Chapter 85: Field Trip

“Maaaan. I bet sis is playing with the cats right about now...” William muttered as he slumped over his desk. The cool surface felt lovely on his face, which was burning up after exercising all morning.

In total contrast with the utterly exhausted William, George was simply nodding along with a perfectly unflappable expression. “I bet. Joshua’s had to take today off for Joshua reasons, and the prince and Lord Arthur have been so busy, we barely get to see them anymore.”

“I really never realized how peaceful school could be without sis around... I’m shocked.”

Emma was doing just fine, but their mother had been worried about her since the incident, so she’d kept Emma home ever since.

It had been about a week since the brothers had had the Loafcraftian experience of seeing the almost forty-year-old Minato in her school uniform. While they’d heard plenty of rumors about Lady Juana since then, she hadn’t come in contact with them even once after that. Things were pretty smooth sailing for George and William at school.

Rather, it was a shockingly uneventful week. No weirdos flocked around them, no bugs fell from the skies, no crazy mayhem whatsoever.

“I mean, we call it peaceful, but I think this is supposed to be normal...” George was starting to think it was pretty boring, which meant Emma’s corruption had finally gotten to him.

“I’m not all that worried since sis is good with her studies and stuff, but still...” William sighed and looked around. The brothers had just finished Hunting Techniques and had moved on to their Monster Studies classroom. The girls hadn’t yet arrived from their Embroidery class, which explained why the class was so quiet despite being over halfway full.

Up until a few days ago, people had been constantly coming to the brothers to ask about Emma, but it seemed like now people were keeping their distance, only stealing glances instead of talking to them. It was pretty obviously suspicious.

William had overheard some rumors when he was in a stall in the bathroom earlier. “So hey, did you hear? People are saying Emma’s so ill that she’s been in and out of consciousness, unable to keep anything down for two whole weeks.” He heaved a giant sigh. Apparently, people thought Emma’s condition was so hopeless that they were now giving the brothers space.

“Uh. What. We’re talking about the same girl who pretended to help our mother make rice balls this morning only to eat them until mother found out and yelled at her, right?” The rice they’d worked so hard to procure was already over halfway gone.

“Yuuup. The same one.”

“I really hope they don’t start bad-mouthing her the second they see her back here and totally fine...” George sighed. It didn’t matter whether Emma was there or not, she was still the source of countless headaches.

Unfortunately, the brothers didn’t realize that the other boys were watching their dismayed display...

“Look over there... Lord George of all people is sighing so miserably...”

“I knew it... The rumors must be true...”

“A boy of Lord William’s age shouldn’t be heaving such heavy sighs...”

“But of course he would... They’re forcing themselves to come to school, even though they desperately wish they could be home with their sister... But they have to be here! Because that’s what she wanted!” The boy with the overactive imagination was on his A game again today.

“Hnkh!”

“It’s so horrible... I feel so awful for them!”

Unfortunately for the brothers, the rumors were showing no sign of slowing down.

Meanwhile, the girl in question was roasting up some of the sweet potatoes she’d originally bought to turn into sweet potato shochu.

“Achoo!”

“Myah?” Kongming meowed to ask Emma if she was okay.

“Hmm? Yeah, I’m okay! I’m not sick or anything. It’s just the powdered sugar I was sifting got up my nose!”

If that powdered sugar knew what was going on at school, it likely would have cried for its innocence in that moment.

◆ ◆ ◆

“It sure is gloomy today, isn’t it, Caitlyn?”

“It sure is gloomy today, Catherine!”

Embroidery had ended, and the girls had made it to the Monster Studies classroom only to discover over half the students were in tears.

“Did something happen?” Francesca asked William. The boy was draped over his desk in exhaustion after Hunting Techniques, but that was normal for him.

“Huh? Uh... Well...”

William was awkwardly shifting his gaze, so Marion assumed he didn’t understand the question and directed her clarification at George. “Well, the mood in the class just feels awfully grim...”

“Hmm? You sure it’s not just everyone being tired after Hunting Techniques?” George looked around and saw the other students all averting their eyes, unable to even look at them through their sadness, and pressing their foreheads to their desks. Everyone was usually like that after Hunting Techniques. To George, who was the only one still fit as a fiddle afterward, this was just more of the usual.

“No, that’s not... Ugh, never mind.” William was going to say it was something totally different, but he figured since class was about to start, there was no point in getting into it.

“Hey, Caitlyn? It had to have been something those two did, huh?”

“Hey, Catherine? They are Lady Emma’s brothers, and they’re totally alike when it comes to this sorta thing...”

The two twins giggled, laughing at how similar George’s confused expression was to Emma’s. Then the bell rang, and the terrifying Monster Studies teacher entered the room. He was so intimidating that the entire gloomy room sat right at attention again.

“I’ve got some extracurricular activities to talk to you all about before class starts today. It’s dangerous work, so you’d better tighten your belts.” Just by bringing up this extracurricular, the already-intimidating professor became even scarier. All the students audibly gulped, realizing that this wasn’t something they could take lightly. It was only then that they could force their minds away from the poor, sickly Lady Emma.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What’s the meaning of this?” Prince Edward furrowed his brow at the report from the knights who’d returned from the Skyte region.

“There’s no shelter anywhere near the border of Skyte where a human could possibly live. We asked people in the nearby villages, and they said they’d never heard of anyone living in the forests.” The knights who had gone to investigate had found no evidence that Juana had ever lived in the forest with her grandmother. None of the nearby villagers had even seen them. “That forest has always been practically uninhabitable as well. There are too many distortions in the border leading to monsters wandering about. The hunters of Skyte have had their hands full with them.” The knight giving the report seemed anguished. He’d been heavily wounded by monsters and his left leg was completely wrapped in bandages.

“So you’re saying that Lady Juana lied?”

“There’s no way anyone could possibly live out there. Especially not an old woman and young girl. They’d be eaten within minutes.” The knight stood, taking extra care on his leg, and exited the room. The vast majority of knights who had been sent on this investigation had encountered monsters in the forest and suffered grave wounds. Their appearance alone was enough to lend veracity to their reports.

“What do you think of this?” the prince asked Arthur, who had been listening to the report with a stern expression.

“I’m more concerned that there are monsters wandering about inside the barrier than any of this business with Lady Juana. We need to figure out how to deal with that at once.”

As soon as possible. Before one of those monsters left the forests and attacked a human. Before it became a problem they couldn’t undo. They had no time to waste.

Arthur continued, “But it would be too difficult to dispatch any more knights at the moment. My father says we’ve spread them too thin, and none of them have the training necessary to fight monsters. We’d just be sending them off to turn right back round and limp home... And what’s more...” Arthur stared at the door where the injured knight had left, further racking his brain.

“Are you concerned about this year’s field trip?”

“Yes. It’s to take place in the Skyte region.”

Each year, after the social season and just before exams, the school would hold a field trip. The participants would mostly be students taking Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques. The students would be sent off to lands where monsters were likely to show up in order to give them some hands-on experience. There, they could see the forests near the border of the barrier, witness hunters at work, and learn how to process monsters for themselves.

The current king had begun the program when he’d been officially crowned. He believed that by letting the youth of the kingdom (who would inherit it in the future) experience the threats for themselves, it would foster their ability to handle themselves in a crisis.

Unfortunately, many parents were displeased with these extracurricular programs. The school had received a flood of complaints from parents who demanded to know what the king would do if anything should happen to their precious sons, so the program became voluntary.

Notably, the Pallas region where the Stewarts ruled was unfortunately too far from the kingdom, so it was never picked as a location for the program.

“There are usually only a few people who choose to participate each year, but the burden the Skyte hunters face is particularly high. Even so, as someone who’s already come face-to-face with monsters myself, I feel like maybe it’s the kind of opportunity the class should be taking... It’s hard to say what’s best.”

With Lady Juana and now the Monster Studies field trip...there was really no end to the problems.

◆ ◆ ◆

“In short, I want each and every one of you to fully understand the danger present in this field trip and inform your parents of such before... Hmm? What’s the matter, George and William Stewart?” The Monster Studies professor gave his explanation of the extracurricular field trip, and two of his students raised their hands with eyes aglitter.

“We want to go!”

“That fast?! Did you not hear what I said?”

“We sure did! And we really, really want to go!”

Even though the boys were from a border region, the monsters that appeared were specific to their home. As such, the two brothers were filled with excitement at the opportunity to hunt monsters they’d never seen in Pallas. What was more, if they participated in this activity, it likely meant they’d get extra credit in Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques. It was a deal that George, who was struggling with Monster Studies, and William, who was struggling with Hunting Techniques, simply couldn’t pass up.

“Are you certain you were listening? Because I said that you couldn’t participate until after you spoke with your parents.” The professor had never once seen students be so enthusiastic about participating in these activities. Even a gruff man like him was shocked.

“Then does that mean we can join if our parents say we can, Professor Wolfgang?!”

“If we go on this field trip, would it count as extra credit toward Ancient Imperial Language, Professor?!”

It wasn’t just the teacher who was shocked. The other students couldn’t understand why in the world George and William were so gung ho about it either.

“Er... Right, so, William Stewart, yes, you can join as long as you have your parents’ permission. But you’re still young, so you should really think long and hard about it. Make sure you have a full and honest discussion with your parents before making your decision. And George Stewart, no, it won’t count as extra credit toward Ancient Imperial Language.”

“Got it! I’ll ask my parents tonight!”

“No way... Can’t you like...make an exception, Professor?”

William readily agreed to his professor’s terms, while George slumped his shoulders in disappointment.

“Are you two quite all right?” Francesca, who had been sitting next to William, asked with worry. The professor had warned them several times how dangerous the field trip would be.

William gave a very reasonable response. “Don’t you think it’s difficult to fully understand something until you’ve actually experienced it for yourself, Lady Francesca?”

“You’re right. It may actually behoove us as people who live here in the capital to participate. None of us have ever seen a real monster before, after all.”

“Lady Marion! I’ve heard that there haven’t been enough hunters to go around lately, so knights have been dispatched to the borders to fill in. As someone who hopes to be a knight in the future, it really could be a good idea for you to join,” George replied to Marion, beginning to sway her.

“I think a field trip sounds pretty fun, don’t you, Caitlyn?”

“I think a field trip sounds pretty fun too, Catherine!”

The twins didn’t even need to be convinced. They’d already had their interest piqued because monsters were involved.

“Besides, I know if my sister were here right now, she’d say she wants to join too!” Just as the girls started wondering if they should ask their parents, William (who was getting pretty into this) dealt the final blow. The moment he mentioned Emma, the boys around him all started to change their attitudes.

“I’ve heard the hunters in Skyte have been having a lot of trouble with so few of them to go around...”

“And if Lady Emma heard there were people in trouble, she couldn’t possibly let it stand...”

“Lady Emma would be volunteering if she were well enough to... So why in the world should we be too afraid?!”

All the students in Beginner’s Monster Studies swore that they would ask their parents later that night about attending the field trip. It was no exaggeration to say that this completely unnecessary addition from William had increased the number of participants severalfold in previous years. What was more, those who would be able to attend the activity were about to be witnesses to a miracle.

The girl who was on the verge of death...would be attending the same field trip bearing nothing but smiles.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Uuuuugh, luckyyyy!” Emma cried when George and William got home and started talking about the field trip. “Father, I wanna go too! I wanna see the monsters in the other regions!”

“But, Emma, you’re supposed to be taking time off from school... It’d be better for you to just stay put...” Though Leonard faltered before Emma’s insistent pleading, he still tried his best to stand his ground.

“That’s exactly why I should, father!”

“Myah!”

“Reowr rawr!”

“Mya mya!”

“Mya nyao!”

“See? The General and her company want to go too!” Emma and the cats were begging Leonard, nearly pushing him to the brink with their puppy dog eyes.

“Nngh... But you know that I want to go too!” Leonard admitted. “The Skyte region’s the farthest borderland from Pallas! I just know the types of monsters that show up there will be completely different!” Fighting a large vaQriety of monsters was a hunter’s dream, and building up that experience would make them stronger in the end. A hunter’s skills were a matter of life-and-death to those in the border regions.

“But there are a bunch of regions that won’t accept hunters from anywhere else, no matter how much they’re struggling, because they Qhave their ways of dealing with the monsters’...” William tilted his head, unable to understand why they’d be so stubbornly inefficient. The closer one was to the capital, the smaller the border area they’d need to patrol. As such, many of these regions determined they could handle the border themselves and didn’t have much need to cooperate—and they were quite stubborn about it. The Skyte region was the closest to the capital, so they were the most dogged about those beliefs.

“And that’s why Pallas always winds up getting stuck training the hunters who don’t have much experience with the barrier...” George said, a faraway look in his eye as he realized that Uncle Arven would be preparing to train a new batch right about then.

Number five of the Six Precepts for Regional Monster Subjugation stated lords of regions on the border of the barrier must regularly accept hunters from regions where monsters aren’t present and train them in the art of monster slaying. Before anyone could object, it was decided that it should take place during the farmers’ off season (though it wasn’t like hunters were all working on farms or anything). The other lands would complain that the snow was just too biting cold or whatever as some poor excuse to pawn the duty off to Pallas since it was the region that was the furthest south.

“And the government doesn’t budget for that sort of thing either...all the funding comes from the region who’s training them.” While they were fine now, Emma remembered just how hard it was back when they’d been poor. The land in charge of training these hunters was in charge of finding lodgings, providing food, treating any injuries that might occur, and finding proper equipment for everyone. It was extremely costly, and the winters were already rough to begin with.

“Right... And then there were all those hardheaded noble heirs who’d never even seen the barrier before getting it into their heads that they could handle it with book smarts alone... Teaching them was a pain too...” Leonard’s face darkened. They wouldn’t listen to anything he said, and if he got mad at them, they’d get all sulky, cry, then run out into the night and get drunk and cause all sorts of problems...

“Gosh, I sure hope Uncle Arven’s okay...”

All four of them sighed.

“But that’s why I think it’s so important that students at the academy participate in this field trip! There’s lots of stuff you can’t learn in books when it comes to Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques.”

“Myah!”

“Meow!”

“Nyaah!”

“Myamya!”

Emma and the cats all pleaded with Leonard once more, with eyes screaming, So is it okay if we go toooo?

“Er... Um...”

“It’s fine with me.”

“Melsa?!”

Melsa entered the room right as Leonard was being pushed to the brink, and he whipped around to face her.

“As it turns out, I heard something interesting from one of the women at a tea party I recently attended. Each student who participates in this field trip can have up to two guardians accompanying them on the trip.” She figured that since they still hadn’t solved the issues with the Minato doppelgänger, it would be better for the family to all go together rather than any of them being split up.

Melsa was the only family member still attending social events, so she’d gotten them some useful information. Unfortunately, she’d seen it through the context of her previous life, in which “guardian” referred to “parent.” In this world, it usually referred to a bodyguard or servant who looked after someone. Naturally, the guardians that the women at the tea party had been referring to were the latter kind. No normal noble lord or lady would want to go along with a field trip involving hands-on experience hunting monsters. It was one of the few times Melsa made a silly mistake, and as usual, nobody in the Stewart family noticed.

“So that means you and I can join too!” Leonard agreed, not doubting her for a second.

“Wait, really?! So, does that mean we can invite four more guardians?! The more the merrier, right?” Emma asked.

“Myah!”

“Myah!”

“Myah!”

“Myah!”

Kongming, Liu, Guan, and Zhang all raised their paws to volunteer, having waited for just that moment.

“God, they’re so cute...” Seeing all four cats in a row with their paws raised like that looked like a group of giant maneki-neko. The family had never felt more blessed.

“But, unfortunately... I don’t know about cats...” Melsa didn’t want to be the one to say it, but it sounded impossible. She shook her head.

“Mrowr?!”

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, at the castle...

“Absolutely not.”

The lord of the Skyte region had come to see Juana, who was living in the castle. He was the man who had rescued her when she was found wandering the forest.

“Lady Juana... My people are all waiting with bated breath to be in your presence.” Every year, more and more monsters appeared in the Skyte region, and the people there were filled with anxiety. It had been a few months since he’d seen Juana’s black hair and eyes and sent his son to deliver her to the castle. Now that Juana had been officially canonized by the church, he had written her countless letters begging her to come offer her sympathies to his people.

“I said as much in my letters. I am far too busy. I don’t have the time to visit.” Unfortunately, Juana had rejected every proposal without fail. Thus, the lord had come up with another plan:

The school’s field trip that year would be in the Skyte region.

With the king attending, there would be far more knights accompanying him than there would have been for a single saint. The hunters would be available at all times during the field trip, so they might have a chance to enter the forest that had been deemed too dangerous to ever set foot in. The lord proposed that if she came along, it would be a chance for Juana to visit her dead grandmother’s grave.

But Juana rejected even that proposal with a snort. “Heh. Well, my apologies, but...I can’t leave the capital at the moment.” The capital was the center of the country. It was the safest and most opulent place around. Could someone really have changed this much in only a few months? Was this really someone the church had canonized? Someone who wouldn’t even show a little mercy to the people of her home, who lived in fear each day?

She now lived in a beautiful room in the castle. When the lord had met her, she’d only had the clothes on her back. Now, Juana was wearing the lavish uniform reserved only for those privileged enough to attend the academy. She was living in the castle as royalty, worshipped as a saint in the church, and never had to worry about monsters or going hungry. It did sound awfully appealing. However, as someone who had lived in the Skyte region until just a few months ago, she should have known that her pleasant lifestyle was only possible through the sacrifices of those living on the border.

She should have known, yet she still took such an attitude.

“Then I won’t ask again. Goodbye.” The one-armed lord of the Skyte region left the saint’s room dejectedly.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hmm, hmm, hmmmmm!”

“You seem in awfully good spirits, Your Majesty.” The queen sighed, watching the king as he hummed and prepared his sword for battle. He really was the only king in the world who would force his way into a school field trip each year with the same excitement as if he were going on a picnic.

The king grinned, showing off his pearly whites. “It’s because I’m going to get to go a little crazy again after so long, Victoria.”

“Prince Edward will be attending, so please try not to go too over the top this year. You’re getting up there in age too...” Queen Victoria Charlotte Royale could only shrug when the king smiled at her. This was just the kind of person he was. He was always the type to prefer working out to his regular government duties, and any time he had a chance, he’d try to get in with the knights’ training.

Meanwhile, Victoria, who had been his betrothed since both of them were very young, had always been devoted to learning history and government affairs. In a society where all women had to do was smile and look pretty, most looked with disapproval upon her ambition and desire to learn more than she needed. Even then, though she’d held far more prominent standing than most women in the kingdom, she still hadn’t been given the opportunities to do the things she really wanted. It had always been miserable for her.

Yet in that terribly restrictive life in the castle, the king and Victoria became engaged. They were partners in crime and comrades in arms. When he got an education from some of the best teachers around, he made sure that Victoria could also sit in with him. When he would sneak out to participate in training with the knights, she would come up with excuses for him. The two of them worked together so they both could do what they wanted, and all those little tricks they’d concocted and pulled off had led them to the people they were today.

“I’ll be counting on you to handle our government affairs while I’m away...though I bet it’ll be much better for everyone here to leave it to you anyway! We’ve got a bunch of stubborn jerks around the castle again lately...” Every time one left, another one would pop up to fill in. The king sighed and scratched his head, wondering why that even was. Of course, he didn’t realize that the reason was because he was too free-spirited, so his vassals had to be strict.

“Why, the government work is awfully difficult for me too. After all, I have to deal with the cotton shortage, the bizarre requests we’ve been getting year after year from the Western Empire, and someone’s infidelity...”

“Whoa, Victoria?! Do you think I’m Lady Juana’s father too?! Rose is always glaring at me, Edward’s treating me like a stranger, and Jadwi’s been telling me not to give her kissies anymore because my beard is too itchy... What about Max?! He should be coming home from his study abroad in the Western Empire! You haven’t been telling him anything weird in your letters, have you?!” After a brief panic, the king waited for Victoria’s reply with great anxiety.

The firstborn prince and Queen Victoria’s son, Maximilian Lewin Royale, had been studying the politics of various countries in short periods abroad to fill in the gaps between his own government work. Like his mother, he took a great interest in politics. In fact, he was even more fascinated with it, and his hunger for knowledge that might help his country had everyone expecting great things from him as the next king.

“Look... He’ll be coming home soon anyway. Do you really think I could tell him such a pathetic state of affairs in a letter?” Victoria simply couldn’t bear the thought of writing a letter to tell her son, who was learning in a foreign country, that his father had an illegitimate child.

“B-But I’m saying I’ve never loved another woman other than you and Rose! You have to believe me!” the king insisted.

“They do say that what happens twice will happen thrice...”

Maximilian was a large child, even when he still had been growing inside his mother’s belly. The petite queen had been able to manage giving birth to him, but was unable to have any other children afterward. It was a risk to only have a single heir, especially given how the king’s older brother, Cain, was brazenly after the throne. With that in mind, Victoria was the one who made the suggestion.

The king should take a concubine.

Having studied history, Victoria knew that in the Middle Kingdom, a country that had been destroyed by monsters, the king had kept multiple wives. They were not just mistresses; they were official concubines of a noble. By birthing the children of a king, the woman would be granted status and her children would become formal potential heirs to the throne. Victoria believed that would keep Cain under control. After all, he should never be king.

“Victoria, how could you say that?! I swore on heaven’s name that I would never love anyone but you! And then a few years later, you said you wanted me to make Rose my concubine! I’ve never forgotten that!”

Most women would have been happy to be told that they were the only one their lover needed. Yet as queen, she had to think about her country’s future. She wanted at least one more heir. How could he have moved on from such fragile, complicated feelings in only a few years...?

“W-Well, I-I mean... It was love at first sight, okay?!” The king pouted under Victoria’s glare.

“My word. Can you be any more childish?” Victoria was the only one who ever got to see the king in such an utterly pathetic state. But she was happy that way. It meant that she was still special to him, as the only one who was allowed to see him like that.

Besides, Rose Alicia Royale had enough beauty to bring down a nation. If the king hadn’t married her right then and there, then the several dozen...no, several hundred men surrounding her would have lost themselves in her. The Middle Country even had a name for femme fatales like her. Having good conjugal relations was pivotal in a relationship and for the continued survival of the country. That meant between the queen and the king and between Rose and the king. As it was, the king’s affection was a bit overbearing, so having it divided in half might have been the best for both of them.

“What are you smiling about, Victoria?”

“Oh, nothing, Your Majesty. I was just thinking that there really are some instances where less is more. You should just go out there and fulfill your duty as king.”

“You got it! Then if I catch a horned hare in the Skyte region, I’ll make you a coat out of its fur!”

“You know horned hares have brown or gold fur during this time of year. If you’re going to hunt a horned hare, I’d far prefer a white one from the winter time.”

“You’re just as precise as ever, Victoria...”

“And you’re just as forgetful as ever, Your Majesty.”

“Heh.”

“Hee hee.”

At this time, the royal family was unaware that the Western Empire was trying to colonize the kingdom out of its desire for more magic stones. Saint Juana had just informed the Western Empire that the king would be away from the kingdom on this field trip, making it the perfect opportunity for an invasion.

The kingdom was in danger of being dragged into the first war between humans since the dawn of history.

Chapter 86: As Explained Before

On the day of the field trip, the Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques professors (both of whom were very stern) had gathered all the students and guardians to explain the schedule and details of the field trip. However...

“Erm. As I explained before, the participants in this field trip will be sleeping either in tents or carriages that they have brought themselves. As you can see just by looking around you, there are no accommodations or houses near the barrier. Therefore, you will have your...guardians...keep watch around you, and on the off chance that a monster appears, those...guardians...can... Sorry, er. Count Stewart?” The experienced instructors couldn’t hide their bewilderment, and neither could the students and their guardians.

“Hmm? What’s the matter, Professor Wolfgang?” Leonard Stewart was confused by the break in explanation and new attention on himself.

“Er... If I’m not mistaken, it appears...your whole family is participating?”

The Stewart siblings’ guardians stood a bit behind them...and they appeared to be their father, Leonard Stewart, their mother, Melsa Stewart, and their uncle Arven Stewart—who was supposed to be along the border—sitting there with a big, dopey grin on his face.

“See, everyone’s surprised you’re here, Uncle Arven!” Emma smiled at him, having noticed all the staring and whispering around her. “You graduated from the university with amazing scores, so you’re totally famous in the capital!”

William shook his head at his giddy sister. “Uh, sis? That is extremely not it. Everyone at school thought you were dead... They’re scared that a zombie’s here right now.”

“Hmm? Y’know, everyone else looks like they brought maids and bodyguards and stuff as their guardians...” George was realizing just how different his family was from the others around him.

“Oh, maybe I misunderstood what they meant by guardian? But I think Emma’s theory makes sense, and so does William’s... What should we do? I mean, I’m sure you’re all correct in some way...” Melsa put her hand to her cheek, worried about all the attention they were getting, and she looked to Leonard with worry.

“All of the above!” The teachers spoke for everyone there when they jumped into the Stewart family’s discussion.

“Huh?”

“All of the above! That’s right, every single one of those reasons! Why is Dr. Arven Stewart here, when he’s supposed to be standing in for you as the lord of the Pallas region?! And are you healthy enough to be here, Emma?! Your teachers have been worried sick! And why are your father and mother coming with you?! What about your maids?! Who’s going to take care of you?! It was already a shock that we’d have girls coming with us this year, but bringing a count and his wife to such a dangerous place...!” Wolfgang Garriano, the Monster Studies professor, blurted out what every single person present was thinking.

“Hmm? Who, me? Well, my adorable little niece didn’t come home for the summer, so...I made myself at home!” The niece-brained uncle Arven stuck out his tongue cutely.

What is he, some guy’s girlfriend sneaking into his apartment in the middle of the night? Not like anyone’s ever done that to me... William wanted to retort, sad as it was.

“My relatives are taking care of Pallas right now (whether they like it or not), so there’s nothing to worry about!” Arven was proud to say that they could do the job of standing in for the region’s lord just fine.

“I’m doing juuust fine, Professor! Eep!” Emma stood up with her hand in the air to get her teacher’s attention. However, she was so energetic that she wound up pitching forward and almost falling until Arven swept in with a cool motion to keep her steady.

“Whoa there! You okay?”

“Thanks, Uncle Arven!”

It was a completely normal interaction between an energetic girl and her kind uncle, but it made all the participants choke back tears.

Lady Emma doesn’t have much longer to live... The rumors must have been true... That simple move had given them the “proof” they needed to believe it. Even if she wasn’t in a coma due to her condition, it was bad enough that Dr. Arven had come running all the way from the border just to see her. But despite her illness, as children of the lord of said borderland, George and William couldn’t forgo this field trip. Yet she had so little time...so she forced herself to join the field trip so she could be with her family, even though she was so sick... It was so... It was just so...!

They all started to sob, but stopped themselves. No! If we cry while Lady Emma and her family are trying so hard to stay strong, it will have been for nothing! So they choked back their tears (that were entirely caused by the emotions welling up from their wild imaginations) and sniffled back the snot as best as they could.

