by Miya Kazuki
“Greetings, Lord Karstedt. I am Myne. It is a pleasure to meet you.” I knelt before Karstedt and greeted him, calling him Lord as was appropriate to do for a noble of higher status. Our eyes met as I knelt, and his light-blue eyes narrowed as if he were evaluating me.
“A pleasure to meet you as well.”
“Let us be off, then.”
At the High Priest’s words, all the knights stood up and touched the gems embedded on their right gauntlets. The gems shone brightly, and in moments the plaza was filled with sculpted animals. Judging by the fact that the gems were gone from each gauntlet, these multicolored animals had probably been created from them just like the bird had been created from the stone.
“Karstedt, allow our attendants to ride with one of your knights. Myne, come with me.” The High Priest, now wearing his helmet, gave instructions while picking me up and setting me onto what appeared to be a white lion with wings. I straddled its back, trying to maintain my balance.
The High Priest jumped onto the animal’s back behind me with surprising spryness for someone wearing a full set of plate armor, then gripped the reins. The lion sculpture immediately proved not to be a sculpture and started moving like a normal animal.
“Bwuh?!” I jerked from the unexpected movement, hitting the back of my head against the High Priest’s chestplate. “O-Owwww...”
“You would do well to keep your mouth shut. Unless you want to bite your tongue off, that is.”
I clenched my teeth hard and leaned a bit forward, then gripped the shaking reins in front of me. The winged lion ran a few steps forward, then jumped high into the air with its wings spread wide. For a second I felt something hit me, like I had jumped through a giant spider web, but the feeling only lasted a moment. We raced through the sky, flying right over the lower city.
“Wow, we’re so high...!”
“Were you not afraid?”
“I was just surprised at something unnatural I didn’t expect happening. This is actually less scary than carriages, since it isn’t shaky.”
The magical lion soaring through the sky felt kind of like a slow roller coaster. It was much more comfortable since it didn’t shake hard like a carriage. The lack of a safety belt was, uh, thrilling to say the least, but I wasn’t that scared since I was nestled between the High Priest’s arms as they gripped the reins.
Other flying animal sculptures rose into the air alongside us. Horses seemed to be the most common one, and so a rainbow of different colored flying horses soared through the sky. There were some wolves and tigers in the midst too. Personally, I thought the flying rabbit was the cutest one.
“High Priest, what are these animals?”
“They are highbeasts made from magic stones. They will move freely as long as their supply of mana does not run dry. It is up to the caster to decide what animal to turn their stone into.”
We passed the lower city, flying over the gate and following the city road from above. I could just barely see the distant walls of another city in the direction the road was going. Our city was surrounded by lush forests and sprawling farms that had just finished participating in the Harvest Festival.
“High Priest, where are we going?”
“Over there.” The High Priest pointed towards the far end of the forest where we usually went gathering. There was a large crater opening a hole in the forest. I did a double take and realized that it was a wide expanse of exposed dirt with no grass or trees, yet somehow... there was a massive plant monster rampaging in the middle, swinging giant branches around. And the more it rampaged, the larger the crater grew.
“Wh-What is that thing?”
“A feyplant known as a trombe.”
“Bwuh?! Th-That’s a trombe?!” The rampaging trombe in the middle of the crater was so unlike the stretchy tree things I knew that I hadn’t recognized it at all.
But speaking of which, I remembered how Lutz and the other kids had all freaked out after seeing a trombe, and how half of the guards at the gate had to work together to take one down once it got too big. I had heard that the Knight’s Order would get involved when the trombe got too big for soldiers to deal with, but I hadn’t expected it would end up this monstrous.
...They’re dangerous. Only now did I understand why Lutz got so mad when I suggested way back when that we cultivate trombes ourselves.
“You will be needed after the knights finish it off. Until then, hide in the forest and do not put yourself in danger.” It seemed that it was the duty of priests to restore mana to ground drained of its own mana by trombes. Due to their diminished numbers, the High Priest was helping the Knight’s Order kill the trombe, and then would help me restore mana to the ground afterwards.
