by Mamare Touno
Malves blustered with an attitude that was the picture of arrogance. His hubris showed in the way he kept clicking his tongue in irritation, over and over.
Raynesia was assailed by a cold shudder.
Not at Malves’s arrogance.
It was at his lack of fear. As a People of the Earth noble, Malves was too accustomed to having others obey him. The nobles of Eastal had had that sort of arrogance as well, but that authority carried absolutely no weight with the Adventurers. If Malves took an attitude this inflammatory, there was a significant possibility that he would be cut down.
Nobles had great power in People of the Earth society, but their bodies weren’t indestructible. If an Adventurer attacked him, he’d be charcoal in less than a tenth of a second.
It wasn’t that she sympathized with Malves, but if that happened, it might very well start a war. The Adventurers’ righteous anger could bring their own destruction down upon them…
Oh. Oooh… Why do I have to worry about this white pig?!
“Huhn? The Round Table Council was contacted? Well then, that’s fine. However, I heard that the storehouses you Adventurers loan out are filled with traveling merchants’ cargo. Do you mean to tell me you received word, and yet I’m met with this miserable state of affairs?”
“I’m terribly sorry. This incident was all my, Raynesia’s—”
Malves had shifted his target to the Adventurers and the Round Table Council, and at his persistent tone, Raynesia finally shrieked, but…
“Michitaka. This is the letter.”
At the sight of the letter Shiroe had produced as if by magic, everyone froze. She’d only caught a glimpse of it, but it looked exactly like the copy Malves had been waving around a moment before.
She couldn’t say for certain, but a message Raynesia hadn’t possessed had reached Akiba’s Round Table Council.
Taking it, Michitaka scanned the contents, then nodded magnanimously.
“…Want us to arrange for trucks to carry the cargo, too?”
On top of this affirmation of his intentions—which seemed as if it could only be a rash promise—Michitaka gave a broad, macho grin and shrugged his shoulders.
“You can’t mean…!”
“Sure, we’ve got a storehouse. …Five hundred tons, you said? That’s not so much. The Marine Organization’s private storehouse has several times the floor area of the Round Table Council’s public ones. Even if it was five hundred or five thousand, it wouldn’t matter. Did you think the traveling merchants had busted us? Or, moreover, that we Adventurers wouldn’t save our People of the Earth princess?”
At Michitaka’s words, Raynesia clenched her fists.
Was this Adventurer trying to salvage her mistake? Michitaka was an uncompromising man who’d spoken loudly and eloquently about the pride of the Adventurers before the assembled People of the Earth nobles at the Lords’ Council at the Ancient Court of Eternal Ice. Raynesia had never dreamed this man would make such an unselfish offer.
No, not to me…
Raynesia stole a glance at the young man who had his hands on her shoulders. Possibly because he was so close, she couldn’t see his expression without looking up, and even if she had seen it, it probably wouldn’t have been at all clear. It felt as if he was smiling thinly and also as if he was morose. Although it was impossible to tell what this menace was thinking, she understood that he’d requested that favor from Michitaka.
“Master Krusty…”
“To think our security was too perfect. Since we managed to shut down all physical trouble, we were late in catching on here.”
Raynesia couldn’t grasp the full meaning of Krusty’s murmur.
“…Master Krusty? I’m…”
“Because you’re a valuable shield…I mean, princess.”
Krusty didn’t lower his gaze. Reluctantly, Raynesia thanked him. The number of debts she owed him just kept increasing. The snowballing sense of indebtedness made her conscience and her pride scream and throb feverishly. However, in response to her words of gratitude, Krusty only said, incomprehensibly, “Shiroe’s the one you should thank.”
Meanwhile, Malves’s expression had grown grim.
Clicking his tongue in irritation, he shot a look at Shiroe. Shiroe only turned Malves’s glance aside with an innocent expression.
Looking very angry, the great noble of Westlande sharply bade them farewell and left the hall.