“You all have allergies or something? That’s pretty unusual this time of year...” Emma considered maybe passing out handkerchiefs to everyone.

“R-Right. I see. But, er... I think perhaps it would be best to have at least one maid...” The Stewarts did have two other guardians, but their dress implied they were hunters. One had a large bow, and the other had a spear. In other words, it didn’t appear like anyone could provide food or wash their clothes.

“They can take care of their own... Er! Ahem! I mean, our maids are all on paid holiday!” Melsa clammed up in the middle of her retort. She’d realized before that the fact that she could do anything self-sufficiently was not a given in high society, where a noble didn’t do everything themselves.

As it turned out, the Stewarts’ servants weren’t even used to the idea of having paid holidays, so they’d saved up all their time off, uncertain of when to use them. Realizing that they’d never be able to use them up at that rate, they finally decided to cash it in all at once, so the benefit the family had provided had backfired. If their servants hadn’t been on vacation, someone might have realized Melsa had misunderstood the definition of guardian and stopped them. Unfortunately, their last line of defense had failed, and they’d come to the field trip like this.

“Paid...what now?” The Hunting teacher had never heard this phrase.

“U-Um, Professor! Those of us who brought our maids with us can help out.”

“E-Exactly! Lady Catherine, Lady Caitlyn, and my guards have never fought monsters before, so er...in exchange, we asked the Stewarts’ experienced hunters to look after our guardians as well.”

The more the professors pressed them, the more the Stewarts would put their feet in their mouths, so Marion and Francesca stepped in to help. It was the sort of ability they’d naturally picked up after spending over half a year in the same class as Emma.

“We could never see any monsters in the Simmons region, right, Caitlyn?”

“We never could see any monsters in the Simmons region, Catherine!”

The twins both agreed they wanted to see a monster as soon as possible.

“What?! Er... Mmngh... Lord Leonard, we’ve never seen a monster before either!” The men with the bow and spear both covered their mouths as they tried to protest the girls’ excuses. They were some ruffians from the slums that Leonard had scouted out to become hunters in Pallas. He’d brought them along to see how well they could fight in the face of monsters before sending them off to Pallas.

“Shush, you two! We’re finally getting some of the heat off of us! Just stay by me, Arven, and George, and you...probably won’t die, okay?” Leonard whispered.

“Probably?!”

“The least you could say is that we definitely won’t!”

“I mean, ultimately, it depends on the type of monster. Like, if we’re up against a dragon? It’d be over. Those flying types are pretty horrifying.”

“F-Father!” William nudged his father, who had been mumbling with the two ruffians. The Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques professors were both staring suspiciously at them.

“A-Anyway, it’ll be just fine! Heh!” Leonard forced a smile.

“Y-Yeah! It’ll be just fine! Hee hee!” The whole family responded with the flashiest (or fishiest) grins possible, desperately trying to get the professors to stop grilling them. But they were as fishy as the sea.

“Sigh. Well, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway. His Majesty, the king will be here any moment now. You should all steel yourself for a most grueling ten-day period. This isn’t the capital, where we can guarantee your survival. Always bear in mind that you’re on the border now. Monsters could appear at any moment. Now get your food and beds ready.” It was clear the Stewarts were hiding something, but the teachers decided they couldn’t waste any more of the time it would take for the students to prepare such unfamiliar lodgings for themselves. Besides, there were some things people were better off not knowing.

“All righty then! Arven, George! We’re gonna put up our tent, so I’ll get our owata supports for us!” Whether or not Leonard was aware of the teachers’ feelings, he stood up and started getting their sleeping arrangements ready.

Sorry, did he just say...owata?

“Hey, which carriage did we put our Emma silk tent?” (The one woven with Violet’s thread to make it waterproof.) Melsa took the initiative to start unpacking their carriages.

Did she just say they made their tent...out of Emma silk?

“Hee hee. We’re gonna have to break out the special cooking utensils to make rice today! I mean, camping means you have to have curry, right? Oh! William, I’m gonna start the fire, so can you get us some good sticks?” Emma decided to start getting dinner ready and asked William to be her errand boy as always.

Wait, she’s starting a fire?! A noblewoman?! Starting a fire?!

As the teachers had thought... There were many, many, many things in the world they were better off not knowing. It was one of those things that the professors deemed too absurd to even look at, and they did their best to avert their eyes as much as they could.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What an unusual smell... What’d you make there, Emma?” The king, who had only just arrived, was drawn to the smell of the curry that Melsa and Emma had made.

“Oh, Your Majesty!”

Unlike the other students, Emma and her family had finished setting up their tent and finished making dinner by themselves, so they realized the king had arrived. Emma and Melsa both quickly bowed.

“Are you quite all right, Emma?” Prince Edward, who was behind the king, came running with worry for Emma. He hadn’t seen her since the Minato doppelgänger incident, so it was only natural.

“I’m so sorry you had to see me like that, Your Highness. But I’m doing just fine now! See?” Emma felt bad that the prince had worried about her for so long, especially since she’d been skipping school all that time. She rolled up her left sleeve past her bicep and flexed to show off just how very healthy she was feeling.

“Nngh... J-Just, try not to push yourself.” The prince averted his eyes, clearly flustered by Emma’s pose. Her slender arms that looked like they could break at the slightest touch, coupled with her smooth, pale skin was enough to send his heart beating like crazy.

“Hey, Your Highness? Did you know the softness of a girl’s upper arms matches the softness of her breasts?”

The prince hadn’t wanted to remember this, but the little tidbit of information Arthur had gleefully imparted to him a few years back suddenly rose into the front of his mind.

The same...softness...as...her breasts...

It was the legendary secret that senior boys passed down to their juniors at school as though it were the truth.

Emma misunderstood the prince’s expression and pouted. “I know it might look like nothing to you guys since you’re always working out, but I’m still plenty strong!”

“Oh? Well, why don’t I check for myself?” The king decided to tease his son a little after seeing how flustered he’d gotten. Considering the king had attended the same academy, he could clearly see what the prince was thinking about and had to suppress a laugh.

“Y-You can’t!” The prince panicked and stopped the king as he reached out to touch Emma’s bicep.

“Huh? I mean, I don’t really mind...” Emma was not resistant to the idea of the rugged, muscular silver fox of a king touching her in the slightest.

“He just can’t! Really, it’s too much, Emma! Please, put your sleeve back down!” The prince shouted, his face bright red. He’d grabbed his father’s arm to stop him, as the king was having too good of a time to stop by that point. Seeing how desperately the prince was reacting, Emma realized she had forgotten something very important.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Your Highness. I wasn’t even thinking...” Joshua had told her that letting someone rest their head on her lap was a major faux pas. Based on the prince’s expression, showing one’s biceps, and especially touching them, might have had similar implications in this world. And for her to allow the king himself to do it... She might have been arrested for a total lapse of judgment. I should be okay, though, right? Like, he didn’t actually do it, so I’m just barely squeaking by, right? Emma was paying extra close attention to the knights standing on guard as she lowered her sleeve.

“Ah, such is youth...” the king said as he scratched his beard, grinning at the bittersweet feelings his son was showing.

“Your Majesty, I ask that you keep your jokes in check. I don’t know if I would be able to hold back against anyone touching Emma’s upper arm like that. Not even the king himself.” Count Stewart, the ever fervent daughter doter, said from behind the king in a low, threatening voice.

“Whoa!” Even a well-seasoned and well-known warrior like the king hadn’t noticed the count sneak up on him. What was more, Leonard was gripping the legendary hammer he was fond of using during his monster hunts as well.

“Er, I’m sorry.” While royalty shouldn’t apologize easily, the king did it the moment he saw the count’s face. From one daughter doter to the other, he understood the count’s feelings all too well.

“Arven, calm yourself!” At the same time, when the king turned toward the sound of the count’s wife’s voice, he saw the acting lord of Pallas aiming an arrow at his head, pulling his bow taut.

“So this kingdom tolerates sexual harassment from our king?! I won’t let you lay a single finger on my beloved niece!” The infamously niece-brained Arven Stewart looked more serious than ever. It was a truly explosive situation. If he moved even an inch, the arrow would fire right into the king’s head. The royal knights were at a loss for how to act when...

“Oh, Uncle Arven!” Just as Arven was seconds away from committing actual treason, Emma pointed up at the sky and shouted at him.

“My goodness!” When Arven looked where Emma was pointing, he immediately switched his aim from the king’s head up to the sky and fired.

“Here goes!” William and George suddenly ran into the forest.

“Huh? Wha? What’s going on? What’s happening?!” The king didn’t even have a moment to ask whether he was just being threatened before the Stewart family all sprang into action.

“Darling! Arven!”

“Leave it to me!”

“I’m on it!”

Leonard ran to the carriage to get the largest pot they had, Arven ran to draw water from the well, and Emma and Melsa started counting time while retrieving carving knives and a cutting board.

“Huh? Emma?”

“Sorry, Your Highness! I need to get through!”

“Whoa!”

Arven poured the water he’d fetched into the pot Leonard had prepared.

“Thirty-five, thirty-six...”

“Wh-What’s going on? What happened all of a—”

“George, William! We’re running out of time!”

“Sorry! We got snared by the trees and it held us up!”

Leonard’s shout drowned out the sound of the king’s bewilderment. The two brothers came running out of the forest at a ridiculous speed.

“Wh-Huh?! Huuuh?!” When the king followed where Leonard was looking, he saw George heading toward them, dragging a massive bird by its tail feathers. Meanwhile, William was riding atop it, frantically plucking it.

“Wha?! Holy...!”

“Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine...” As soon as George neared the pot, the whole family joined William in his plucking. “Fifty-six, fifty-seven...”

“All right, it’s all clean!” William said, raising his hand.

“Everyone, get back!” Melsa said, as she picked up a cleaver and swung it down with a bang. She didn’t hesitate for even a second as she severed the bird’s neck in a single chop.

“Eep!”

“Aagh!”

“Yeeagh!”

A bunch of the students who had gathered around screamed at the gory sight.

“Don’t give up! We’ve still got time!”

“Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine...” While the students were averting their eyes from the ghastly scene, Melsa began carving the bird with practiced movements. “Seventy!”

“All right!”

The family was all lined up in a row, passing the carved meat one after another from Emma, to William, to Arven, to George, to Leonard, to the pot like they were in a water relay.

“Eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five...”

“This is the last of it!”

Once they’d put the last of the meat in the pot, Leonard used fire tongs to grab the stones from Emma’s cooking fire (he’d been heating them for their bath later) and put them into the pot. The heated rocks made the water steam up, and everyone looked at Emma.

“Ninety-seven!”

At that, everyone gave a celebratory shout.

“We made it!”

“We sure did!”

“Thank goodness!”

The whole family sat down, as though all the tension holding their bodies up had finally let go.

“Did what?!” The king, who had forgotten that his life was in danger just moments ago, asked what all the participants of the field trip wanted to know.

“Your Majesty, this is a monster known as a roc,” Melsa answered the king’s bewildered question as she wiped the blood splatter off her cheek.

“What?! That was a monster?!” The king and all the people around him were shocked by Melsa’s response, but with a bird that size, it would have been a lot stranger if it weren’t a monster.

“Yes. A roc is a very large bird. It can easily snatch up a human for food, so they’re extremely dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” It seemed to the king that they’d shot it down with no trouble at all.

Melsa was about to continue her explanation, but William hurriedly picked it up for her. “Well, about that! Rocs have been spotted taking their prey all the way up into the air, then dropping them over and over again until they’re ground up into a meat that’s easier for them to eat.” It would have been more than suspicious for a count’s wife to talk about humans getting turned into mincemeat. Kinda late to be trying to keep up appearances for her now, given that she was just chopping up a bird like it was nothing, William thought with a forced smile.

“How awful... I had no idea such a monster existed...”

“Y-Yes. Rocs tend to fly extremely high in the sky when they’re hunting for prey, so it’s normally next to impossible to notice them up there,” the Monster Studies professor elaborated. Those massive birds generally flew so high, they were nothing more than a speck to the naked eye. It was practically impossible for a normal human to see one, so the professor was looking at Emma, the one who’d spotted it, in utter disbelief.

“I’ve got really good eyesight, Professor!” Emma giggled with such ladylike mannerisms (learned from Hilda) that nobody ever would have believed she’d been madly plucking feathers moments ago. It was such a perfect smile that everyone wondered if maybe what they’d seen had been nothing more than an illusion.

“Um... If I may ask, why were you counting like that earlier, Emma?” Prince Edward asked, as it was one of the things bugging him about all this. It was already a tense situation, so slowly counting like that had only increased everyone’s anxieties.

“Oh, good question, Your Highness! You have to cut and soak the meat of a roc in over sixty degree water within 120 seconds of slaying it!” Emma had been smiling, but she was deathly serious about this answer.

One could never rest easy after killing a monster. Some would explode if you didn’t take care of them, or turn into poison gas, or lay eggs after death. Edward had learned about all the difficult-to-dispose-of monsters in Monster Studies, so he was on guard at Emma’s response.

The Monster Studies professor looked confused. “Huh? But...you shouldn’t have to do anything after you kill a roc...”

“What? How could you say that, Professor?!” William raised his voice in disbelief.

“Yeah, how could you?! Rocs are a race against time! Even I know that!” George was shaking his head, wondering if his teacher was out of his mind.

“But most people would be too exhausted to even move after defeating a roc! What was that bowmanship?! You’re a researcher, Dr. Arven! How were you able to fell a giant roc with a single arrow?! I’ve never even heard of any arrows that could reach a roc circling that high up!” the Hunting Techniques professor cried. Even if you were supposed to use projectiles to take down a flying monster, the professor couldn’t possibly tell his students to imitate what Arven had just done.

“Huh? I mean, Emma told me to take it down with those big, sparkly eyes of hers. Of course I was gonna put some muscle into it!” Arven said, wondering what the problem was. Leonard was nodding along, agreeing wholeheartedly.

“Ngh... What in the world is going on with that family?!”

“W-Well... There was a chance that the king or the prince could have been snatched up by a roc just now. We should think of this as a good thing.” As the Hunting Techniques professor fell to his knees, the Monster Studies professor put his hand on his shoulder to comfort him. Thinking would only make it worse. Even if it generally would take all one’s energy to take down a roc, the people of the border had far more experience, and they might have needed to be far more particular about how to hunt and handle monsters—perhaps in ways even the instructors were unfamiliar with. When he thought that he’d get the chance to see such special methods, it made the twenty some-odd years he’d been studying monsters all the more worth it.

“Emma Stewart! Why is it that your family is so particular about this 120 seconds?!” If he knew this, he could become an even greater Monster Studies instructor. Wolfgang Garriano was starting to feel rather good about this turn of events, until...

“Because it won’t taste as good if you take any longer.” Emma’s answer was...far beyond anything he could have imagined.

“What.”

“If you don’t cut up a roc and put it in over sixty-degree water within a hundred and twenty seconds, it doesn’t taste as good!” Emma explained, and the whole family nodded along.

“What?!”

As always, the most important thing the Stewarts cared about on a monster hunt was whether they could eat it and whether it would taste good.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, back at the castle, Queen Victoria was overseeing all government affairs while the king was away on the school field trip. As it turned out, the vassals had all been waiting for this moment, because the queen never slacked off, making far fewer spelling errors and handling matters far more quickly than the king.

“If you want to submit any requests, applications, or written arguments, and you want them approved quickly, you’re better off waiting until the social season is over.” That was the advice that those who’d worked in the castle for years had passed down to any newbies. Inevitably, the juniors would assume this was an exaggeration, but they’d change their tune the moment they saw the queen at work. Sure enough, the next year, they’d be telling the newbies the very same thing. She would easily conquer all the mountains of paperwork that had piled up and finish them perfectly.

The door for the office was unlocked during this time for convenience’s sake. A man knocked, then entered. “Your Majesty, I’ve arrived.”

At the sound of his voice, the queen put down the quill she’d been rapidly writing with and looked up. “Oh, you made it home safe, Maximilian.”

“Is the king already at the border?” It was the firstborn prince, son of the queen herself, Maximilian Lewin Royale. He brushed off his mother’s greeting.

“Indeed. Prince Edward went with him too.”

“Huh. Ed did too?” The corners of Maximilian’s mouth raised.

“You’re not surprised?” The queen felt her son’s expression was...off. It had been two years since he had gone to study abroad in the Western Empire. If Edward had stayed the same boy Maximilian had left at home, he would never have agreed to go on a field trip like that. Normally, Maximilian would have asked what had caused Edward’s change of heart, but he barely even responded.

“Hmm? Oh, I am. But more importantly, could you tell me more about the attempted coup that happened while I was away? We had to replace a bunch of buildings along the main road and the university research lab, right? I’d like to know the scope of the damages, the budget for repairs and...”

“Ah, right. Of course. I thought you’d want a report, so I put together all the documents for you.” Queen Victoria pulled out the papers she’d gathered for her son out of a drawer.

“You know me well, Your Majesty. I’ll be taking these back to my room so nobody bothers me while I work.” Maximilian smiled, politely took the papers, and winked at her.

“O-Of course I do. I’m your mother. Let’s have dinner together, okay?”

“Certainly. I’ll see you then.”

Once Maximilian left the room and she could no longer see him, Queen Victoria finally let out a breath, having held it without even realizing it. It was her son, with the same smile, the same gestures, and the same character as ever. Yet that unease she’d felt throughout the interaction never faded, and an indescribable anxiety began to well up inside her.

◆ ◆ ◆

“We’re baaack. Whoa, did something happen here?” Arthur, Marion, Francesca, and the twins had gone to a river near their camp to catch fish for their dinner that night. When they returned, the vibe was completely different. Arthur tried to ask Prince Edward what had happened, but—

“I...suppose that’s...maybe...one way to put it?”

—the prince’s response was unclear at best.

“Oh, hey everyone! How was it? You catch any fish?” Emma asked as she came running up to the fishing group.

Marion slumped her shoulders in shame, fishing rod still in hand. “No. We did our best, but nothing was biting.”

“It’s too bad we can’t have fish curry, huh, Caitlyn?”

“It is too bad we can’t have fish curry, Catherine.”

The twins seemed pretty sad to have had their hopes dashed too.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help...” Francesca added.

When the girls had seen Emma preparing the fire, they’d all wanted to do something to help and had volunteered to go fishing.

“Hee hee, not to worry! There’ll be other days for that. Today, we can make curry with meat instead! We just got some of the good stuff, so you’ve got something really great to look forward to!”

“Ooo, we have meat?”

“We sure do!”

“I can’t wait, Caitlyn!”

“I can’t wait either, Catherine!”

While the Stewart family and their friends were all joy and laughter, they didn’t realize there wasn’t a single person around them smiling.

It was only the first day of the field trip.

No, technically the class didn’t start until tomorrow. It was the day before the first day of the field trip, and the Stewarts were already sticking out like sore thumbs. They’d been born and raised on the border, so this was just life for them. They didn’t realize how odd it all was to everyone else.

That was why the Stewarts could sit there, finishing their supper, telling each other that they’d be sure to keep a low profile the next day too.

“Yeah... There’s no way...” The poor students who had just witnessed the first (absolutely enormous) monster they’d ever seen be hunted, plucked, decapitated, and butchered right there in front of them had lost any appetite they had, along with any confidence they had in hunting at all.

Chapter 87: The Noblewomen’s Hellish Kitchen Nightmare

There was a loud slam in the hunting lodge near the forest where monsters had been sighted in the Skyte region.

The lord of the region stood from his seat in shock at the report the winded hunters gave him. “You’re...absolutely certain?”

“Yes. The hunter who spotted it is well-versed in identifying monsters. What should we do, milord?” The hunters had been stunned by their watch’s emergency report. They’d only just gathered for dinner, but immediately took off to tell the lord. It was a race against time.

“There’s a tent being used for the school field trip on the campgrounds in front of the forest. I imagine the king’s carriage will have arrived there by now too...”

“I-I know he has his knights with him, but knights aren’t exactly prepared for this sort of thing!”

“Why did it have to be today of all days? Most of our hunters are spending the night at home in preparation for the field trip tomorrow... We barely have any on hand!”

“Calm yourself! We head out now. Call anyone who can hunt, and get every last shield we have in the armory!”

“Y-Yes, sir!”

The lord breathed new confidence into the shaken hunters. Monsters had been appearing more and more often lately, but they’d thought the field trip would be fine as long as nobody went into the forest. It would be bad enough for anything to happen to the king while he was in the Skyte region—that was already too much responsibility for a mere lord of the land—but as luck would have it, he’d heard the second-born prince was participating in the field trip as well.

“Milord... The king and the prince will be okay, won’t they?” The hunters were looking at the lord, full of worry.

“If they aren’t, it’ll be our heads.” This wasn’t time for pithy comfort. Ever since the Stewarts had joined the second-born prince’s faction, support for him had only grown. If both the king and the prince were attacked by monsters, people were bound to cry conspiracy. It wouldn’t just spell the end of the Skyte region. It would be the end of the whole country.

“Milord... They’re...still alive, right?” Another hunter fought his anxiety enough to ask. The other hunters had all given up by this point.

“We can only pray. The trip is being led by the Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques professors, after all, so surely... Damn it all!” The lord knew that bringing those two up was just temporary peace of mind. All the lord and his hunters could do was run there as quickly as possible or start praying. If he’d known it would come to this, he would have refused the offer to have the field trip in Skyte...but if he’d been in any position to refuse, he wouldn’t have been in this mess anyway.

Monsters had been appearing in Skyte far more frequently in recent years. As such, the negative impact on the land’s economy was staggering. They had to spend money on hunting equipment. They had to appropriately compensate the hunters who were risking their lives, and that didn’t come cheap. Then, they needed to handle monster disposal fees, and specialists in such a matter weren’t free either. Even if they worked their tails off to hunt monsters, only a good quality hunt could turn a profit, so they hardly made any money out of it. The more monsters that appeared, the more exhausted their hunters would be and the more the costs would increase.

And then they heard about the school field trip.

Any region that allowed the school field trip to take place in their land would receive money to cover the costs. It was an economic boost that the Skyte region needed more than anything so the people could make it through the winter.

“Father! I’ve heard everything! I’m going too!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kyte!”

Just as the lord of Skyte was straddling his horse to run toward the camp, his son came running after him.

“The more people you have, the better, right?! It’ll be fine! I can help! The Stewart family’s eldest son is three years younger than me, and they say he’s been on monster hunts already!”

“Kyte, I want you to listen to me. The monsters that appear at the border vary from place to place. If they’re letting a boy like that go hunting, it just means that the monsters appearing there are that little of a threat. It does not mean that you’re ready to hunt.”

“But father!”

He understood why his son wanted to be of use here. However, the lord had lost all his siblings in monster hunts. Kyte was the only son he had, the only one who could carry on the legacy of the region.

“If something were to happen to me, who would protect this land?! You have to stay behind!”

“I won’t! I remember the day you came home with your arm gone... I can’t go through it again!” Kyte shook off his father and rode off toward the field trip campsite.

“Kyte! Please, wait! I can’t lose you too!”

“Milord, if we don’t do something, then Kyte might...”

“After him! He’s not ready!”

The lord and the hunters all chased after Kyte, who was making a beeline for the campsite.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, as the lord of the Skyte region and the hunters were worrying themselves sick, the people they were rushing to rescue were preparing dinner.

And their tent was huge. All the maids doing the cooking, the guards standing watch, the participating students, the king, the prince, all the attending knights, and every other person present kept stealing glances at the Stewart family’s tent. They’d deliberately chosen to put their ridiculously massive tent as close to the forest as possible. It was such a full-scale deal that one wouldn’t have imagined it was made for camping, and it only took them about an hour to set up. They connected one part to a carriage, then put it together with nothing more than thin supports and cloth. Nobody could take their eyes off of the Stewarts as they effortlessly finished it. Could a tent really stand with such narrow supports? Surely, it would break, right? There was no way it could support the weight of such a large cloth. At first, the spectators were all watching with worry, but that worry slowly became surprise as it all started coming together.

For one thing, the boys with the spear and the bow that the Stewarts had brought as their guards were just spacing out the whole time, not carrying any of the supports. It was Count Stewart himself and his son, George, doing all the work. Dr. Arven Stewart, one of the greatest minds in the kingdom, was dutifully drawing water for them. It was odd...they could’ve sworn they saw a claw-foot bathtub. For a tent.

Lastly, the count’s wife and the girl were happily cooking in front of the tent. Terrifyingly, there had been a powerful smell coming from the pot that the spectators had never smelled before.

“Hee hee. Y’know, when Joshua gave us all this powder to keep monsters away because he couldn’t come with us on the field trip, I was thinking we didn’t need to be so superstitious, but...” The girl smiled as she stirred the pot. She’d been putting all sorts of colorful powders in there, and nobody could even begin to imagine what she might be brewing in it.

“Is the Stewart family’s dinner like...okay?”

“Normally a noble wouldn’t be cooking, would she? And that smell is so... I mean, it’s probably something untoward, don’t you think?”

“Y-You sure someone shouldn’t stop them? I mean, they’ve been boiling those vegetables and monster meat in there for a while now!”

“Oh, no! Lady Emma’s putting it in her mouth!”

While the foreign powder Joshua had gotten them was one most people in the kingdom would never have heard of, it was one the Tanaka family was quite familiar with.

“I didn’t think this anti-monster powder would’ve been turmeric, cumin, coriander, red peppers, oregano, paprika, and all those other good spices! Joshua really saved us a bunch, huh?” Emma, the curry master of the evening, was grinning ear to ear.

Melsa was now cooking some roc meat she’d seasoned separately. She was using different seasonings than the ones Joshua had given them.

“Lady Melsa, I really appreciate your help,” Francesca said, nervously bowing to Melsa. “Mother told me I should bring this along because it’s good for me, but I really didn’t think I’d be able to eat it all myself.” One of the lands the Delacours owned was rich in dairy farming, so they were exporting dairy products nearly once a month.

“Why, you’ve saved us a great deal too, Lady Delacour. I didn’t think we’d hunt down such a large roc, but I’ll be using this for marinating. It’ll make the meat much more tender.” The lovely scent rising from the meat brought a smile to Melsa’s face.

“L-Look at Count Stewart’s wife... I think she just put anti-monster powder on that monster meat...”

“That wasn’t just putting a little on there either... She pretty much doused it...”

“And that stuff Lady Francesca brought... I mean, you’re just supposed to eat that as is, aren’t you? And they just poured so much of it on there... Someone stop them! This hellish kitchen nightmare is too much! Something awful is going to happen here! Isn’t there some maid we could call? Isn’t there a single maid in the Stewart family who would be in charge of all this?!”

All the commotion around them was being directed at the Stewarts, but the family themselves were all too focused on the tent and cooking to even notice. While everyone else was trembling with fear, the noblewomen finished their hellish cooking, and so began their dinner from hell.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Agh, that’s hot!” William took a single bite of Emma’s special curry and started begging for water.

