On the Western Continent, nations rose and crowded together, but the truly top-tier powers everyone acknowledged were only a handful. A war breaking out between Milanía and the Marston Kingdom—both in that first echelon—was a huge event for the entire continent.

People had thought it might turn into a long, grinding campaign. No one expected it to suddenly end in such an absurd, accidental way.

The sudden natural disaster that erupted at Mount Kent wiped out almost all of the main forces on both sides, brutally cutting off a battle that could’ve decided the final direction of the war.

The cause of that “natural disaster,” and what exactly happened, was never properly recorded. Even the top brass of both sides coincidentally issued strict gag orders. Still, rumors couldn’t be stopped from spreading. Some said the so‑called disaster was actually a test of a new weapon from the Glius Federation. Others whispered that a forbidden spell had been accidentally unleashed…

Of course, there were stories that brushed close to the truth. A few surviving soldiers later claimed they’d seen a human silhouette at the center of the shockwave. The “disaster” was very likely just the aftershock of a clash between some super‑tier powerhouses.

But those answers were quickly drowned in a sea of gossip. Conspiracy theories filled the air. One popular story said Glius had detonated a long‑buried experimental bomb; that their alliance with Marston was just a front while they coveted both sides’ lands; that once they secured the continent’s rich resources, they’d mass‑produce their magitech industry and seize hegemony over the entire continent, and so on.

From Glius’s actual size and strength, that kind of strategy was completely unrealistic. But it sounded just plausible enough, and rumors like that were exactly what the bystanders who “watched the show” loved to chew on, so it spread even more wildly.

Meanwhile, the people on both sides who actually knew the truth were all more or less getting headaches—whether in Milanía or Marston’s ruling circles.

For secular governments, Order was the most important thing. To be honest, an existence that completely broke past common sense and limits was troublesome enough as it was. Even Holy Rank beings could still be negotiated with, used, and coordinated. But a “god”‑class existence wasn’t under anyone’s control and couldn’t be restrained.

What made things even more troublesome were the power‑seeking organizations that moved in the shadows behind such events.

In the human world, whenever anything involving “gods” happened, the Temple Church would definitely stick its fingers in, even if it had nothing to do with them. And for normal state institutions, religious “divine authority” was basically a malignant tumor.

That went doubly so for Milanía, which had just issued a new legal code limiting religious authority and even removed the “Holy” prefix from its national name. If the Holy See ever learned the truth about this affair, the pressure on Milanía would be no joke.

Fortunately, for now, everything still seemed to be under control.

The aftermath of the war also wrapped up in a sharp, abrupt turn.

Even after Mount Kent, the Marston–Glius coalition still had the numerical advantage over Milanía, and Glius’s landings along the western coast were still hard to stop. But once Sadie returned to the Orc kingdom, and Hazel got trussed up and dragged back by Aya and Tiran, the coalition had no way to match them in top‑tier combat power anymore.

Ever since the New Year’s Festival, the country had been in a state of war; saying “the people were living in constant panic” wouldn’t be an exaggeration. On top of that, the Holy See’s pressure still hung in the air. So Granzon chose not to use Tiran’s overwhelming dominance over regular armies to expand the war. Instead, he only had Tiran assist Dawn’s Spear in swiftly annihilating the remaining Marston troops within the borders, then offered peace talks.

The coalition leadership, after this blitzkrieg counteroffensive, finally understood that the current Milanía could wipe out any one of their armies with ease. When Milanía’s reserves finished training, the central army completed its replenishment, and a hundred thousand troops were stationed along the border, the coalition accepted Milanía’s terms.

After that came a long, drawn‑out negotiation.

As war reparations, Milanía received ten years of duty‑free trade with Marston, as well as precious metal reserves equivalent to Marston’s total annual tax revenue. The compensation from Glius made Milanía’s magitech research center even happier.

The impact of magitech had already shown itself in this war. Yet in this field, Milanía was still relatively behind—at least not up to the standard of a Western great power.

A complete magitech core production line, plus a generously large set of fundamental magitech theoretical research data—these were the results of Glius’s decades of relentless research and experimentation.

If Milanía could fully absorb it, their magitech level would probably see a qualitative leap.

As for territorial concessions, it wasn’t like His Majesty the King hadn’t thought about them.

The problem was, Glius was an island nation overseas, while Milanía’s seafaring wasn’t particularly developed. Their navy was only strong enough to guard the coastline. Overseas territory would be a nightmare to administer and might not even turn a profit.

Marston’s border, on the other hand, lacked clear natural geographic boundaries. Beyond the existing defensive lines, any land would be hard to protect. Considering the costs, it was better not to take it at all.

The only real “surprise”… was probably His Highness Brad.

After Marston’s army withdrew, the royal capital Gusteberd had become a completely isolated city. Even though Granzon pulled back his siege forces, the provisional regime inside the city, cut off from all supplies for so long, had finally run out of road.

