But why? Why was I pretending to be asleep?
It might be love… However, I do not want to admit this thought, because Saito is my familiar; moreover, he is not a noble.
Loving a person who is not a noble was hard to even imagine. “Nobles and commoners are different kinds of people”… As Louise grew up with such beliefs, her uneasiness turned into puzzlement. Anyway, whether these feelings were true or not is not a matter of importance right now.
In the end, having felt Saito's hand move around her waist, Louise shouted in an angry voice:
“T-to be so bold, I’m going to get angry!”
“You looked like you were going to fall over. Like Guiche.” Saito replied, his face blushing as well.
“It’s all right, even if Guiche falls - it's just Guiche.” stated Louise, still bewildered from before.
“T-that’s, even if he falls he will be all right. It would be troublesome if you fell though, since you can't use magic.”
“You're just a familiar and you dare insult your master?”
Louise drew a sharp breath and quickly averted her gaze. However, she didn’t seem angry.
“You are being too daring. Hmph.”
Though Louise grumbled and complained, she didn‘t try to shake off Saito's hand. On the contrary, she leaned closer, snuggling against him. Yet, her face still remained averted. Saito stole a quick glance at Louise‘s face.
Her white cheeks were faintly dyed with pink and she was slightly biting her lower lip. Although Henrietta was beautiful... Louise was also incredibly cute, he thought. The hand on her waist pressed closer. And he felt how her waist and thighs pressed further into his body.
It was just when this was happening that Kirche spun around and muttered softly.
“Since when did you become like this, you two?”
Louise, suddenly realizing how things looked, blushed a furious red and sent the daydreaming Saito flying with a shove.
“Nothing happened! You idiot!”
Saito's scream trailed behind as he fell, but before he smashed into the ground, Tabitha, who was reading a book, dully swung her hand and put a 'Levitation' spell on Saito.
Saito landed gently onto the plains and saw Guiche, who had fallen before, walking on the grassy plain along the road with a bitter face.
Then Guiche stopped and addressed Saito in his usual snobbish manner.
“You fell too, right?”
Saito answered in a tired voice.
“I was pushed off.”
“T-they're not coming back, are they?”
Saito looked up into the sky. In the blue sky, the wind dragon quickly disappeared over the horizon.
“…It looks like it.”
“Well, let’s walk then. Sigh, it’ll take half a day on foot.”
With a depressed look on his face, Guiche started to walk. Saito was not sure why, but somehow, he felt more impressed by Guiche.
“By the way, you… that… well… There’s something I wanted to ask you. Please tell me.”
Guiche mumbled to Saito as he fiddled with his artificial rose.
“Huh?”
“Did Her Highness... well... have anything to say about me? Is it true that she’ll reward me after the mission, with the letter where the promised secret date is?”
For a moment, Saito felt pity for Guiche. Henrietta hadn’t even mentioned the letter “G” from Guiche’s name in their conversation.
“Let’s go.”
Saito, pretending he hadn’t heard anything, began quickening his pace. Guiche chased after him from behind.
“Well, is the rumor true?”
“Come on, walk. It’s good for your health.”
“Wha-at, y-you, Her Highness, I...”
Under the warmth of the sun, the two kept on walking towards the Academy of Magic.
The Fortress of Newcastle, once known as a great stronghold, was now a tragic ruin. Though it had withstood the onslaught, it had become a disastrous scene.
The castle walls, which were repeatedly attacked by spells and cannon fire, had turned into a pile of rubble, and corpses burnt beyond recognition littered the ground.
Although the siege had been short, the rebels - no, since Albion had lost its king, 'Reconquista' was the new government in Albion - had suffered unimaginable damage. For every three hundred royal army soldiers, two thousand rebels were killed. And with an additional four thousand wounded. It was hard to call the battle a victory, given these statistics.
Because the fortress was located on the very edge of the floating continent, it was possible to attack it only from one direction. Before the 'Reconquista' forces managed to get past the guards, they were repeatedly shot with magic and cannon fire and received huge casualties.
However,in the end, they won through their sheer force of numbers. Once behind the castle walls, the king's defense was fragile. The king's army's mages were left to guard against the soldiers. But the mages' numbers were incomparable to the 'Reconquista' soldiers; they were gradually killed off, one by one, until they all fell.
Though the damage dealt to the enemy was great… the price was the annihilation of the king's army. It was literal annihilation, because the royalists had fought up to the last soldier.
In other words, the final decisive battle of the civil war in Albion: the siege of Newcastle’s fortress, where the royalists were outnumbered 100 to 1 and inflicted damage that was worth ten such armies… had become a legend.
Two days after the civil war had ended, under the blazing sun and between the corpses and pebbles, a tall aristocrat was inspecting the old battlefield in Albion. His hat was pushed to the side and he was dressed in unusual attire: the uniform of Tristain’s Royal Mage Guard.
It was Wardes.
A female mage with a hood over her eyes stood next to him.
It was Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt. She had escaped to Albion onboard the ship from La Rochelle. Last night, she had joined Wardes at a bar in Londinium, the capital of Albion, and now she had followed him to Newcastle’s battlefield.
Around them, 'Reconquista' soldiers were diligently scouring for riches. A loud cheer came from the treasury nearby: it seems a band had found some gold coins.
A mercenary with a pike on his shoulder was turning corpses over, then pushing them into a pile near rubbish as a decoration for the garden. When he found a magic wand, he cried out in joy.
Fouquet, who was watching the scene disapprovingly, clicked her tongue in disgust.
Noticing Fouquet's expression, Wardes laughed coldly.
“What’s wrong, Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt? Aren’t these men who are hunting for treasure your colleagues? Robbing nobles of their treasures was part of your job, wasn't it?”
“Do not compare me with them. I have no interest in the riches of the dead.”
“A thief with a thief’s ethics.”
Wardes laughed.
“I’m not interested in that. I only steal valuable treasures because I love to see the frantic expressions of the nobles. But these guys…”
Fouquet looked at the corpse of a royalist mage guardian with the corner of her eye.
“All right, all right, don’t be mad.”
“I guess Albion’s royal nobles are your enemies. Haven’t you, under the name of the royal family, disgraced your own family?”
Hearing Wardes exaggerated words, Fouquet, regaining her composure, coldly said with a nod.
“Oh well. Accidents happen.”
And then Wardes turned. The lower part of his left arm had been severed off. The uniform’s sleeve was loosely fluttering in the wind.
“It looks like it was a harsh battle for you too.”