“You all right there, William?” Arven filled William’s empty cup with more water.

“I told you you should’ve taken it from the mild pot instead. You’re still a kid.”

“William, I’ll take this plate. You go get yourself something mild instead.”

Emma scolded William with exasperation, and George confiscated his spicy curry. Meanwhile, William dejectedly went off to get himself some mild curry instead. “Man... I was so good with super spicy food before...” In my previous life...

“Well... What about the rest of you? Is it too spicy?” Emma had invited all her friends, Arthur, and for some reason, the king and Prince Edward as well.

“This...curry, was it? It’s quite delicious! Why, I could eat a dozen plates of it! The meat and vegetables in them are cooked to perfection. I can’t stop eating it!”

Was it really okay for someone from the royal family to be eating something not specially prepared for him like that? I don’t see anyone around to test for poison or anything... The family stared worriedly at the king as he went to town on the curry.

Well, if the king’s okay with it, then so am I, Emma thought, dreamily watching the king’s uninhibited eating habits. She hadn’t gotten to feed a silver fox like this since she’d treated the sailors with scurvy, and she really did think it was the sort of thing she’d never tire of.

Dinner continued. However, there was one problem...

Unlike the king, Prince Edward was gripping his spoon and staring at his food, not taking a single bite.

“Your Highness, is it not to your taste?”

“I-It’s not that... It’s more...when I think about how Emma made this, my chest feels so tight...” He’d never thought he’d get to have Emma’s home cooking. He thanked the heavens that he decided to participate in the field trip this year. He was so overwhelmed by his blessings that it was causing him a bit of trouble.

“There’s no poison in it, so you can eat it without any worries.” Unfortunately, Emma had not picked up on how full his heart felt, simply assuming he was a bit pickier than the king.

“Oh, what’s the matter, Your Highness? If you don’t want to eat it, I’d be happy to do it for you.” Arthur noticed Edward wasn’t eating and teasingly reached out to take his plate.

“Wh-What do you mean, Arthur?! Emma worked so hard to cook it... Of course I’m going to eat it! Homph! ...Agh, it’s spicy!” The prince quickly shoved a spoonful of the curry in his mouth to keep Arthur from taking any, but it was spicier than he’d anticipated.

“E-Er, there’s some milder kinds over here, so you don’t need to force yourself to eat that one if you don’t want to, Your Highness...” Emma suggested nervously, hoping this wouldn’t get her accused of treason.

“That’s not it, Emma! I’m completely okay. It was just spicier than I expected...but it’s very delicious. I’ve never had anything like it, but it’s shockingly delicious. It’s not just spicy either... It’s like a bunch of...complicated flavors are...I guess, mixing in my mouth...?”

“Pfft! I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a compliment or not, Your Highness!” Arthur couldn’t help but laugh at the prince’s jumbled review.

“It is! Obviously it is! I-It’s just a bit spicy, and then there’s more flavor that comes after!”

“If it’s too spicy, I can get you a mild flavor instead, Your Highness...”

“It’s fine! You sit, George! I’m completely fine!” The prince stopped George, who had stood up to get him a different plate. As a boy older than Emma, he couldn’t bear to be eating a milder flavor than her.

“Pffffft! You are a riot, Your Highness.” Whenever it came to Emma, the prince was much more expressive—the way a boy his age should be, making one wonder where that cold, emotionless image he used to have even came from. As his childhood friend, Arthur was so happy to see Edward loosen up, he could barely stand it. It was exactly the kind of thing he’d wanted to show the nobles who used to say he was a coldhearted, blue-blooded prince all this time, and he couldn’t contain his laughter.

Meanwhile, the king, who was on his second plate of curry, had mixed feelings about his son’s demeanor. He really wanted Emma to marry his son, but he couldn’t possibly say that. After all, Count Stewart, who was sitting across from him, was glaring at Edward with the face of a demon. As the father of a young girl himself, the king understood Count Stewart’s feelings all too well. But it wasn’t just the count. The count’s younger brother, Dr. Arven Stewart, was also glaring. The rumors that he was fully niece-brained must have been true.

Arthur’s little sister, Marion, scolded him for laughing. “No need to be rude, Arthur. Lady Emma, his highness is trying to say that the food is both spicy and delicious.”

“Spicy and delicious, right, Caitlyn?”

“Yeah, spicy and delicious, Catherine!”

“The mild version is quite delicious too. And this...rice, was it? The staple food of the Eastern Empire pairs so nicely with it.”

Marion and the twins had decided on spicy curry, while Francesca had chosen the mild version. They all seemed to have taken a liking to it, and were happily chowing down. Curry really was amazing. One could control the spice levels so easily that anyone could eat it.

Melsa scolded Leonard and Arven in a quiet voice for glaring at the prince, then offered the king a plate piled high with the meat. “Go on now, Your Majesty. Try the meat I cooked as well. I used this anti-monster...er, spice mix and the yogurt Francesca gave me to cook it, so it’s going to be fantastic.”

“R-Right...” The king had been deliberately trying to avoid the plate, but he couldn’t refuse when she handed it to him directly. The king reached out to take a piece. It wasn’t chicken. It was the meat of the giant monster bird Arven had shot out of the sky. When it was in the rich, yellow curry sauce, it had been mixed with a bunch of vegetables and cut into bite-sized pieces, so he’d been able to eat it without much convincing.

However, the meat in his hands made him hesitate. This one had only been seasoned, and it definitely looked just like a lump of monster meat. After seeing the Stewarts’ field dressing moments before, it was going to take a lot of courage to eat it. To make matters worse, he knew he’d heard Count Stewart’s wife say she’d used anti-monster powder on it, even though she tried to cover for herself.

“You’ll want to eat it while it’s still warm!”

“O-Of course.” The dish made of monster meat (which he’d never eaten before), covered in extremely suspicious spices (which he’d never seen before), was being forced upon him. In a worse twist of fate, the Stewarts had predicted people would want seconds, so they were trying to eat more rice before it ran out. Nobody had even touched the meat dish, so there was plenty left. “A-All right... Madam Stewart. I’ll have some now.”

Everyone (other than the Stewarts) was watching the king’s response to decide whether they would eat it or not. They were all nervous, but they didn’t show it. The man with the highest status in the group had suddenly become the poison tester. He finally steeled his nerves, then brought the meat up to his mouth, making everyone gulp. However, just as the meat was about to reach his lips, the voice of some panicked guards startled them all.

“Y-Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Something terrible!”

“What is it?! I’ll be there right away!” The king (quite unnaturally) got up quickly, meat in hand, and ran out of the tent. “What happened?!”

Outside the Stewart family’s tent, the knights who had called the king, a meager handful of hunters, the lord of the Skyte region, and his son, were lined up in a fuss. It must have been a major emergency, so the king looked at the lord of the region for an explanation (meat still in hand).

“I’m so glad to see you hale and hearty, Your Majesty! Y-You must escape this place! It’s dangerous! It’s far too dangerous for you to be here!” The lord knelt before the king, not having rested for a second. He was out of breath and covered in sweat as he pleaded.

“Calm yourself and tell me what’s happening.” The king put his free hand on the lord’s shoulder to try and calm him. He wouldn’t know how to “escape” if that was his only instruction. He could tell that time was of the essence, but panicking wouldn’t help anyone.

“S-Some of our hunters spotted a monster in this area! A very dangerous species too! You need to run, or your life will be in danger, Your Highness!” The lord spoke as quickly as he could, wanting to get them out of there even a second sooner.

Once that monster had been spotted, it was already too late. When the hunters had come to report it to him, he knew the camp would likely be a sea of blood and guts. However, he was thrilled to find that not only were the campgrounds safe, with no signs of turmoil, it didn’t seem as though anyone had been attacked either. The lord thought it was nothing short of a miracle, and he looked up to the heavens to thank them for his luck. He would not let that blessing go to waste. He swore he would get the king to safety.

“A monster appeared, you say? And it’s one dangerous enough to send you into such a panic?”

The Skyte hunters behind the lord paled as they kept watch of their surroundings. They’d been riding their horses at top speed, and their shoulders heaved with their breathing as large beads of sweat rolled down their foreheads. Even the young lord’s son in the back had the face of a man resolute. Just seeing their panic was enough to make everyone in the camp realize that their lives really could be in danger.

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty! It’s a birdlike monster called a roc! They fly so high in the sky that it’s near impossible to see from the ground. They swoop down to prey on humans in a split second! Everyone, keep your heads down and hide under the cover of the trees! Make it as hard as possible to be seen from the sky! Wh-What’s wrong with you all? We have to get to safety!” the Skyte lord desperately shouted, but the whole camp just stood around looking perplexed. Nobody was trying to run. Were people in the capital really this clueless when it came to their own safety? The lord couldn’t even be angry about it. He just felt pity.

“A...roc?” Shockingly, the king also stood there agape before asking his question.

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty! A roc! Once they’ve caught someone, it’s near impossible to retrieve the body, and even if it can be retrieved, it’s in no state for a funeral! So please, run!” Rocs would take humans far into the sky and drop them over and over until they were tender enough to eat. Even if he and his hunters were able to retrieve the bodies, they’d be nothing more than gore and shattered bones. The lord was absolutely desperate. The king could never be put in such a state. Yet, for some reason, the king wasn’t taking even a single step forward. He’d just frozen with his head tilted in confusion. “Your Majesty!”

It was a miracle that the king was unharmed. The lord couldn’t wait any longer. Just as he was about to give the hunters behind him the signal and drag the king to safety by force, the king spoke again.

“A... A roc?” The king wore a disturbed expression as he dropped his gaze down to the meat in his hand. Then the king turned to the Stewart family, who all had poked their heads out of the tent to see what was happening, to ask them as well. “A...roc?”

“Yep, a roc!” the whole family replied with a big nod. The king gave them another look, as though to ask, You’re completely sure? And they all nodded again. After getting confirmation from the family, he turned back to the lord with an awkward expression.

“Er... Baron Skyte? This is the roc.” The king held up the meat in one hand, and pointed at it with the other.

“What?”

“This is the roc.”

“What? That’s...the roc?”

“Yeah. The roc.”

“The roc?”

“The roc.”

A few moments after the lord and the king had their roc exchange...

“Wait... The roc?! What?! Huh?! Hah?!” The lord couldn’t understand what in the world the king was trying to say.

Why was the king standing there holding meat in a time like this?

Why was the king showing him meat at a time like this?

Why was the king pointing at the meat at a time like this?!

The lord couldn’t understand any of it whatsoever.

“Heh... Ha ha... Aha ha ha! No more... Hee... Hee hee! I can’t, man... Ha! He he he! My sides! He he he... Aha, aha ha ha ha!” After a long while, Arthur was unable to contain his laughter.

“Arthur, quit laughing! It’s rude!”

“B-But, Your Highness... Hee! They’re just...! Pfft... How are they still not figuring this out?!”

“Quiet this instant, brother!”

Both the prince and Marion scolded him for it, but Arthur couldn’t stop. He’d been barely holding it together this whole time. But the Skyte lord and the king were dead serious, saying roc over and over again...and the more they did it, the less Arthur could handle it. No matter how much the prince yelled at him or his sister told him to be quiet, this roc conversation was too much for him.

The prince sighed and stepped before the lord of the Skyte region. His father was clearly at a loss for words. The king tended to get ahead of himself, and it was always the queen, Edward’s brother, and his own job to step in to fill in the details for other people. “Baron Skyte. I’d like you to remain calm and listen. I believe the roc that your watchmen spotted was the one that Dr. Arven Stewart shot down. George and William Stewart retrieved the body, while Melsa and Emma cooked it for us. The meat in His Majesty’s hands right now is the cooked roc.” The prince calmly and politely explained the situation in simplified terms, from start to finish, so the lord of Skyte could understand exactly what had happened.

“What? He...shot it down?” The lord couldn’t believe his ears.

The prince looked the lord right in the eyes and nodded. “That’s right.”

“They...retrieved it...and...cooked it?”

“Yes, that’s correct.” The lord simply couldn’t process the words he was hearing, but the prince once again patiently reaffirmed it. All the other people at the camp were nodding along. Of course, while the others had accepted it, even they felt it was an absolutely bizarre situation.

Finally, once the lord let the words permeate his mind...the very moment it all sunk in, he screamed out the largest protest of his life. “B-But that’s impossible!!!” That was a roc! One of the most fearsome monsters out there! There was no way!

“Well, we used to have trouble with rocs too, but then we switched our bowstrings over to Viol—to some special thread that let us fire arrows way farther than ever before. Oh, why don’t I give—”

“If you’d like, we can talk to the Rothschild Company and have them sell it to you for a fair price too!” William cut in before Leonard could say, “Why don’t I give you some?” He couldn’t let his father deal with this particular issue. If they did, Pallas would wind up footing the bill for all of Skyte’s hunting expenses.

“Wait... You did this with a bowstring? Just...using string? A roc? What?!” The lord couldn’t understand what they were saying. Once again, he was utterly bewildered.

Just then...

“Let’s all calm down a bit! Dinner’s gonna get cold, so why don’t we all sit down to eat? There’s plenty more roc to go around, so why don’t you all come have some with us?” Emma appeared with a plate stacked high with meat and spoke with a smile. “We managed to get all the prep done within a hundred and twenty seconds, so it’d be a shame to let the meat get cold now!”

This only served to further confuse the lord. “You’re...really going...to eat a roc?”

“Hee hee. Rocs are really tasty! See? Say ah!” Emma took some of the meat off the plate and forced it into the confused lord’s mouth.

“Wha... Ah? Hmmgh?!”

Everyone was shocked into silence at Emma’s sudden move.

The lord was so surprised to have something put in his mouth that he chewed instinctively...and when he finally swallowed...

“Th-This is amazing!”

Everyone was once again completely dumbfounded.

“Wait, it is?!” The king was relieved that he’d (unintentionally) managed to avoid being the poison taster of the meat in his hands.

“I-It is... It’s a lot like chicken, but it’s melt-in-your-mouth tender, but with just enough chewiness to make it nice and juicy...and this seasoning is so impactful... I really think I could get addicted to it... I...”

“Hmm? Is something the matter, milord?”

Just as the lord was in the middle of answering the king, he turned to look at Emma and his face slackened with joy.

“Oh, not this again! How does this keep happening?!” George recognized the situation and groaned.

“Oh, dang it... I mean, that’s the kind of older dude whose one arm totally tells a tale! So that’s why she went out in such a tense situation! Because the lord’s an older guy!”

The lord of Skyte, who’d ruled for many long years, was a burly middle-aged man and absolutely Emma’s type. How could she strike again at a time like this?!

“Is something the matter? Everything’s really okay now. We’re safe here. I think you’ll feel much better once you have something to eat. Then we can show you the weapons we use in Pallas for hunting too! We brought a whole bunch today, and we’re both on the border, so I think it’d do us both some good!” Then Emma wiped the sweat from the rugged one-armed man’s brow with a handkerchief made of Emma silk.

The weaker older men, the feasting older men, the sleeping older men, the older men talking about work... It was all so wonderful for Emma.

“A-Are you...an angel? No! You must be...a real saint!”

It didn’t matter whether Emma’s smile had ulterior motives or not. The Fogey’s Fancy had struck again, capturing another poor soul in its clutches.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Are you sure it’s okay you didn’t go on the field trip?” Carlos asked Joshua when he’d returned from dealing with more complaints. There really was no end to people complaining to the company for not carrying any cotton, and most of the staff was looking exhausted. As Joshua was the one responsible for it, he had to take the full brunt of everyone’s wrath. Even though he’d been allowed to manage a store on his own, this was not the sort of thing a poor boy not even sixteen years of age would normally be able to handle. In fact, it would’ve been much healthier for him to be a bit selfish and say he wanted to spend some time with the girl he liked, like other boys his age. “Gosh, I bet you your beloved Lady Emma is cozying up real nice with Prince Edward right about now...” What are you gonna do about it? Carlos teased as Joshua began dealing with the accounting books at a speed no normal boy should be capable of.

Joshua didn’t even look up from the ledger, as the corners of his mouth turned upward. “Heh. The prince could never cozy up to Lady Emma.”

“You don’t need to pretend, Young Master. Everyone knows Prince Edward has a thing for Lady Emma. Even if they’re in separate tents, they’ll be together for several days and nights... Something could very easily—!” Just as he was about to say something could happen, Joshua turned his gaze upon Carlos. It was very rare for Joshua to look away from his books when he was calculating sales, so it was quite startling. “Er... Never mind. Nothing. I’m sure there’s good things in store for you too, so...” he added, feeling nervous that he’d taken his jokes too far and Joshua had actually gotten mad at him.

Joshua snorted. “Just think for a second and you’ll understand. Lord Leonard would never let anyone cozy up with Lady Emma.”

“What?”

“When I heard there would be a class field trip, I took a little preemptive measure. I was sure that the women at the tea parties Lady Melsa attended would talk about guardians being able to accompany the students on the trip.”

“What? But...that just means maids and guards would be coming along, right?” Carlos asked, to which Joshua shook his head.

“No. The Stewart family has always had a tragically pauper-like sense for these sorts of things. For them, they’d be more familiar with the term ‘guardian’ in reference to a parent. It’s clear that both Lady Melsa and Lord Leonard would love to attend this field trip if the opportunity were available. All I had to do was make sure the conversations at the tea parties went in that direction, and I could rest assured they would be going on the field trip alongside her.”

“Uh. That is really freaky, dude. But still, no matter how much he loves his daughter, even he can’t keep his eyes on her twenty-four seven, right? Prince Edward’s a pretty smart cookie. He’d be able to catch even the slightest opening.” While he’d initially planned on comforting Joshua for not being able to go on the field trip, now Carlos was starting to side with the prince. Maybe it was because Joshua was freaking him out.

“Ah. That’s right. Lord Leonard’s a bit of a dolt. Lady Melsa seems to have her act together, but she can be a bit careless sometimes too.”

“Whoa, maybe watch your mouth a bit?” This was a ridiculously powerful family that had been supporting the Rothschild Company for some time now. That was really no way to talk about them.

“But I was sure to take care of that too...by adding her niece-brained uncle into the mix.”

“Huh? What? Oh! Lord Arven?! I was thinking his visit was super convenient, but... Wait, are you saying you plotted to have him here?!”

“Why are you making me sound like some kind of scheming scoundrel? I simply laid the groundwork with the Stewart Family Women’s Association.” Even if any of them threw a tantrum about Arven being the one to go, none of them were brave enough to go against their wives, and Lord Arven was wise enough not to let this chance go to waste.

“Their wives?! Young Master... You seriously went this far to get in the prince’s way?!”

“Don’t misunderstand me. It’s Lord Arven getting in the prince’s way. Not me. What better opportunity could there be for me to use the lord, whose wits are so famed they call him a national treasure? Heh heh... Heh heh heh... If the prince thinks he can cozy up to Lady Emma now that I’m not there, he certainly has another thing coming...”

“Dude, you are so freaky!”

Just then, the slum kid, Huey, aka the ninja Joshua had been hiring lately, appeared with a fwsh. “Master Joshua. If you had to go through all that underhanded work, wouldn’t it have been better to just participate in the field trip yourself? Harold’s always saying it’s better not to make things more complicated than they have to be. After all, it’s always the guys who are upfront and honest who get the girls in the end. The guys who sneak around are always made out to be villains,” Huey warned Joshua, his face less worried and more put off.

“How dare you! You can’t compare Lady Emma to those run-of-the-mill love interests! Lady Emma’s special!”

“Uh... Yeah, special’s one way to put it... Or unique...” Huey said, racking his brains for a nice way to put it.

“More importantly, has the ship arrived at the harbor yet?” The reason Joshua hadn’t gone on the field trip was because it overlapped with the return of the first trading vessel that had been sent to the Eastern Empire. He’d had Huey go to the Simmons region, where the largest port in the kingdom was.

“Yup, it made it here just fine. All of the cargo’s crated so you can’t tell what’s in it, and all the Imperials and ninjas on board were hidden, so I don’t think anyone would recognize that the Rothschild Company is trading with the Eastern Empire right now. There’s tons of your boats coming in and out of the harbor all the time, so I don’t think you really need to go through all that trouble to hide this...”

But they did need to trade with the Eastern Empire in utmost secrecy, because the main import was magic stones. There weren’t any mages in the kingdom at the moment, so even if they’d bought magic stones, they’d be nothing more than useless rocks. However, since the Stewart family was still giving their support to the Eastern Empire to help them rebuild, the Eastern Empire needed to repay them somehow. While the family themselves said they’d be okay with just rice, that wouldn’t slide. It was understandable why the Eastern Empire would have offered magic stones, as they were valued highly all across the world, meaning the stones were the easiest way to make their partnership mutually beneficial.

Unfortunately, the Western Empire made the very act of handling magic stones quite problematic. Their obsession with the stones had gotten worse and worse as the years went on, and they’d recently started “trading” with smaller countries for them (which amounted to practically pillaging them for resources). They’d use up every last stone available to them, so they absolutely could not let this shipment fall into the Western Empire’s hands.

The Stewart family didn’t have the smarts nor the will to deal with that kind of precarious, pain-in-the-butt situation, so they had Joshua deal with all the trading with the Eastern Empire. He and the Rothschild Company set the price, import volume, and who in the kingdom was allowed to know.

“Lady Emma entrusted me with this mission. I couldn’t possibly get sloppy with it.”

“Um... I’m pretty sure the Stewart family kinda...foisted it on the Rothschild Company...”

“Me too...”

Both Carlos and Huey could only sit there in bafflement.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, in the Skyte region...

“This is so good! Roc is incredible!” the Skyte hunters, who had missed their dinner, all cried out in surprise once they finally got the nerve to take a bite of the roc meat.

“Hee hee. I covered it in yogurt to make the meat more tender.” Melsa smiled as the hunters went to town on her meal.

“Wha— Lady Emma! Y-You don’t need to feed me anymore...” The lord of Skyte shrunk back as Emma brought the meat closer to his lips with a big smile...though he didn’t actually seem all that bothered by it.

“No need to be shy, milord! Say aaahhh!”

She’s so cute... The lord thought as he “said ahh” and took a bite.

“There’s plenty more tandoori roc to go around!”

“‘Tandoori roc’?”

“Yeah! It’s like the roc version of tandoori chicken!” Emma beamed as she gave the lord the best service ever.

Prince Edward was watching the whole fiasco with a rather displeased expression.

Then, three older men (or beasts...) came rushing over, unable to contain their jealousy.

“E-Emma! Let Papa have a bite too!”

“E-Emma! Let Unkie Arven have a bite too!”

“E-Emma! Let the king have a...”

Seeing the three old men gathered around Emma like moths to a flame was, to put it nicely, pretty gross.

“Quit with the yucky PDA already!” William’s protest echoed throughout the campground.

“Pfffft!” Arthur, who had finally recovered from laughing so hard, was back at it again.

Even with all of Joshua’s schemes, he couldn’t prevent the Fogey’s Fancy from having her usual effect on people.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day, the field trip started for real.

“In other words, a characteristic trait of many monsters that appear in the Skyte region is their ability to use psychological attacks.” The teacher was explaining that even within the kingdom, the types of monsters that appeared varied by location.

“Did the roc we saw last night use psychological attacks, professor?” one student raised their hand and asked. With the king in attendance, the kids were a lot more serious about the lessons and listened attentively.

“No, rocs don’t really...show up all that often. This kingdom would be long gone if they did.” The Monster Studies professor glanced at the Stewart family, who were dutifully listening. He really wondered if there was anything he could even teach a family who was able to take down a roc in a single shot and cook it like it was nothing.

“Yeah... Flying monsters don’t tend to show up all that often...” Emma whispered with a sigh, remembering the taste of the roc curry and tandoori roc from the night before.

“Uh. Why do you sound so sad about that, sis? Do you realize how hard it would be to pin them all down if they were around en masse? The professor’s not kidding; it really would be the end of the kingdom.” William chided his sister as she puffed out her cheeks and carefully kept drawing whatever flying monsters she could remember. The way she was talking made it sound like she was hoping more would be around.

“Yeah, but...avian monsters are just so...” Emma trailed off, realizing that her mother would get angry at her for being unladylike if she kept talking...

“Soooo tasty...”

...but George picked up right where she left off without even thinking.

“That’s true. Avian monsters don’t tend to have much of a smell, so they’re pretty appetizing. Y’know, come to think of it, the monsters around here that do all those psychological attacks? They smell pretty awful and aren’t even tasty. The monsters around here are mostly pretty small and not exactly filling... I do remember some of the monsters around here made me really want noodles, though...” Leonard chimed in to agree with Emma and George’s opinion. As the lord of a region, he’d have a very rough time with it if there had been more flying monsters in his area, but he’d happily welcome them as food. The Monster Studies professor’s lesson about monsters that did psychological attacks reminded him that those types weren’t all that good either.

“Wait, you’ve eaten one that uses those kinds of attacks, father?” William asked, confused since there weren’t very many that appeared in Pallas.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Whenever school was on break for a long time, I’d have to pay the transportation fees to get back home, so I’d work and travel at the same time. If I took a carriage that drove along the borders and worked as their bodyguards, I could eat whatever monsters attacked us on the way. But I was still a growing boy, and that wasn’t enough for me, so I’d sneak out at night to catch more until I was full.” Leonard sighed wistfully, remembering how he used to pass through the Skyte region on many of those trips home. But while he was waxing nostalgic, everyone else was doubting their own ears over the poverty-laced, survivalist story that no noble would normally ever have experienced.

Did he really just say he sneaked out in the middle of the night to hunt monsters? Even though monsters prefer coming out at night, and a lot of them are more active at night? He did that on purpose? And if he’d met with one of those monsters that used psychological attacks, they’d intentionally intensify his fears. Even a grown adult would be terrified!

“Wow, you really were the survivalist of the Stewart family when we were poor! Did you travel home with him, Uncle Arven?” Emma asked her uncle who was looking over the paperwork for the Pallas region. He’d brought a tremendous amount of paperwork with him as a condition of participating in the field trip.

“Hmm? My travel fees and tolls were all included in my scholarship, so I just came home like normal. But it was about the same as it is now... I had to do a ton of paperwork even when I was on break. Having Lady Melsa stop by to help me out was always such a blessing...” Arven put his paperwork down, then placed his hand on William’s shoulder. After all, his nephew was about to meet the same fate as him.

“Eep!”

“Sorry, but there’s no escape, William.”

William had started trembling, but the truth was, he’d long been prepared for that inevitability. He’d only gotten a glimpse of the papers, but they were numbers as far as the eye could see. There was no way he could let his brother George handle that. It was the same reason Uncle Arven wouldn’t show Leonard his paperwork.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, at the castle, the queen still had the feeling that something had been wrong when she’d seen her son, the firstborn prince Maximilian, for the first time in so long. She didn’t know specifically what was different or strange, but something was. It was such a minute sensation that some might have just decided to ignore it, but the queen couldn’t let it go. She spoke to her lady’s maid, then Maximilian’s wet nurse, and even the prime minister about it, but none of them had noticed anything wrong with him. They thought maybe her nerves were stretched thin while the king was out of town. Maybe she was just jumping at shadows. She was glad, at least, that they’d walked away from the conversations thinking she was a sweet, delicate flower and not something worse.

