Zeroth Directive

Archive II

Before joining Rhodes Island, Miss Blemishine, also known as Maria Nearl, chose to become a competition knight in order to restore her family's name. Those at Rhodes Island may perhaps be familiar with the name, Nearl, as the code name of Margaret Nearl, the Radiant Knight. However, in Kazimierz, the word 'Nearl' points to an enduring lineage of knights, a family line wreathed in boundless glory. For over a hundred years, this family has produced countless legendary knights — whether using tactical brilliance to subvert the ambitions of Leithanian nobles, or employing their outstanding talents to hold a border garrison that has never fallen. Even after the rise of the competition knights, legendary champions such as Margaret Nearl continued to defend the glory of the Nearl family — but the birth of the Radiant Knight would prove to be turning point for the Nearl family. The Radiant Knight was exiled, and when the Knight Primus passed of old age, Młynar Nearl, the next in line to shoulder the burden of nobility, scoffed at Kazimierz's conception of 'nobility' and refused to become a competition knight. And thus, the Nearl family was left with no Knight Primus. Faced with constant pressure from the Knights Association, as a last resort, the youngest member of the family, Maria Nearl, went with her aunt Zofia to walk the path of a competition knight. Due to her veneration of her sister and aunt, as well as the elder knights she had known since childhood, Maria always held an idealistic view of what it meant to be a knight. Of course, Maria was clever enough to recognize her naivete, often considering whether or not there was some darker undercurrent that was not yet clear to her. But the tortuous complexity of Kazimierz's knight sports far exceeded what the young girl was capable of conceiving. In her brief career as a knight, Blemishine was exposed to many things she had never witnessed before. The young Maria actually never thought too deeply about what it meant to be a knight— after all, she was acting out of consideration for her family, and was reluctantly pushed into becoming a knight out of a sense of responsibility. She took the initiative to assume both the glory and the obligations of her role, a testimony to her virtue, but perhaps because of her noble upbringing, she never seriously considered the relationship between what she saw, thought, and did. In modern society, noble sacrifices and selfless dedication are not as harrowing as they are described in literature, but Maria Nearl nevertheless embraced the simple rationale of 'seizing glory for the family' and called upon the spirit of dedication within her, becoming known as the 'unsociable competition knight.'

Archive III

Kazimierz's commercialization of its ancient class of knights once invited criticism from other countries. But the birth of Kazimierz's knight sports, as well as the existence of knighthood as a whole, are more complicated than most outsiders realize. Roughly 120 years ago, Kazimierz's nomadic cities were far less developed than they are today. When a noble knight died without an heir, leaving behind a large swath of land, the Kazimierz National Council auctioned off his property. Specifically, the noble's castle and the mobile platform it was built upon. While this was certainly not an uncommon occurrence in Kazimierz, what made this event remarkable was the winning bidder: not a knight representing some proud noble, but rather an affinity of the deceased nobleman. A single knight-affinity had put forth a huge sum that rendered all the nobles in the room speechless. Furthermore, following notarization by the National Council, each piece of copper plate with which the affinity had purchased the land and the castle was determined to be legitimate income — the knight had handed the family business over to the affinity, who then made the business flourish. In the modern era in which countries jockey to establish connections, one can tell from a glance who has the ability to create wealth. In the following decades, the relationship between the merchant class and the affinities became more closely interconnected. The affinities were the ones who could truly create benefit for the country, able to build walls and even move city-states to defend the country. Due to the volatility between Kazimierz, Ursus, and Leithanien, as well as the intrigue among powerful nobles, the knights had to rely on extremely wealthy guards to consolidate their positions and ambitions. After decades of cruel, bloody change, Kazimierz has finally arrived where it is today. If the overthrow of Kazimierz's Elder regime and the establishment of the knights as the ruling class is Kazimierz's first historical turning point, then the upending of their rule by the mercantile-affinities in a practical sense and the formation of Kazimierz's oligarchical ruling class can undoubtedly be seen as a second turning point. Even the knights and nobles who are quite critical of this development do concede that modern entrepreneurs have made outstanding contributions to Kazimierz — from the forested countryside to the towering spires of the city-states, countless people rely on Kazimierz's corporate economy for food, housing, and transportation — 'It's the economy, stupid.' The current knight sports industry is the result of this bloody social upheaval — the warrior-knights guarding the frontier have all but lost their political status as 'nobles.' Instead, they became warriors directly operating under the Adeptus Sprawiedliwi Kazimierz. Any legal Kazimierz citizen, former noble knight or otherwise, has the right to participate in the knight competitions, win titles, and earn distinctions of nobility, regardless of background. This sporting event, derived from ancient knightly tests of skill, has become an inseparable part of Kazimierz's economy, politics, and culture. Nevertheless, these changes are not palatable for all knights, and undercurrents continue to surge within Kazimierz. 'Unreasonable, you say? Everyone who found it unreasonable has been eliminated, creating this thoroughly reasonable history. Fortunately, I've accepted this truth. You understand this, don't you?' —Spokesman Malkiewicz's conversation with the Doctor during the Major

Archive IV

Maria herself chose to take the codename 'Blemishine.' Unlike Operator Whislash, who took on her title as a competition knight, and Operator Nearl, who adopted her family name, Blemishine discarded the shackles of her family and cast aside the intoxicating, gilded path of knighthood. Before her lies an expansive, but lonely, future. Maria understands her immaturity better than anyone else, so she has taken the name of 'Blemishine' to reflect the incompleteness of her light. Maria has a favorite knight novel. In the novel, the protagonist experiences bizarre adventures on the way to completing his quest, and this occupies 95% of the book. At the end of the book, the middle-aged knight, no longer needed by his family, no longer favored by the Knight Order, and no longer burdened by his love affair, decides to leave. In a distant seaside country, he once again finds his home as a knight, charging against the waves again and again until his voice becomes hoarse, and he is eventually consumed by the ocean— this abrupt ending was once lambasted by more conservative readers, and this novel is the subject of many intense discussions within the circles of Kazimierz's literary critics. Some say the novel is trash, but others consider the ending a completion of the sublimation of chivalry. Maria likes the novel for one simple reason - though many think the tale of puritanical, almost crazed sacrifice incompatible with Maria's personality, Maria found an answer to her own questions in the old novel penned during the early days of Kazimierz's knight sports: the meaning of meaning. While sitting alone with the Doctor and reflecting on the occurrences in Kazimierz, Maria suddenly smiled and said: 'My sister is the knight who broke the waves.' From the perspective of Maria, younger sister of the Radiant Knight, we gain a glimpse of why Nearl, who always despised knight sports, chose to become Kazimierz's Radiant Knight and why she decided to return to her homeland, only to be exiled again after defeating a powerful enemy. If we treat her pure faith as a prayer of sorts, the Radiant Knight's series of shocking behaviors may actually be the exact same as those of the ancient Wanderer Knight who went to pay homage to the ancestors in front of the grave at the Lone Mountain. Maria eventually decided to become her sister's protector, using her exceptional crafting talents to provide assistance to the Radiant Knight. Even Mechanist praised her augmented knight armor. She acted like a little sister when vying for Margaret's attention, and acted like a knight when receiving Zofia's training. She learned to put behind her the things that burdened her in the past. Now, she only wants to know what they, the knights of Kazimeriz, can see hand-in-hand, after the waves have washed away their lances and shields.

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