Chapter 44：A Spark

"But I guess it can't be helped."

Maxwell seemed to shrug off the slight feeling of disappointment before he changed the subject.

"So tell me, how goes the preliminary steps of the Porrish invasion?"

"As you wish your majesty."

Erika paused for a short moment to bow before she continued.

"From the reports we have been receiving, the 101st Alpha Corps have already successfully established a foothold within Porrand. They are now awaiting our arrival."

As of this moment, Maxwell and Erika, along with a small detachment of Omega Corps units were currently on their way to rendezvous with the Alpha Corps' position.

Erika's time that was spent with Maxwell usually followed quite a peculiar pattern.

Within the confines of the command tent, Erika would simply stand silently by Maxwell's side as he stared absentmindedly into the empty space in front of him before suddenly asking Erika a random question.

He would always casually and leisurely relax on his chair as he seemingly thought to himself, only sometimes bringing up random topics on a whim. And it would seem that it was was once again one of those moments.

As these thoughts ran through Erika's mind, Maxwell used this moment to give his response.

"I see..."

Maxwell once again became silent as his mind became seemingly pre-occupied by something. Whatever it was, not even Erika knew. After a few short moments of silence, Maxwell once again abruptly changed to a new subject.

"So... your pistol? How do you feel about the new upgrade to it?"

Although Erika was caught slightly off guard by his somewhat personal question, she was still able to keep her normal calm disposition.

"This new upgrade to my weapon has proven to be very welcome. I believe these upgrades are sure to aid me in my future endeavours to fulfil your majesty's goals, whether it be in or out of the battlefield."

The 'upgrade' in question was the new and improved barrel.

In particular, it was the changes that had been made to the inside of the barrel. Where previously there was a smooth tube, there was now a series of spiral grooves that had been engraved onto the inside of the rifle barrel.

Instead of the traditional, smoothbore barrels of the standard issue V-17 Widowmaker Muskets, the rifling within Erika's V-18 Schlange Pistol exerted torque into any projectile fired from the Pistol and thus caused said projectile to spin mid-trajectory.

Apparently this spinning increased the accuracy of the V-18 Pistol by a large margin. Erika, however, was unable to understand the actual physics behind such a concept.

Although, Erika could not deny the statistics recorded during the weapon tests done with the V-18. Within almost every field, the V-18 was either equal or far superior in comparison with the V-17.

Despite this, the V-18 still held the same problems as its original breechloading prototype counterpart.

And that was the material and time that the V-18 costed to make.

Even with most of the Imperium's treasury going into its military sectors, the costs of the V-18 were simply too high for the Imperium to mass produce them without putting the entire nation into debt or wasting too much time.

As such, only officers and elite units such as Dragoons were equipped with V-18s, although this was still comparatively better than before, where only five individuals had ever owned the prototype variant.

"That is interesting to hear but..."

Maxwell gave his reply a few moments after Erika answered his question. His tone and demeanour was still as casual and nonchalant as ever.

"I've heard that you've given your musket a name... what was it again?"

It was at that moment that Erika felt the blood in her veins freeze. She went to open her mouth and respond but Maxwell seemed to have ignored her, instead answering his own question.

"Oh that's right. That rumours tell me that you affectionately named your musket 'Blümelein.'"

"Y-You must be mistaken, your majesty."

Erika stuttered as she tried her best to scramble together a response and an excuse. There was absolutely no way that she could let Maxwell know the truth.

"I believe that those are simply groundless rumou-"

"You would lie to your emperor?"

Maxwell's interruption caught Erika completely off guard, causing her to stagger backwards, her eyes and mouth both wide open. After a few seconds passed, Erika once again tried to make a response.

"O-Of course not your majesty. It's just that I... I..."

"Go on."

Without the possibility to defend herself anymore, Erika found herself falling onto her knees as she finally confessed the truth.

"Yes..."

Unable to properly face Maxwell anymore, Erika could only cast her gaze downwards as she felt her eyes becoming watery.

"Yes I named her Blümelein..."

"..."

How much time had passed since then?

Seconds?

Minutes?

Hours?

It was all the same to Erika.

She was simply left in a trance as she stared downwards without any thought nor reason as streams of tears ran down her face.

However, Erika was soon broken out of her trance when she heard a rather strange sound.