However, every time she met with her son after that, she had that same wrong feeling nagging at the back of her mind. She couldn’t put her finger on it.

The queen knew that she didn’t have that kind of demure constitution.

After those conversations, the queen witnessed Maximilian and Rose talking in the castle garden from afar. It was her son, the firstborn prince Maximilian, speaking with the second-born prince Edward’s mother. It wasn’t all that unusual for the two of them to run into each other and exchange small talk. In fact, it was rather common in the castle. However, Victoria did not let that sight pass her by. She continued to observe the two as they exchanged their niceties. When Maximilian left, the concubine tilted her head slightly, as if she had noticed something was off too.

The queen invited Rose to the study in her personal residence.

“I’m so sorry to call on you so suddenly, Rose.” She’d chased everyone else off, so she put the tea on and served it herself.

This was the first time the queen had invited the concubine to her private space. As such, Rose was a bit nervous as she brought the tea to her lips. Her heart began to race as she started to wonder if she’d done something wrong. During the social season, the queen and the concubine would trade off spending time with the king as his partner, so they generally didn’t see each other much, be it publicly or privately. Normally, the only time they would cross paths was if Rose had done something wrong, but she couldn’t remember having made any such blunders this year.

“Lady Victoria, have I done something untoward?”

Queen Victoria was an immensely talented woman, without whom it was said the country could not run. As such, Rose was already prepared to apologize. She didn’t want the queen to be mad at her, but if she was going to get yelled at, it was best to just own up and apologize right away. And not just a cursory one—she’d apologize her heart out. It wouldn’t matter if she remembered doing anything or not, she was gonna apologize. This worldly wisdom had been given to her by Emma, who had used it for when Melsa (a woman as comparably accomplished as the queen herself) would get angry at her. Now that it had come to this, Rose might have to do the deepest apology possible: getting down on her hands and knees and begging for forgiveness like Emma had taught her to. Rose was ready.

However, the words the queen murmured as she stared at her reflection in the tea was completely contrary to Rose’s expectations. “Well... It’s about Maximilian.”

“Prince Maximilian?”

“Yes... You see...”

The queen began explaining the strange feeling she’d been having about this. She knew by now nobody would believe her. It was likely such a vague topic to open up about that she was sure Rose wouldn’t know what to do, but once she’d opened her mouth, it all came spilling out.

Maximilian was a very well-raised and well-behaved child. When she’d asked if there was anything strange about him, the prime minister, the maid, and his wet nurse had all shaken their heads. Yet no matter how much everyone insisted nothing was wrong, she couldn’t believe them. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was wrong, but she thought it every time she saw him. She knew it was rude to think such things about her own son, but she didn’t know what else to do. After she’d spilled all her bottled up emotions, she drank her cooling tea and took a breath.

She was surprised by how seriously Rose listened to her. She was more attentive than the prime minister, the maid, and the wet nurse. She’d never interrupted her, only politely listened. And then, Rose said the words that none of the others would tell her:

“Lady Victoria... If a mother says something’s off about her child, then I believe something must be wrong.”

“Rose...”

“You see, I noticed something too...” After hesitating a bit, Rose opened up about something that had been bothering her after meeting with the firstborn prince in the garden. “Now, this might be completely unrelated, but... I noticed something a little strange about Prince Maximilian as well.”

Victoria took a deep breath.

“When I spoke with Prince Maximilian in the garden earlier... He, erm... He never even once looked at my breasts.”

“What?!” Rose’s confession was so shocking that Victoria stood up in disbelief. “He didn’t look...even once?!”

Maximilian was a healthy young man. How could someone like him not look at a woman’s breasts, let alone Rose’s absolutely stunning pair, even once?! There was no way. There simply wasn’t.

“I thought maybe I’d just been getting self-conscious about it or something, but...most people tend to look at them when they talk to me,” Rose added bashfully, her hand on her reddening cheek. There wasn’t a soul alive who could avoid stealing a glance when faced with Rose Alicia Royale’s marvelous, massive melons. Nobody could resist. None.

“Yes... There really must be something wrong with him.” Victoria was sure now. Rose’s breasts were so beautiful that every man, woman, and child would be drawn to look at them. One simply couldn’t resist such natural urges. Children, clergy, women who had been married three times over, and even saints themselves would cast their eyes low if Rose was before them. That was just how magnificent they were. “Thank you, Rose. I’ve decided to have him monitored right away. There wasn’t anything wrong until he went to the Western Empire... I’ll need to look into this further.” Thanks to Rose’s help, Victoria no longer had any doubts. She took to her office with self-assured steps.

Rose, who was left in the study, just sat there with a blank look on her face.

“Glad...to be of service?”

Chapter 88: The Despair of the Firstborn Prince, Maximilian Lewin Royale

To describe Maximilian Lewin Royale in a word, it would be well-bred. He had his mother’s diligence and his father’s strength. Everyone knew they could expect much from him as the next king, and he’d gone his whole life with people praising him as a prince who made their country proud.

Until his brother was born with black hair.

In the kingdom, black hair and black eyes were special traits that only manifested in those with royal blood. Maximilian might have looked like he had black hair under indoor lighting, but any time he was outdoors in the sunlight, it was clear that his hair was a bit too red to fully call it black. His eyes had a similar hue, but his hair was what really stood out. While hardly anyone would have said to his face that it would have been nice if his hair were darker, it was very obvious to him that his vassals all sighed in the shadows. They’d think he was perfect if it weren’t for his hair. When Edward was born with the glossiest black hair around, it was even more obvious. And once his little sister, Jadwiga, was born, the mutterings continued on.

In an ironic twist of fate, Maximilian, who was born to a woman with royal blood, had less of the royal color than the children born to a woman with no royal blood. His siblings’ hair was darker than their father’s, their uncle’s, and even their grandfather’s, who died when they were very young. Most of the royal family’s appearances to the people took place outside, and the second-born prince Edward was always next to Maximilian at these events. In the sunlight, Edward’s hair looked blacker than ever, especially compared to how red Maximilian’s looked. Even if Maximilian was too far away to hear the citizens’ voices, he could guess what they were saying.

If only his hair were a little darker... He had been cursed to hear those words his whole life.

However, he knew that it wasn’t hair alone that made a king. He knew his little brother wasn’t planning on overtaking him to become king either. Though he knew this, and he wasn’t the type of person to let such trivial things get to him, at some point he’d begun to develop an inferiority complex.

Black hair was just a symbol. It wasn’t a requirement to succeed the throne. Maximilian held that sentiment close to his chest and studied as hard as he could to learn everything he needed, trained his body and mind, and devoted himself entirely to what was best for the kingdom. He proactively studied in foreign countries to learn more about their governments and to secretly come into contact with any mages they might have.

Indeed, mages.

It had been over thirty years since mages suddenly stopped appearing in the kingdom. As a result, distortions in the barrier were happening more and more. To make matters worse, not only did the distortions allow monsters to invade, but there was a possibility they could have a negative impact on the climate. For a kingdom so reliant on farming as their main source of income, it was a matter of life-and-death.

A kingdom losing its ability to trade with foreign lands would always end in tragedy. No country had the ability to one-sidedly support another country long-term. The larger a kingdom was, the wider the range where monsters could appear, thus the greater a burden it became. All things considered, the kingdom was currently doing quite well for itself, but only because the Stewart family’s silk had skyrocketed their economy. The Stewart family ruled over the border land of Pallas. The fact that their kingdom was relying so heavily on a family living on the border—a place that regularly has land falling to ruin—was nothing short of walking a tightrope. If they didn’t find a mage to repair the barrier in the next few years, the kingdom wouldn’t have a future.

That sense of danger was what pushed Maximilian forward, so he found himself in the Western Empire—a place with more mages than anywhere else—time and time again. Any time he had available, he’d say he was going to study abroad, but he was truly hoping to find the opportunity to meet with a mage.

And then it came. However, that opportunity only served to crush his hopes for good. The mage he finally came across wore a hood to hide their face. The moment they revealed themself, Maximilian was astonished.

The mage was a woman. And not only that, but she had dark brown hair and black eyes. The kind that only someone with royal blood could possibly have.

“What?!”

“Maximilian Lewin Royale. You will be under my control from now on.” All it took was his momentary shock at the sight of her hair and eyes for the mage’s magic to take effect.

From that day forward, Maximilian’s body was no longer his own. Someone who was not him was eating, sleeping, speaking with people, and giving orders that Maximilian himself would never have given. All the while, Maximilian could only watch. Even if he knew the horrible things the Western Empire was plotting, he couldn’t communicate it to anyone. Just like that, he became the driving force behind those horrible schemes.

No matter how much he internally yelled or screamed, cried or pleaded, all that came out of his mouth was more orders for the Western Empire to invade the kingdom.

“Prepare the ships.” Stop it, please.

“Outfit them with cannons.” Stop it, please.

“We’ll send a hail of bombs to the kingdom.” Stop it, please!

“We move out while the king is absent on his field trip.” Stop it, please!!!

The country he’d sworn he’d protect was about to be broken by his words.

Someone, please stop me. Someone...

Please...

Anyone...

“Did you say something, Prince Maximilian?” The prime minister raised his head from the mountain of paperwork he was dealing with in his office. Before him was the firstborn prince, who’d just returned from studying abroad in the Western Empire.

“Ah, I was saying that we’ll be receiving several dozen ships from the Western Empire at the Simmons port tomorrow.”

“Ships from the Western Empire? And that many? We haven’t received any notice of such a thing...” The prime minister pulled out the list of ships permitted to enter the Simmons Harbor to check.

“My apologies. I forgot to mention that I’d invited a few of the nobles I’d befriended in the Western Empire while I was studying over there, so there’s no paperwork about it.” The prince offered a bright smile as if to ask the prime minister to let it slide.

That smile, that intonation, that phrasing...it was all most certainly the firstborn prince. However, the prime minister forced himself not to show his suspicions. The firstborn prince would never apologize so readily. What was more, he never would have come all the way to the prime minister to ask him to deal with the paperwork regarding entry to the harbor.

Prince Maximilian knew all about the structure of the kingdom’s government. If he needed to do paperwork regarding the harbor, he would have gone to the harbor’s administration bureau instead.

It must be true...

“Understood. I’ll begin preparations right away.” By all appearances, this person was Prince Maximilian, but he certainly wasn’t the real Prince Maximilian. The prime minister agreed to undertake the work so as not to arouse any suspicions.

“Much appreciated.”

Once Maximilian left the office, the prime minister could finally drop his poker face.

“Queen Victoria was right after all...”

The prime minister recalled how the queen had called for him in utmost secrecy while everyone else would have been asleep.

“Maximilian’s under the control of something.” She hadn’t said that he might have been. She was very firm in saying that he was. All those gathered—the prime minister, the head of the knights, and the cabinet ministers couldn’t believe their ears.

“What do you mean?”

“You think Prince Maximilian’s been brainwashed?”

“If he’d been brainwashed, we would have noticed, wouldn’t we? His expressions were perfectly natural, and I didn’t sense anything unusual about his smile either.”

Those who were brainwashed using drugs or hypnosis would always have something off about their face. Brainwashing had often been used in power struggles among the nobles, so the telltale signs of it were very well-known. Those who were brainwashed were less expressive, and their emotions in general were limited. They would also become very sensitive to unexpected or trivial words, which would cause them to grow suddenly excited or violent. Yet Maximilian hadn’t shown any of these symptoms since he’d returned.

“Maximilian was studying in the Western Empire. It’s the country with the most mages.”

“Then do you think...he’s been charmed?” The prime minister furrowed his brow. He’d never heard of any mage capable of using charm magic since the Great Mage Connie Moo. He wondered if maybe it was because their abilities were getting weaker. While the Western Empire was certainly trying to hide it, the prime minister had a hunch that they were cutting back on their magic usage. It was especially noticeable in the way they used magic to harvest cotton. Compared to only ten years ago, the price had gotten higher and the quality had gotten lower as the years went on. The quality of cotton this year had been especially awful.

“I think there’s a great chance he has been.”

“But Your Majesty, I just can’t imagine that someone’s controlling Prince Maximilian. We can’t just go off of a mother’s intuition.” The captain of the knights, who had been silent until then, finally spoke up, wondering if maybe the queen was just imagining things. Normally, going against the royal family was punishable by death, but the captain had been training Maximilian in his sword skills since he was very young. He knew the young man quite well, and he had confidence in his ability to see a person’s true character. After all, he wouldn’t have been able to bring together so many knights as captain if he didn’t have such a skill. If he hadn’t noticed anything himself, then it was hard to take the queen’s word wholesale.

“The likelihood that a mage has cast some sort of charm spell on the prince is exceedingly low,” the prime minister added.

However, the queen would not relent. “We have intel that the Western Empire is gathering mages from all around the world. I believe all of you have heard the rumors that they’ve gathered several dozen already. The more mages they have, the more progress they might make in magic research.”

“But why would the Western Empire go so far?” The prime minister, captain of the knights, and the cabinet ministers simply didn’t think the queen’s conjecture was realistic. There was nothing in the kingdom that the Western Empire would want so badly that they’d brainwash Prince Maximilian for it. No matter how she pressed it, it would be difficult to convince them.

“Your Majesty, we should just keep an eye on him for a little—”

Before the prime minister could tell her to give it some time, the queen interrupted with the finishing blow. “Maximilian was speaking face-to-face with Rose and did not even once look at her bosom.”

“What?!”

The air in the room changed in an instant. They were shocked that such a thing was even possible.

“Rose told me herself, so I know it’s the truth.”

“What... What?!”

With that reveal, everyone present stood in silent shock. Because that meant...every time they stole a glance at her breasts, she knew? The men’s eyes darted to and fro in a panic.

“You’re sorely mistaken if you think we don’t notice that sort of thing.”

“Aaah...”

The queen’s accusatory glare and the way she laid down the law with an exasperated sigh was all so shocking that they sunk back into their chairs, the gravitas sapped right out of them.

They really had thought she’d never noticed. They’d tried their best to only occasionally, subtly glance at them, but sometimes their gaze would just be drawn to those shining twin suns without their input. They couldn’t help it.

“If what you say is true...then something really is wrong with Prince Maximilian.” said one of the cabinet ministers. There wasn’t a man alive who could resist a peek at Rose’s breasts.

“It certainly is strange of him,” the captain of the knights agreed. Only someone under the influence of a charm spell could resist such temptation.

“We should figure out a plan to deal with this. I’ll look over the letters and documents we’ve received from the Western Empire again,” the prime minister said with a groan.

After being presented with such definitive proof, they had no choice but to deal with it. None of them wanted to even imagine having to make enemies of the Western Empire, but that was their reality. It was through Maximilian not looking at Rose’s breasts that the kingdom realized the seriousness of the situation they were in—far sooner than the Western Empire had anticipated.

Chapter 89: Simmons Harbor

At Simmons Harbor, the largest harbor in the kingdom, the trade ships from the Eastern Empire had docked and the members of the Rothschild Company were helping unload the cargo.

Joshua approached Prince Tasuku, who was disembarking the ship. “Prince Tasuku, it’s been far too long.”

“So it has, Joshua. I just took a look at the inventory you are sending to the Eastern Empire. Thank you for the additional food and silk.”

Even after defeating the owatas, the Eastern Empire still had more to deal with. Though there were no longer plant monsters on their farmland, their fields had been destroyed, so it would be difficult to grow anything right away. One had to look at the long game to restore their civilization, or it would only spell ruin. The Stewart family, who owned land along the border, understood that all too well, and used the Rothschild Company to regularly send food to the Eastern Empire. If this relationship carried on smoothly, then the kingdom and the Eastern Empire could even become regular international trade partners.

“Think nothing of it. You’re giving us something so precious, money can’t even buy it.” Joshua said as he walked alongside the Imperial Prince. There was no need to thank each other in a mutually beneficial trade.

Most of the imports from the Eastern Empire were magic stones. They were special stones that could amplify a mage’s magic or hold magic within them, but no known country had been able to excavate them in recent years. However, the Eastern Empire had plentiful veins still running through their country, and every vein yielded great numbers of stones. A country didn’t only need a mage to survive; it also needed magic stones to maintain the barrier.

“The Eastern Empire always repays its debts, and we are greatly indebted to the Stewart family.” It was a strict secret that the Eastern Empire was giving far more magic stones to the Rothschild Company than it was to the kingdom itself...and there was one other thing the Rothschild Company asked for from the Eastern Empire in return for keeping this information close to the chest.

“I must thank you for the large quantity of canned kitty food. The Stewart family cats will be overjoyed.” Joshua smiled wider than he had for the magic stones. After all, happy cats meant a happy Emma.

Once there was a lull in the conversation, a boy who had been standing behind Prince Tasuku presented a bug box to Joshua. “Um... I-I wanted to give this to Lady Emma...” The boy was one of the Taros who had studied western recipes under Melsa Stewart, Chijiwa Taro. He loved bugs just like Emma, so they got along very well. It was difficult for people in the kingdom to understand his name, so his nickname was Miguel. All four of the Taros who had stayed with the Stewart family could now speak the kingdom’s language (albeit very roughly), so they’d come along with Prince Tasuku as his aids on this trip.

Joshua’s face fell when he saw the bug box the boy was holding. “It’s been a while, Lord Miguel.” It would normally be unthinkable to give a young lady a bug box as a present (especially since it was likely holding bugs). Unfortunately, as much as Joshua hated to say it, Emma would absolutely adore it.

Even though it had only been for a short while, Miguel had cohabited (boarded) with his Lady Emma for a time and quickly grown closer to her through their love of bugs. Joshua felt threatened.

“This is a bell cricket. Their wings make a pretty sound. They’re from my country.”

“I thought it might be rude to give a lady bugs,” Prince Tasuku added, “but Miguel raised them himself. He wanted desperately to give them to her directly.”

“Directly?”

When Joshua asked for clarification, the prince’s face reddened slightly. “Yes...directly.”

“Well, unfortunately, Lady Emma is taking part in a school field trip and is not currently in the capital.”

I can’t let Prince Tasuku or Miguel meet Lady Emma here now. When did this happen?! When did Prince Tasuku fall for Lady Emma too?! It isn’t just Miguel. Prince Tasuku was acting odd before I even knew it!

“Field trip...? Is that so?” When Prince Tasuku heard he wouldn’t be able to meet with Emma, he glared at the area behind Joshua. Then one of the ninjas who’d stayed back in the kingdom, Momochi, and the boy Hugh appeared with a fwsh. The two of them hadn’t made themselves known, but they were tagging along with Joshua as his bodyguards.

“That’s right. Lady Emma’s staying in the Skyte region for school. Master Joshua wouldn’t lie to you, man.” His expression practically screamed, What’re you, dumb or somethin’?

“Hugh! Don’t be rude to Prince Tasuku!” Momochi chided the boy for his exasperated tone.

The ninjas were still staying at the Stewart house. While they had originally been studying the kingdom’s language to become better informants, before they knew it, they were making miso, soy sauce, and teaching Hugh all about the ninja arts.

“Oh...”

“That’s a shame...”

Both Prince Tasuku and Miguel were visibly disappointed to see that Joshua wasn’t just pulling their legs and they really wouldn’t be able to see Emma after all.

What the Stewarts had left in the Eastern Empire was still of use even though they were no longer present. The land that had been pockmarked by owata seeds had all been smoothed out by the cats. Citizens who had lost their homes were easily able to rebuild using the know-how the Stewarts gave them on reusing owata lumber. With their regular food shipments and their lessons on canning food as well as processing monsters for meat, the Stewart family truly had become the pillar that the Eastern Empire’s restoration rested upon.

And all of it had come from one little girl’s head. She was thirteen years old. Only thirteen years old. And she’d saved a nation. Why, nobody in the world could possibly be better suited to become the next empress.

“Prince Tasuku? I hope you’re not thinking anything untoward.” Joshua got a very bad feeling about the prince and went to put a stop to it. If this was going to keep happening, he almost wanted to hide Lady Emma away in Pallas, locked up where nobody could see her.

Almost.

He couldn’t possibly separate her from her family. After all, the worst thing anyone could do in this world was take Emma’s smile from her. Besides, Emma was beautiful no matter where she was. It was no exaggeration to say that no man alive could resist her angelic charms. Therefore, Joshua just had to become the greatest man among those men. He’d make it so not even the kingdom’s princes or the Eastern Empire’s princes or any of those other pests could even hold a candle to him.

“Heh.” Joshua psyched himself up and gave a most unsavory grin.

“Heh.” Prince Tasuku’s lips turned upward as if he were ready for war.

“Heh.” Even Miguel laughed. After all, even though he was at a clear disadvantage, he had a certain buff from being Emma’s bug buddy that could easily be built upon.

“Heh... Heh heh heh heh...” The three of them all laughed together.

“Yeesh, these guys are freaky...” Hugh muttered at the unsettling sight.

“Prince Tasuku!” Just then, some more ninjas appeared with a fwssh sound.

“How was it?” Prince Tasuku immediately went from smiling to serious.

“Those ships have some very frightening things on board,” the new ninja, Hattori Hanzo, said as he pointed to the ships lined up near the Eastern Empire’s tradeship. They were apparently ships that the firstborn prince Maximilian’s friends were aboard, yet nobody had disembarked despite having been docked for days.

“Frightening how?” When the tradeship had arrived at port, the magic sensor device the prince had on him had begun to react. He thought it odd that it would react in the kingdom, where there were supposedly no mages around. When he investigated, he found the source of the reaction had been the boats beside his own.

The Eastern Empire had lost all of their mages in the disaster, but they still had plenty of magic stones, and thus plentiful magic tools left. Most people in the Imperial family had carried protective magic detection devices on their person for generations. These devices had been developed by the Eastern Empire’s genius inventor, Gennai Hiraga, as a way to detect traces of magic nearby. No matter how skilled the ninjas and samurai around the Imperial family were, it would be difficult for them to go up against magic. The prince’s device was disguised as a regular accessory worn at all times to alert them to the dangers ahead of time so they could formulate a response to keep the Imperial family from falling under the influence of magic. The last time Prince Tasuku had come to the kingdom, it had never gone off even once.

“Cannons. Each ship is outfitted with six cannons. We spotted several cannonballs as well. What’s more, they’re all pointed toward the kingdom and ready to fire at a moment’s notice.” Hattori’s face was grim.

Cannons were weapons meant to be used against monsters. Even if they were placed along the barrier to defeat monsters, the thought of outfitting a boat with them was unthinkable. Especially since these boats were not from the kingdom. Why would they have crossed the ocean with such equipment when monsters couldn’t appear in the sea? It almost appeared like they were targeting the capital itself.

“They were pointed toward the capital...?”

Based on the distance, it’d be hard to imagine the cannonballs would be able to reach the capital, but the fact that they were anchored in the harbor with cannons on board, all facing the capital...even the people of the Eastern Empire, who had limited dealings with foreign diplomacy, could understand how odd it was.

Seeing the serious looks on Hattori’s and Prince Tasuku’s faces, Joshua cut into the conversation. “Prince Tasuku? Is there some problem with those ships?” Prince Tasuku realized it would be best to let people of the kingdom know, so he gave Hattori a look.

“...Lokkuru.”

“Lokkuru?”

Hattori told Joshua in Sunklothian, which Joshua parroted back. Hattori then nodded, his stern expression remaining.

“I see. Those are Western Imperial ships, and they have cannons on board them ready to fire on the capital at a moment’s notice, right?” Joshua understood the meaning behind Hattori’s “lokkuru” perfectly. It was so perfect that Hattori and Prince Tasuku were utterly shocked. All he’d said was “lokkuru,” but Joshua picked up on every part. It was inconceivable.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Sunklothian is awfully convenient, isn’t it?” Joshua smiled as he looked at the three staring at him.

“Don’t believe him. This boy is a monster,” Momochi said as he shook his head. Sunklothian was indeed quite convenient, but the only reason Joshua had been able to understand all of that was because he’d already looked into the matter. This was his guess based on the information he had, the current situation, and Hattori and Prince Tasuku’s expressions.

“Joshua. Based on the trajectory of those cannons and the distance they can fire, the roads to the capital will be perilous.” The Eastern Imperials had planned to bring all their cargo to the Stewart family household. Given that the cannons were aiming at the capital, in the worst-case scenario, they could get swept up in the mess too.

“No, if the Western Empire is truly planning on attacking, then their sights would be set on the capital...or rather, the castle. That would be the fastest course of action. Destroying the roads there with cannonballs would only serve as a hindrance when they choose to charge in. No matter where they aim, I would say they’d leave the roads to the capital be. I believe they plan on using the cannons to target the castle from here.”

Tasuku then interpreted what Joshua had said to Hattori, and asked his opinion on the matter.

“But I’ve never heard of any cannons that could fire such a long distance!” Hattori shook his head, with a “lokkuru” directed at Joshua. There was no need for a cannon, which was meant to be used to defeat monsters within the barrier, to fire that long of a distance. There was a chance that the cannon could actually damage the barrier if one wasn’t careful, so it was more desirable as a weapon that could accurately pinpoint targets up close instead.

“Hmm... Man-made objects do have their limits, which means they might be using some kind of inhuman power? Like maybe a monster? An owata’s seeds could certainly fly from here to the capital with no problem. The only other thing I can think of would be...magic, I believe.”

As Prince Tasuku listened to Joshua muttering to himself, he touched the earring in his right ear. The reason he’d had Hattori investigate the Western Empire’s ships in the first place was because his earring, the magic detection device he always wore, had reacted.

Miguel was surprised by Joshua’s muttering too. “Sir, the boat...has magic. We detected traces.”

“So it does, does it? Heh heh. That’s wonderful news.” A normal person would have been at a loss for how to react to such horrific information, but Joshua was laughing devilishly. Magic wasn’t just convenient for people. It was also very dangerous. How could he be so happy at the prospect that the Western Empire could potentially be attacking the kingdom? Prince Tasuku, Miguel, Hattori, and Momochi were all at a loss.

“If there are traces of magic on it...then that means there may be at least one mage on board.” The world was currently dealing with a magic stone shortage, so it was hard to imagine that anyone would bring the massive amount of magic stones one would need to attack another country. If they were planning on attacking another country, it was likely to obtain magic stones. In other words, they likely wouldn’t be using magic stones to increase the distance a cannon could fire, as magic stones had limited uses. Once they had been used, they were gone for good. Trying to make a cannon fire several dozen kilometers would likely take a ton of stones, and Joshua knew that the Western Empire did not have the quantity on hand to be able to do such a thing. Rather than using up precious magic stones, it would have been far less risky and more cost effective to simply bring along a mage.

In other words, there was at least one mage on the boat: the very thing that the kingdom and many other countries had been fighting and clamoring and dying to get their hands on.

“Well, every cloud certainly does have its silver lining, doesn’t it?”

