by Takehaya
That’s why he doesn’t have a lord! But he should have territory then! And there’s no land named Veltlion in Forthorthe!
Alaia grew ever more confused. When she saw the title engraved on Koutarou’s armor, she understood why he said he served no lord. It was because he himself was a lord. But she couldn’t make sense out of the rest of what this meant. Seeing the words “Theiamillis’s Blue Knight,” she could only assume that a female royal named Theiamillis had appointed him. But she didn’t know of any royals with that name, and there was no territory named Veltlion either. As smart as she was, not even the brilliant Alaia had any way of knowing that Theiamillis was a princess from two thousand years in the future, or that Veltlion’s territory was a humble six tatami mat room.
That’s right, the sword... If I look at the sword...
Alaia had no knowledge of a royal named Theiamillis, but her crest should decorate her knight’s sword. It was common practice in Forthorthe to put a family’s crest on the swords of the knights who served them.
A golden flower? But no such crest exists among the royal families... Just what is this?
A golden flower was indeed engraved into the handle of Koutarou’s sword. Alaia had assumed it was a family crest, but in reality it was Theia’s personal crest. Koutarou hadn’t formally been bestowed the title of knight either. Because of that, he didn’t actually have a knight’s sword. What he had was Theia’s personal sword—the one forged to celebrate her birth as a princess. As a result, her crest was engraved where a family crest would be on a knight’s sword. This was all very confusing to Alaia.
Just who is this person...?
Although they had only met a short while ago, Alaia didn’t doubt Koutarou and his intentions. She believed that he could be trusted; she just had absolutely no idea who he was.
“It is not just for your sake that I wish to accompany you, Your Highness. There are things as a knight I must do. Please allow me to stay by your side.”
“Layous-sama... Th-Then please tell me one thing.”
Alaia chose to confront the matter directly. She also decided that she would trust and accept his answer, no matter how strange it may be.
“Anything you ask.”
Koutarou nodded. He had no intention of lying to Alaia or deceiving her in any way. There were things he couldn’t tell her, but he would be honest with her when that was the case. Seeing Koutarou nod, Alaia put the question in her mind into words and asked Koutarou for the truth.
“That royal crest engraved on your breastplate... Your appearance, your mannerisms, and your honor indicate you are without a doubt a true knight of Forthorthe, but...”
In that moment, Koutarou felt a strong sense of deja vu.
Sakuraba-senpai...?
The words that had just left Alaia’s mouth exactly matched what Harumi had asked him on stage a few months ago.
“I have no recollection of that crest on your armor and sword. Just where have you come from?”
Alaia continued to speak in lines from the play, but Koutarou was even more caught off guard when...
“...From an endless time and an immeasurable distance.”
He heard himself replying in the Blue Knight’s words, but he now realized just how closely they matched his current situation. The Blue Knight’s answer and Koutarou’s answer were one in the same. Koutarou had come from over two thousand years in the future, and from the other side of the universe.
Just what is this...?
Koutarou was puzzled by the seemingly bizarre coincidence. Clan had used the term synchronicity to describe this strange phenomenon, and Koutarou was really starting to believe in it. And as uncanny as it all was, he was happy that he didn’t need to lie to Alaia.
“From an endless time and... an immeasurable... distance...”
Alaia slowly repeated Koutarou’s words.
I wonder what that means... Still, I’m sure it’s not a lie...
She was puzzled by Koutarou’s words almost as much as he was. But even though she didn’t understand what he meant, she could vaguely feel that he was being honest. And since she’d chosen to believe in him, she decided to put that into action.
“Then please lend us your strength, Layous-sama...”
“As you wish, my princess.”
Koutarou nodded firmly and looked up into the starry sky overhead.
I’ve really come quite a ways...
Despite the seemingly infinite stars twinkling overhead, Koutarou couldn’t see Earth among them. Earth was far, far away, well beyond what the human eye could see.
“...Layous-sama...”
As she watched Koutarou like that, Alaia had a thought. Perhaps Koutarou had come from the world of the stars. She knew it was childish, fanciful thinking, but with so many stars shining above them in that moment, she wanted to believe it was the truth.
The Silver Princess
Clan was wearing a robe for traveling over her normal outfit as she stood facing an elderly man.
“A knight in blue armor?”
“He’s called Layous Fatra Veltlion. Have you heard of him?”
The elderly man was the owner of a small inn. He had a mild demeanor and a slight accent. Clan was currently talking to him in an attempt to gather some information.
“I don’t know him. At the very least, he hasn’t been at my inn.”
“I see.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be of help.”
“No, thank you for taking the time to talk to me.”
“Take care, miss. There’ve been some worrisome developments in this country these days.”
“Thank you.”
However, the old man wasn’t able to help Clan with what she wanted to know. After thanking him for his time, she quickly left the inn.
“Looks like this town was a bust as well...”
