CH 43.1

YoukaiRaz11-14 minutes 17.05.2021

In a certain room in the royal palace, Roseline watches over the battle. With the city gates broken though, Clermont has been driven into disadvantage after disadvantage and is now hanging on by a thread. The royal palace can no longer be declared safe.

“Princess, it is only a matter of time before this place falls. Please, Your Highness, you, at the very least, should escape. If anything happened to you, it would be inexcusable to the late Duke Chartelle.”

“It’s too late. Now that they’ve invaded the city, there’s no escape route. And even if I escaped with teleportation magic, it wouldn’t be long before they caught me,” Roseline, wearing her battle attire, says as her vassals are reduced to tears. When she thinks about how Commune will come to an end during her reign, she becomes so frustrated she can’t stand it. “All of you, throw down your swords and surrender. If I am caught, this battle will end. There is no need for harm to come to any of you.”

“I apologize, but we cannot obey that order. They falsely declared us to be vampires as they invaded. As we are humans, our existence is inconvenient to them. They will surely kill us in order to obscure the truth. Besides, we serve you and you alone. We will not bow down before the despicable Weichsel Empire. We want to stay by your side until the end.”

“…Honestly. I don’t know whether I should lament that my vassals won’t listen to my orders or rejoice that my vassals will remain loyal until the end. However, it’s not a bad thing,” Roseline says with bitter laughter. Her vassals laugh with her.

The door to the room opens. The laughter stops and, thinking it’s a messenger soldier, they all look to the entrance. A girl wearing a white robe opens the door and looks around at all of them.

“What is a young girl doing in a place like this…? No, could it be that you are Marie Alexia von Zavarish?!”

“Indeed, I am.”

They never thought that the enemy commander herself would brazenly enter an enemy stronghold. Roseline and her vassals are caught by surprise, but when they realize that she’s the enemy commander, they grow uneasy.

“There should be soldiers standing guard throughout the palace. Don’t tell me you defeated all of them?”

“It took some time, but I had them sleep for a while.”

They are certain that the girl is telling the truth. Despite the fact that she was allowed to easily make close contact with the royal court whom enemies must not be allowed to approach, there’s no sign of soldiers gathering, even now. If the soldiers were fine, then they should have come running as soon as anyone caused a disturbance here, and they shouldn’t have just stood by and allowed an enemy to approach in the first place.

They could never have anticipated from the young girl’s appearance that she would have the courage to enter the enemy stronghold alone despite being the commander nor the skill to actualize such an ill-advised plan. Roseline and her vassals know beyond a doubt that she is a powerful person who must not be underestimated due to her appearance.

“I cannot allow you to lay even a finger on Princess Roseline! Defeat that girl!”

Their opponent is a person powerful enough to make it through their entire stronghold by herself. Roseline’s vassals have no intention to look down on Alexia.

Alexia lets out a slight sigh. Roseline’s vassals perceive this as her looking down on them. Baring their anger, the knights step forth.

Alexia quickly chants, “Wind Wall.”

A violent gust of wind blows the knights away. Even the knights wearing heavy armor are sent flying by the wind, slamming against the wall. The knights either writhe in pain or lose consciousness, unable to return to their feet.

With just a single spell, this high-level mage was able to defeat the strong knights.

‘She’s his acquaintance, so I knew she would probably be an incredibly strong mage, but this is unbelievable,’ Roseline thinks as she breaks out into a cold sweat.

Alexia appears composed, acting as if this is the obvious outcome. Roseline never thought she would be so overwhelmingly strong that they may not be a match for her even with all of them combined against her alone. She even thinks Alexia may be far stronger than Chaos, who is the strongest mage she knows.

Perhaps Chaos was not afraid of fighting a friend, but trembling in fear of her strength, Roseline thinks in retrospect.

“Resistance is meaningless. Please do not cause me too much trouble.”

The soldiers stiffen at the forceful order given by one who’s high above them. The expressionless girl herself isn’t particularly intimidating. However, with what they’ve witnessed, an invisible pressure has crushed their morale.

“Excuse me, but where is this country’s king? I’ve been searching for him, but he’s nowhere to be found. Could it be that he has already fled?”

“The king died at the hands of a vampire. This country’s ruler is me, Roseline du Commune.”

“…I see, so that’s how it is.” After hesitating for a short while, Alexia appears to have accepted Roseline’s words. “Princess Roseline, I am aware of the rudeness of my request, but please surrender. And could I also ask you to accompany me to the emperor’s presence?”

“You fiend, you are asking Princess Roseline to accept the disgrace of being taken prisoner?!” says one of Roseline’s passionate vassals, enraged.

“Yes, I require Princess Roseline’s cooperation in order to end this war. I swear on my name that I will guarantee her safety.”

“That is out of the question. Do you think we will believe the words of a minion of the despicable Weichsel Empire?!”