The barrier that covered the kingdom was about to crumble, and any place without a barrier was one where nobody could safely live. In other words, the cloud of imminent war truly did have a silver lining for them. While as a merchant, Joshua always carried a pen and paper with him in case he needed to write a contract, he instead pulled an Emma silk handkerchief out of his pocket and began writing on it with a quill.

“Hugh, can you deliver this to Rose the concubine in the castle? Oh, and make sure you grab the dresses the Stewart family made for her from their house too. Once she sees the Emma silk dresses and handkerchiefs, she’s sure to tell Queen Victoria what’s happening.”

Going through the official channels for this would take far too long, and there was a chance it could get dismissed as nonsense before it reached the queen. Thus, Joshua decided it would be fastest for Hugh to make contact with Lady Rose instead. Lady Rose would surely believe Hugh if he had an Emma silk dress, because she adored Emma.

They had magic stones. So when should they make their move to obtain a mage and strengthen the kingdom’s barrier? Right then and there!

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, in the Skyte region, on the field trip campgrounds before the forest along the barrier, the Stewart family had started their morning as early as ever.

“Myah!”

Emma turned around when she heard the cat’s voice coming from the forest. “Oh, General Kongming! Welcome back!”

The cat trotted along and rubbed up against Emma. “Mrowr!”

“Hee hee, did you get a lot of hunting done?”

“Myaaaah!” Kongming purred and meowed in satisfaction.

“Shhh! Kongming, keep it down! Everyone’s gonna hear you!” William, who came rushing out of the forest after Kongming, warned her in a panic. Even if all the students should still be sound asleep this early in the morning, hearing a cat in a place like this was still extremely suspicious.

“Hmm? You sure we can’t just cover it up saying they heard a monster instead of a cat?” George said, flicking monster blood off his katana and sheathing it as he came out of the forest after Kongming and William.

“Meow!”

“Kongming’s saying, ‘Don’t you dare lump me in with those things,’ George!”

“Huh? Aw, I’m sorry, Kongming...” Kongming only meowed once and looked away with a pout, so George apologized. He scratched behind her ears to try and cheer her up. “Don’t be mad at me...”

“Nyah!”

“She says a little more to the right.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, yeah...”

“Myah!”

“She says you only need one ‘yeah.’”

“Well, sorry!”

“Keep your voice down, George. You really are going to wake everyone up. These are a bunch of nobles who aren’t used to sleeping like this, after all,” Melsa said as she poked her head out from the carriage. “Hmm? I don’t see Leonard and Arven anywhere...” Her expression grew cold.

“E-Er, so, about that, mother... They might have gotten a little carried away with their hunting...”

“A little?”

“Well, the area near the barrier is smaller than in Pallas, but a lot of the monsters in this forest seem to move in packs...”

Melsa sighed in exasperation and began massaging her temples.

“So they have to move them away before anyone finds them.” After hunting a monster, there were many things that had to be done with the body, so they couldn’t just leave them out.

They were in the tent closest to the forest, so they were secretly sneaking out to hunt monsters while they could. They were able to go at a time where the Skyte hunters on their watch wouldn’t notice them, way early in the morning when everyone was supposed to be asleep.

“With a forest full of monsters, who in their right mind wouldn’t want to go hunting?!” Leonard asked on the first day of the field trip, his eyes glimmering with excitement as he gripped his trusty sledgehammer.

“So true!” George said, with his newly acquired katana from the Eastern Empire, in unison with Arven who had his bow in hand.

It would be no exaggeration to say this was the whole reason they’d wanted to participate in the field trip. Monsters weren’t endangered species or wild animals. They were just monsters. Normally, they could hunt as much as they wanted in other domains and nobody would bat an eye. However, some hunters on the border would get a little defensive of their “territory,” and that was a huge pain. Melsa didn’t want to deal with it, and the Stewart men wanted to hunt, so they came to a compromise that they could go hunting as long as nobody caught them.

However, there were far more monsters in the Skyte forest than they’d expected, and they’d gotten so into the hunt that they didn’t realize just how many they’d hunted. If they left the monsters lying around, the brothers wouldn’t be able to make any excuses for themselves if the Skyte hunters found the corpses. There were also some monsters that had to be handled properly afterward or they could be dangerous, some monsters that could be used for materials, and some monsters that were just too tasty to leave behind... It was far more work to clean up after a hunt than the actual hunt. Even if they could enjoy the food there, they wouldn’t be able to process the hides and the bones and the like, so they had to call a carriage to the campgrounds and send the materials back to the Stewart manor. But with all the hunting they’d inadvertently done, one or two carriages hadn’t been enough to handle it, and the Skyte hunters and citizens’ stares certainly made them feel awkward.

“I’m glad William got to go on his first hunt since Kongming was here, but...that just made it so we hunted even more monsters...” While Kongming was better-behaved than the mischievous little Guan, she still had been hiding in the carriage all afternoon and was using the vast herds of monsters in the forest to let off some steam.

“All I could really do was set traps, though... I was terrible at actually fighting.” William drooped his shoulders. It would be impossible for him to move like his brother did.

“Myah!”

Kongming had come along with them on the field trip, declaring herself Emma’s guardian. While the other three cats had insisted they wanted to come along as well, it would have been too difficult for them to hide three giant cats. However, no matter how much they’d tried to persuade her, Kongming had not relented.

“Myah myah myah!” Kongming had brought the field trip paperwork to the family and placed her paw on the last line for emphasis.

“Let’s see... Families who own trained hunting dogs may bring one along.”

“Hunting dogs?”

“Myah myah!”

“She says she’s a hunting cat!”

Kongming had proudly meowed and Emma had translated as always.

“Oooh! Yeah, that makes sense!”

The whole family seemed to be completely fine with the fact that the cat had been able to read the paper in the first place. Since the maids had all been on vacation and thus unable to interject on the matter, Kongming had been allowed to attend.

“Well, let’s get started, then. We’ve got some field dressing to get to, don’t we? We won’t be able to finish by breakfast if we don’t hop to it.” Melsa sighed, rolled up her sleeves, and gave her children instructions. She was sure her husband and brother-in-law would be back soon with plenty of monsters to deal with.

◆ ◆ ◆

After finishing their breakfast, the Skyte hunters couldn’t help but think that the students participating in the field trip behaved exactly how they’d expected. They were sure not to show it on their faces, but the exasperation was clear as day in their hearts. The whole reason the students had been advised to put their tents right in front of the forest was to teach them through experience how tough camping could be. Unfortunately, the students were all nobles. Even if they were right on the border of the barrier, that fact would not change. Excluding the family that had already made their own meal, the other families’ servants were delivering their breakfasts and handling their clothes, baths, and every last thing one could think of. It was no different from a vacation.

Yet even with two guardians per student, it was still odd that their carriages were being sent out and back so frequently.

“Milord, more carriages are coming. I know we have the forest here, but it’s so close to the border of the barrier...” The hunter furrowed his brow at the sound of the caravan of carriages clattering down the road. It was as though the drivers were completely unbothered that monsters could appear at any moment.

“It’s well-known that monsters attack both humans and livestock. Even if it’s just carriages, I still wish they’d stop...” There were just standard horses pulling the carriages, practically a different breed from the specially trained horses that the hunters brought with them. A monster appearing could easily startle the untrained horses into throwing their riders off or kicking them, leaving the people in no shape to hunt.

“We have more monsters this year than usual. We’ve let it slide, but given the field trip going on, I feel like maybe it’d be best to limit carriages coming through here...or, rather, I felt like that.” While the lord of Skyte was receptive to the worried hunters, he had mixed feelings about the whole matter. After all, it was the Stewart family—the rulers of the Pallas region, where monsters appeared with the most frequency in the kingdom—that was sending their carriages out far more frequently than any other student. They were far more experienced with handling monsters than the Skyte hunters. It was hard to really complain about a family who could take down a roc with a single arrow...but goodness, was he tired of having so much weirdness to point out the past couple of days. The fact that the Stewarts knew how to make a roc taste good, the fact that the whole family was participating in the class, the fact that they were weirdly close with the king... The lord frowned and looked toward the forest.

The one singular blessing they’d had was that other than the roc, no monsters had appeared...for some strange reason. They’d been so overrun with monsters that they’d begged the royal family to send knights their way, but it had gone quiet since the field trip started. The hunters doing their regular rounds in the forest were rather shocked to see so few monsters roaming around after dealing with the infestation for so long. They’d suspected there might have been a nest in the forest somewhere, but now it was like someone had exterminated them all. They hoped it wasn’t the calm before the storm, but...

While the lord and the hunters were squinting out at the forest cautiously, the king strolled in with a smile. “Hello there, Lord. I’ve got a favor, or...more of a request for you.”

The king had the greatest authority in the land, so a favor or a request was tantamount to an order.

“What might I do for you, Your Majesty?” Those who were unaware of the king’s disposition might have answered that they’d do whatever he asked. The lord of Skyte, on the other hand, was so cautious that it could have been considered utterly disrespectful. Regardless, there were some favors that you absolutely could not agree to immediately, and the king standing before him was exactly the type of person to ask exactly that kind of favor.

“I was wondering if we could change the plans for our field trip this year,” the king said with an unassuming grin as wide as a young boy’s.

Putting it frankly, the lord had a horrible feeling about this.

“Changing them...how exactly?” Seeing the king smile like that was the scariest thing his vassals could imagine.

“Well, we’ve got the Stewart family from the border attending this year. You think we could have them help us out and go into the forest? I’d like to see some of the monsters in there for myself, as the king of this land.”

“What.”

There was nothing more dangerous than an amateur on the hunting grounds. That was the first lesson learned by anyone who undertook the mission of becoming a hunter on the borders. The forest wasn’t a playground. It wasn’t a training ground. It was a certified hunting ground.

“Your Majesty, I’m terribly sorry, but I cannot grant such a request.” Whether it was a favor or even an order from the king, he couldn’t acquiesce.

“But think about it! I’m the king and I’ve never seen a living monster in the flesh before. If I don’t even try to just because they’re dangerous, it only leaves me clueless. And the more clueless I am, the more of a burden I could potentially saddle people on the border with.”

Currently, the only knowledge the king was working off of to create monster countermeasures was reports and petitions that had been sent to the castle. It really couldn’t be said that he had a full grasp of the problem. He was just doing what the king before him—and the king before that king, and the king before that king—had done every year.

It was his son, Prince Edward, who had initially raised an objection to this practice. The moment he’d returned after the localized barrier crisis in the Vallery region, he insisted that there needed to be significant changes made to the system. Despite the fact that he was already struggling to do his usual government work as the second-born prince each day, the king knew he was studying day and night to try and lessen the burden on those living in the border lands.

It only took coming face-to-face with monsters once for Edward to have such an intense change of heart. His son, who had always had such an icy gaze, now had an intensity burning in his eyes instead. He’d previously just followed his older brother’s example, safely staying inside and doing his government duties. The firstborn prince Maximilian’s interests lay on the outside, and he deepened his understanding of the way the world worked by studying abroad in more advanced countries over and over. Until Edward had gone to the Vallery region, he’d been hoping to study in the Western Empire too, but he chose to take Monster Studies on his own this year and even volunteered to take part in the field trip. The more the king saw how hard his son was working, the more he felt he should learn as much as he could too.

“Your Majesty...” However, this “favor” the king was asking of the Skyte lord felt more like a threat to him. He didn’t know what it was the king wanted to do in the forest, but he knew exactly who was going to have to take responsibility if anything happened to the king while he was in there. Putting even more of a burden on these border lands was a terrible plan that would bring the country to ruin. There wasn’t a single border region out there that didn’t presently have its hands full dealing with monsters.

Well...except maybe Pallas.

Leonard Stewart, the ruler of Pallas, poked his head in with a completely carefree expression, making the Skyte ruler sigh.

“Somethin’ the matter?” Leonard asked, noticing something was off between the king and the Skyte lord. Leonard had casually popped in thinking he and his family wouldn’t be able to make a dent in the meat he’d obtained, so it’d be nice to get the hunters to help out, but the vibe seemed grim.

“Count Stewart! Perfect timing! I was suggesting we make a few adjustments to the field trip so we could go into the forest and hunt for ourselves,” the king said, thinking Leonard was just the man he needed.

“You want to get some practical training in the forest?”

“Indeed. From what I’ve heard, there haven’t been many monsters appearing lately, and we have with us the Skyte hunters, my personal guards, the Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques professors, you, and Professor Arven here, so the danger can’t be that pressing, right?” the king enthusiastically insisted. It was rare to have such a perfect battle lineup, after all.

Unfortunately, Leonard frowned at the request and protested. “Your Majesty, the forest is a hunting ground.” Our hunting ground, to be specific. “I’m less than inclined to expose you to the sorts of dangers it could pose to you.” And us, if anyone finds out that we’re hunting with Kongming in there every morning.

“Count Stewart...” The Skyte lord’s eyes practically twinkled in the face of Leonard’s disapproval. He’d thought the man was as frivolous as they come, but he was really showing his prowess as a lord of a border land. Not even being pressured by the king was enough for him to change his tune.

“I see... So it really is that dangerous...”

“Indeed. Please, give up on this notion, Your Majesty.”

Apparently, these words coming from the lord of Pallas, the largest of the borderlands, made them that much more convincing.

The king put his hand to his chin in thought.

The Skyte hunters all seemed deeply impressed by the count’s courage as well. Count Stewart already had such a stern face, and seeing him oppose the king so seriously gave quite an impact. His message was the same as the Skyte lord’s, yet he was far more persuasive. Those who had been protecting the border lands for generations really were cut from a different cloth. Even the king himself was deep in thought, carefully considering the count’s words.

“If you really believe it’s that dangerous, then I suppose I will have to give up. But if just this forest is that dangerous, then your family’s land must be the most dangerous of all, and you’re still just a count... I feel we should raise your peerage somehow... Maybe I can make something greater than the four great dukes?” While the king seemed persuaded and was muttering to himself as though he’d given up...

“Uh, y’know, Your Majesty! Come to think of it, it really isn’t that dangerous!” Not dangerous enough to raise our peerage, at least! “It’s probably too much to bring like...all the students with us? But uh...we could have a couple of volunteers come in with us! How’s that?” Leonard suddenly and very enthusiastically changed tunes and turned to the Skyte lord for approval.

“Huh?!”

“I’m pretty sure with me, Arven, and George, we can make it happen!”

“Uh... Count Stewart?”

“Yup, count’s good enough standing for me.”

“What?” Count Stewart put his hands firmly on the Skyte lord’s shoulders and nodded. He looked terrifying. “A-Are you really sure, Count Stewart?! We can go into the forest for real?!” the king asked, elated.

“Huh?!” The Skyte lord was baffled.

“That’s right! So let me stay a count!” Leonard said, really driving his point home.

“What?!” The Skyte lord really couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Great! Then let’s get us some volunteers!” the king said as he excitedly went off to gather some students.

“What?!”

“Whaaaat?!”

It was a nonstop barrage of confusion hitting the Skyte lord and his hunters all at once.

And so, the king decided to go to the hunting grounds in the forest. It was such a dangerous place that when the emergency letter from the queen arrived, he would be unable to receive it.

◆ ◆ ◆

Is the king out of his mind? The students participating in the field trip all asked themselves. He’d suddenly said he’d changed the itinerary of the field trip and was going to head into the forest where the monsters were. Once again, the students had to wonder, Is the king out of his mind?!

The Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques professors thought the same thing. Is the king serious? Even with Count Stewart, the Professor, and the two teachers there, it was still crazy to request to go into the forest where monsters roamed. They hadn’t even decided to go yet either. So once again, they thought... Is the king serious?

“Hmm? Are these the only volunteers?” The king pouted with disappointment.

Wait, who in their right mind would have volunteered?! What kind of death wish would someone have to have to go along with such a ridiculous whim?!

The students and teachers were shocked by the king’s words and looked around to see who would have volunteered like that. There, they saw George Stewart raising his hand like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Ah. Yeah, that tracks.

They all could accept that...but then...

Hmm?

Right next to him, George’s little brother, William Stewart was also raising his hand.

Yeah, no, that’s not happening! It’s way too dangerous! Why is a little kid raising his hand like that?!

Hmm?

What?!

No no no, there is no way!

Next to George, and next to his little brother William, raising her hand...was Emma. The very same girl who’d been so sickly that she’d been on the brink of death.

Why is frail Lady Emma raising her hand?!

What?! And the girls behind Lady Emma are all raising their hands too! This is too much... I mean, Lady Marion makes sense, as the daughter of the captain of the knights, but that’s only for her. What about the twins on either side of her giddily raising their hands?! Do they not realize this isn’t a vacation?! And what about Lady Francesca next to them?! If you’re so scared it’s making you shake all over, then you don’t have to volunteer in the first place!

“Our king sure is the best, right, Caitlyn? I was hoping we’d get to see a live monster!”

“Our king sure is the best, Catherine! I was hoping we’d get to see a live monster too!”

The twins lived in the Simmons region, which was surrounded by the sea, so they’d never had the opportunity to see a monster. Monster meat wasn’t really in circulation much either, so their interests were extremely piqued now.

“I’m planning on becoming a knight in the future, and knights have been tasked with going on monster hunts in recent years. I believe it’s in my best interest to get some experience.”

“Lady Marion, I’ll be right there supporting you from the sidelines! I’m from the border, so I’m very confident in my monster knowledge!”

“I-I-I-If Lady Emma’s going, then I-I’m going too.”

Marion was going for her future.

Emma giggled, saying she was going because she was from the border.

Francesca was tearfully going if everyone else was going.

Though all of them raised their hands, their reasons were different.

“Ah, yes... We have so many young ladies in attendance this year, it really is a sight. And to think, they’d be so proactive... Wait, we can’t let girls into the forest!” As wild as the king was, that was a step too far for him. The boys were all taking Hunting Techniques, so they had, at minimum, the stamina to run away from any monsters if necessary, and training to protect themselves. The girls, on the other hand, didn’t have any sort of foundational exercise to work off of.

“Emma, what are you thinking?! You of all people should know how dangerous monsters are!” Prince Edward’s face contorted in rage. Her right cheek still bore such terrible scars from the slimes’ attacks back then.

“Ah, Marion? Remember how we had that talk before we came here about having a bit more self-awareness about what it means to be a duke’s daughter?” Marion’s brother, Arthur, looked a bit displeased as well. The Bell household’s patriarch was the captain of the knights, and he’d been letting her get away with far too much. She was already of an age where she could be married off, but she was still dressing in masculine clothes, training her swordsmanship, and was several times more handsome than her potential suitors. They were having serious trouble finding her a partner, and it was driving the family crazy.

Okay, but you two are raising your hands as well! Both of you are raring to go yourselves! thought all the other students, but they weren’t about to actually say it. If they did, they might get wrapped up in all this too, and it would’ve been no laughing matter if they had to join, so they just silently watched the scene play out before them.

“Your Highness, if I may? The thing you need most on a monster hunt is knowledge. I want to know more about them. The more I know, the more useful I can be to our land.” Emma wasn’t the type to simply give up just because Prince Edward told her to. There really weren’t many opportunities for her to go into a forest with monsters, even when she was back home on the border. Even if nobody else could fill in for her father, brother, or uncle, they still wouldn’t let Emma watch them hunt. She knew it was dangerous, but the danger was why such specific countermeasures were born. To put it plain and simple, Emma had confidence she would be a lot more helpful than the prince.

“Arthur, you know I want to protect others more than I want others to protect me!”

“Don’t hit me with the clichés here... I understand how you feel, Marion, but this isn’t a game!”

Unfortunately, Emma’s claims were being drowned out by the Bell siblings’ passionate dispute. Apparently, Arthur was none too pleased that his sister wanted to be a knight. Given that he’d been thoroughly trained as a knight himself and that his sister Marion was absolutely among the people he’d sworn to protect, it was completely understandable.

“I know it’s not a game! You know that last year, I passed Beginner’s Hunting Techniques at the top of my class, and I’m taking Monster Studies this year as well. I am perfectly qualified to do this!”

“Nngh... It’s still no! Anything can happen in a monster encounter!”

Though Marion kept arguing, Arthur never once relented. As such, none of the girls were allowed to step foot into the forest.

“Well, shoot.”

“Shoot indeed.”

The lord of Pallas, Leonard, whispered, to which the acting lord of Pallas, Arven could only agree. They’d lost the girls in all the hustle. Here they’d thought that if there were girls with them, then perhaps the king would hesitate to attack any monsters right away for the girls’ safety. Having a battle-hungry king (who was a complete amateur when it came to monster hunting) without any restraints was a terrifying thought. But the biggest problem of all...

“If Emma’s not coming with us, then...”

“She won’t come either, huh?”

“Yeah, probably not...”

Kongming.

Even if the king had scared him into it, one of the biggest reasons why he’d agreed to let him enter the forest was because of Kongming. She could easily hide among the trees, so he thought they could bring Kongming along as long as she kept out of sight—just in case the worst should happen. Unfortunately, if Emma had to stay at camp, then Kongming was probably going to stay with her. Emma was Kongming’s number one priority; everyone else’s standing varied from day to day.

“And we’re pretty sorely lacking too...”

“You can say that again...”

Leonard and Arven sighed.

When monsters were around, the most dangerous person was one who didn’t know much about monsters.

There was one person who could easily predict the unpredictable nature of monsters that Arthur would still be worried about, and that was Emma. Who was no longer coming with them. In other words, they were significantly hindered. It didn’t matter how much stamina she had or whether she could use a sword or not; just having someone with such a wide breadth of monster knowledge around made hunting so much easier. There were many monsters in Skyte that weren’t in Pallas, and since George wasn’t all that confident in his knowledge, it made him a much less effective fighter. Without Emma and William around to help with their monster know-how, they wouldn’t be able to let their guard down for a second.

“And it’s not like we can say we’d like to take Emma either, huh?”

“Probably not...”

In the end, the people who were going into the forest for the special hands-on exercise were:

The king (A total problem child)

The prince (The boy who cut a slime in half)

The Stewart men (George being a wreck when it came to monster knowledge)

Arthur (The one responsible for cutting their forces down so much)

The Monster Studies and Hunting Techniques professors (They both seemed reliable, but also looked pretty worried)

“It’s always times like this when the worst kind of monsters show up, huh? Uh, not like I’m trying to say they will.”

“Seriously, don’t jinx us.” Arven could only frown as Leonard laughed off his ominous prediction. After all, triggering event flags was the Stewart family specialty.

◆ ◆ ◆

When Rose Alicia Royale finished her duties for the day, she returned to her quarters and found her daughter relaxing on the sofa with a boy she’d never seen before.

“Who’s your friend, Jadwiga?”

At the sound of her mother’s voice, Jadwiga raised her head and closed the picture book she was reading. “Welcome back, mother! This is Hugh!”

“Hugh?”

I don’t think I know him. She didn’t think there were any children Jadwiga’s age among her relatives in the royal family. She recalled that the wet nurse only had girls, and even if he were the child of one of the castle staff, he shouldn’t have been able to enter Rose’s quarters without permission. So just...who is this boy?

“Wow, you’re like, seriously gorgeous, lady!” The strange boy gasped when he saw Rose tilting her head.

Well, I quite like a kid who says exactly what he means, Rose thought. However, his rough way of speaking was certainly not the kind one would expect to hear within castle quarters.

“And who might you be?” Rose asked the boy, with a gentle smile.

There was one family she could think of who could accomplish something so ridiculous as though it were natural. This was a boy who was able to sneak into the most heavily guarded quarters in the kingdom with ease. That family was the type to make the impossible possible, without even once thinking it was impossible in the first place.

The boy was wearing purple clothes, and Rose was familiar enough by this point that she could tell even from where she was standing that they were made of Emma silk.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” The boy bopped himself on the head, then fell to one knee and lowered his head—a bow reserved only to be used with those in the royal family.

Rose’s eyes widened in surprise. It was absolutely perfect, at just the right angle. Even the Etiquette Demon herself, the Duchess Hilda Sullivan, would have had no complaints.

“Raise your head,” Rose said.

“Hugh’s here to bring you a dress, mother!” Jadwiga said as she went to fetch a beautiful dress made of Emma silk with roses printed all over it. The roses weren’t embroidered; it was a rare sort of dress with the pattern painted directly on the fabric. Jadwiga was so tiny that she couldn’t hold all of the dress, and more than half of it was dragging along the floor. Anyone who knew the cost of Emma silk would have fainted at the sight, but Rose had worn so many Emma silk dresses by now that she knew that wouldn’t be enough to damage it. Apparently, the boy before her knew that as well.

“Hey there, Lady Rose! I’m Huey. I’m from the slum...er, the Stewart region in the capital. I was told to deliver your dress and this, so here I am.” Hugh pulled a handkerchief from his pocket; it was also made of Emma silk. “Now the deed is done!”

Once Rose accepted the handkerchief, the boy disappeared with a fssh sound.

“He’s gone...”

“Wow, Hugh just disappeared!”

Jadwiga blinked in disbelief and went to touch the floor where Hugh had disappeared.

Well, this must have something to do with Emma, then. Rose thought, and she looked down at the handkerchief. There were beautiful letters on it with impeccable penmanship.

“Hmm? Joshua Rothschild?” The name on the handkerchief was not at all what she’d expected, and while she thought it odd, she kept reading. “Cannons...?”

“Mother?”

“Jadwiga, I’m so sorry. Could you watch over my quarters for a bit longer? I have something I need to speak with Queen Victoria about immediately.” With that, Rose dashed out of her quarters. If what the handkerchief said was true, the entire kingdom was in danger, and it was far more than she could handle alone.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Ah ha ha ha ha! This is great! This is amazing!” the king bellowed with a smile as he cut down a herd of monsters heading toward him one right after another.

“Y-Your Majesty! Wait! Those monsters are too hard to cut throu—”

Slice!

“Aha! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

The king ignored the Monster Studies teacher Wolfgang’s warnings, slipped under the last monster’s belly and stabbed through the hard skin with all his might.

A short distance away, the knights and the Skyte hunters, who were supposed to be protecting the king, were just standing there with nothing to do as they watched him fight.

“We uh. Kinda don’t even need to be here, huh?”

The king was bathed in his enemies’ blood, and he wiped something from his forehead (either monster blood or sweat) with a satisfied grin before catching his breath. “Phew! It sure feels good to get my exercise in after so long!”

“Y-Your Majesty, please! You can’t just do as you please out here! It’s not safe to just slash your way through everything!”

It had been a few hours since they’d entered the forest, and they’d been making intentional, careful steps the whole way. When their hunting dogs detected danger, the Stewarts would go ahead to remove it, then the rest would meet up with them again. Everything had been going smoothly until just a few minutes ago.

“Pfft... The king’s just as strong as ever...” Arthur was hiding behind Prince Edward’s back, unable to contain his laughter.