It was the sound of a chair being scrapped against the floor as it was pushed back. This was followed by the sounds of footsteps.

These footsteps had a certain charm to them, they didn't sound nor feel graceful but they didn't feel brutish or forceful either. Instead, it felt as if someone was putting minimal effort into moving their feet. It didn't take many steps for Erika to decipher whose feet the sounds belonged to.

What came next, however, was something that Erika could not possibly ever expect... Or would it be better to say that it was something that she could had not even imagined was a possibility in the first place?

She felt the warm and comforting feeling of being embraced.

She was being embraced deeply by Maxwell.

Once again caught completely off guard, Erika wasn't even able to muster up sound in her throat, much less form coherent words. In the end, it was Maxwell who spoke first after an extremely long period of silence.

"It's alright."

Erika found herself burying her face as well as her tears into Maxwell's chest while the latter continued to pat her back as he repeated the same words.

"It's alright."

However, he then went on to say something that shocked her completely. Maxwell let Erika out of his embrace and instead gently placed his hands on her shoulders. Both of them staring into each other's eyes as Maxwell continued reassuring Erika.

"It's alright... And I apologise if I was imposing myself onto you."

"W-what are you saying your majesty? Th-there shouldn't be any con-conceivable world where you should be the one ap-apologising, let alone this one."

Erika could not believe what she had just heard. As Erika spoke, she felt as if her limbs were stiff and awkward, as if she has lost almost all control of her body.

"It was I who disobeyed your orders in order to fulfil my own selfishness..."

By this point, Erika was sure that she no longer held any of her usual composure. However, as the situation was right then, she no longer cared about such things.

She just wanted to make things right.

She just wanted to atone for her mistakes.

With whatever strength she had left in her voice, Erika did her best in her attempt to right her wrongs.

"It was I who let such trivial matters get to me and even attempted to l-lie to you. I... I... I can't think of anything more blasphemous than my recent actions."

As Erika said this, she gradually cast her gaze downwards until, once again, she was staring at the floor.

"Un-unacceptable... Truly Unacceptable..."

Erika's voice soon began to trail off before eventually, the room was once again plunged into silence.

And also, once again, the one to break this silence was none other than Maxwell.

"Do you really believe so?"

This time, Erika found that she no longer had the strength to speak.

Instead she just returned her gaze upwards to face Maxwell before she proceeded to silently and slowly nod her head.

"I see..."

Maxwell didn't turn his gaze away from Erika as he spoke. Although Erika was used to Maxwell's casual demeanour, this time she couldn't help but feel that there was something different about him. She just could not figure out what it actually was.

"I will be retiring to my private tent until dinner. I am not to be disturbed until then... Is that understood?"

Like before, Erika could only silently nod to answer Maxwell. Seeing this, Maxwell gave a short remark before he went to leave the command tent.

"Feel free to busy yourself with your other duties until then."

Still unable to move her mouth, Erika could only stay still and watch in complete silence as Maxwell left the tent and disappeared from her sight.

…

The first thing that Maxwell did when he returned to his private tent was fall face-first onto his portable mattress he was using for travel.

After rolling around so that he was facing belly up, Maxwell then proceeded to speak to himself.

"Well that sure was something."

Maxwell took this moment to contemplate the recent turn of events as he gazed at the ceiling.

"I didn't think that she'd break into tears... I don't even know what caused her to break down like that..."

As he said this to himself, Maxwell sat up on his bed while he cupped his chin with his fingers.

"Was it the fact that I called her out on her somewhat weird tendencies? Or was it because she was ashamed of attempting to lie to me?"

However, Maxwell quickly ruled both of these possibilities out as he came across the most likely reason.

"Or... was it both?.."

In the end, Maxwell only sighed to himself as he fell back onto his bed.

"Whatever, it doesn't matter. As long as she continues to serve me I don't care about such trivial things."

However, there was a sight that soon caught Maxwell's attention.

It was on the left of his chest, the same place where Erika buried her face into.

Although the stains from her tears were now very faint and almost indiscernible, Maxwell still found that for some reason, the sight of it was drawing his eyes towards it.

"Hmm... Well isn't that rather interesting?.."

As he said this, Maxwell lightly clutched his chest where the tear stains were.

"I haven't felt something like this since a..."

For a reason that not even Maxwell knew, he trailed off and paused for a short moment before resuming.

"Lifetime ago..."