Zeroth Directive

Archive IV

Those familiar with Greynuty know she brims with hatred for the knight nobles. However, Greynuty once was one herself. Greynuty's family used to be quite well-known, but after her grandmother passed away, the elders in charge of running the family enterprise made a strategic blunder, and the whole business was left with a deep deficit, and set the family's decline in stone. It was at this time, too, that Greynuty caught Oripathy. After the fact, there was a change in the way her relatives treated her. Her siblings who she'd played with since childhood broke off contact, her few friendly uncles gradually fell out of touch, and her family's elders seemed to forget about her entirely. One common voice held in the Kaliskas' hearts: 'The Kaliskas shouldn't have Infected. So long as Greynuty remains, our prestige will suffer.' In the wake of the family's continued destitution, the way its members regarded her turned slowly from silence to anger. She'd seen how her elders shamed the estate's Infected, but never imagined that as a part of the family, Oripathy would subject her to such treatment. Even more unbelievable to her was that the Knight Primus seemed to want her, an Infected, gone from the family. It was like she was no Kaliska, only some homeless commoner blighted by Oripathy, of a village razed in a disaster. This doubt was quickly dispelled, but reality was more ruthless than her mind—she might have even lost the freedom to stay in her home. One day, the Knight Primus summoned her to discuss how to resolve a certain matter. The one who passed it on was highly tactful, but she was well aware, she was that so-called 'matter'. After a knock on the Primus' parlor door, Greynuty found the Knight Primus of the Kaliskas—along with another noble Knight Primus. They were presumably in talks; the atmosphere was utterly fractured, both sides menacing, trying to wrest more benefit from the other, and here in his parlor, it seemed Greynuty's Knight Primus had readily surrendered every last bargaining chip he'd held. The other noble Primus flew into sudden fury on seeing Greynuty, denouncing the Kaliskas for harboring an Infected, and even bringing her before him. He tore up the treaty, and swore he would no longer work with the Kaliskas. Greynuty knew the other side had only used her appearance to wash himself of any blame for the ruined contract, but her Knight Primus, and her family's elders, lacked total awareness of it, going so far as to cast all their rage directly on her. In the end, on a moonless night, the Primus convened a full meeting, deciding by vote whether Greynuty, the Infected, was to go. ——It was unanimous. No one present dissented; no one so much as abstained. Even Greynuty's mother and father raised their hands. Greynuty knew they had sorrows of their own, but in that moment, she felt her own teardrops as they ran down her face. Those who sympathized with her said nothing, those who detested her cheered, and the Primus sat at the head of the table feigning impartiality. These were the Kaliskas, a microcosm of Kazimierz's knight nobility. Since then, Greynuty has left her home and come alone to the Grand Knight Territory, fighting upward from the underground arenas step by step. Through the knight competitions, she wants to recover her reputation, and thus return to that decrepit and hollowed-out family, give them a good long look at her accomplishments, make them admit they were wrong about her, make them wash off the stigma forced onto her. But what comes afterward? Sona has given it thought, but she still hasn't.

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