“There was no time for anyone to stop him. Rest assured that if anything happens, the responsibility lies solely on the king himself,” Prince Edward said to the Monster Studies teacher and the Skyte lord, promising they wouldn’t face any punishment for the incident. The king was the one who’d jumped into the fray without asking. If he got himself hurt, the prince wouldn’t abide by him trying to make his vassals take responsibility for it. The king had been told countless times before they entered the forest that if they encountered any monsters, he was not to make a move, but to wait for instruction from the hunting experts among them.

However, a group of monsters took them by surprise, and the king (who had ridiculously fast reflexes) was the first to respond. The Stewart boys had already gone off to where the hunting dogs had signaled, and thus were separated. Nobody could have predicted that monsters would have come from so close by. It even seemed they had deliberately targeted the group and brought the whole herd to attack.

Before the Monster Studies professor could start identifying them and before the hunters or the knights could make their move to protect the king, he rushed toward the monsters himself. Those who had experience with monster hunting had been concentrating on identifying the number and type of monsters that had appeared, and several knights had never seen a monster before, and they couldn’t help but recoil in disgust. The king took advantage of the lag to run into the fray with a “Hyah ha!!!” and start swinging.

“Well, all’s well that ends well, right? You said I couldn’t cut through that thing, but look at it now!” The king flung the blood off his sword in a practiced gesture and looked over the remains. Apparently, he actually had heard the professor say that the monster was too tough to cut and decided in a split second to abandon the head and stab through the belly, which turned out to be just what he needed. The king grinned without a single shred of shame.

There were several dozen monster corpses all around him. Before the hunters or the knights could catch up to him, the king had defeated them all on his own. It made sense, given that he let Queen Victoria do his government work during the day while he trained with the sword.

Just then...

The two Stewart brothers, George and William, and the Hunting Techniques professor appeared before them with a rustle as they pushed through the dense forest. They’d been assigned to make sure the area ahead was safe, then come back and fetch the waiting party. “Sorry for the wait. We’ve secured a route...and... Huh?”

“Wh-What happened here?!” William gasped as he saw the pile of dead monsters around the king.

“Is everyone okay?! What happened?!” The Hunting Techniques instructor was shocked too.

However, the king simply wiped the monster blood off his cheek without breaking his smile even once. “A herd of monsters appeared out of nowhere. But not to worry! I took every last one of ’em out! I’m not hurt at all. All this blood is from them!”

In what world would a king be the only one covered in blood when he had knights and hunters alongside him?

“Y-You did this all yourself, Your Majesty?” George asked, his voice trembling in disbelief.

“Hmm? Sure did. I’m the type who tends to act first, then think later. A few of ’em were pretty tough, but I handled them!” Even if George was used to hunting, he was still only sixteen years old. The king was worried maybe showing off his skills as an adult might cause him to lose confidence...but then, William, who had finally come to understand everything happening, couldn’t stop himself from screaming.

“Wh-Wh-Wh-What have you done?!”

“Hmm?”

William did his best to keep clear of the blood staining the ground while investigating the bodies, and he looked distraught.

“Urgh... Yeah, this is pretty bad...” George sighed, staring up into the sky at the hopeless situation.

“Do you have any idea how upset my sister would be if she saw this, Your Majesty?!” In total contrast to the king, who was quite pleased with himself for having defeated all the monsters, William was slumping his shoulders in despair. It was such a waste... Just a quick glance at the bodies and he saw horned hares, hippopotamals, and armored boars. Every last one of them had gone to waste because a total amateur (the king) had slaughtered them. Of all the monsters he could have defeated, they had to be the kinds that yielded expensive materials and delicious meat. None of these had appeared the day before, or the day before that... And yet now, at a time like this...

The horned hare’s fur had fallen out, stained with blood, and not a single usable pelt remained. Hippopotamals had delicious meat, and the hides could be used for carriage tires. They were the kind of monsters that you could use every part of, and yet... Why had he kept cutting it up?! Once the meat hit the air, its freshness would start to dwindle and it would become inedible. With pelts and hides, you needed a certain size. The way he’d left them, they couldn’t be used for food or materials.

Armored boar was used for braised pork belly! Everyone knew that! So why had he cut it from the stomach?! You weren’t supposed to cut it that way until you were draining the blood... The meat was all bad, and even the nose that could have been used for shields was dented. Normally they would have done their best to keep that intact.

William kept looking for anything that could be salvaged, but every last bit was hopeless.

“Ah... Yeah, uh... Emma’s not the only one who would cry over this. Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t come with us... Ah.” George realized as he looked at the king covered in the monsters’ blood... If they came home with the amateur hunter covered completely in blood and no wounds himself, there’s no way Emma wouldn’t figure out what happened. And considering her appetite... This was going to be a huge pain. Emma was definitely about to give him an earful.

“Emma would be...sad about this? Sad enough to cry? But why...? Wait!” Unfortunately, the king couldn’t imagine that Emma would be upset about the monster meat and materials going to waste. After all, the Emma he knew was still a delicate flower. “Emma is still traumatized by that monster attack. If she saw her beloved(?) king come back from a monster hunt covered in blood, then surely it would cause her to panic... That’s what you mean, right, William?!”

People sure were good at coming up with explanations that suited their interests.

“Huh? I mean... She’ll definitely be shocked, that’s for sure...”

“She’s so frail... If I were to show up like this, I’m sure she wouldn’t even be able to eat. She might not even be able to walk! That’s what you’re saying, right, George?”

“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing that could keep her from eating...”

“Oh, you’re right... She would never want anyone to worry about her, so she’d force herself, wouldn’t she? Ooh... Emma, you’re just so brave...”

Apparently, the Fogey’s Fancy’s charms were in full force, even out here.

“Sniff...”

“Oough...”

“Hnngh...”

They then heard the Skyte lord, hunters, and the knights all starting to cry, spurred on by the king’s tears.

“Uh. What’s going on here?” the boys asked.

“I’ll protect Emma!”

“Huh? What’s going on, Your Highness?!”

“Pfffhyah hah hah hah!”

“Lord Arthur?! What’s the matter with all of you?!”

Both the usually coolheaded prince and the collected Arthur seemed completely off.

“Oh no. Eugh... Hey, George? Take a look at this...” William grabbed a small monster by the tail and pulled it out of the pile of monster corpses. It was one that never appeared in Pallas, so it was the first time William had seen one in real life.

“You think this thing has something to do with all this, William?” George didn’t know as much about monsters as William did, so he wasn’t familiar with it.

“This is a mad rat. When it bites bigger monsters, it makes them fly into a frenzy...”

“It can do that? So you think that little rat thing was controlling the monsters the king defeated?” George remembered his dad saying there were a lot of monsters in the Skyte region that used psychological attacks.

“Mad rat. I thought this whole thing was strange... Even for a herd of monsters, there were too many different species roaming together. Normally monsters that don’t already coexist wouldn’t attack in a herd like that...” William felt a cold sweat begin to form.

“That’s, uh...not good, is it?” George could tell something was off by his little brother’s expression.

“Mad rats aren’t all that strong on their own, but...I read in some books that if you get the blood of a monster bitten by one of these guys on you, it can make a person go temporarily crazy too.”

“Crazy? How so?”

“It’s kinda like...a status effect in a video game.”

“Wait, you mean like...going berserk? Or getting charmed? Or hypnotized? Or getting confused?”

“Yeah, exactly that.” Apparently, his video game knowledge from his previous life was helpful here.

“But...how are you supposed to face someone who’s running around all crazy like that? I can’t exactly fight the king, you know.” He didn’t want to hurt the king, obviously, but he didn’t want to hurt the prince, Arthur, the teachers, the hunters, or the knights either.

“Hmm... I still feel ready to move...” Behind George, the king had gone from weeping to suddenly slowly raising his head and brandishing his sword. “Hey, George? You think you could spar with me a bit?” He spun around to face George, but his eyes were entirely unfocused.

This was the middle of a forest. There was no stable footing, and there was no telling when monsters might appear. It was no place to have a sword fight, but none of the knights or hunters even tried to stop it. In fact, some of them were even egging him on, with shouts of, “Get him, Your Majesty!” “You’ve got this!”

Now that the brothers got a closer look, their eyes were entirely unfocused too.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me...”

There really was nothing more dangerous than an amateur on your hunting grounds.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Whoa, jeez!” George dodged a heavy hit from the king.

“Hmm? Well, don’t just dodge me, George! You’ve got to counter me with your sword!” The king laughed as he kept on his relentless attack, chasing George as he dodged to and fro.

“Yeah, no, Your Majesty! Oof! My katana’s way too thin to fight off a large sword like yours!” George just barely managed to dodge the next attack, thinking he would hate to break the sword he’d gotten from the Eastern Empire in a place like this. What was worse was that he’d gotten so caught up in the moment that he’d asked for a reverse-blade katana, so he could very easily hurt himself if he tried.

“Ugh... The king’s totally lost it...” William wasn’t confident in his skills, so he hid behind a tree for shelter and watched as everything unfolded. The king had been bathed in more monster blood than anyone else, so he was still raring to go.

“Oouggh... Emmaaa!”

“Pfffff ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

“Prince Edward’s crying, Lord Arthur won’t stop laughing, the king’s all like that... I never realized status effects could affect people in so many different ways...” He’d read about them in all his monster textbooks, but now he was realizing what a huge pain they were. It was like just being around a bunch of bad drunks. The only ones still sane were the three who’d shown up later. The knights, the Skyte lord and hunters, and everyone else were each their own definition of crazy.

“It’s like I’m the only sober person at the third party of the night...” While William did think fondly back to the old drinking parties from his previous life, he was struggling to come up with something the three sane people could do to solve this mess.

“W-We need to tell my father as soon as possible... P-Professor, can you do that for us?”

“A-Ah, of course. I’ll be right back.”

They’d definitely need more people to help hold down the frenzied king, so William asked the Hunting Techniques instructor to call his father and the others back. George was currently holding off the king while William was trying to scour every last bit of knowledge he had to come up with a solution. Unfortunately, things were tougher than he could have imagined. The king was far too much for his brother to face alone, because he really was ridiculously strong.

“Oh, professor... Please get my father here soon... Sometime before my brother gets cut in half, please!”

George might have had gorilla-like stamina, but he was up against the king and couldn’t fight back. He was in a defense-only battle against the king’s constant merciless strikes. To rub salt into the wound, the king looked positively elated.

“George might be as strong as a gorilla, but the king’s gotta be as strong as a bear...”

At the very least, William could keep himself out of harm’s way to reduce the burden on his brother. All he could do was watch George from the tree’s shadow. It would’ve been fine if George had Violet on his head, but unfortunately, the cats and bugs were protecting Emma.

Fwoosh!

The king was utterly clueless about William’s worries. No, he was in top form, having the time of his life. He stuck the sword he’d been swinging into the ground, and just as they wondered what he was thinking, he yanked out a poor tree ahead of him and began swinging it at George.

“Ack!” Getting hit with a tree wasn’t enough to kill George, but unfortunately, the forest ground wasn’t stable. He got caught on a tree root or something on the ground and stopped short.

“George, dodge!”

George had only barely managed to dodge the first strike, but now that his foot had stopped, he’d given his opponent a perfect opening. The king seemed ready to finish it all off as he grabbed his sword from the ground once more and raised it high. Having lost his balance, it didn’t seem like George would be able to get out of the way of this strike.

“Agh...! Huh?”

However, just as the king was about to land the finishing blow, he stopped.

“George?”

“Y-Your Majesty! Have you...regained your sanity...?” George breathed a sigh of relief.

“Something moved out there! We can finish this match later! Come along, now! Our prey’s getting away! Hya hah! Get a move on!”

“Of course not...”

After having mowed down a bunch of trees, he had greater visibility and was able to spot new prey. He gave chase immediately.

“Come on, everyone! We’ve got monsters to kill!”

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty!”

And he was taking all the crazed knights and hunters along with him. Even when he was hit with this negative status effect, his leadership skills were still top notch.

“Wha— Wait! Your Majesty! Don’t go off on your own!” William tried to get them to stay until his father and uncle could get there, but alas... He called out to the king as he jubilantly chased after the monsters, but the king was so focused on his new prey that he couldn’t possibly hear him.

“George, the king’s running toward the edge of the forest. If he keeps going, he’s gonna get too close to the barrier.” The closer one was to the barrier, the more often one was going to encounter monsters.

“Amateurs really are the worst... After them, William!”

“Got it!”

Thus, they were unable to meet back up with the vanguard team. The monster hunting party had fully been split in two.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, at the camp on the edge of the forest, the girls who had been denied the chance to go on the hunt were doing their best to cheer up Marion, who was very out of sorts after the matter.

“Cheer up, Lady Marion...” Francesca said, gently stroking Marion’s back.

“Thank you, Lady Francesca. I know. I’d already realized deep down that it would be difficult for a noblewoman to become a knight...” Marion had wanted to be a knight since she was very young. However, as she’d grown older and her dream seemed more achievable, people protested her choices even more strongly than before.

“A girl can’t be a knight! You’re the daughter of a duke!”

“What if you got hurt?”

“What if it left scars?”

“Wouldn’t that harm your prospects for marriage?”

“You don’t have to do a job that puts you in danger.”

Even when she’d gotten permission to go on the field trip, her father had made sure to take a jab at her. “You’re a grown woman. You should understand what’s right and wrong by now.”

“I guess...the dream is over.” Marion sighed, unusually pessimistic.

“I heard knights were into meritocracy, aren’t they, Caitlyn?”

“Why, Lady Marion’s stronger than any of the boys! I just know if she were to take the exam, she’d pass in a heartbeat! Right, Catherine?”

The twins couldn’t understand how the dream could be over when Marion was so strong. Everyone in the school knew Marion could hold her own against any of her male classmates. Any boy who thought she was an easy target because she was a girl would get their butts handed to them easily.

The problem was the knights’ upper brass, who were responsible for picking who among the applicants would become knights. The vast majority of them were people with connections to the Bell family. The captain of the knights was the Bell family patriarch: in other words, Marion’s father. As long as he didn’t want Marion to join, it didn’t matter how strong she was. It was likely he would deliberately choose to keep her out. No matter how many times Marion tried to convince her father, he wouldn’t listen to a word she said. He’d stubbornly rejected her over and over again. Lately, they hadn’t even been able to look each other in the eye, and the awful atmosphere hanging over the manor was making the servants feel like they had to walk on eggshells.

“It’s just...a bit difficult, that’s all. I’m sorry, everyone. You can’t just keep chasing your dreams forever, I suppose...” Marion was seventeen years old, the age where she had to start thinking about marriage. She understood that she had a duty to fulfill as a noblewoman. Yet even now, there was a part of her that simply couldn’t just throw away her dream. Unfortunately, those days seemed to be coming to an end.

Emma reached over to her friend. “Lady Marion. I will always be here to listen. Please don’t say your dreams are over. We can think of how to get you knighted together. You’re still so young. I just think it’s a shame to give up this early.” As Marion gave a feeble smile, Emma squeezed her hand. Marion’s hand was much firmer than hers, far closer to her father’s or her brother George’s. They were the hands of a trained swordswoman. Even just her hands told the story of how hard she’d worked to get this far.

“Lady Emma. I’m already seventeen.” While she appreciated Emma being so considerate, Emma was younger than her, so it served to complicate Marion’s feelings even more. Putting it bluntly, seventeen was too old to still be chasing dreams. She was now of marriageable age. Most of her peers already had fiancés or were already married...and some even already had children of their own. Most noble girls had no dreams other than getting married in the first place, and if her husband wasn’t suitably open-minded enough, it would be impossible to do any kind of outside work. Just looking at the way of the world, it was hard to say that Marion’s dream was realistic at all.

“What do you mean, ‘already’? Lady Marion, you’re not already seventeen. You’re only seventeen! You still have a whole world of possibilities ahead of you!” While Marion could only give a self-derisive smile, Emma was there to shake her head. Emma still had her previous memories, and for her, seventeen was an age where you still couldn’t drink, smoke, vote, or even get a driver’s license. It was far too soon to give up on her dreams; her life was only just getting started.

“Hee hee. That certainly makes me feel a bit better too.” Francesca, who was the same age as Marion, felt a weight lift from her shoulders at the idea that seventeen was still an age with many possibilities. After she’d failed the “baptism” for the firstborn prince, the man who’d been moments away from being her fiancé had refused to seal the deal. She’d had to start completely from scratch to find a new partner, and at her age, she might have to settle for becoming an older man’s second wife.

“You too, Lady Francesca? You’re all so young, you still have the whole world at your fingertips... Besides, it’s not like it’s that important to get marr—”

“Emma?”

“Eek! Mother?!”

Emma was going to say that there are plenty of fun and exciting things one could do without getting married, but then her mother, who was supposed to be inside the tent stewing meat, was suddenly standing behind her.

“What were you about to say, sweetheart?” Melsa’s hearing was scarily good. While she was smiling because she was in front of Emma’s school friends, it looked like the devil incarnate was grinning down upon her.

“Huh?”

“It certainly sounded like you were having a conversation I wouldn’t want to miss.”

“Uh... Er... W-Well...”

“Now, I should hope you’re not trying to say you aren’t going to give me any grandbabies.” Again.

“Eep! I-Is that what it sounded like I was saying? I swear, I didn’t! I-I was, uh...just trying to help cheer up Lady Marion by telling her marria— Eeek!”

I want to tell her that marriage can wait, but the look on mother’s face is so scary...

Melsa’s intimidation was enough to make Emma crack. “Mar... Er, uh...meowage! Yeah! I was telling her about meowage! So she could meet General Kongming!”

“General Kongming?” The twins felt like they’d heard that name before. They both went into thought, then raised their heads at the same time.

“Oh! Wasn’t that the name of Lady Emma’s kitty, Caitlyn?”

“Yes! It’s the name of the little calico kitty cat Lady Emma embroiders onto our class projects, Catherine!”

Whether it was cuff links, handkerchiefs, or place mats, Emma embroidered a lot of cats in class. The twins remembered that Emma would always gleefully tell them that they were the pets she had at home.

“Y-Yeah, sure is, Lady Catherine. I sure was just talking about General Kongming, right, Lady Caitlyn? I mean, there’s nothing better for a sad day than getting a fluffy hug, right? I mean, there’s nothing more healing than soft, fluffy fur, right?!” Emma was desperate to get her mother’s thoughts away from marriage and grandchildren, because otherwise, she was in for a long lecture.

“I-Is that so? Don’t you think showing them Kongming out of the blue would be quite the shock to them?” Melsa was worried the surprise would be far too much for such delicate noble girls.

“It’s okay, mother! I talk about the kitties all the time at school!” Emma chuckled to herself. She’d successfully gotten her mother’s attention away from the whole marriage talk.

“Lady Emma, are you telling us that you brought General Kongming with you to the campgrounds?” Marion’s eyes were sparkling, as she adored fluffy animals.

“Eeee! I wanna pet General Kongming, don’t you, Caitlyn?!”

“Eeee! I wanna pet General Kongming too, Catherine!”

The twins, who were always bundles of curiosity, were starry-eyed with excitement too.

“Oh, but...is it really okay to have brought a cat all the way to these campgrounds?” Francesca, ever the worrywart, knew just how valuable cats were, so she was a bit more hesitant. Cats were very rare in this world, and the cost of even just one was enough to purchase a whole mansion.

“Hmm... You’re right. As much as I’d love to pet a cat, there’s a high chance someone might want to steal your beloved furred family. Lady Emma, you mustn’t trouble yourself so much for my sake. The sentiment is enough for me.” Marion was now growing cautious as well. A cat was precious enough that it wouldn’t be easy to compensate someone if something were to happen to it.

“Not to worry, Lady Marion! It’d be pretty hard to steal our cats! Remember how I said in Embroidery how General Kongming was a bit bigger than other cats?” Emma giggled with a proud grin. You wouldn’t have been able to find a single person in the entire kingdom who would have been capable of stealing Kongming. They’d be felled by a single kitty bap.

“I highly doubt a cat being slightly bigger would be enough to prevent them from being stolen...” Marion warned Emma, knowing that differences in size didn’t change how rare cats were, but Emma was riding on the high of having successfully distracted her mother and called for Kongming, who was napping in the carriage.

“General Kongmiiing! C’mere! I wanna introduce you to my friends!” Though Marion and Francesca were very worried her cat might get stolen and were attempting to dissuade her, Emma had never been very good at reading the room.

“Mrooowr?” A cat’s voice came from inside the carriage.

“Oh, you’ll need to open the door...”

Creeeak.

Francesca realized the door to the carriage was closed and went to open it, thinking a cat wouldn’t be able to open it on her own, the Stewart family carriage started to creak loudly. All four of the girls were confused.

The girls wondered if maybe there was something else in the carriage with the cat, a very large thing that made the carriage creak so loudly. But just as they had the thought, the creature deftly used its front paw to open the door and poke its head out.

“Myah!”

The giant creature let out a cry, then went to Emma’s side and rubbed its giant body against her.

“Mroooowr?”

“General Kongming, these are my friends from school. This is Lady Marion, Lady Francesca, Lady Catherine, and Lady Caitlyn.” Emma introduced them all as Kongming rubbed her cheek against Emma.

“Wha...”

“Myaaah!”

“Kongming said she’s heard a lot about you all from us, and that she’s grateful for you all being my friends!”

“Wha...?”

Just as Emma said Kongming was “grateful,” the giant creature lowered its head in thanks. Or...at least that was what it looked like.

“Wha... Huh?”

◆ ◆ ◆

Francesca was utterly dumbfounded. She’d been sincerely happy when Emma had said she was going to introduce them all to the cat she’d modeled her embroidery off of. After all, her embroidery was beautiful and absolutely adorable, and in Francesca’s seventeen years of life, she very rarely got to see such a pet. After all, even among nobles, not many could buy a pet expensive enough to trade for a mansion. Only a select handful who loved to show off their riches would let others see their cats at their afternoon parties, which meant Francesca had only seen them a small number of times. Francesca, who used to be part of the firstborn prince’s faction (which had a great number of show-offs in its ranks), had seen a normal cat before, however few times it had been. And that was why she was so dumbfounded.

Was the thing in front of her really a cat?

“It’s sooo fluffy, Caitlyn!”

“It’s purring so much, Catherine!”

“Why, this is the first time I’ve seen such a big cat.”

Catherine, Caitlyn, and Marion were all petting the catlike creature and admiring its soft, glossy fur.

“Er... Shouldn’t we confirm that that’s a cat first? It’s far too big, no matter how you think of it.” While Francesca could understand the relatively naive twins being so excited, it felt a bit quick for Lady Marion to be accepting it. Francesca felt a bit sad to be the only one left out, but she simply couldn’t accept that the giant beast before her was a cat.

“I heard if it meows, it’s a cat! Right, Catherine?”

“I heard if it meows, it’s a cat too, Caitlyn!”

They’d both been surprised by how big it was until it meowed, and that was all the convincing they’d needed to confirm it was a cat.

Do...they not have any cats in the Simmons region?

“Myah!”

“See, Lady Francesca? She’s meowing now!”

Apparently, the twins’ definition of “cat” was based solely on whether it meowed or not.

“Lady Francesca, see how cute General Kongming is? Something this adorable has to be a cat.” Marion was nuzzling so hardcore into the creature’s fur, it was hard to believe she’d been upset just moments before.

“Oh... So you believe it too, Lady Marion...” Even though Marion seemed very put together, she was the daughter of one of the four great dukes in the kingdom. In other words, she was living in an ivory tower. She was the very definition of sheltered, so it wasn’t all that surprising that she might have had some detachment to the real world. It was worrying that Marion would just believe this at face value.

“Wait, cats aren’t supposed to be this big?”

“Eep!”

“Huh?”

“What?”

They’d all heard a boy’s voice...but oddly enough, couldn’t see anyone anywhere.

“Myah!”

If it were just an auditory hallucination, then it was odd that everyone had heard the boy’s voice, and all of them were looking around to find the source. Kongming meowed and began staring at a spot with nobody and nothing in it.

“I wonder what General Kongming’s looking at, Catherine.”

“There’s nothing there, Caitlyn.”

“Wait, does she see something there? Like...a ghost?”

It wasn’t all that unusual for cats to stare at nothing, but after hearing that boy’s voice, it was giving the girls goose bumps.

“Emma, what’s Kongming saying?” Melsa asked Emma, who could translate kitty language.

“Hmm? She was saying like, ‘long time no see’ or something, but...” Emma didn’t seem like she understood what Kongming meant either, as she looked at the spot Kongming was staring at too.

“Wait... It’s translatable?!” Francesca absolutely picked up on Emma nonchalantly interpreting the cat language. She was honestly at a loss for words at this point.

“Mrowr!” Kongming slowly rose to her feet and started walking to the empty spot.

“Ah...” Marion, having lost her fluffy comfort, stretched her hand out toward Kongming longingly.

Then, Kongming licked the spot she’d been staring at, her tongue dragging along “nothing.”

“Aagh!” With a fwssh a boy suddenly appeared on the spot, clutching his cheek.

“Eeek!”

“Who is that?!”

“Where did he come from?!”

The girls, who’d all been fixated on Kongming’s movements, all let out shouts of surprise.

“Ugh, Kongming! I was hiding so you wouldn’t notice me...”

“Mrowr?”

The boy raised both his hands to show the surprised girls he wasn’t anyone suspicious as he chided Kongming. Meanwhile, Kongming meowed to say, “You call that hiding? You’ve got a long way to go. You’re far sloppier than Hattori.”

“Huh? It’s Hugh!” Emma tilted her head to the side, wondering what he was doing there. He was Huey, the boy from the slums who’d been training to be a ninja.

The boy grinned and waved to Emma. “Hey, Lady Emma! Long time no see.”

“Wait, I thought you were going to Simmons Harbor to meet Hattori!” Emma remembered Joshua weeping as he’d seen her off, saying ships from the Eastern Empire would be arriving during the field trip. Huey’s teacher Hattori, the leader of the ninjas, was meant to be riding those ships, so Hugh and Momochi (one of the ninjas residing in the kingdom) were supposed to be going to help Joshua with his work.

“Yeah, well... Somethin’ kinda big came up. I can’t find the king anywhere. You know where he is, Lady Emma?” Hugh came from the bottom rungs of the kingdom’s society, yet here he was looking for the king himself. It really must have been a big deal.

“Huh? The king? He’s, uh...” Emma looked at the forest.

“Huh? What?! He’s in the forest?! It’s like, super close to the barrier and there are monsters and stuff in there, right?! What the heck is he doin’ in there at a time like this?!” Hugh clutched his head in aggravation. It was common sense, even among the kids in the slums, that you never get close to monsters or the barrier.

Marion checked around her and put a finger to her lips before asking Hugh, “What do you need with the king, young man?” She gently warned him that if anyone heard him talk so disrespectfully about the king, he could be arrested.

Realizing how loud he’d been, Hugh covered his mouth with both hands and muttered his reply. “Nngh... Well, I got a letter from the queen. She said I had to give it directly to the king.”

“What?! From the queen?!”

“Did something happen, Hugh?”

Both Emma and Melsa were shocked when they heard the letter Hugh had brought was from the queen. They couldn’t see any situation in which the queen would have sent Hugh to deliver a letter.