Once outside the building, Clan sighed. Right now, she was in a small mountain town by the road. The area wasn’t very prosperous and relied heavily on travelers stopping by for income. As such, the main street of the town was lined with inns and bars. They were all very aged buildings made out of stone—the kind of structures Clan was only used to seeing as ruins or sightseeing spots. She’d faithfully checked every last inn and bar, but no one seemed to have the information she was looking for.
“Just where is he?”
Clan’s goal was to find the real Blue Knight. Then she had to get him to join up with Alaia in order to prevent irreversible changes to this timeline’s history. In order to locate him, she’d split up from Koutarou and the other girls for the time being. Clan focused her search around where she knew Alaia and her companions traveled, and she’d stopped to check each town and village along the way. In the original history, the Blue Knight met up with Alaia before the Mastir checkpoint, so he should still hypothetically be somewhere in the area. Even if he had moved on, there was a high chance that someone had seen him during his travels, so Clan was hoping to get some news of his whereabouts from anywhere he might have stopped to rest or eat.
However, despite visiting many towns and villages, she hadn’t caught wind of anything at all. No matter who she asked, no one had seen a traveler wearing blue armor and no one remembered a customer by the name of Layous. With each dead end, Clan only grew more and more worried. At first she was sure that she’d be able to find him right away, but she was now regretting that naive optimism.
“Today makes one full week, huh? That means I need to check in.”
Clan had promised to return to Koutarou after a week to report, regardless of what she found. She had parted ways with Koutarou and the others on the day they’d decided to cross the mountains to avoid the army. And today being their seventh day apart, it was time to reconnect with them.
“This is sad. I don’t even want to hear what he’s going say...”
Clan sighed once more. When she left Koutarou and the others, she was full of confidence and boasted that she could easily find the Blue Knight without trouble. With
how things had turned out, however, she was reluctant to return and admit that she hadn’t even found a single clue.
“It’s possible we’re dealing with a worse case scenario...”
Clan had some idea as to why she might not be finding any information on the Blue Knight. It was possible that the real Blue Knight had been fatally caught up in the space quake when Koutarou and Clan arrived in this age. It was even possible he’d been crushed by the Cradle as it crashed.
If he was already dead, that would explain why no one had seen or heard from him around here. Thinking like that, things started to make sense. But it would also mean that Clan had killed the Blue Knight. As a Forthorthian, she had a certain fondness for the legend herself, and she sorely wanted to believe that wasn’t what had happened.
“Hahh... What should I tell him?”
Clan sighed again as she entered a small alley and began using her bracelet to pinpoint the current location of Koutarou’s armor. Before they parted ways, she set his armor so that it emitted a signal she could track. Once she picked it up with her bracelet, it showed his location overlaid on a map of the area.
“It’s already been a while since he passed into Mastir territory...”
The marker showing Koutarou’s location wasn’t within the Fornorn territory where Clan currently was, but inside the Mastir territory. That meant they’d made it past the Mastir checkpoint. At least she could rest easy knowing they’d avoided the army thus far and gotten across the border safely.
“Then let’s go...”
Once she confirmed his location, Clan discreetly activated the modified barrier generator she’d used when fighting Koutarou, and cloaked herself as she flew up into the sky. She was planning on flying all the way to Koutarou like that.
“That Veltlion is quite sly, despite his looks...”
Though she was effectively invisible as she was, the gloomy atmosphere around her remained.
While Clan was on her way to him, Koutarou was in the middle of an interrogation in a room of a small inn.
“Caris, don’t be so stubborn. Just tell us. You even told us your name the other day.”
“...Hmph.”
The person being interrogated was the girl they’d captured after reuniting Alaia and her party. Based on her outfit, she looked like a court magician, but they didn’t know anything about her other than her name: Caris Webnant. And Koutarou had struggled to get her to tell them even that much.
“You’re hungry, right?”
Holding a large, roasted bird in his hand, Koutarou squatted down in front of Caris. Their eyes met.
“I’m not.”
Grrrgle...
“If you tell us what your orders were when you were transformed into a horse, you can have some of this.”
“I-I don’t want any!”
Grrrgle...
“Is that so? Then I’ll just eat this village’s delicacy, roasted wadowado bird, all by myself.”
“Ugh...”
Grrrgle...
“Oooh, delicious! It’s perfectly roasted! The texture of the crispy skin and the smell of the spice covering it are the perfect combination! They just make your taste buds sing! And the meat is so tender! Every time I bite into it, it’s so juicy it’s almost like soup!”
Caris gulped.
This girl—Caris Webnant—had kept her lips sealed during Flair’s strict interrogation. She revealed nothing, not even her identity. When it was Koutarou’s turn to give things a try, however, she’d loosened up a bit and they were finally able to learn her name.
I honestly wondered about this when we first captured her, but to think something like this is actually working...
Koutarou’s method was simple. He was using food as a bargaining tool. Because Flair was a knight through and through, she had never even considered an interrogation tactic like this, much less that it might actually work. But Koutarou was different, and he had a certain image of girls who used magic—or claimed to. They were sloppy, and most importantly, had a weakness for food. That was thanks to all the time he’d spent with Yurika.