The Holy Knights Order’s final charge was less a courageous last stand, and more a helpless move after their resources were totally exhausted.

His Majesty had already anticipated what his son would do. In that desperate charge, they didn’t crash into the ranks of the central army. What awaited them was Aya, who had long been ready to intercept.

Presiding over a massive mental‑type spell formation, “Tremor of Dread,” which could completely envelop a dense formation of three thousand cavalry, Aya managed in a single blow to shake the souls of those knights—who had never learned mental defense magic—right out of their bodies for a brief moment, easily shattering Brad’s last bid.

The final casualties of this war were probably those couple dozen unlucky holy knights whose necks snapped outright in the fall.

“In short, the war’s over, the world’s at peace, how delightful, how delightful.”

In a dim hall, light flickered over a huge conference table. A vivid three‑dimensional projection had just played out the last scene of the war. The bard controlling this simulation sand table pulled on the simple small organ in his hands, letting out a long note like a curtain‑call.

Whoosh.

The curtains were yanked open by an uninvited guest barging into the hall. Late summer sunlight poured in through the floor‑to‑ceiling windows, along with the vibrant green from the garden outside, instantly flooding the room with brightness.

“My—my eyes! Miss Delua, next time you open the curtains, could you please warn me first?”

Hazel squinted, raising his left hand to shield his face, speaking in obvious pain.

“…Honestly, you’re a Holy Rank, yet you spend all day in here secretly messing with these bizarre things?”

The head maid, currently playing the role of His Majesty’s secretary, pushed her glasses up and gave Hazel a helpless, baffled look.

“Haha, don’t bring that up. I’ve already forgotten that identity myself,” Hazel said with a carefree grin.

And that was completely true. In fact, after the war ended, Hazel—formerly the protector of the Marston Kingdom—was officially “dead.” That was a favor he’d asked Tiran for; publicly, he’d been declared killed in action during the battle at Marston’s royal capital.

One against two, then defeated—perfectly reasonable. Even the Marston king could only accept that he was dead. He might even have to posthumously grant Hazel some fancy title or rank. That way, Hazel had fulfilled his duty to the family.

As for the man himself, he’d happily moved into the reclaimed royal palace, holed up in a room every day, devoted to studying his Law.

“The Silver War Maiden was right. All this so‑called developed civilization is just the surface. To really draw out the power of the Law of Civilization, I have to dig deep into everything in this world.”

“Miss Delua! Come look! The falling speed of this little ball perfectly matches the derived formula… hmm, no, looks like there’s a slight deviation. Oh? Air resistance?”

“Changing current generates magnetism… magnetic coils… so that’s the principle behind a railgun? I heard someone in the City of Magitech tinkered one together, but apparently they don’t really understand how it works either. Hahaha, major discovery!”

“The similarity between parent and offspring… genetic material? DNA and proteins… hybrid crops? What even is all this? Wait, but if this can actually increase yields and hardiness in crops, then wouldn’t that mean…”

“The world’s a sphere? W‑what a joke! Though, now that I think of it, we really don’t have much data from deep‑sea voyages yet. Guess we can’t jump to conclusions…”

“Molecules, atoms? Hold up, these elements? Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon? The basic building blocks of the world? What’s their relationship to Magic elements?”

If Her Highness the Princess were here, she’d probably thoroughly make fun of this bard being mentally crushed by compulsory‑education curricula.

Though she herself couldn’t really remember any of it either…

…

This new guy would randomly shout weird, incomprehensible things every now and then, which annoyed Delua to no end. In the end she simply stopped bothering with him aside from bringing three meals a day, leaving him alone to tinker with his stuff.

Hazel didn’t care how anyone saw him. He was completely immersed in this loop of constant discovery and constant shock, almost never not fighting the urge to spread all this knowledge to everyone.

But it wasn’t time yet.

The goal Hazel set for himself was to use his Law to understand all this knowledge systematically and completely. If he could pass it all on intact, he was absolutely certain he could change this world from the ground up.

By then, calling himself the creator god of a new world wouldn’t be that much of an exaggeration, right?

…Well, with one person’s ability—even if he spent his entire life—it’d be impossible to master the ocean of knowledge in every field.

“By the way, Miss Delua, why’d you suddenly come today?”

Hazel was puzzled. He hadn’t seen Delua come looking for him of her own accord in several days.

The head maid looked at him and let out a long sigh.

What else could it be? His Majesty had gone missing yet again.

Though this time he’d been a bit more reliable: he’d laid out detailed plans for every major decision that required his judgment and left a stack of proposals on his desk. But no matter what, this was still right after a major war had just ended, and the country was still in turmoil, not yet fully settled.

What was the king thinking, disappearing at a time like this?

“About His Majesty Granzon…”

Hazel held up a finger, thought for a bit, then said, “I think I saw him taking a carriage out earlier.”

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