“Er... Is there any chance this boy could be lying?” Though Francesca thought she was done playing the straight man, the way Emma and Melsa had just taken the boy’s story at face value had her wondering why they didn’t even question it.

“Wow, rude much, lady?! I know I used to be a thief, but I was never a liar!” Hugh barked.

“You’re not helping your case, Hugh...” Emma said, in a rare instance where she had to cut in.

“Nngh... Well, I’ve really gotta hurry this up... Oh! Look at the seal on the letter! See? It’s the royal family’s color!” Hugh pulled the letter out from his pocket to show them.

“Oh my goodness... Hugh...” Melsa’s expression grew stern the moment she saw the seal. It was a black seal that only the royal family was permitted to use, and on top was the tiniest drop of red. Melsa knew that among messages to the king, this was the kind that needed to be delivered with utmost haste. “This seal... This really is an emergency!”

“Uh, yeah? That’s what I said!”

“Then we need to get this to the king as soon as possible!”

“Yeah, that’s what I said!” Hugh puffed out his cheeks, annoyed that nobody had listened to him.

Maybe it was for the best that they didn’t know the king in question was currently laughing like a maniac and going berserk in the forest.

“But at the moment, the only ones left in this camp are noblemen and their guardians... This could be an issue...” Melsa started thinking. The king had to be protected above everyone else, and he was in the forest. Therefore, most of the able knights and hunters had gone into the forest with him to keep him safe. There were only a select few left behind.

They couldn’t ask the Monster Studies students and the guardians to go. The forest was far too dangerous for them.

“I don’t really stand a chance against monsters...” Huey wanted to get the letter to the king ASAP, but even as a ninja’s apprentice, he barely had any experience fighting monsters. “Hnnn... This is gonna be a lot tougher than I thought. I shoulda added a surcharge for the trouble, huh...?” Hugh clutched the letter in his hand and looked up at the sky. This had turned into a real pain.

◆ ◆ ◆

Backing up a little bit...

Queen Victoria, the prime minister, the captain of the knights, and Rose the concubine secretly gathered in a room in the castle on Rose’s urgent request.

“My word...” After ordering everyone to leave, Rose showed Queen Victoria the handkerchief she’d received, which made the queen bite the nail on her thumb. The message was such a horrifying shock that she’d resorted to the childhood habit she’d long overcome. The message, written directly on the handkerchief, was an emergency indeed.

“Queen Victoria, I know this may be hard to believe, but...”

“No, Rose. I understand.”

The handkerchief Rose had given her was unmistakably real Emma silk. And it wasn’t just the thread for the embroidery either. The fabric of the handkerchief and even the tag were also made of Emma silk. The price of such a thing would have been unimaginable. There were only a select few in the entire kingdom who would be capable of having it, and of those people, only the Stewart family and the wealthiest merchants in the kingdom, the Rothschilds, would be able to use it so frivolously as a letter. The sender was someone with the Rothschild name, and even Prince Tasuku from the Eastern Empire was mentioned by name. The queen had heard (confidentially) that the first ship from the Eastern Empire, which was going to begin ongoing diplomatic relations with the kingdom, was due to arrive in the kingdom soon. The contents of this letter were undeniably the truth.

“Maximilian... What have you done?” The message on the handkerchief stated that the ships from the Western Empire had cannons on board that were pointed directly at the capital, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. The one who had brought those ships in was none other than the firstborn prince, Maximilian—the queen’s only son.

No matter where one searched in this world, one would never find any record of a country using its military strength against another country. The world had monsters, after all. Even if each country had its own interests, they mostly helped each other in the name of a common enemy. After all, if they didn’t, humanity as a whole wouldn’t have been able to survive this long.

What was more, this act of aggression the Western Empire was planning involved the queen’s own son. Rose was absolutely right. It was hard to believe. However, she couldn’t let her love for her son cloud her judgment. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. Victoria was the queen. She had a duty to protect her kingdom and her people.

“Lady Victoria, we should alert the king at once.” The prime minister urged in a low voice. This was, without a doubt, the greatest threat to the kingdom he’d seen since becoming the prime minister. Yet here they were without a king... No. Everyone within the castle knew the king was absent around this time, which meant Prince Maximilian had known too.

A cold chill ran down his spine.

Without the king, they couldn’t command the military. Neither the queen nor the prime minister had the authority to do so. Even if they were to use the knights stationed at the castle, most of them were filling in to help with monster hunts, and those who were tasked with protecting the royal family had been split, as many had gone on the field trip with the king. There weren’t many knights around to mobilize. With the king and the second-born prince away on the field trip, the only person with the authority to mobilize the military now was, horrifyingly, the firstborn prince Maximilian.

They needed to get the king home on the double. There would have been no point to this man becoming prime minister if he were to just sit and watch the capital he swore to protect burn to the ground.

“But even if we changed horses and traveled all night to the Skyte region, it would still take a minimum of three days.” The captain of the knights, who was well-known for his stalwart personality and for keeping cool under most occasions, was shaken now. It would take a minimum of six days for the king to return. And that wasn’t all. “If we were to send our fastest horses from the castle, won’t that make the Western Empire suspicious? And even if we were to send them, there’s no guarantee they’d make it in time...” Prince Maximilian might have had coconspirators in the castle, and if the captain were to send out their fastest horses, there was a chance they might realize something was afoot.

There was a silence.

“What should we do?” Rose whispered, seeing both the queen and the prime minister unable to respond to the captain’s words. Anything they did could alert Maximilian, and if there were any other traitors in the castle, they really couldn’t make any careless moves. They were out of options, and a heavy air clung to the room.

Though they were certain to clear everyone out, the ninja apprentice Hugh had hidden his presence well enough to infiltrate their space without anyone noticing.

Oof... Everyone’s really having a time of this... All the bigwigs in the country were doing exactly what Joshua had predicted, and were stuck right where Joshua said they’d be. That was why Hugh decided to show himself at that juncture, just as Joshua had ordered. According to Joshua, if Lady Rose were to be sad, it would make Lady Emma sad, so the moment that happened, he should appear and offer to take the letter to the king himself. After all, Hugh wanted to avoid making Emma sad more than anything too. As such, he appeared with a fwssh sound.

“You want me to take that for ya?”

All four people were absolutely thunderstruck when Hugh appeared, confident that they’d cleared the room before meeting.

Rose realized this was the same boy who had given her the handkerchief. “Oh... It’s Huey.”

Huey quickly gave Queen Victoria the same royal bow. Harold had always told him that as long as you can do a proper bow, you could probably get by with most things.

“When did you... Oh, Captain! This is the boy who gave me the handkerchief!” Rose frantically stopped the captain of the knights, who had rushed in front of the queen and was reaching for the sword at his side.

“How did you get in here?” the prime minister asked the boy in a low, cautious voice. Even the best spies in the kingdom shouldn’t have been able to sneak into this room after they’d gotten rid of everyone.

“Hee hee. That’s a uh...trade secret, I think it’s called? I can totally deliver a letter to the king without anyone noticing me!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” the captain of the knights spat as he looked the boy over from head to toe. How could a boy who didn’t even come up to his hips be of any use to them?

“Uh, none of you old fogeys could tell I was standing here this whole time! And I can get to Skyte in a day.”

“What?! You’re lying through your teeth! Even the fastest horse would take four days on its own! But if that were possible...”

“It’s not, prime minister,” the captain replied. “We’ve sent countless horses to the king since he went off on this field trip, and doing it in a single day is impossible.” No matter how light the knight, no matter how fast the horse, it didn’t matter.

“Exactly. I clearly need to brush up on my skills as a prime minister if a young boy like this could have fooled me so easily.” Clearly, the boy was just toying with the elites.

“Rose? If my eyes don’t deceive me, is that boy wearing...?” Queen Victoria’s gaze landed on Hugh’s purple clothes.

“He is, Queen Victoria. That outfit is made of Emma silk.”

“What?!” Both the prime minister and the captain stared at Hugh’s clothes.

Hugh grinned happily. “Heh heh. Yeah, Lord Leonard made it for me.”

“Count Stewart...handmade an outfit of Emma silk for a boy like this...? Handmade?!”

“An outfit this expensive... And there are cat appliqués on the elbows and knees too... Wait. That musclehead sewed those appliqués himself?!”

The prime minister and the captain were both dumbfounded, unable to comprehend what they’d just heard.

“Lady Victoria, I believe that Hugh can sneak out of the castle and deliver this message in a single day. After all, nothing is impossible for the Stewart family,” Rose said, trying to convince the queen to allow Hugh to help.

“Nothing is impossible for them... Young man, can you truly have this delivered to the king in a single day?” They didn’t have time to debate this. Though she could see the boy, she hardly felt any presence from him. She was worried about whether it was safe to trust him.

“I sure can! I guarantee it!” Hugh answered confidently.

The queen finally agreed, then took her pen in hand to write the letter.

Technically speaking, it wasn’t the Stewart family’s power that allowed Hugh to get there in a day, but Joshua’s. He’d be traveling to the Skyte region by sea rather than land. Normally, the Skyte region was surrounded by cliffs with no shores to land on, and the currents were far too dangerous to sail in, so the default path most took was the long and winding path on land. The way they were able to overcome this was through an insane plan Joshua had devised, as he was unable to attend the field trip. He would take an exceptionally fast and sturdy boat (specially made by the Rothschild Company), rowed by an exceptionally experienced sailor (Jacob, having made a full recovery from his scurvy), and then Hugh, the ninja, would scale the precipice himself. It was a course Joshua had devised so that Huey could get there at a moment’s notice if anything happened. He’d lost so much sleep practicing rock climbing for it too... Hugh understood him wanting to do his best, but the whole reason behind it was... Maybe it was best to say his tenacity was horrifying. Hugh could never understand it, and it certainly didn’t leave a good taste in his mouth either.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Huuugh? Are you listening?” Emma was peering up close to Hugh’s face.

“Whoa, sorry ’bout that, Lady Emma. I was just thinking about some stuff!” After hearing that the king had gone into the forest, Hugh was thinking back on all the trouble he’d gone through to get here. Emma brought him back to reality.

“Honestly. Well, we’re heading out, Hugh!” While Emma smiled her ever so cute smile as she spoke, a certain word made Hugh twitch.

“Uh. What do you mean we, Lady Emma?” He had a bad feeling about this.

“As in, we’re gonna go deliver the letter to the king, right? So let’s go!” Emma said as she climbed up onto Kongming with an alley-oop!

“Uh. Okay, but who is we?” That bad feeling kept creeping in.

“We’re the only ones who can, so it’s us! Honestly, you weren’t listening at all, were you?” Emma puffed out her cheeks in a pout. Meanwhile, behind her was a nervous Marion, Francesca with a look of utter despair, and the twins with their eyes twinkling with excitement.

“Us.”

“That’s right, us! You, me, Lady Marion, Lady Francesca, and the twins!” Emma said with a grin that was adorable as ever.

“Ah. Yeah. I knew it’d come to this...” However cute the smile was, Hugh knew the truth behind it. It belonged to the Herald of all Hullabaloos herself. He knew that something terrible was coming, and all he could do was prepare for the worst.

Chapter 90: Squish

It had been nearly an hour since Emma and her friends had entered the Skyte forest, and they were making great progress.

“Th-There really aren’t as many monsters as I expected...” Francesca had been trembling and shifting her gaze all around since they’d started, but they hadn’t spotted a single monster the whole time they’d been in the forest, so she could breathe a sigh of relief.

“Everyone’ll be just fine as long as you stay close to Kongming!” Emma gave Francesca, who was walking alongside Kongming, a smile from atop the cat. Any monster with even the slightest amount of smarts would know not to get too close to Kongming.

“Be sure to watch your step and keep your eyes forward, everyone!” While there weren’t any monsters that would be charging them from the front, there had been a few crafty types that tried to attack from behind. However, Kongming swiped them away with her tail with the same effort one might swat away flies. Emma deliberately told them all to keep their eyes forward so they wouldn’t see such terrifying monsters.

Some things were best left in the dark. Ignorance was bliss, after all.

Because her father and the others had been sneaking into the forest to hunt monsters since the field trip began, the forest had a path that was relatively easy enough for noblewomen to walk. They hadn’t said anything to the Skyte hunters when they made it, so it would be a huge pain if they were to find it. The king and the others who’d set off before used the path that the Skyte hunters normally used, so it appeared that they still hadn’t gotten caught. They’d been walking along that path up until it came to an end, where her family had deliberately stopped it so it wouldn’t overlap with the official path.

“I thought we’d have caught up with them by now, but...” Emma was starting to get worried by how far Kongming was going when she started comparing the map of the forest to the path George had told her they’d be taking in her head. Apparently, they’d all gone a lot deeper in the forest than she’d thought. Going any further with amateur hunters would have been very dangerous. The closer one got to the barrier, which was located deep in the forest, the more likely monsters were to appear. They’d already long passed the area that Emma had estimated her father and uncle would have allowed amateurs to tread. It was hard to imagine her father allowing them to go any farther, so something must have happened. While Emma was usually the one who caused problems in the family, to put it bluntly, the apple didn’t fall all that far from the tree.

“I really wonder what that emergency letter to the king is, Catherine!”

“Me too! I really wonder what that emergency letter to the king is, Caitlyn!”

The twins, who were walking on either side of Kongming, looked up at Hugh, voicing their curiosity. Hugh was walking ahead of Kongming to find any traps that William had set and undoing them so the girls didn’t accidentally set them off.

This was an emergency that the king had to know about. Every noble in the kingdom knew that the queen was more well-versed in government matters than the king. The twins couldn’t imagine what sort of situation would have the queen sending a message to the king all the way in Skyte using a little boy like this.

“I don’t care how cute you both are, I can’t tell you what this is about. I’ve got a duty to...uh...confidentiality!” Hugh said, disarming a trap that made a horrific clanging sound. He’d been strictly ordered by the queen to keep it secret.

“Myah!”

“Hmm? Did you find the king, Kongming?”

“Mrowr!”

Kongming nodded as she sniffed the air.

“Mroooowr!” (The king’s getting further and further away, so we’ve gotta hurry!) Kongming cried.

“He’s still going further in? Lady Catherine, Lady Caitlyn, we’re gonna need to go a little faster, so come up on Kongming, please.” Emma had Kongming loaf on the ground for the twins. Unlike Marion, who had trained long and hard to become a knight, and Francesca, who was an adept dancer, the twins were already showing signs that they were getting worn out.

“Is that okay with you, Kongming? Do you think it’ll be okay, Caitlyn?”

“Are you sure we won’t be too heavy, Catherine?”

Catherine and Caitlyn both worriedly checked in with Kongming. They wouldn’t put three people on a horse, after all. Marion and Francesca both exchanged looks at the twins talking to the cat like it was nothing and shrugged. Apparently, if they were going to continue interacting with the Stewart family, they would have to learn to be that flexible.

“Myah!” Kongming responded to the twins, still loafed on the ground.

“Kongming said it’s totally fine! After all, she’s carried my father and his trusty hammer around, and that’s way heavier than you all!”

“Wait... She said all that with a single meow?” Francesca asked, walking alongside them. She couldn’t comment on the fact her friend was translating for a cat anymore.

“Interesting... Come to think of it, I seem to recall the count’s sledgehammer did have 100t written on it...” As Marion helped the twins onto Kongming’s back, she recalled the inscription on Leonard’s trusty sledgehammer when he’d shown it to her earlier. She’d heard that it was a weapon specially made for fighting monsters (unlike the swords the knights used), but she’d secretly been wondering if it was even possible for a human to swing something that weighed a hundred tons.

“Hee hee. Well, it definitely doesn’t actually weigh that much. It’s just a staple of the genre that sledgehammers have that written on them. It’s more about the form than the function, here.” Emma giggled. “Me and my brothers originally made it as a birthday gift for our mother to use if our father ever cheated on her...but y’know, he’d never do that, so...”

“Myah myah!”

“Hee hee. You’ve got me there! I guess a hundred ton hammer isn’t much good for a country hunter, huh?” Emma giggled with Kongming, complimenting her on her zinger.

“Do you understand that joke, Caitlyn?”

“Do you understand that joke, Catherine?”

Caitlyn wrapped her arms around Catherine’s waist as both of them wondered what kind of inside joke Emma and Kongming were laughing about. It was perfectly normal for nobles in the capital to take mistresses, so Francesca was wondering if maybe things were different in the countryside.

“Myah!” Kongming slowly stood up and meowed to let them know she was ready to take off.

“Make sure you hold on tight so you don’t fall off, you two! Kongming says the king’s not the only one ahead. There’s some monsters there to boot!”

“Huh?!”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hoo-hah!” The king, still under his status effect (likely berserk) and in top form, sliced clean through a monster that came flying at him.

“Ah... The demongas... He cut them into pieces... Think of all the gloves they could’ve made...”

“Let it go, William. It’s way better than the king attacking us or his allies again.” The king made his way deeper into the forest at an alarming speed, killing monsters all the way. George and William had finally managed to catch up to him, with utterly dejected expressions. They were never playing babysitter for the king again.

“Er... Yeah, sorry about all this...” Prince Edward said, sheepishly. The prince hadn’t been splashed in as much monster blood as the king, so he’d come down from his madness already.

“You shouldn’t apologize so easily, Your Highness.” Arthur, who had also come down at the same time, chided the prince.

“I mean, I understand that, but...” Looking at how his father was screaming “hoo-hah” and slaughtering monsters to and fro, apologies were about all he could offer.

“I guess I understand why he’d want to cut loose.” Seeing how crazy he was getting, it really only could be because he was letting out all his pent-up stress from the social season. The social season, when elites from all the other countries would gather in the kingdom, was the only time that the queen told him to fully focus on his government duties rather than any of his usual frivolities. He couldn’t train with the knights, do any of his morning strength training, and was even banned from his routine jog around the castle. To make matters worse...

“None of the envoys or merchants from the Western Empire have ever been all that polite before, but he’d just grin and bear it for the cotton they’d give us. But this year, they couldn’t even provide any good quality cotton.”

He’d been cut off from his beloved sword practice for social reasons. He’d been forced to forgo overseeing the knights so he could get cotton. And at the end of the day, he’d had absolutely nothing to show for it. It was understandable he’d be dying of stress. But then, even after the social season had ended, the nobles were all riled up and demanding he do something because there was so little cotton. What’s more, the whole issue with the supposedly illegitimate child had the queen furious with him, and his concubine (who was meant to be his comfort in trying times) wouldn’t even look his way. When it rained, it poured for the poor man. Arthur couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

“Whoa there!” George suddenly shot his hand out to catch something near the side of Prince Edward’s face, as the prince was sadly looking toward his father. “You two need to be careful. We’re only a few hundred meters from the barrier, so there are bound to be plenty of monsters around.” In his hand, George was clutching a squirrel-looking creature around twenty centimeters in size—the very same monsters the king had been cutting down.

“S-Sorry.”

Squeeeeak! In George’s grip, the monster was stretching its tiny little hands out toward the prince with all its might.

“It’s so cute...” The tiny fluffy demonga, with its watery eyes and adorable squeaks, seemed more like a pet than a monster.

“Hold up! Don’t get any closer, Your Highness! I know they look cute, but these little guys are after your eyes! You’ll be left with nothing but sockets if you let your guard down around them!” William yanked the prince’s sleeve back as the prince tried to get a closer look. Just then, the creature opened its mouth wide, showing terrifyingly sharp fangs from cheek to cheek. There was no teary-eyed creature to be seen any longer.

“Whoa!”

Squeak! Squeeeeeak! The creature squirmed about in George’s hand, as if it were screaming to get its hands on the prince’s eyes.

“No matter how cute a monster is, you can’t try to coddle them. If you think they’re just scared and try to show you’re not a threat, they’ll eat your eyes right then and there.” George said as he twisted the creature’s neck. Professional hunters would always break demonga’s necks to keep from damaging their fur as much as possible. None of them would cut them in half like the king had. “See? Just look at all the hunters’ expressions. They’re all on edge. Nobody ever comes out this far, after all...”

It wasn’t just the hunters who were nervous; George and William felt the same way. Coming all the way out into the forest without their father, uncle, cats, or spider was completely beyond their expectations. They were very worried about how much fighting they could handle at this rate.

“Man... If only Emma were here.” After all, if Emma had come, Kongming would likely have come along too. Just as George was lamenting this, he heard the grass part behind him.

“Hmm? You rang, George?”

“Mrowr?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking if only Emma and Kongming were here... Wait, huh?! Emma?!” Emma and Kongming had appeared right then, as if waiting for the perfect time to make an entrance.

“Hee hee! It’s like, call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me!”

“Myaaaaah myah myah myah!”

The two of them were on exactly the same page.

“Why are you here, sis?!”

“Emma?!”

“Emma?! And wait, M-Marion?! Lady Francesca?! Even the twins?! And what the heck is with that cat?! It’s huge!”

William and the prince were shocked by Emma and Kongming’s sudden appearance, and Arthur was even more stunned by the size of the cat.

“Oh, Lord Arthur! This is our kitty, General Kongming.”

“Myaaah!”

“That’s...such a proper greeting... Wha... Huh?!” While he’d initially said the cat was huge, Arthur was now unsure whether it was even okay to call it a cat in the first place.

“Exactly. This is Kongming, the cat. See? Doesn’t it look just like the one Lady Emma embroiders all the time?”

“Myah!”

“M-Marion... What? But... Like... You can’t... A cat? Like...the one she was embroidering? When you make it life-sized, it gets this big?!” The pattern on the beast in front of him did indeed look like one of the four cats Emma often embroidered, but the reality of it wasn’t that easy for Arthur to just accept based on that alone. “I mean... I guess it’s...” The fact that he was the only one surprised by how huge the cat was, despite it being so obviously bizarre, didn’t make much sense to him either. Even Prince Edward, who was standing next to him, was only looking at Emma. Despite the giant cat in their midst.

“Emma, it’s too dangerous here. Why did you come all the way out... Whoa!” When the prince rushed toward her, Kongming hissed and threatened him.

“Oh, Kongming! You can’t hiss at the prince!”

“Myah?”

“That’s right. The prince is a nice person.”

“Myah!”

“I’m so sorry, Your Highness. Poor General Kongming was just remembering when I got hurt during the localized barrier crisis.” Kongming had assumed anyone involved in that incident was out to hurt Emma, so when she smelled the prince again, she hissed to keep him away.

“It’s all right, Kongming. I thank you for protecting us all from the slimes back then.” Edward said sincerely as he bowed his head. If Kongming hadn’t come to save them, Emma, the prince, and George all would have been done for.

“Myah!”

“Kongming says you’re welcome, Your Highness.”

“Why are you bowing to a...cat... Your Highness?! And why is Lady Emma...interpreting for it?” Arthur was the only one who couldn’t figure out what was happening, and he looked to George for some kind of help.

“Oh, I know! Could you help us make the king settle down, Kongming? He’s going berserk over there.” George seemed to have noticed Arthur was looking at him, but he wasn’t perceptive enough to understand what it meant.

“Myah?”

“Wh-Why’s the king freaking out and covered in blood, anyway, George?” Emma’s voice was trembling at the sight of the king cutting down monster after monster with a “hoo-hah!”

“Don’t look, Emma!” It had only been two years since the localized barrier crisis. (The prince assumed her trembling voice was because she was remembering that horrible day.) Yet Emma’s gaze was fixed on the king.

“It’s such a waste of good monsters!”

“Huh?”

“I mean, all these demongas would’ve made such high-quality gloves!”

“Wha?”

“How did you two let it get this bad?! Honestly, the king is just so outrageous... He’s so... Oh, just look at that... It’s just so...” Emma was trembling all over as she watched the king. Oh, all those demongas on the ground are such a waste, but...but... The king looks so good swinging his sword around all covered in blood!

“Sis?” William glared at Emma when he noticed she’d suddenly taken to drooling over the silver fox, as always.

“Hoo-hah!”

“Anyway, could you help us stop the king, Kongming?” George asked as he helped the twins and Emma down from Kongming’s back.

“Myah!” Kongming replied, as though to say, Roger that! She then trotted over to the king.

“Ah, wait! You can’t! George, is that cat thing gonna be okay?!” The king was strong enough to take out monsters far larger than he was, and the great sword in his hand was still just as sharp as he’d always bragged. That bear of a man, with sword in hand, couldn’t possibly be stopped by a cat, even if it was massive. Arthur stretched out his hand to stop them.

“It’s all right. Just watch.” George grinned as he pointed to the king. The cat raised its front paws and smooshed the king onto the ground.

Squish.

“Ah...”

And with that, the king was silent.

“Uh. Did any of the rest of you hear that squish just now?” Arthur asked fearfully, but nobody could look him in the eye when he asked.

◆ ◆ ◆

In the forest, the knights and hunters were all at a loss for what to do. None of them were capable of stopping the outrageously powerful king. Having been bathed in monster blood, he’d lost all reason and was just cutting down monster after monster with utter delight. He looked less like royalty and more like a seasoned warrior. None of them could do anything but watch. After all, he was the king; They couldn’t lay a finger on him. They’d all tried to come up with some kind of solution, but it wasn’t easy. All they could do without a plan was chase after the king as he gleefully cut down monsters, making his way deeper and deeper into the forest. All of them hoped and prayed that someone else would take the blame for this. They knew it was an utterly selfish thing to hope, but it was all they could do in such a hopeless situation. They just kept wishing from the bottoms of their hearts that someone, anyone, would stop the king for them...and in an instant, that wish was granted.

Squish.

A massive catlike beast was the only one to stop the frenzied king. Or perhaps it would’ve been more apt to say that it squished him.

All those knights and hunters who’d finally had their wish granted could only think:

No! Not like this!

This is not what we wanted!

The king, who they’d all been desperately praying would be stopped, was completely still under the large catlike beast’s paw.

“Eek!”

All of them felt goose bumps rising all over their bodies. Something truly horrible had happened, and their bodies reacted before their brains could.

“Y-Your Majesty!!!” All the knights and hunters screamed. Both the knights tasked with guarding the king and the hunters tasked with safely guiding him through the forest had convinced themselves that they could just barely squeeze their way out of this situation if they’d held on a little bit longer, but now their missions had staunchly been squashed flat.

What do we do?! The king’s been squished like a bug!

A single life wouldn’t be enough to pay for allowing a member of the royal family to die, let alone the king. It was almost certain that every knight, hunter, and all of their families would be sent to the guillotine for this. Even the captain of the knights, the vice captain, and the regional overseer could be executed for something this catastrophic.

“A-As long as his body is still intact...” At the very least, they had to be certain there was a body to bury in the first place.

“R-Right!” If they could at least risk their lives to bring the king’s body back, they could potentially appeal to the royal family’s emotions and protect those who weren’t involved in the whole affair.

“We have to do something... Dammit, but my legs are shaking so badly, I can’t move!” However much they wanted to rush in and grab him, the shock of what they’d seen kept them frozen. The knights begged their bodies to move, but before they could get their pitifully stuck legs in motion, the cat raised the very paw that had crushed the king.