“Blue Knight, I want to have some too.”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
“Veltlion!”
“My, Charl... It seems you’ve taken quite a liking to Layous-sama.”
“This isn’t something to laugh about, Princess Alaia!”
Charl had jumped at Koutarou and taken a bite of the roasted bird he was eating. Seeing such a display of poor manners from Charl, Flair got angry, but Alaia was watching over them all with a smile.
“Delicious! Give me more, Blue Knight!”
“As you wish, my princess.”
“C-Curse you, Blue Knight! Just how rotten can you get?!”
Grrrgle...
Seeing Charl stuff her mouth with such a delicious looking roast bird, Caris’s stomach growled again. But it wasn’t like she was starving. She’d been given meals normally like everyone else along their trip. Koutarou’s interrogation technique wasn’t working because she was hungry; it was working because of her extraordinary love of food.
“Caris, it’s not like anyone will be at a disadvantage now if you tell us what your orders were a week ago.”
“Wh-What do you mean?!”
“It’s already been a week since you’ve stopped reporting in. The people who gave you your orders are already well aware that you’re incapacitated. That means they’ll act now on the assumption that the information has been leaked. So whether you tell us or not won’t have any influence on what they do. You see?”
“Th-That’s...”
Caris’s loyalty began wavering. She really wanted to eat something delicious. She just couldn’t betray the court magicians that had taken care of her since she was young. But even if she broke her silence now, it wouldn’t affect them, right? So wasn’t it just best to speak up and then get something delicious to eat in return?
“No, no, I can’t! I can’t tell you the orders I got directly from Grevanas-sama, who I’m greatly indebted to!”
Caris let the name of the head of the court magicians slip her lips.
Grevanas... So she got her orders directly from the head of the court magicians?
Caris had unintentionally revealed who she’d gotten her orders from, but she was so distracted by the roast bird in front of her that she didn’t even realize it.
“You don’t have to tell everyone, Caris. You just need to tell me.”
“Just you...?”
Caris’s glance shifted between the roast bird and Koutarou. As she did, Koutarou gently smiled and nodded at her.
“That’s right. You don’t have to tell me who gave you your orders or anything either. That would put you in a difficult position. You only need to tell me what your orders were, and then you can eat this.”
Grrrgle...
Caris’s stomach growled yet again.
“A-All right, I’ll tell you and you alone, so give me one that’s warm.”
“Well said! We have ourselves a deal!”
And so Caris revealed yet another secret to Koutarou.
“Thank you, Blue Knight, my kindred spirit! I knew you were a knight’s knight when I first met you!”
“I-I see. Then eat to your heart’s content, Caris.”
“So, Caris-san, what do you want to eat first?”
“I’ll leave the spiced one for later. First I want to try a normally salted one to get a feel for the ingredients and the original flavor.”
“Okay, just a moment.”
Koutarou left Mary to take care of feeding Caris, who was still bound up, and turned towards Alaia, who was sitting at a table by the window. With her were Flair, Lidith, and Fauna.
“Blue Knight!” Charl called to him as she reached out her hand.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
Koutarou took her hand with a smile and walked over to Alaia and the others with her.
“Good job, Layous-sama. Please, have a seat.”
Alaia stopped what she had been doing and welcomed Koutarou to the table. Koutarou sat down in the chair she offered to him, and Charl immediately started climbing up into his lap. Koutarou helped her up.
“So how did it go?”
“It looks like things are getting complicated.”
The smile Koutarou had put on for Charl faded and he began speaking in a serious tone. He was mystified by what Caris had said.
“What do you mean by ‘complicated’?”
Flair’s eyes narrowed. She had her opinions on Koutarou’s interrogation tactics, so she was already displeased with the situation, but she put her mood aside and returned to her usual knightly disposition when she heard the ominous tone in what Koutarou said.
“It seems like Caris was acting on orders directly from the head of the court magicians, Grevanas.”
Minding Caris behind him, Koutarou spoke in a slightly lower voice. Caris had only agreed to tell him about her orders, so he kept his voice down to keep her from realizing he was sharing her secret.
“S-Spicy! Water, water!”
“Okay! Coming right up!”
Fortunately, Caris was completely and utterly occupied with her food, so she wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to what Koutarou and the others were saying.
“Orders from Grevanas himself? That’s strange.”
Lidith, who had been listening careful until now, slightly tilted her head. Seeing that, Fauna looked at her with a confused expression.
“What do you mean, Lidith-chan?”
“Based on the clothes she’s wearing, Caris isn’t a very high-ranking magician. So if someone were to give her an order, it would be her direct superior and not Grevanas. The only exception would be for special missions.”
Lidith was an alchemist, a scholar who studied things like science, medicine, and religion, but she also dabbled in other fields.
“Then, Layous-sama, what is her special mission?”