...Is it just me, or is the High Priest kind of amazing?
The High Priest pulled the reins and descended to an opening a short distance away from the trombe’s crater. The rest of the Knight’s Order followed him down.
“Myne, wait here with Fran and Arno. Karstedt, assign two of your men to guard her for me.” He slid off the back of his lion and turned around to speak to Karstedt, who nodded and selected two guards.
“Damuel, Shikza. Guard her.”
“Yes sir!”
The knights named Damuel and Shikza climbed off their flying horses to serve as my guards. The horses flashed with light that beamed into the holes in their gauntlets, turning back into gemstones in the process.
“Thank you for the assistance.” Fran and Arno thanked the knights who had flown them here before nimbly jumping off the animals. I tried learning from their example and jumping off, but the High Priest glared at me before I could, stopping me with one angry look.
...Oh, right. I need to be graceful. I remembered that I was supposed to be acting like a noble and turned sideways on top of the lion, which had stopped moving entirely like a statue.
“You will be the end of me,” muttered the High Priest as he picked me up and set me down onto the ground. He then looked up and spoke in a louder voice. “Guard the apprentice shrine maiden closely. Allow no harm whatsoever to come to her, not even a single scratch.”
The two knights ordered to guard me nodded with a firm “Yes sir!”
The trombe’s crater continued to grow in size bit by bit as everyone got off their highbeasts. Out of nowhere I heard the mass fluttering of a flock of birds, and then the sound of something heavy hitting the ground so hard the earth shook.
“Kyaaah?!”
Through the cracks in the trees I could see that a massive one had fallen. Roots that seemed almost alive sprouted from the trombe’s crater and wrapped around the fallen tree. Its leaves dried and crumbled before our eyes as the large trunk dried out as its life was sucked out. And once it was completely sapped, the roots returned to the ground, having nothing more to do.
I felt a cold sweat of terror run down my back. I had never imagined that trombes were so monstrous. With fear in my heart for the Knight’s Order about to fight the rampaging trombe just ahead of us, I knelt to the ground.
“High Priest, men of the Knight’s Order... I pray for your success in battle. May you all have the divine protection of Angriff, God of War and subordinate to Leidenschaft.” The moment I said that, the ring the High Priest had given me glowed blue and light fell upon the members of the Knight’s Order. I realized that the stone in the ring was sucking up my mana and hurriedly held it back. The ring stopped glowing once I had my mana completely cut off from it.
“We have the blessing of an apprentice shrine maiden, men. Let’s go!” roared Karstedt, which made me realize what I had done. I looked up at the High Priest and saw that he was looking down at me with a conflicted expression.
“Myne. Under no circumstances, no circumstances whatsoever, should you make any move until it is time for you to perform the ritual,” he said, emphasizing the “under no circumstances” part extra hard before straddling his lion and soaring upwards. The other knights followed suit, gripping their reins and flying into the air.
“That sure was a pointless blessing. What are you, stupid?” One of the knights mocked me with a smug snort once the rest of the Order was well into the air.
“Shikza, why would you say that?!”
I couldn’t tell them apart since they both had their helmets on, revealing only part of their eyes and mouths, but it seemed that the smug one was Shikza and the one trying to get him to stop was Damuel. Judging by their voices, they were both fairly young. They had probably just come of age, if they had at all.
“Am I wrong, though? We’re in a big mana shortage and there she goes wasting some, blessing knights fighting a trombe of all things. Either she’s stupid or nobody is.” Shikza knocked aside Damuel’s hands and pointed at me.
“It’s true that the Order would never lose to a trombe, blessing or not, but Angriff’s blessing will still be a big help! Especially since we’re so low on numbers now.”