Raynesia felt the strength draining from her legs. Malves had gone. His pride might have been wounded, but for now, his life was safe. They’d avoided any decisive split with Malves, and by extension, with the West.
Her relief at the unexpected result was so great it was as though her spine had turned to foam.
“That’s right. We’ve settled things here. Take care of the rest.”
“Very well, Master Shiroe.”
“Understood, my liege.”
As if taking advantage of that mental vulnerability, they dragged Raynesia away. By the time Raynesia realized that her own knight, with whom she’d extended her contract, had given a little wave and merely watched her go, she’d already been stripped down to her underwear.
3
Raynesia’s dinner party had disintegrated.
But even as it fell apart, it was a great success.
The front doors of the official Maihama residence that served as the embassy were thrown open wide, and all the guests spilled out into Akiba’s central plaza, simultaneously mixing with the people who had been enjoying the evening festival there. The feast that had been prepared was carried out onto the plaza, dish after dish, and served.
Of course, that alone wasn’t enough for the people flooding the plaza, and all the restaurants that faced the plaza had their kitchens running at full rotation. Thanks to the proclamation that Shiroe had quietly issued—a promise to the effect that everything people ate and drank tonight would be paid for by the Round Table Council—people were provided with so much food and drink that the stores were nearly exhausted.
As a result, the average level of the food came down from what Raynesia had intended. Rather than a buffet-style dinner party, it was more like what would be found at an outdoor celebration or a flower-viewing party. However, the Adventurers didn’t seem to think that was the least bit important.
When Krusty ushered Raynesia into the plaza and they saw her, a stir ran through the Adventurers. Since that rousing speech, Princess Raynesia had appeared at several gatherings in Akiba, but this was very nearly the first time she’d made a direct appearance before ordinary Adventurers.
The princess entrusted her slender fingers to the knight, and her eyes were slightly downcast. Her smile, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, was just like a lovely flower, and it cast a spell on most of the Adventurers. She looked fresh and innocent, a beautiful girl straight out of a dream.
What startled them was her clothing.
Raynesia was wearing a denim mermaid skirt. Over an autumnal chartreuse shirt, she wore a short bolero-style jacket. The long skirt was graceful, but it was a casual fashion. A black ribbon was woven into her long silver hair, which hung down her back.
Raynesia had only ever shown the gothic dresses that marked her as People of the Earth nobility. No one in Akiba had expected her to appear in clothes like these.
Commotion enveloped the plaza. To the Adventurers, the outfit looked like neat and tidy date fashion of the sort they’d seen back on Earth; to the People of the Earth, it was a modern Adventurer look that exuded a sense of the new era.
Raynesia advanced along the south side of the plaza, led by a morose Krusty, then seated herself on the cushion of a large bench that had been hastily put together. The big bench was an item created from the woodworking menu; the temporary arbor had been prepared at Shiroe’s request, and it had been ready in less than fifteen minutes.
The sun had already set, and the plaza was illuminated by many torches, but the area around Raynesia was lit by Lumieres—possibly called th
ere by a tactful Summoner—and was twice as full of light as anywhere else.
Black Sword Isaac slid his trademark sword from its sheath, saying that, due to reasons of security, the princess could not leave this bench, but that she wanted to share the night of the festival with them here in the plaza, and that, if they were so inclined, anyone who wanted to could greet her at this arbor. The commotion in the plaza grew even louder.
The surprise was probably greater for the People of the Earth than it was for the Adventurers. Many of them, particularly the ones who hadn’t taken part in the plot, were peddlers from the towns and villages near Akiba. These people, who loaded cargo onto the backs of single horses or drew rattletrap carts, carrying their cargo from village to village, never got the chance to see a noble princess in person. And this wasn’t just a glimpse from afar: She would be greeting them. Their surprise was enormous.
Of course, that didn’t mean a large number of people strode right up to greet her. A third of the people in the plaza were People of the Earth commoners, and the rest were diffident Japanese Adventurers.
