by Takehaya
Fauna’s naturally curious gaze turned towards Koutarou.
“Watching over Princess Alaia and reporting on the current situation.”
“Anything else?”
Flair urged him to continue, narrowing her eyes even more. She already had an idea of what Koutarou was about to say.
“That was it. Her mission seems to have been those two things specifically. She said that capturing or murdering Princess Alaia wasn’t part of her mission.”
That was the part Koutarou found odd. Caris had been given direct orders from the head of the court magicians, Grevanas, to keep an eye on Alaia. Yet the soldiers chasing her down were told to capture or murder her. It didn’t add up. He’d expected Caris to have a similar mission, but apparently her direct orders from Grevanas were simply to observe and report. He couldn’t help thinking that there was a catch, and the fact that this wasn’t in the script strengthened that impression.
“That is strange. Maybe he doesn’t really have any intention of capturing us?”
“Then is he just having the soldiers pretend to chase us while he’s actually letting us do what we want?”
“Or could it be that Maxfern’s and Grevanas’s goals are different?”
“It seems like their forces weren’t completely united, but right now it’s impossible to tell...”
Flair, Alaia, Fauna, and Lidith all shared Koutarou’s apprehension, and the four girls put their heads together.
Are they trying to flush out Princess Alaia’s allies?
That was Koutarou’s first thought, but without anything to go on, his anxiety only grew.
“Blue Knight, there’s no need to think so hard about it.”
Charl was the only one with a smile still on her face. She poked Koutarou’s cheeks and spoke to him with confidence.
“We don’t know the details, but it means it’s gotten easier for us to escape, right?”
“...I see.”
Koutarou found himself agreeing with Charl. If things were as Caris had said, Alaia and her party were perhaps in less immediate danger than they’d thought. While not knowing Grevanas’s game was a worrisome point, it was still better than having to flee for their lives.
“As expected from Princess Charl. It’s just as you say.”
“Heehee! If you now understand my greatness, then continue proving your loyalty, Blue Knight!”
“Understood, Your Highness.”
A smile returned to Koutarou’s lips. The other girls seemed to be feeling a little relieved as well, and the anxious atmosphere slowly relaxed. Seemingly happy with that, Charl smiled even brighter as she leaned against Koutarou.
“Nothing good will come from overthinking this, so let’s just agree with Princess Charl that it’s gotten easier to escape.”
That was Flair’s conclusion. Since they couldn’t question Grevanas in person, there was indeed nothing more they could do for now.
“I always thought you were a child, Charl, but you’ve gotten more mature.”
Alaia smiled at Charl and got back to work on what she’d been doing before. It was a new hobby she’d picked up—knitting.
“As much as sister’s knitting skills, right, Blue Knight?”
“That’s quite the hard question to answer.”
“Are my knitting skills that poor, Layous-sama?”
Koutarou stumbled for words, but Alaia cheerfully continued moving her knitting needles. Her skills weren’t bad by any stretch. She was quite good for someone who’d just started. But since she had no one to teach her, her progress was slowing down.
“Heh... Princess Alaia, you should try doing this there.”
“Oh?”
As things were now, Koutarou was a more skilled knitter than she was. Even though he was clumsy, he’d improved quite a bit in the ten months he’d been practicing. And having learned so much from such a good teacher, there was plenty he could teach Alaia.
“You do it here. Like this.”
“I see... Layous-sama, you can knit too?”
“Blue Knight, knitting is for women! Leave that to my sister and continue proving your loyalty.”
Alaia watched Koutarou’s skillful handling of the needles with admiration, but Charl was unhappy. She felt it was wrong for a man to be knitting.
“That’s too bad. Here I was thinking of knitting a muffler for you too, Princess Charl.”
“Well, you can knit that. That falls under proving your loyalty.”
“Your Highness, I’m having a hard time understanding what proves my loyalty and what doesn’t.”
“If you’re a knight, you should know these things.”
Thanks to Charl’s cute behavior, cheerful laughter filled the room. Clan appeared not long afterwards.
Koutarou’s room at the inn was for two people. Since he knew that Clan would be returning, he’d prepared for her in advance.
“H-Hey, Veltlion.”
“What?”
Koutarou answered Clan while playing with an operating panel built into the armor’s right arm. The armor’s upright posture locked in place, and the various parts of the armor opened. Koutarou stepped out of the suit as if shedding a shell. Once Koutarou emerged from the armor, it closed after him. But without even making sure it had closed properly, Koutarou approached Clan, who was sitting on one of the two beds.
“A-Are we sleeping here tonight?”
Clan’s face was red. Her eyes were wavering with anxiety.
“Yeah. What about it?”
“What about it? I-I’m still not married, and...”
Clan looked down at the ground.
“Ah, I see!”
Koutarou realized what Clan wanted to say and clapped his hands together when the lightbulb came on.
“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything funny in a situation like this.”
“But...”
After living in room 106 with girls all around him every day, Koutarou had built up a certain resistance to women, but Clan was a sheltered princess who had almost no experience with men. She couldn’t even imagine sleeping all alone in a room with a man that wasn’t family.
