Chapter 52: Do I Have the Honor to Walk With You Again
Red Frost Territory, in the outskirts several dozen miles away from the nearest city.
On the surface, it appeared to be a barren, lifeless expanse of pale sand.
But in reality, an invisible barrier silently covered this area.
Ordinary travelers or merchant caravans who came near would unconsciously change direction, perceiving this place merely as an ordinary desert.
Only a specific group of people wearing school emblems could ignore the barrier’s interference and step into the frontline outpost meticulously constructed by the Ashen Institute.
...
“The evacuation order has already been issued by the Granwell government, but Orphen City, thirty kilometers away, is a medium-to-large city with a population nearing one million. A complete evacuation will still require at least three weeks.”
“The problem now is that our progress in exploring the Disaster Remnant is absolutely zero. In other words, we don’t even know what kind of Twilight Calamity will descend once the countdown ends.”
“If it's a widespread disaster like a plague or an earthquake, then evacuating just Orphen City is useless. We might need to evacuate the entire Red Frost Territory and surrounding provinces.”
“That’s completely unrealistic. Setting aside the tug-of-war with the nobles over evacuating all of Red Frost Territory… even ignoring all that, a full-scale evacuation of the province would take over a month. By then, the Twilight Calamity might have already descended into reality.”
Inside a Nightworld outpost, within a spacious conference room.
Noises of heated debates rose and fell in waves.
“Evacuating the potential disaster zones is just a contingency plan at best…”
“No matter what, the moment the Twilight Calamity descends upon reality, it means we’ve failed. Starfall University has failed.”
A clear voice echoed across the conference table.
The previously noisy discussions stopped abruptly.
These third-tier, top-one-hundred members of the Obelisk ranking all turned their eyes toward the head seat of the table, toward the source of the voice.
Within their gazes were reverence and fear.
But more than that, there was silent distance…
And even hatred.
Shiltina remained indifferent to the piercing gazes gathered on her. She spoke calmly.
“As long as even the slightest possibility remains—”
“—our top priority must be to conquer the Disaster Remnant and eliminate the old disasters within the Nightworld.”
She turned slightly to glance at a participant responsible for intelligence.
“Has the Obelisk list been confirmed?”
“Mm…”
The girl wearing the Starfall emblem answered in a low voice, “Including Senior Roya, ranked twenty-seventh on the Obelisk and wielder of the Nightblade skill ‘Shadow Leap’…”
“This recon squad…”
“…has been entirely sacrificed, becoming part of the stars on the Obelisk.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the atmosphere in the room grew even heavier.
Though from past experience, when the recon squad failed to return from the Nightworld even after forty-eight hours, many had begun to suspect the worst…
Still, the final confirmation of this grim news—when the last hope shattered—was something they couldn’t quite accept.
As upperclassmen of Starfall University and members of the strategy team, they had known sacrifice.
Exploring the Nightworld, battling the Disaster Remnants… such tasks inevitably came with death. As top Obelisk members, they had long since adapted to such conditions.
But such devastating losses were unprecedented.
Seventeen members in total, a recon team fully specialized in stealth and escape using Nightblade skills—none survived.
Complete annihilation.
If that was all, it would have been bad enough.
The worst part was, after paying such a steep price, the progress in exploring the Disaster Remnant and gathering intel remained nonexistent.
They didn’t even know in which time period the lost history inside the Disaster Remnant was set, or what they would face once inside.
And this was only the beginning phase of reconnaissance...
Even if they somehow completed the information-gathering stage, how many more lives would be needed for a successful strategy execution?
It wasn’t the heavy casualties that terrified them.
It was the utter lack of hope.
In the suffocating silence, Shiltina finally spoke after a moment of stillness, lips slightly pursed.
Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper, yet firm as steel: “Even so, we cannot give up the strategy.”
“If the Twilight Calamity breaks through the Nightworld and descends upon reality, it will affect not just the Red Frost Territory, but potentially tens of millions across half of the Granwell nation…”
“Shiltina! I hate you!”
A sharp cry of anguish shattered the stillness of the meeting room.
It came from a short-haired girl with reddened eyes, veins bulging as she gripped the table’s edge tightly.