Although everyone was enjoying the festival, even when a stylish group of people Raynesia had summoned from Maihama began to play an old serenade that had been handed down in Yamato, they all seemed to be holding back.
The one who first approached and got the ball rolling was, as expected, Michitaka.
Trailing about ten of his guild members, he visited the stylish bench and its surrounding arbor, which was made of folding screens and umbrellas and similar objects. On seeing them exchange friendly greetings with Raynesia, who seemed relieved, other guilds gradually began to move.
There were many Adventurers who asked for a greeting, and Elissa’s subordinate maids hastily sprang into action.
Shiroe, who was looking down on the scene from a ruined elevated walkway that overlooked the plaza, poured fruit juice tea from a small nearby pot into a glass. In the amicable scene below him, Princess Raynesia was talking with Adventurers or with People of the Earth, and many of those were chatting with each other. It spoke more eloquently than anything else of the Libra Festival’s success.
The idea of having Raynesia, a People of the Earth noble, appear in the plaza wearing a costume created by Adventurers in the style of the old world sent a powerful message to everyone participating in the festival.
The message was one of peace and amity. That unity would probably become a defense against attacks like this one.
This time, Shiroe thought, they seemed to have managed to get through the attack on Akiba.
The attack’s point of origin had probably been the Westlande aristocrat Malves, who’d retreated at Raynesia’s dinner party.
Although, if he’s that illogical, I doubt he was the mastermind.
Shiroe sensed that, at most, he’d been no more than the starting point of one of the major lines of attack.
As such, he wasn’t sure this had ended the onslaught. As a matter of fact, the festival’s security level was still raised, and the peacekeeping squads led by Isaac and Krusty were managing disputes that looked as though they might turn violent, with a focus on traffic entering and leaving the town.
This was true of the squads of girls that followed Soujirou, too. They were still on patrol, watching out for disputes regarding business transactions and quarrels with roots in romance.
Shiroe had been appointed counselor, and regular check-ins and telechats asking for instructions on incident resolution methods were coming intermittently.
One of the reasons he’d stationed himself up here—where he could look out over the plaza—was so that he’d be ready to move at any time.
However, Shiroe wasn’t that worried.
The attacks on processing speed and trust in the Round Table Council had all been attacks intended to disturb. The tactic of disturbance was effective, because it operated through surprise attacks and while the other party wasn’t aware of it; now that the Round Table Council had taken steps to deal with it, they couldn’t hope for much of an effect.
Of course, there were worse scenarios, but there was no point in exploring those now. Some fights were fought passively, without making all the moves you could see. Staying on guard and getting through the festival period was probably the best of their available options.
Even if we don’t explore further, I think they’ll probably attack us anyway. As Shiroe sighed, below him, the motion of the plaza continued. The crowds around the restaurants and Princess Raynesia were unchanged, but new music and a new crowd had appeared. Soujirou’s personal bodyguard stood in two long lines, one on either side of the stone-flagged street that led from the guild center, and the space between them was wide and empty.
The first person to appear in that space was Marielle.
Waves of green hair and an innocent smile that made it seem as if light was streaming in. Her large, attractively swaying bosom was squeezed into a jacket with a crisp, clean design, and she walked with a spring in her step.
It might have disqualified her as a fashion model, but it was very much like her to wave in all four directions with both hands when she reached the end of the corridor that served as a stage.
Good grief, Mari… She really doesn’t let anything get her down.
The gesture made Shiroe feel as if he might be getting a headache, or possibly as if he’d been encouraged. The next to appear was Henrietta, and then Akatsuki.
Ordinarily, Henrietta dressed like a secretary, as though it was a uniform she’d been issued; and Akatsuki, similarly, dressed in black from head to toe like a ninja. However, just for today, they’d changed their looks for the cause. The two of them wore the slightly ethnic-style casual tunics and wrap skirts the Crescent Moon League was selling. The costumes were arranged differently, and in them, the pair looked like sisters.
