only received the message yesterday and changed routes today.
And in less than a day, he was dead.
Who could have known about the change?
Only the upper echelon of the dark faction.
Valetta could even guess why they'd done it.
"Bastards… we haven't even won yet, and you're already fighting over power and spoils?"
She vented by brutally killing two more underlings, and only then did the irritation in her chest ease slightly.
Once she calmed down, she found herself understanding their logic—just a little.
The dark faction had gained support that was simply too strong. Winning the decisive battle against Orario was practically inevitable.
And if victory was guaranteed, then of course everyone would want the biggest slice of the cake.
"But if you take a slice and I take a slice… are we even going to win when it matters?"
Understanding it didn't stop her from feeling sick with anger.
It was like some famous IP adaptation being declared a guaranteed hit—so every faction started stuffing the production team full of relatives and protégés.
And when you finally looked…
The entire crew was nepotism hires.
How the hell were you supposed to run a dark faction properly with parasites like that clinging to it?
"If it weren't for me, would the dark faction even have gotten this far?!"
For the first time in a long while, something like grievance welled up inside Valetta.
What mattered most in war?
A leader who knew how to use people well?
An undefeated general?
A trump card that could turn the tide?
In Valetta's experience, all of those were important.
But only two things were truly critical:
Logistics—and internal unity.
Especially internal unity.
Anyone who's tried to manage it knows how hard it is.
Even if they were all "dark faction," that didn't mean there were no grudges between them.
If anything, because they were all unrestrained by principle, some of those grudges were already life-and-death vendettas.
They only managed to gather under one banner because Orario was a common enemy—because she commanded, mediated, and kept them pointed in the same direction—and because they believed they were going to win this time.
But even with all that going for them, forcing these mad dogs into cooperation had never been easy.
Only Valetta knew how much effort she'd poured into keeping them moving as one.
She'd practically worked herself into a state like Gin, barely managing to knead the dark faction into something resembling a single whole.
Her usual hair-trigger temper wasn't just personality—it was what happened when you played handler for too long.
And now, the person who'd struck… had gone straight for her trusted inner circle.
The nickname Blood Fist alone made it obvious—the man was a key subordinate of Killer Emperor Valetta.
Worse, that subordinate had been handling logistics.
They'd attacked the two most important parts of war in one move.
All for the sake of grabbing power.
They truly had no shame.
"They took everything else… and left the least valuable—but most critical—logistics resources behind. They don't want the final battle affected… so they're just provoking me?!"
Valetta ground her teeth, scanning left and right.
But she'd just killed two underlings for sport. No one was stupid enough to approach her now.
In the end, she swallowed the poisonous emotions down.
With war on the doorstep—and no clue who the killer was—she could only endure it.
"Besides… even if I told my god, would he stand up for me?"
Valetta knew perfectly well that her patron, Thanatos, wasn't anything close to benevolent.
If he learned about her humiliation, he'd only look forward to how the drama unfolded.
If she—the familia captain—got overthrown and murdered, he might even clap in delight.
Because gods descended to the Lower World for entertainment.
A diligent dark-faction leader being crushed on the eve of victory, her credit and power stolen by a subordinate uprising…
Wasn't that deliciously interesting?
So Valetta understood.
She had to swallow it.
If she started hunting traitors now, nobody would help her.
"Damn you… don't let me find out who you are."
…
"Cid!"
Alise returned to the familia compound and waved from afar the moment she spotted him.
In her hands was a book.
"Big Sis… are you giving me a book?"
Cid truly hadn't expected that.
Among the gifts he'd already received, there had been a book—given by Maryu.
But Alise, of all people, giving a book?
Was that even remotely plausible?
"Cid, that's not right," Alise said, putting on an offended face. "Your sister is right in front of you, and you're worried about the gift first?"
Normally, she'd keep pretending to be mad until he came over and placated her—then she'd laugh.
But today was special, so she didn't press it.
"Here, Cid. Out of all the gifts, this one—you must remember to keep your gratitude to me in your heart."
She handed the book over, watching him closely for his reaction.
She wasn't exaggerating—she'd poured an absurd amount of effort into preparing this.
If he accepted this gift, she wanted him to remember the bond behind it.
For the rest of his life.
"What is this…? Wait—this is a grimoire?"
Cid had only just started to open it when he realized something was wrong.
He was a master who understood all forms of magic—of course he could tell at a glance that the book in his hands wasn't ordinary.
It carried a ripple of mana.
Grimoires, in legend, could force a person to learn magic.
They were said to be even more precious than first-class weapons.
"Yep. It's expensive," Alise said, eager. "Sixty million valis."
She waited—almost vibrating—for his response.
In this world, the people capable of making grimoires were vanishingly rare.
Even the most ordinary one could cost over ten million valis.
And the grimoire in her hands—sixty million valis—was something the entire group had saved up for.
Ten years of scraping, collecting, and enduring—together.
Alise wasn't the kind of sister who liked squeezing her little brother dry.
But this grimoire was meant for Cid.
So, naturally… he had to pay too.
All these years, everyone had lived frugally for the sake of this gift.
It hadn't been easy.
"Big Sis…"
Cid really was moved.
He knew how simple Alise's life was.
To buy a grimoire worth sixty million valis—even saving for ten years—would still be crushing.
And it wasn't even just her gift.
It was everyone eating hardship and swallowing plain fare to make it happen.
For a moment, Cid even felt that deceiving them like this was unforgivable—that he had to find a way to repay them.
Unfortunately, the feeling lasted only a moment.
Because the next instant, Cid realized a catastrophic problem—
A magic awakening meant faster monster-killing.
Faster monster-killing meant more excelia.
More excelia meant… he might hit Level 3 far sooner than he wanted.
Cid did the math.
With his "public" talent—solidly above average—and a strong spell, he could probably raise his stats enough to level up within two years.
And when that time came…
Alise and the others might even escort him and "hold the line" to make sure he safely reached Level 3.
When Cid pictured that scene, his blood pressure spiked into the stratosphere.
ALISE! YOU! SET! ME! UP!
On the other side, seeing Cid trembling with the grimoire in hand and his face turning bright red, Alise misunderstood beautifully.
"I mean, I wanted you to be moved," she said, embarrassed. "But don't be that moved…"
Yet as she thought back on everything—on all their days together, all their years—
Alise couldn't hold it in anymore.
She stepped forward and hugged him tightly, tears spilling out in an instant.
"Cid… from now on, when I'm not by your side, you have to be okay!"
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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