After Croft’s rundown, Medith’s smile opened like sunrise, a flash of white teeth and warm light. “Looks like we picked up a real treasure.”

“So did I.” Pers let a rare smile thaw across his face like spring ice, joy bright as a new coin.

They left the training yard shoulder to shoulder, boots whispering like wind over sand. “Pers, why did you betray your country?”

Pers’s face stayed stone-still, his voice calm as a quiet lake. “Betray? No. You’ve got it wrong. I never betrayed my country, and I never betrayed my creed.

“I care about this continent’s tomorrow. My creed is final peace, not a false paradise bricked together with fear.

“The Southern Kingdom—Ares Harben—hasn’t truly been the ‘South’ for a long time. Strictly speaking, it’s the Empire, because the current southern king calls himself Di Yi.”

It was the first time Medith had heard a Southerner strike at his own king; resentment coiled in Pers’s tone like smoke under a low roof.

“Who is he, and what does he want?” Curiosity bit first, then the question slipped out. Pers’s pale-blue eyes deepened like a winter sea. “I don’t know, but it won’t be anything good. I keep feeling the Emperor and the King of Paris are uncannily alike...”

“Paris?” The name hit like a gong. Medith’s face tightened, her thoughts sinking like stones into dark water.

“Commander, I have one more request.” He stopped, sincerity steady as a lamp in wind. Medith straightened like a drawn blade. “Speak.”

Pers’s longing showed like a horizon after rain. “I want you to liberate the Southern Kingdom.”

Shock pricked first, cold as sleet; her brows knotted. Seeing her hesitation, his voice rose like a stirred tide, emotion ruffling its surface. “Commander, the South’s golden age is a painted screen.

“You may not know this. The Southern Kingdom is a superstate stitched from countless lords. The Emperor bent them with extraordinary means, and they serve—willing or not.

“The South is strong... Magic Breakers are terrifying. From Academy records, one in three Southerners can employ Magic Breaker...”

Disbelief slapped her like a sudden gust; cool sweat beaded like dew on her brow. “Are you joking?”

“I think you already sensed it. The might you saw on the southern border? There’s more behind it. That was only the first wall. The deeper you go, the more absurd the power.

“Even the Emperor himself...” His words trailed off like a shadow slipping behind cloud.

“Yet among them are many the Emperor swallowed by force, people kept in chains and daily humiliation. In the South, the strong devour the weak, and the feast never ends.

“Imperial Capital Army > Liberty Army > Hunting Corps > Gendarmerie—that’s the chain. Big fish eat small fish; small fish eat shrimp. In the end, the common folk bleed, villages most of all. I’ve lost count of how many have been carved up by local lords...

“This scattered, muddled power is only a paper screen, a halo with no weight. If you sound the Dusk Legion’s call and raise a war even the South can’t ignore—under the Crimson Sun banner—the country will answer. They’ll gather into a great host and march to crusade against the Emperor.

“Now their border’s broken, the Bloodhand Gang is near annihilation and already being absorbed. News leaks like water through cracked stone. The lords see you as an eyesore and a thorn in the flesh, yet they must balance the scales.

“As you said, if they unite and still fail to crush your Dusk Legion, your name will blaze like the noonday sun. To them, that’s more terrifying than ten broken borders.

“If they don’t march, your renown still climbs; as theirs wanes, yours waxes. Their hourglass runs fast. I dare say three months at most before they take a stance. When that time comes, please tread carefully.”

Pers kept speaking like a drum under storm clouds; Medith listened in stillness, quiet as night.

After a long moment, Medith thought of Nora and the others; nine parts in ten, he spoke true. Maybe he hid a sliver, but not out of malice.

“Didn’t expect you to read the board this clearly. How about becoming my strategist?” She smiled, soft as spring wind.

Pers shook his head fast, like a tree shedding rain. “I just spoke from the gut. If you asked me to do it, I don’t have the skill or the patience.”

Medith nodded in praise, approval bright as steel catching light. It seemed she hadn’t just picked up a weapon of war. With his mind and learning, given time, Pers would become the Southern Kingdom’s own nightmare.