The difference in their heights made them look like sisters who were drastically different in age, but he’d keep that to himself. Shiroe made this decision, laughing a little, as he saw Henrietta pick Akatsuki up and nuzzle her in an excess of excitement, even as she nailed a splendid turn.
Nearly unconscious of the spectators’ gazes—which might have made it a blessing for Akatsuki—the two joked around with each other, but when they reunited with Marielle, they headed into the plaza. Parting the astonished crowd, they approached Raynesia, caught her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. That self-assured attitude was just like Marielle.
Akatsuki came up behind Raynesia and whispered something to her. From the way Raynesia went pale, she’d probably threatened her again. Marielle took Raynesia right out into the square, then began to spin around, pulling in Henrietta and Akatsuki as well.
A show like this would be seen by far more people out here than it would have if they’d held it in the hall. Light cast down by Firebirds resting their wings on guild buildings’ roofs illuminated attendees’ profiles, and the repeated bursts of applause were like ocean surf, approaching and receding.
The lively music was a nostalgic pop song from the old world. The slightly old-fashioned melody was recreated on medieval instruments.
Raynesia was bewildered and kept looking around, flustered, but at times like that, beautiful girls had it good. Even in the sort of fashion you’d see in a town on Earth—something she probably wasn’t used to wearing—all she had to do was smile apologetically and it couldn’t have suited her better.
“…Shiroe…”
“Good work, Minori.”
At the voice which hesitantly addressed him, Shiroe lifted his gaze from the plaza. Minori was coming toward him across the elevated walkway from the guild center. She wore a complicated expression that was proud and happy, yet hesitant and shy.
Shiroe didn’t know what this small companion of his was thinking, but he knew what sort of role she’d played during the daylong uproar. She’d stayed by Calasin’s side, carrying out the duties of the headquarters that had supported the handling of the entire affair. The responsibility had been as
heavy as managing a full raid.
“Have a seat.”
“Huh? But…”
As Minori hung back, Shiroe indicated a spot next to himself on the wooden bench. For some reason, Minori looked as if she felt very small and embarrassed. Shiroe polished another glass he’d taken out of his bag for her and filled it with the same fruit tea he was drinking.
“…Um…”
“Thank you. And well done.”
“Y-yessir.”
Minori’s voice cracked, and her spine was stretched very straight; it was funny, and Shiroe laughed a little. Did Minori understand what the work she’d done had been worth?
Timidly, holding the glass in both hands, Minori took a tiny sip. Below their feet, illuminated by torches, Bug Light Lamps, and summoned magical creatures, the lively festival spread as far as they could see.
At the very least, Minori’s hands had protected a fraction of that liveliness.
Small hands, thought Shiroe.
Still, the tiny hands of this middle school girl were the hands of a fighter. They were hands that held the resolve to protect their post to the death.
When Minori had told him she was helping with the work at the Liaison Committee, he’d thought it was unexpected, but at the same time, it had made sense to him somehow. He’d spent time with Minori, and had sensed the irrepressible positivity within this little girl.
Her twin brother had the same dynamic energy, but while Touya had promptly chosen the path of combat and martial arts, Minori seemed to have hesitated over her choice. However, the undirected will inside Minori hadn’t been able to stay that way forever.
In the place she herself had chosen, Minori had pulled off an extraordinary feat Shiroe had never even hoped for.
She’s far more level-headed than I am…
Inwardly, Shiroe gave a self-deprecating sigh. Every memory he had of his own days as a middle schooler made him want to cover his eyes.
There was his past self, and however he looked, he couldn’t find the sort of strength Minori had, the sort that was open to the outside. He remembered having been a typical, overly self-conscious, wince-worthy middle schooler. Back then, Shiroe had thought himself cool because he was different from other people; he hadn’t realized that the part of him that was different was actually exactly like those other people.
