Colonel Jaeger Sobaek was genuinely relieved to have survived. His heart, which had nearly leaped out of his chest, slowly sank back into place. The agonizing struggle that had begun when he spotted a certain blind spot was finally behind him.
Atomic lances with a brilliant, solemn, even somewhat ostentatious golden glow were rare custom-made weapons, but they did exist. Yet the moment he saw that gorgeous beam, like a fragment of sunlight, Colonel Sobaek couldn't help thinking of the scene that had brought him to the pinnacle of his life.
It was the final celebration of the 250th War God Festival. As a member of the "champion team," he had been there, of course, receiving the cheers and envy of the entire galaxy.
And, of course, that was also where His Majesty the Emperor had bestowed a radiant atomic lance upon a certain calamity whose name could not be spoken.
Yes, that very lance.
That calamity? Wasn't he with Her Highness Brunhild? He seemed to be serving as an observer aboard the Dawn Angel, too.
Come to think of it, the Lion's Den wasn't far from here—well, it was two hundred light-years away—so his showing up here wasn't exactly unreasonable.
But did King Suliuka really think that highly of him? He'd given him both a dragon and a heraldic mech? When that fellow had competed in the War God Festival, he'd arrived aboard King Suliuka's dragon ship! Their relationship was hard to pin down.
The little dragons of the Dawn royal family were all outrageously willful. Who knew what they were like? Even if they did something that caused an uproar throughout the Empire, only the bigwigs of the Privy Council had the standing to be scandalized. What did any of it have to do with him?
In any