“If you hadn’t insisted on proceeding with the strategy despite knowing how dangerous this Disaster Remnant was, Roya would never have died!”
“With Roya’s ‘Shadow Leap’ Nightblade, if not for the ‘Temporal Distortion’ in that Disaster Remnant, he could’ve entered the Nightworld ten or even a hundred times and walked out fine!”
“Even if you—a cursed, lunatic loner—had died, Roya would’ve lived!”
“At the end of the day, even if we gave up this Nightworld, gave up Red Frost Territory—so what? This isn’t even our homeland, it belongs to those royal capital nobles! Let them handle the Twilight Calamity and disaster refugees! Even if tens of millions die, what does it have to do with us?”
She glared at Shiltina with undisguised hatred: “But you… you still insist on carrying on with the strategy, even after all those deaths.”
“I knew it… You claim to have severed ties with your father, with your aristocratic background… but deep down, you’re still standing with the nobles, with the Imperial Roya—”
Before the short-haired girl could finish, she was forcibly dragged away by the surrounding students.
Still, after her outburst, the air around the table grew noticeably colder.
Everyone present knew who she was.
She was Roya’s lover.
The two were only half a year away from graduation.
They had even set their wedding date and begun preparations.
But now, with a new shining star appearing in the Obelisk’s night sky, everything had turned to ashes.
In that stifling atmosphere, Shiltina slowly closed her eyes.
After a long while, she opened those pale brown eyes once again: “Regarding Roya, I’m truly sorry.”
“The danger and casualty rate of this Disaster Remnant did indeed exceed expectations. According to academy regulations, members of the strategy team are free to withdraw.”
“I pledge, as one of the Twelve Seats of the Round Table, and under the name of Inglit, that no one who withdraws from this strategy will face punishment, demotion in the Obelisk, or reduction in benefits from the academy.”
Shiltina’s clear voice held not a ripple of emotion: “However, the strategy for the Red Frost Territory’s Disaster Remnant will proceed.”
“Given that reconnaissance is now meaningless under current circumstances, the only viable plan is to abandon both recon and strategy meetings, and head straight into the Nightworld with a full strategy objective.”
She rose from her seat at the head of the room.
Her red-and-white knight’s uniform gleamed brightly beneath the dim meeting room lights.
“This Disaster Remnant restricts entry to third-tiers. As the highest-ranked third-tier on the Obelisk, I will enter the Disaster Remnant alone first.”
“If I manage to return, we’ll reconvene to formulate a strategy based on the intel I gather.”
“If I don’t return, then the next Round Table Seat sent by the academy will take over leadership of the strategy.”
Leaving these final words behind, Shiltina ignored the countless complicated stares and walked straight out of the room.
Several people instinctively wanted to speak.
But in that heavy silence, they merely opened their mouths silently, unable to utter a single word to stop her.
...
Shiltina walked through the Nightworld outpost.
Her chestnut hair flowed behind her, swaying in the wind. Beneath the rising and falling hem of her knight’s skirt, the silver sheath of her rapier flickered faintly.
The stares filled with reverence, fear, distance, and hatred all disappeared behind her, fading into pure nothingness.
Until even the steel-and-concrete fortifications were no longer in sight—only a long, iron corridor remained.
Shiltina knew, at the end of this corridor lay the entrance to the Red Frost Territory’s Nightworld.
And also, the beginning of the Disaster Remnant that had devoured seventeen lives.
She gently touched the silver sheath at her waist.
Ever since her original team collapsed, she had been walking alone.
Alone, she traveled through the Nightworld, through echoes of the old days, accompanied only by corruption, madness, despair, and disaster… and the rapier named 「Shimmering Morning Star」.
Except for that one time.
But now, he should still be at Starfall University, enjoying a peaceful campus life under Dean Silver’s care.
She wondered if there would ever be a chance to meet him again.
Just as that thought rose—
A familiar voice sounded in her ear.
There was no fear or reverence, nor any trace of aversion or hatred in it.
Instead, there was a touch of teasing.
“So, my beautiful lady—”
“May I have the honor of walking with you once more?”