One week after the battle of Liden forest, the city of Alba was filled with black flags. The celebratory mood that accompanied the announcement from the government of the Sacred Empire of Grien that the war with vampires was finally ending was now nowhere to be found. In its place, the capital city of Alba was filled with grief as thousands of young men and women returned home in coffins.

Among these thousands of coffins, one was special at first glance. The one in question was placed on top of a horse-drawn cart like the others, but unlike those, this one was accompanied by a group composed of older men in bright red uniforms with swords on their hips. It was easy to identify who they were by a metal insignia in the shape of a Pegasus on their hats; an Ittenian royal army... or what remained of it.

The soldiers marched alongside the cart with serious expressions as the onlookers paid respect to the deceased. The coffin was covered with a flag with green and yellow stripes with a pegasus in the middle. The portrait with a nameplate next to the coffin revealed the identity of the deceased, Julian Beleng a late hero from Itten that stopped the war.

As the procession went through the city, the leadership of the empire was starting a meeting in a palace in the center of the city, not too far from the procession.

 "I believe everyone is present, right?"

In a spacious room of the palace, several men were seated at a table. These men were the political representatives of the empire. With a light nod, everyone present confirmed that no one was missing.

"In that case, we shall now commence on this peace deal proposal that arrived yesterday evening."

"If I may be frank, this offer seems rather generous, considering the overall war situation."

One of the men raised his hand and offered his opinion on the matter, to which several others nodded. However, a chubby man raised his hand and spoke his mind as well.

"I agree that the proposal sent by the vampires is rather generous, but... isn’t that thanks to the valor displayed by our forces and the hero in the Liden forest?"

"Right? I heard that the hero fought with the queen till the bitter end. Maybe that is why the proposal is so generous?"

After all, that was what the survivors claimed, and it was an undeniable fact that vampires were willing to negotiate for the first time in 25 years after the battle.

"If I may? Why exactly was this youngster nominated as the hero? Who chose him?"

 The men in the room looked at the middle-aged man with a scar on his face with visible confusion. The question of how Julian Beleng became a hero was the least important question they needed to deal with.

"I was the one who did."

To everyone’s surprise, a man dressed in white garb with a red eagle on it, the typical clothes of the members of a sacred order of lez. Spoken up.

"You brother Aneros? What made you consider such a young man for the role? As far as I am aware, he had no previous commanding experiences."

The rest of the representatives started to get interested as well. It was a good question why somebody without any experience was tasked with such an important role to fulfill. Thankfully, the outcome was positive.

"I based my decision mainly on young Beleng being originally from Itten and the seal that, as I believe you all are aware of, was planted on his back by Ittenian mages to make him humanity’s hope against vampires."

Aneros spoke as he scanned the faces of the others with his eyes. Just as he said, they had been aware of the seal. After all, Aneros was the one who told them. But there was another question that remained unanswered.

"Brother Aneros, I have been wondering for a while now, but where did you get such information?"

"…I have my sources."

Aneros, however, refused to answer, and after a few unsuccessful attempts at making him talk, they dropped the subject entirely and returned to the main reason they gathered. The proposal sent by the vampires.

…

"The council accepted so... The war finally ended, huh?"

But at what cost… Aneros stood on the balcony staring at the procession in the distance as he lighted a cigarette and took a puff. Why did I even listen to her?

"Feeling regretful?"

A cheery voice of a young woman from behind startled him. When he turned around, behind him stood a cloaked figure. The one responsible for his decision.

 "About Beleng? Yea, I do. It feels like I actually betrayed my homeland by sending him there."

Aneros wasn’t the type of person to gamble with lives; the fact that he sent so many into battle where they had no way of winning pained him. But the figure in front of him had never given him bad advice, so if she said that sending Beleng as a hero to fight the queen was going to end the war, he trusted her.

"Isn’t it a little too late for that now? After all, you already helped me a lot. I am sure my superiors are going to be pleased."

Superiors? Aneros was taken aback. What superiors was she talking about? As far as he knows, her superiors should be dead. After all, Itten had felt over twenty...

"By the way, do you like that special eastern tobacco I got for you?"

Aneros could feel his chest hurt as she spoke. A magic poisoning?! He was starting to lose all strength in his limbs as he collapsed to the ground. When he attempted to stand up, he realized just how little energy he suddenly had.

"Why…? The empire…and Itten are allies…then why…?"

He asked, barely staying conscious. It didn't make sense that she was from the Ittenian information agency, they were supposed to be allies fighting against a common enemy. As Aneros glanced at the cloaked woman, he could swear that he saw her grinning.

"Sorry but I have no desire to help humans survive. If it weren’t important for my mission, I wouldn’t be here at all."

Aneros was confused why she would betray her kind like this. But then something moved behind the woman, a wolf's tail. But even if she wasn’t human, she still should have her duty towards her king and country. It wasn’t that unusual to see non-humans serve in Ittenian army. It was a multi-ethnic nation, after all. The woman didn’t seem interested in hiding herself in front of Aneros anymore, and her cloak ended up opened, revealing a dark face covered with burn marks.

The woman was dressed strangely. Aneros could see that what she was wearing was a uniform of some sort, but he had no idea who it belonged to. The uniform she wore was in a deep shade of grey, combined with black leather boots, definitely not a combination he recognized.