“I understand how you feel, but it’d be suspicious if a knight and his servant slept in different quarters. I can only ask that you bear with it.”
“I-I understand.”
“You can trust me, Clan.”
Koutarou smiled. Though Clan said she understood, she was hugging a pillow and quietly watching Koutarou from behind it. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t fully trust him.
“Although we were originally enemies, you’re the only one I can depend on right now. There’s no way I’d do anything terrible to you, now is there?”
While saying that, Koutarou glanced towards the armor standing behind him.
Koutarou couldn’t do maintenance on the armor himself, so Clan’s cooperation was essential. And since there was lots he didn’t know about Forthorthe’s history and culture, her advice was indispensable here. Based on the situation they were in, he couldn’t risk doing anything at all that might upset Clan or turn her against him. It would be like cutting his own lifeline.
“Hahh... All right. But in return, don’t look at my sleeping face. Only my future husband can see that.”
“It’s a deal, Clan. Let’s make a partition or something there later.”
“...”
After glancing at Koutarou one more time, Clan let go of her pillow. But even so, the awkward atmosphere didn’t dissipate right away, so Koutarou decided to change the topic. Fortunately, there was a lot they needed to talk about.
“Oh yeah, do you have anything to tell me, Clan?”
“Tell you...? I-I don’t want to see your sleeping face—”
“Not that. I mean your investigation. Did you find anything on the real Blue Knight?”
Clan was about to lose her composure all over again, but her expression turned dark the moment she heard the words “Blue Knight.”
“Ah, ahh... Th-That’
s...”
Based on her reaction, Koutarou could guess how it’d gone.
“...Nothing?”
“Ah, auuugh... Y-Yes...”
Clan’s words grew weaker and quieter. She eventually ended up hugging the pillow she had let go of again and burying her face in it.
“Just saying ‘yes’ doesn’t tell me anything. Please explain.”
When Koutarou said that, Clan peeked up from the pillow and took a look at his face.
“You’re not angry?”
“Angry? Why would I be?”
“Because... I said I’d find him right away, so...”
Hearing Clan’s words, Koutarou remembered what she’d said a week ago. Back then she was full of confidence.
So she was embarrassed about not being able to do what she so pridefully boasted she could, huh?
Koutarou smiled a little as he started to understand Clan’s feelings.
“Stupid. I know the difference between when I should be mad and when I shouldn’t. Besides, you leaving so full of confidence made me feel better too.”
Koutarou and Clan coming to this era had distorted history, but forcing all of the responsibility of fixing that onto Clan was wrong. They’d essentially divided their work, and seeing Clan leave to go find the real Blue Knight so confident in herself had given Koutarou a little bit of hope. He felt safe leaving things to her.
“...”
Clan stared Koutarou in the eyes. She was trying to figure out if he was being honest about how he truly felt.
“So don’t get depressed, okay? Just tell me how it went.”
“I understand...”
Clan stared at Koutarou for a while longer, but she eventually collected herself and slowly nodded.
When this man jokes around, he’s incredibly brash, but when he’s serious, it seems he can behave himself like a proper knight...
Clan’s opinion of Koutarou was slowly changing.
“So how’d it go?”
“Well... for starters, I checked all of the towns and villages along the path that Alaia-san and the others took.”
“I see. That was a sensible way of doing it.”
Koutarou was impressed by Clan’s method. If Koutarou and Clan hadn’t gotten in the way, the Blue Knight would have met up with Alaia somewhere en route to the Mastir checkpoint. So since he was probably traveling normally up until that happened, checking the towns and villages in the area should have yielded something. All Clan would have to do after that was follow his footsteps. It made a lot more sense than randomly looking around for a man in blue armor.
“But nobody knew anything no matter where I went. Not a single person said they had recently seen a man in blue armor or had any guests by the name of Layous.”
“That’s strange...”
“I agree, which means we might be facing the worst possible scenario.”
“...The worst possible scenario?”
Koutarou pensively looked up at Clan’s face. She wore a grim expression and nodded reluctantly.
“Yes, being that we may have killed the real Blue Knight when we were thrown to this age.”
“What... Killed the Blue Knight?!”
Koutarou’s eyes shot wide open. It was a highly unexpected suggestion.
“He may have gotten caught in the space quake, or crushed by the Cradle as it crashed...”
“That would explain why you couldn’t find any trace of him, but... aren’t you overthinking this?”
“Huh?”
This time, Clan’s eyes opened wide in surprise. After hearing Clan’s report, Koutarou had come to a different conclusion.
“Rather than a coincidence like that, couldn’t it just be that he’s traveling incognito? It’s possible he’s just not in his armor too. My armor moves on its own, but wouldn’t it be hard for a knight wearing normal armor to travel in it?”
Koutarou’s armor was fully powered, so it didn’t inhibit him at all as he moved. If anything, it made things easier. But traditional knight armor was just forged and molded metal, so it was heavy and uncomfortable. It was meant for combat, not traveling. Flair, for example, was wearing a light suit of armor that had been specially designed for long journeys. It had been decorated appropriately for a knight, but it actually used very little metal.
“I see. That does seem much more likely.”
Clan nodded as she thought over what Koutarou said.