I listened to their argument with a cold sweat running down my back. I only said what I did because I wanted to pray for their safety when fighting against that giant trombe. I didn’t realize that trying to talk like a noble with references to the gods would make something an actual blessing. When my ring started glowing out of nowhere, I was more surprised than anybody. The prayer never would have happened if the High Priest hadn’t lent me this ring. It was a complete and total accident.
...I’m sure the High Priest was surprised too.
Not to mention, he was calling it a waste of mana, but I stopped the flow of mana the second I noticed it. Only a tiny fraction of my mana ended up sucked into the ring. I doubted it would cause any problems with the upcoming ritual.
“I apologize if I have offended you in any way. I will take greater care in the future.” I kept my protests on the inside and just apologized immediately to prevent things from escalating into something I really wouldn’t want to deal with. Shikza gave me another dismissive snort, but if that ended the conversation I was totally fine with it.
“You don’t need to worry about what Shikza says,” said Damuel in a consoling tone. “A blessing that boosts mana will be really appreciated right now, since we’re so low on numbers. And... here, take a look. It’s about to start.” He pointed to the sky.
I followed the direction of his finger, and through the branches I could see glimpses of the knights flying in circles in the sky. I stretched my back a bit and squinted, hoping to see how in the world they planned to beat that monstrous trombe.
“*****!” I heard a faint shout in the distance. I wasn’t sure who had shouted or what, but at its signal all the knights took glowing black weapons into their hands, each radiating what looked like pure darkness.
“What are those? Do you know, Fran?”
“No, this is the first time I am seeing a battle so close.”
It seemed that attendants rarely accompanied priests answering the summons of the Knight’s Order, since it necessitated one priest fighting alongside the knights to provide magical support while the other stood at the ready with the divine instrument. But since the High Priest was fighting with the Order and I couldn’t stand waiting with a divine instrument twice my size, Fran and Arno had come along to keep an eye on me.
“Shrine maiden, those are weapons with the divine protection of the God of Darkness bestowed upon them. If you infuse them with your mana and attack, you can take twice the amount of mana from anything you hit and make it yours. They’re vital for exterminating trombes.”
Having not expected a noble to go out of his way to explain things for me, I looked up at the armor-clad Damuel in surprise. I could only see slivers of his face through the helm, but it didn’t seem like he was looking down on me for being a commoner.
“Not many people get the chance to see knights fighting like this. I wouldn’t waste this opportunity if I were you.”
“I thank you ever so much.”
“We start by wearing it down with arrows. Look, the one with the blue cape is Lord Ferdinand.” Damuel pointed at a knight riding a lion and pulling back the string of a sizable bow. He resembled a nomad shooting a bow on horseback. The cape flowing in the wind behind him was the only blue cape in the midst of all the yellow capes.
...That’s the High Priest! Wow! Go get him! I couldn’t actually shout my support, so I cheered him on silently. He was too far away for me to see the actual string itself, but I could tell when he shot from the movements of his arm and the arrow flying from the bow.
The arrow shot through the sky and burst into multiple smaller black arrows which fell upon the giant trombe like rain. Each arrow burst into an explosion of light upon hitting the plant. But the giant trombe just kept swinging its branches, as if not even a storm of arrows meant anything to it.
“It takes a lot of mana to split an arrow into that many smaller ones. And yet Lord Ferdinand can shoot out tons of arrows like that. Pretty impressive, huh?” Damuel seemed to really admire the High Priest, judging by the fact he was proudly telling me how amazing he was.
“I wish he would come back to the Order soon...” murmured Damuel in the midst of his praise, which made me blink in surprise. Damuel noticed me looking at him, and after an awkward silence, coughed.
“...That’s confidential.”
“Understood. I won’t tell anyone.”
I had heard that the High Priest wasn’t raised in the temple, and it seemed that he had been in the Knight’s Order of all places. That explained how he knew Karstedt and why they had matching sets of armor. I never would have imagined from his slender build and grumpy, bookish appearance that he served as a knight and not just as a desk jockey, but now that I was seeing him fight, he seemed to be right in his element.