"Don’t take it personally. After all, both of us merely serve our respective motherlands."

She said with an apologetic smile as she pulled out a dagger decorated with an engraving of a wolf on the handle with her gloved hand. And raised it above the collapsed Aneros with a grin on her dark face. Aneros attempted to evade but didn’t manage to, and the dagger pierced his chest like it was nothing.

"If we meet under different circumstances, then we may even be comrades. May you find peace in your next life. Ave imperatrix."

The woman said, with a solemn voice, as if she was praying. while removing her dagger from the corpse of Aneros and piercing it with a sword he had on him. Her word was the last farewell to Aneros as she disappeared into the night.

…

"So, your government is pulling out of the war?"

"…yes, that bitc- I mean, the queen offered a relatively nice treaty considering the results of the war."

In a garden of an elven royal palace, two young women dressed in black mourning clothes drank tea as they talked.

"Nice treaty? Forgive me but... aren’t you supposed to let vampires keep most of the kingdom of Itten?"

One of the women was visibly displeased as she spoke. She was Olia Visele, an elven princess who recently lost her fiancée to the vampires.

"I said relatively, didn’t I? Besides, they don’t want us to pay any insane sum, nor do they demand that we submit to their rule. Plus, they were willing to give us the Asom fortress as well as the Mui city."

The second woman spoke with a sigh. She was Ele Beleng, a part of a diplomatic envoy from the Empire of Grien to their elven allies to negotiate the end of the war as well as further cooperation between these two nations.

"But even so, Julian was killed by the queen! How can you accept it so calmly!?"

Elven princess Olia questioned Ele. After all, Ele’s younger brother was the one killed by the Queen of Vampires, so why was she being so calm about it? Olia was truly baffled by it.

"If I could get revenge on the queen then I would do it, Julian was my dear brother after all. But I am not going to destroy the peace that he sacrificed himself for. I am not going to let his death be in vain."

Ele had a determined expression as she stared into the distance. before heaving a sigh and taking a sip of the tea.

"Though it would be nice if they would send his body back home for funeral… mourning above empty coffin is just…"

"…Maybe I should ask mother to make it a part of the negotiations? After all, who knows what those barbarians did with him."

Both women sighed. They knew they would be asking for the impossible, but it was still something worth trying.

"That would be nice, actually. Our government is in disarray because of the elder Aneros’s suicide, so they have other matters to attend to than retrieving my brother’s body"

Ele smiled at Olia’s proposal. She considered traveling to the vampire capital and negotiating herself, but she realized that she would most likely have to talk with the queen of vampires personally. And there was no way that she would be able to keep her calm in front of the person responsible for her brother’s death.

"In that case, I will pass it to my mother later. But I am curious why would this Anerose’s suicide be such a big deal?"

Olia nodded to Ele’s words before asking why the death of one man would cause such a problem. It wasn’t like the emperor himself had died, after all. The man who has died was just a minor figure as far as Olia or other elves were concerned.

"He was the leader of the sacred order of lez. That makes him quite important. Besides, he was one of those who supported the peace treaty. So, others are on edge that he might have been murdered in order to stop the treaty."

"That actually sounds more possible than suicide, honestly. Was there even a reason to consider suicide an option?"

Olia asked as she took a bite of sweets that had been brought by a maid. Ele meanwhile, poured herself another cup of tea before speaking up.

"Weapon that was used to kill him had been his own, without any other fingerprints other than his. And as for the reason... it seemed that the elder Aneros was feeling guilty over Liden.... At least I got that impression when he came to inform our family personally about Julian…"

Ele took a sip of the hot tea before continuing.

"And besides, there is essentially no one who would desire the war to continue. And those that wish so are delusional imbeciles that counts merely in hundreds."

Ele delivered her words with disgust in her voice. No matter how much she hated vampires, she would rather shake hands with one rather than one of these war crazies trying to deprive her little brother’s death of all meaning. Olia looked at Ele’s face, which was filled with suppressed anger.

"…I see, that’s a relief. I mean that they lack the power to do anything. Thought I wonder what made vampires start negotiating in the first place?"

"So even elves know nothing? And here I thought that you may have infiltrated them…"

Ele let out a sigh. If even elves had no information, then was there anyone who had them?

"We did infiltrate them even though it wasn’t easy, but... Not even vampires seem to know why. Their nobles are just complaining that the queen is doing whatever she wants again."

Olia said with a sigh that no one in the entire world seemed to have the slightest clue what was exactly going on. No one except the vampire queen.

"What about the palace? Would it be possible to infiltrate it?"

Ele said, hopefully. The security of the vampire royal palace was famously extremely low during the war. The queen was apparently never worried about her safety. But Olia shook her head.

"We tried but... the security of the palace got better after Liden. They doubled… maybe even tripled the number of guards patrolling the premise, as well as the capital itself. Furthermore, even the black guard battalion got more active. So almost all of our agents in the palace were caught."

Both women sighed, the situation becoming hopeless. With the capital's security tightening and the infamous blackguard battalion, with their fanatical loyalty and magical abilities, on high alert. There was seemingly nothing they could do, at least not at the moment.

"I see… in any case, I just hope that my brother’s death wasn’t for nothing."

Olia nodded with an empathic smile. They continued to chat for a bit more before separating for the rest of the day.