It seems that he’s less stupid than I first thought... But that makes sense. If he really was that much of a dunce, I wouldn’t have lost to him twice.
Clan’s opinion of Koutarou slowly continued to change more.
“Then starting from tomorrow, I’ll expand the search area a little and expand my inquiries to cover knights traveling alone.”
“That sounds good. It’s still too early to jump to conclusions.”
Koutarou agreed with what Clan suggested. He had no objections to her search methods.
“That’s true... So how did things go on your end, Veltlion?”
“Oh yeah! About that...”
Koutarou flashed a smile the moment Clan brought it up.
“You’re pretty amazing, Clan! Everything happened just as you said it would!”
Koutarou spoke volubly with excitement. He even inched closer to Clan, which made her start hugging her pillow again as she got embarrassed.
“As we crossed the mountain, we got attacked by bandits. And after chasing them off, we made it to the Mastir checkpoint without facing the army!”
The encounter with the bandits happened just the way it had been written in the script. As Koutarou and the others were crossing the mountain, three bandits blocked their path while two additional bandits cut off their escape. The bandits weren’t as strong as Forthorthian soldiers, and there were only five of them. So just like what happened in the play, Koutarou posing as the Blue Knight easily dispatched the three in the front while Flair got rid of the two that were flanking them. The only difference was that the bandits weren’t like Yurika. They were rough, bearded men.
“And at the Mastir checkpoint, that role model of loyalty, Soldier A was really there!”
Once the bandits were taken care of, Koutarou and the girls had climbed down the mountain and made their way towards the Mastir checkpoint without incident. No one seemed to be pursuing them, and there was no ambush waiting for them. They reached the checkpoint safely.
There, they’d met the real-life inspiration for the character referred to as “Soldier A” in the play. He wasn’t known by name, but he was known throughout Forthorthe for his loyalty. When he recognized Alaia, he let her through the checkpoint even though she and her party had no paperwork on them. It was a selfless act of loyalty to the royal families.
“His name was actually Orion. What a shame that A isn’t his initial though.”
In the play, Koutarou was originally supposed to play the part of Soldier A, so he had some fondness for him. He couldn’t help asking his name while they were there.
“It’s an approximation. Orion’s initial is the first letter in the Forthorthian alphabet, so Soldier A is correct.”
Clan smiled at Koutarou, whose eyes were sparkling like a child’s. Her eyes behind her antique glasses looked much more gentle than usual.
“Really? But still, the whole thing was incredible. It happened just like in the script. It was a real help that Theia didn’t add a bunch of fluff to the story.”
Koutarou pulled out two booklets from his armor—his stage costume—and presented them to Clan. They were copies of both parts of Theia’s “The Blue Knight and the Silver Princess” plays. Once she had them in her hands, Clan flipped through the pages.
“Theiamillis-san is a history maniac, so of course she’d be faithful to the original story. Well, it’s not like I can’t understand how she feels...”
What Theia wanted wasn’t a fictional knight, but a real one. That’s why she only made minor changes to the story where it was absolutely necessary
. And thanks to that, the scripts she wrote were like a prophecy of what was to come.
“So I was thinking, Clan...”
“About what?”
Clan stopped flipping through the pages and looked up at him.
“The next act in the play is about the poisoning of the water source, and I want to stop that.”
“You want to stop it?!”
Clan hastily shut the script booklet and raised her voice.
“Yeah. We know the water source is going to get poisoned, so if we go ahead of the enemy, we can stop it and no one will get hurt, right?”
“You can’t, Veltlion! If you do that, history will change!”
“Now’s not the time to be worried about history!”
Mirroring Clan, Koutarou also raised his voice.
“If we do nothing, lots of people are going to die!”
If things went according to the script, the water source would soon be poisoned on Maxfern’s orders. It would kill everyone who drank from it. Koutarou wanted to prevent such a horrible, indiscriminate attack.
“In the end, they succeed in treating it! So there’s no need to interfere and rewrite history!”
“But even then, people are going to die! Can you still call yourself a princess of Forthorthe knowing that and doing nothing about it?!”
In the play, the Blue Knight ended up stealing an antidote from the enemy to treat those who’d been poisoned. But it still didn’t save everyone. Those who were seriously ill would lose their lives. Koutarou couldn’t ignore that. Up until now, it had only been Koutarou and Alaia’s problems, but this was going to involve the lives of many innocent people.
“Wha...”
Clan was at a loss and was unable to give him a rebuttal.
“Can you still call yourself a princess of Forthorthe knowing that and doing nothing about it?!”
She had been so focused on preserving history that she saw those deaths objectively. As historical fact. An unavoidable loss. But Koutarou’s words had made her realize that she was only thinking of the citizens’ lives as pieces of a puzzle, leaving her appalled at herself.
I see... That would make me a fake princess, wouldn’t it?
Clan recalled Koutarou calling her that before. It was back in November when they first met. Back then, she took it as an insult and lost her temper, but now she felt like he might have had a point. Would she protect history, or the lives of the citizens? A princess would pick the latter, but Clan just couldn’t do it. She then began to understand how flawed she was as a royal.