...To think that he’s a master of both the pen and the sword. Is it just me, or is the High Priest kinda amazing? I wish he would lend me some of that talent, I thought while looking up at him fight. He launched arrow after arrow at the trombe while his blue cape fluttered behind him.
“Looks like it’s starting to take its toll. Can you see the trombe turning black?” As Damuel said, each spot the High Priest’s rain of arrows hit was now turning black. The tiny black dots looked like stains, and with each arrow another one joined the midst.
“I can see them. Oh... the branches.” As if those black spots were rotting the trombe from the inside out, one of the branches it had been swinging around snapped at the base and fell to the ground with a thud. The fallen branch shone brightly and vanished.
The giant trombe stretched out one of its still-healthy branches as far as it could to try and knock down the flying knights, but they were all too nimble to be hit. In contrast, the knights wielded their black halberds—each of which looked like a fusion of an axe, a spear, and a jagged pike—and chopped, sliced, and stabbed at the branches, which turned increasingly black until they fell to the ground.
The branches fell one after another, and before I knew it the trombe’s crater had stopped growing. With fewer swinging branches dominating the airspace, the knights were able to fly close to the trombe’s trunk and attack it directly. It was an enormous trunk, but it too became covered in black spots. I could easily tell that the trombe was losing strength with each blow it took.
“Should be over soon,” murmured Damuel, looking a bit more relaxed than earlier. At the start I had no idea how the knights would survive fighting such a dangerous giant, but they were finishing it off much faster than I expected. I sighed in relief too.
“I didn’t know how anyone could fight with a monster like that, so I’m glad to see nobody ended up getting hurt.”
“This happens every year. We might be short on members, but we’re not going to lose to a trombe. Especially with Lord Ferdinand helping. As far as I can tell, cutting down those branches was a lot easier thanks to him.”
It seemed that killing the trombe would have taken a lot longer without the High Priest raining barrages of arrows down onto it. Without many ways to attack the trombe f
rom a distance, they would have to get in close to weaken it, which ended up with multiple knights getting sent flying by branches every year.
I couldn’t see his face well due to the helmet, but Damuel had a kind and gentle voice. I looked up at him with a smile, then heard a hateful tongue click from behind.
“Damuel, why are you acting all buddy-buddy with a commoner? Oh, has nobody told you who she is? Allow me to inform you that the girl you’re talking to is a commoner. She’s a fool who doesn’t know her place, wearing a noble’s blue robes despite her dirty blood. I honestly have no idea what Lord Ferdinand was thinking when he gave a lowly commoner blue robes. Surely a shortage of mana is better than this.”
“Shikza, what are you saying...? Don’t lie like that.” Damuel’s shaken tone made it clear that he hadn’t known that I was a commoner. He must have so kindly explained the situation because he thought I was an apprentice shrine maiden of noble birth.
I took a step back, distancing myself from both Shikza and Damuel. I had no idea what a noble would do after learning that I was a commoner. Things could get bad if he reacted like the High Bishop had.
“It’s true. The High Bishop visited my family’s home during the Starbind Ceremony and bemoaned his suffering. ‘A lone commoner girl is destroying order in the temple,’ he said.”
...So it was you all along, High Bishop! I had driven him into the corner of my memory since I never saw him in the temple and he hadn’t done anything to me, but it seemed that he had been moaning about me endlessly to nobles around the city.
Thiiis is bad. And it might get a lot worse? Since I was a commoner, all of my protests would fall on deaf ears. They could distort the truth to suit their needs and do whatever they wanted under false pretenses. Hateful gossiping like this would be a dangerous enemy to me while I was traveling with the Knight’s Order, which consisted entirely of nobles.
“Say something, commoner scum.” So Shikza said, but I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I had no idea what a noble would do to me if I said the wrong thing. But it seemed that keeping my silence angered Shikza more, and his lips curved into a sadistic grin. “What, nothing cocky to say without Lord Ferdinand here to protect you?”