“Then, you’re saying that you will waste time and have the soldiers lose their lives just for your own amusement? Surely you understand the situation. The resistance from the Commune soldiers in this city is already weakening. In time, the soldiers of the Weichsel Empire will make their way here. There is no meaning in any further sacrifices. We must end this war before it comes to that.”

Faced with the truth, the vassals falter. There are no faults in Alexia’s logic. However, emotionally, they cannot accept it. Even if she’s a strong mage, if they allow themselves to be persuaded by a single girl’s forthright argument and backed into a corner, the history of Commune will come to a close. With their emotions running high, a spirit of defiance rises within the prideful vassals. And Alexia, who thinks about things rationally, cannot understand the subtleties of their hearts.

“Silence! We will protect Princess Roseline to the end and strike back at you! We will not be tempted by your words!”

“Stop! All of you!” Roseline calls out, but the vassals ignore their master’s attempts to stop them and, with their emotions bared, charge at Alexia.

“How foolish… Are these the actions of those who stand above others?” Alexia, her expression unchanging, scorns their behavior with a biting remark. “Then, I will also act with all my strength.”

Alexia, wielding her staff once more, defeats the attacking vassals one by one. None here have the strength to oppose Alexia.

Roseline tries many times to stop her vassals, but they are no longer listening to Roseline’s words, fighting to the last soldier. Even so, not a single one of them manages to wound Alexia.

With all the vassals fallen, there is no one left to stand in Alexia’s way. Step by step, Alexia approaches Roseline. Roseline, unable to stop her, falls to her knees in tears.

“Princess Roseline, surrender. Do you intend to see even more people sacrificed?” Alexia threatens with her staff pointed at Roseline, giving her no room to refuse. Roseline has no choice but to simply obey her.

***

“Let’s look for Roseline and Lady Alexia. We have to hurry or we won’t make it in time.”

“Chaos, by Roseline, you mean the princess, right? Why do you refer to a noble of the Weichsel Empire by her title, but not the ruler of Commune? Wouldn’t it normally be the other way around?” Cornelia asks.

“I heard the story that you saved the princess, but now that I’m hearing how close you are with the princess from you personally, I’m getting curious about what the circumstances were,” Liam says.

“Hey, you two. We’re in a hurry here. Save that conversation for later,” Havoc exasperatedly scolds them for making a fuss.

“There’s a group of people over there, so that’s probably where Roseline is.”

“You can tell? I didn’t think we could tell that sort of thing from here.”

“Well, the minimap–”

“Minimap?”

C**p. Since Havoc and the others are residents of this world, the map that’s part of the game system wouldn’t display for them. They didn’t even seem to understand it when I said the word minimap just now, they just looked confused. I can’t just say I checked it on the map. I have to come up with something to explain it.

“…I can sense their presence.”

“But I’m pretty sure that girl named Alexia went that way.”

“What?”

The direction Emilia is pointing in is leading somewhere different from the place I thought Roseline was. Oh yeah, the people of this world can’t see the game map, so they have no way of knowing where Roseline is in the first place. In other words, there’s no guarantee that Alexia will be where Roseline is. If anything, it should take some time for Alexia to find Roseline. A lot of time passed while we were fighting Irene, but Alexia is probably still looking for Roseline.

“Just because there’s a lot of people, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where the princess is. Enemies are invading the castle, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she evacuated somewhere safe,” Liam points out, and I hum in thought.

It’s true that my reasoning that Roseline must be there since there are a lot of people there and Roseline is an important person who will have lots of bodyguards with her is only an assumption. This castle does have an escape route, and there’s also the Warp Portal spell. There would be plenty of ways to evacuate.

“Looks like we still don’t know where the princess is. Well, there’s no way around it. It’s a big castle, so we’ll have to split up and search. Chaos, you head to that place with a lot of people. It’s where the princess is most likely to be right now. She’d probably be less on guard if you went than if we did. Even if we explain the situation, I doubt she’d believe us.”

“But it would be the same for Lady Alexia, wouldn’t it? If things go badly, it could turn into a fight.”

“Of course, we’ll try not to fight. If we give her your name, she might listen to us. Don’t worry, just have a little faith in us,” Havoc says, laughing heartily as if to drown out my worries. Thinking about it rationally, since we aren’t sure where the two of them are, our only option is to have everyone search.

“Alright, I’ll leave it to you guys!”

Parting ways with Havoc and the others, I run searching for Roseline. On my way to the room that it seems like Roseline might be in, I find a soldier lying on the ground.

This is definitely Alexia’s doing. So the way Alexia was heading is connected to this hallway, huh? Then she might have already found Roseline. I have to hurry!

As I get closer, the noise gets increasingly intense. I’m too late, they’re already fighting! By the time I make it to the room, the noise has stopped completely.

“Alexia! Roseline!”

I gasp at the scene that lies before me. Many people lie collapsed around a single girl. The sight of it reminds me of that dream.

But Roseline is alive. I shake my head, getting the dream off my mind, and run over to her.

I can still change things.