“Oh, no... No!”

“Th-The king...!”

“I-It’s gonna eat him!”

The large catlike beast gave its prey (the king) a little sniff, opened its mouth, and picked up the king by the scruff.

“Noooooooo!” The knights and hunters all let out bloodcurdling screams as the beast was about to swallow the king whole, not even leaving the body behind.

“Mrowr?” The beast tilted its head and looked at the knights and hunters. Under normal circumstances, the catlike sound and motion would have been cute. But it had the king’s body in its mouth, and those sparkling golden eyes were looking right at them.

In that moment, they all knew what a cornered mouse felt like. “Eek!” The knights and hunters gulped, and even that sound filled them with the terror that it might be just the signal the cat needed to strike. Once the cat was done with the king...they were surely next. As their eyes met, they knew for certain that they could not possibly defeat this beast.

Just as the knights and hunters were saying their prayers, a gentle, relaxed voice most unsuited for the situation rang out. “General Kongmiiing!”

“Mrowr?” The cat’s gaze shifted away from the knights and hunters to a spot further behind them, as though it were drawn to the voice.

When the knights and hunters turned to see what the cat was looking at, they all stiffened. Prince Edward was right behind them. While the prince had the Stewart brothers and Arthur Bell looking after him, the knights and hunters knew they wouldn’t be a match against that beast. It was a monstrosity capable of taking down the frenzied king as easily as swatting a fly. With the king already dead, they couldn’t possibly let the cat-beast devour the prince as well.

“Your Highness, you have to run— Wait, why is Lady Emma here?!”

There—in front of the Stewart brothers, in front of Arthur Bell, and even in front of Prince Edward, all the way at the front of the group—was Lady Emma Stewart, who wasn’t even supposed to be in the forest. And even odder, she was grinning ear to ear and waving as she ran toward them.

“How could she be in a place like... No! That’s not Lady Emma! It must be an angel!”

“Gasp! That’s right! It’s an angel! So this must be heaven. We must have already been devoured by that beast...”

“Oh, but it really does look just like Lady Emma, doesn’t it? Even down to the scars on her right cheek... And look, there are angels that look like Lady Francesca, Lady Marion, and the Simmons twins too...”

There was no way noblewomen would be all the way out in the gruesome depths of the forest with so many monsters abound. Especially not with big old smiles on their faces.

“Myah!”

“Whoa!”

Just as the knights and hunters had finished convincing themselves of their own deaths, the catlike beast let out a catlike cry, then ran toward the angel that looked just like Emma Stewart, with the king still in its mouth. It was so fast, none of the knights or hunters could even respond. Once it was in front of the angel, it slowly put the king down.

“Oh... Oh no... It’s gonna eat the angel too...”

“It’s leaving the king and going to eat the angel first... Or... Huh?”

“Huh?”

The beast set down the king, then politely sat down next to the angel.

“Myaaaah!”

“Oooh, you’re such a good girl, Kongming. Thank you!”

“Myah!”

“Wha... Huh?!”

The angel that looked like Lady Emma then hugged the beast. She was so close to them, they could almost hear the squeeze as she buried herself in its soft, fluffy fur.

“Y-You can’t...”

“What are you doing?!”

“Wh-What’s going on here?!”

The horrific beast that had crushed the king was nuzzling up against the angel’s face and headbutting her gently. Their lovey-dovey cuddles were utterly baffling to the knights and hunters. It didn’t seem like the creature was going to hurt her at all.

“I see... So even monsters won’t hurt angels...?”

“That makes sense... They are angels, after all...”

“Right... You can’t hurt an angel...”

Seeing the angel’s divine smile in the face of such an atrocious beast made every last one of the knights and hunters accept this fact...for some reason.

◆ ◆ ◆

“All right, time to strip him!” The angel(?) giggled as she knelt before the king.

“E-Emma? Wh-What’s happened to my father?” After having seen his father squished by the cat, Prince Edward was doing his absolute best to remain as calm as he could.

“It’s okay! He’s just knocked out. There’s still some monster blood on his clothes that hasn’t dried yet, so you should probably stay back, just in case, Your Highness.” Touching any of the wet monster blood could cause those negative status effects to arise again, after all.

“But then you need to back away too, Lady Emma!” Arthur slipped in front of the prince to get him away per Emma’s warning, but also reached his hand out to help Emma stand. They’d thought the king was dead for sure, but Arthur could see now that his chest was faintly rising and falling with his breath.

Emma gently shook her head as Arthur extended his hand to her. “No! I’ll be treating the king!”

“You can’t. You just said it yourself. It’s still dangerous. If you can tell me how to do it, I’ll do it for you.” Emma shouldn’t have to put herself in harm’s way. If the king were to wake up and start going into a frenzy again, an injury or two would be the least of her worries.

“No, I’ll do it. Lord Arthur, if the monster blood doesn’t dry, it could very easily cause a negative status effect again.” Emma pointed at the large quantity of blood splatters still on the king. “If you, the prince, or George were to start acting out like the king did, we couldn’t easily stop you. But if I did, you could easily pin me down and I wouldn’t be able to move.” It was a rule set in stone that a weaker person would treat someone who’d been infected by a mad rat to prevent any further damages.

“P-Pin you down?!” the prince cried behind Arthur. It was true that if someone as dainty as Emma were to go into a frenzy, she would be easy to subdue. But she was so frail, it seemed to him that even the slightest bit of tension could snap her wrists and spine. To pin someone so fragile down... It would be...

Emma briefly averted her eyes, then hesitantly looked back up at the prince and Arthur to plead. “But, um... If I do go into a frenzy like that...could you please...be gentle with me?” She wouldn’t let them treat the king, but if something bad were to happen...she wanted it to be as painless as possible.

“Hnngh!” The prince hadn’t realized just how hungrily he’d been looking at Emma, but when he saw those watery eyes staring up at him so pleadingly, as she said those words, his face went bright red in seconds. He took a step backward. Then another. Then another. Then he fell back onto his butt as though he’d been struck by a shock wave. “Wh-Wh-Wh...!” The prince had completely lost the ability to speak. He couldn’t move. He just kept hearing Emma saying those words over and over in his head.

“Be gentle with me.”

“Be gentle with me.”

“Be gentle with me, Your Highness.”

“Well, if you really insist.” In contrast to the prince, Arthur took a couple of seconds to respond, then curtly stepped away from Emma and the king.

What the hell was that? How could a thirteen-year-old be saying such things?! Even Arthur, the well-known playboy, felt his cheeks reddening.

“I’ll help too, sis!” William said as he rushed up to his sister, almost like he was trading places with Arthur.

“I’ll be fine on my own, William...”

“It’s totally fine! I’m just as frail and weak as you are!” William didn’t even give Emma the chance to finish replying before speaking over her.

“Why is that something you’re proud of?” Emma pouted, not really happy William was rubbing it in.

“We can’t have any more victims, right? And we don’t need any weird middle-aged ulterior motives at a time like this.”

“Now, what could you possibly mean? I’m just treating the king in the most efficient way, out of the kindness of my heart, based on what we know about monster countermeasures...” While William was getting louder, Emma’s voice was steadily getting smaller and smaller.

“You just want to strip the king so you can gawk at his pecs and abs. Then you’re gonna touch him all over, memorize every last detail, and draw him shirtless over and over when you get home.” Having known Emma for over thirty years in his previous life and over ten years in this one, her ulterior motives were clear as day to William.

“Tch.” Emma clicked her tongue in a way most unbefitting a young noblewoman. It was the perfect chance for her to get to strip the king (a rugged, battle-hungry silver fox) and touch him all over under the guise of cleaning the blood off of him.

“Ugh, what is with this world? It’s not fair! Why is it that Emma always gets these kinds of perv-out scenes?” William muttered under his breath as he expertly pulled out the gauze, water, gloves, and more from the first aid kit hunters always carried with them.

“Oh, I don’t need any gloves. I need to feel his muscles with my bare hands or...”

“Or what?” William threw the gloves at his oh-so-frail sister, not willing to hear any argument.

“Oof! Okay, fine! I just have to wear the stupid gloves, right? Oh, but wait! Wait! Just a button! I swear, I’ll just do one button, so...”

“So, what?”

George heaved a deep sigh as he stared at his freak siblings from a short distance away.

“Everywhere you look, it’s hell on earth.” On one hand, he had his sister trying to grope the king’s muscles and his brother refusing to let her have her way. Then on the other hand, he had the prince, who had been knocked flat by Emma’s puppy dog eyes and innuendo-laden words and Arthur, who was wondering if he’d suddenly lowered his strike zone. And for some reason, all the knights and hunters were praying to Emma too.

“Lady Emma’s so fast and efficient, isn’t she, Caitlyn?”

“Lady Emma is so fast and efficient, Catherine!”

“I need to work hard on my Monster Studies so I can help people in need like Lady Emma does.”

“Interesting... Knights in the future may need to know more than just how to fight. Being able to perform first aid on the field is quite important as well.”

Meanwhile, all the girls behind George were praising Emma’s efforts without a touch of insincerity.

Chapter 91: We Won’t Have a Sea of Fire

Vvvvmmm...

Inside a Western Imperial ship on the Simmons Harbor, a pattern began to float above a parchment sprawled over the floor. Then, with a flash of light, a person appeared from nowhere. With its work complete, the glowing pattern quickly dissipated with a low vvvmm sound. It flickered a few times, then all the lights went out as though it had run out of fuel.

“Tch. Looks like this one’s dead now.” It was Saint Juana, who was supposed to be at the castle. On the parchment was a transportation magic circle drawn with crushed magic stones that had been mixed in water. The magic circle for transportation magic was a groundbreaking development discovered over a decade ago. Juana had been one of the people who developed it. A mage on their own could only teleport a few kilometers, but with the magic circle, they could teleport over several thousand kilometers depending on the amount of magic stones they used. “Oh well. The departure circle in the castle is just scrap paper now too.”

Transportation magic circles required a pair of circles and were generally one-way. The castle had the departure circle, and the one in the Western Empire’s ship near where Juana was standing was the arrival circle. Since they worked as a pair, they lasted the same amount of time.

“I suppose I’ll have to make another magic circle... No, for the sake of this mission, I’ll make as many as I have to.” The Western Empire’s magic stone reserves were beginning to run dry. It was the largest of all the countries in the land, thus it also had many veins of magic stones. However, with all the research and development on magic tools (magic circles included), that stock was steadily being depleted. Even just the circle that Juana had used was composed of several hundred stones.

Four men who weren’t even bothering to hide their annoyance greeted Juana. “You’re awfully late, Juan. Er, sorry. You’re Saint Juana now, right?” She was supposed to have met them the day they’d arrived at the harbor. “The mission was just to fire these cannons and head right home. The hell were you doing? How long were you gonna make us wait?! We’ve already been here a whole day, and the sun’s already about to set!”

All the men waiting for her were mages as well. They normally would have been spending all day and night on magic research. In other words, they were desk workers who were far from the type to be attacking a foreign country. Even if it was to get magic stones, which they needed for their research, these were all people who had never even been sent out to strengthen the barrier in monster-prone regions.

Currently in the Western Empire, there were more mages than there were usable magic stones. Mages were the same as any other kind of person; the more you had around, the more the differences in their ability became apparent. The less capable mages were sent to the borders while the more capable ones were generally sent to study in the imperial capital. As such, these mages had never left the capital since their appointment, so it was only natural that they’d be high-strung about all this.

“Calm yourselves. I was waiting for the sun to set.”

“Why?!”

Juana plopped herself onto the couch and tried to soothe the men. Though she looked several times younger than them, she was the one in charge.

“It’s been over thirty years since the kingdom has had a mage. But their magic technology isn’t thirty years behind—it’s more like a century behind us. In other words, even in the capital, they manually light the street lamps with fire when it gets dark.” Juana scoffed at how old-fashioned the whole place was.

“They don’t use light magic for their street lamps?!” No matter how rural a place was in the Western Empire, magic stones imbued with light magic would automatically illuminate the area.

“They only have wells to draw water from. And any time they need to cook or take a bath, they have to light a fire with firewood and everything.”

“I-It’s like something out of a period novel...”

Juana had heard the rumors, but having to live there herself really was the greatest inconvenience she’d ever experienced. In the castle, she had to ask a maid for everything. If she wanted to wash her face, she had to get a maid to bring her water. If it got dark, she had to ask a maid to light a lamp for her. It was full of little annoyances she’d never had to deal with back in the Western Empire. While she could make water to wash her face magically, it would cause a lot of trouble if people started pestering her about where she got it from. As a result, any time she was in her room in the castle, the maids were constantly coming and going to take care of her, which was practically the same as being monitored twenty-four seven. She didn’t have nearly as much freedom as she’d expected, and it was a real hassle trying to find any time alone. The other mages were complaining about how late she was, but she’d only barely managed to find a time where she wouldn’t get caught.

One of the more perceptive mages realized what Juana was trying to say and his eyes widened “Wait... So we’re going to wait to attack until the street lamps are lit?”

“Indeed. We’ll have more fire from their lamps at night, after all. Makes it a lot more efficient, doesn’t it?” The Western Imperial military had instructed Juana to utterly annihilate the kingdom. The fire from the lamps would add to the destruction, as there were lamps all throughout the capital.

Juana smirked. A country like the kingdom without any magic likely didn’t have any decent fire extinguishers. If things went as planned, the capital would be burning for days on end.

◆ ◆ ◆

Inside the Eastern Imperial ship next to the Western Imperial ship in the Simmons Harbor, Momochi (the one who spoke the kingdom’s language best among the ninjas stationed in the kingdom), had sneaked into the Western Empire’s ship and was now reporting back to Prince Tasuku and Joshua.

“That’s...what they said.”

“It’s so horrible...”

Prince Tasuku grimaced and Joshua fell deep into thought.

“They’ll be doing it tonight. It’s much sooner than we expected.” The sun was already beginning to set, and it was only a matter of time before nightfall. Even if they told everyone to evacuate right then, it wouldn’t be enough time. There were tens of thousands of people living in the capital, and it was likely that nobody would even believe them if they said the Western Empire was going to bombard them with cannons. After all, nobody could even fathom that a country would attack another country.

“Shall we restrain them?” After hearing the report from Momochi in the Eastern Imperial language, the leader of the ninjas, Hattori Hanzo, asked Prince Tasuku for his orders.

“Do you think you can?” The prince briefly considered whether it was acceptable for the Eastern Empire to meddle in the kingdom and the Western Empire’s affairs, but in this situation, it really was no question.

“Yes. There’s the saint...? And then four mages. Each ship has fifty sailors. There are about thirty people who seem to be military personnel on each ship. If Momochi’s reports are accurate, then I believe it’s possible.”

There were fewer people than one might expect from a ship of its size. Far fewer than one would need to attack the kingdom, which was the second largest country after the Western Empire.

“They must be awfully confident in the destructive force of their cannons...” Tasuku decided he wouldn’t let a single cannon fire on the capital. He turned to Joshua and spoke. “Lakkuru!”

“I see. So your ninjas are going to restrain the Western Imperials... Is it possible to capture the mages alive? That’ll be a relief. In that case, can you bring the four mages to our ship?” All it took was a single lakkuru for Joshua to understand the gist of even the most complicated topics. Sunklothian really was convenient.

“It will be no problem. Oh! Can we use your secret weapon, Joshua?” Momochi pointed at the box the Rothschild Company had given to the Eastern Empire.

“Ah, right. That should do much better than any old rope.”

The box was filled with the Stewart family’s special-made Emma silk threads (spun with Violet’s webbing).

“It’s lighter, so it’s...easier to move.” If they had to bring ropes with them, it would have slowed them down, and if they used ropes they found on the spot, there was no way to know how strong they were. It would just be more cause for concern. The threads made from the silk of the silkworms Emma had lovingly cared for was just as light as any thread, yet tougher than any rope around.

“We’ll return soon.”

“We’ll be back.”

Hattori and Momochi disappeared with a fwsssh, and all the other ninjas in hiding left with them.

“Ninjas certainly are convenient...”

“You can’t have any. Make do with Hugh.”

“I suppose I’ll have to.”

Prince Tasuku shut down Joshua’s line of thinking immediately.

The very first war between humans in the history of the world was potentially about to break out. The Western Empire had thoroughly prepared an attack against the utterly unaware kingdom. In this world, a country’s national power was decided by how many mages it had, and the only thing standing before the Western Empire’s overwhelming firepower was Joshua and some very excited ninjas.

The Western Empire’s cannons were already aimed and ready to fire at the capital. Now, it was a question of whether they could disable the cannons and capture the mages. The future of the kingdom and peace in the capital were all riding on the merchant Joshua Rothschild’s ability to handle it.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, in the forest of the Skyte region...

“Sis!” William grabbed his sister’s hand and shook his head. She’d already stripped him of his top and wiped all the monster blood off of him. He was clean enough that he was sure to come to his senses once he was awake.

“I’m just being extra cautious! Just in case!”

“There’s no need for that.”

“William, we’re trying to treat the king of this kingdom. We can never be too careful!”

“Get your hand away from the king’s belt, sis.”

“Aw, why?!”

“The king’s pants are made of extremely high-quality leather. All the blood splatter on it is dry. There’s no chance it could have soaked through.”

“B-But what if...!”

“What if nothing! Now get your hand away from his belt!”

“Tch...”

The future of William’s sister as a noblewoman and peace in the king’s pants were all riding on William’s ability to handle her.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, at the Stewart family’s capital manor.

“It sure is quiet.”

“It certainly is.”

Martha was slowly sipping on black tea across from Evan, the gatekeeper.

“Yet even with how quiet and peaceful it is, you still seem so on edge, Martha,” Evan noted quizzically.

“It’s best to always prepare for the worst as a servant of the Stewart household, Evan.”

“Huh?”

“This quiet is just the calm before the storm. It won’t last forever.”

“What? No, that can’t be...”

“I’m calling it now. There’s already some kind of chaos stirring beneath the surface. We just haven’t seen the ripples yet.”

“Then why are you out here drinking tea?”

“Because I’ve given up.” Martha sighed and looked up to the sky. Something was going to happen, one way or another. There was no such thing as a peaceful life for Martha.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, in the Stewart family’s yard.

“Myaaaaah,” (I’m boooored.) Guan said while stretching.

“Mnyah...” (I miss my pillow, Leonard...) Zhang said while rolling over and yawning.

While the family was gone, the three cats left behind were lazing about.

“Myah!” Liu’s eyes began to shine.

“Mrowr?!” When they saw that, Guan and Zhang both lifted their heads. When Liu’s eyes shone like that, it meant she was seeing the future.

“Mrowr?” (What did you see?) asked Guan.

“Mrooowr?” (Anything interesting gonna happen?) Zhang asked.

“Mrowr mrowr... Mrowr!”

Both Guan’s and Zhang’s ears perked up at Liu’s response. The kitties all looked up to the sky in good spirits.

Liu translation: “We’re having canned food for dinner tonight!”

Guan and Zhang translation: “Yippeeeee!”

The Rothschild Company had safely delivered the canned food from the Eastern Empire to the Stewart household.

Since a great number of servants were on paid vacation, including the cooks, the live-in servants (Martha and Evan) would be giving them a feast of wet food that night. Because it didn’t need any preparation, it was an easy dinner to provide. Whatever future Liu saw was guaranteed...and notably she couldn’t choose what she would predict.

◆ ◆ ◆

Juana heaved a deep sigh on the sofa. Her legs were sprawled out and her languid posture was a far sight from the noblewoman she was meant to be.

“We got any booze here?” The words coming out of her mouth were extremely unladylike as well.

“What? At a crucial time like this?” One of the mages working under her asked, not even making mention of her unladylike behavior.

“That’s exactly why I want it. Bring it out already.” In the castle, Juana had to pretend to be an underage noblewoman, so she was always on edge. She’d been under even closer observation than usual lately, so she couldn’t even relax when she was in her own room. She’d finally made it to this day. She felt she’d earned the right to bask in this freedom.

The mage who worked directly under her, upon seeing how exhausted Juana was, didn’t ask any further questions and simply prepared a drink for her as she asked. He removed the cork from a bottle and filled a glass with the red liquid in a practiced motion. “Here you are.”

Juana’s eyes lit up when she saw the label on the bottle. “Oh, now this is the good stuff. The Western Empire certainly didn’t skimp.” The wine the mage had poured her was a vintage that even a mage would normally have difficulty getting their hands on. It was a symbol of just how important this mission was to the Western Empire, and it put even more pressure on her. “I suppose they would have to spend more for a mission this important.”

Juana had always loved wine. She didn’t just love the flavor. She loved learning about the different colors, scents, and history. The more she learned, the more she enjoyed it. She never tired of it.

Or so she thought.

“Damn it all!” What a cruel joke at the expense of Juana’s single hobby. The moment she had wine before her, her body moved on its own. It didn’t matter how expensive or how cheap the wine was, she’d gulp the whole thing down with the enthusiasm of someone drinking water after a long day laboring under a hot sun. It didn’t matter that this was the kind of wine where even a sip would cost several silver coins. Gulp...gulp... “Aaaahhh. Ugh... This body did it again...” All that remained was the empty glass in her hand.

“Lady Juana, you should know after countless tests that it’s impossible to control that. Instincts and desires are the strongest things in a body’s memory. Your body’s original soul departed, leaving you an empty vessel to force a new soul into, so that makes it even more difficult to control.” The mage filled the empty glass to the brim, giving Juana a pitying look as he told her to just give in.

She couldn’t even take the time to enjoy the scent in the empty glass now. This body only cared about quantity, not quality. Contrary to the careful way Juana used to enjoy wine to its fullest extent, she was forced to down the whole thing without any resistance, whether she wanted it or not. “While it’s nice to be young again, I really hate this part...”

To make matters worse, no matter how much she drank, she couldn’t get drunk. She’d tried to see how much it would take to get her tipsy before, but her wallet gave out before her tolerance did. If it hadn’t been for the accident back then...

“Did you bring them with you?” Juana asked as though she’d suddenly remembered once the bottle was empty.

“Indeed. They can’t live without us, after all. I told them when we would be firing the cannons as well. Despite their appearances, they’re still proper mages. They’ll do the job.” The mage furrowed his brow. Though it was only a matter of time, they were still keeping their existence a secret, so he lowered his voice.

“Well, I guess it’s fine. I suppose they’re better than nothing. It’s about to get dark, so...let’s step outside.” Juana got up, though her body felt heavy. She sighed. It was almost time for them to attack the castle. This plan that she had been preparing for so long was finally about to be put into motion. That being said, she wasn’t all that enthralled about carrying it out. Her sigh, her gait, and her feelings were all heavy. If she could have, she would’ve loved to give up on this whole thing. She knew that the Western Empire’s orders were absolute...but she also knew that countless people would die at her command. She wouldn’t have been able to do it without drinking.

She was after the castle. With how accurate the cannon would be, the cannonballs would be raining down on the surrounding area without mercy too. The center of the capital would be a sea of fire, and in the barrage of cannonballs, the people living in the capital would be desperately trying to escape. It was easy to imagine such a hellish scene.

Magic was normally never to be used to kill a person. She’d always been taught and had taught others that power, magic included, was meant to be used to protect people. But now... No matter how much energy she tried to put into it, she fundamentally didn’t want to give the orders to her underlings. She was a mage, but she was also human. And now, the time had come for humans to attack other humans for their own benefit.

“Lady Juana?” The other mage had gone pale with worry or nerves.

“Let’s go.”

Because the Western Empire had been gathering mages from all over the world, there were more of them there. The more mages there were, the more magic stones were being used. Research on new magic tools was progressing as well. Yet the more they progressed, the more magic stones were being used. Magic stones were able to amplify or store magic within them. This was especially crucial when it came to barrier magic. Without magic stones, mages would be relegated to beings who did nothing but cast barrier magic at the border until they perished of exhaustion. Either they’d use up every last drop of their mana or they’d be eaten by the monsters in the area.

Without a barrier, humans couldn’t survive in this world. That even applied to the illustrious Western Empire. They had to sacrifice the kingdom for the Western Empire, and for all mages. It was survival of the fittest, after all.

“Ah... Huh? Wha...?”

“What’s the matter?”

The mage stood frozen after he opened the door.

“Nobody’s there.”

“What?”

Mages always had members of the Western Imperial military guarding them. They were less there to protect the mages and more to keep an eye on them. They were under constant surveillance so any mages who’d been practically bought from other countries didn’t try to run away, and so mages born in the Western Empire didn’t try to run from any cruel treatment either.

“This has never happened before.” When he’d gone to get wine for Juana, the soldiers had been standing in front of the room as stoically as ever. Yet now, there wasn’t a single person there. “Lady Juana, there aren’t any soldiers or sailors or mages eith— Mmph!”

Slam!

“Hey!” The mage fell prostrate on the floor right before Juana’s eyes. It was like someone had pushed him over, but she couldn’t see anyone there. “Wha... What in the world...?”

Slam!

Right after, Juana was also toppled over by something. Yet once again, she couldn’t see what.

“H-Hey! S-Someone he— Mmgggh!” No matter how she strained to see, nobody was there. Nobody was there, yet Juana could feel her body swiftly being wrapped in some kind of thread. Even when she tried to shout, her mouth was covered by the same thread.

“Mmngh! Mmmmngh!” No matter how she screamed, nobody was there to help her. Her body was wrapped in the thread and she couldn’t move as she pleased. Then she heard a fwssh sound, her vision went blurry, a strange sound began ringing in her ears, and she was assaulted with dizziness. While her vision was still blurry, she realized she was being moved somewhere at very high speeds. The scenery went by in the blink of an eye, but with her body wrapped in the thread, she couldn’t fight back even if she wanted to. It looked like nothing more than a very fine thread being wrapped around her, yet she couldn’t move. She didn’t sense any mana from it, and it didn’t appear to have any magic properties, which made her even more confused about what in the world it could have been.

Slam!

The shock of her body being thrown to the ground and the hard floor upon her cheek made her realize she must have arrived at her unseen assailant’s base. She still couldn’t move, so all she could do was lie on the ground exactly as she’d been thrown.

“Mmngh! Mmmngh!”

When she managed to move her neck enough to face the muffled voices, she saw her underling and the other three mages hog-tied on the ground with their mouths covered, just like her. How could these people have kidnapped all the mages so easily? What were those Western Imperial soldiers even doing? They were always glued to the mages, refusing to be apart from them for a moment, yet they were completely useless at a time like this.

“Why, if it isn’t Saint Juana. I’m surprised to see you in a place like this.” Juana heard the voice of the person who must have kidnapped her over her head. Her mind was still foggy from the high-speed transportation and it caused her a lot of pain while she couldn’t move, but she mustered the strength to raise her head to see a freckled boy she somewhat recognized.

“Mmmgh!” If she was recalling properly, he was a fellow student at the academy. If she’d been kidnapped by a student, that made this whole thing even more baffling. And more importantly, where was she?! Based on the way the whole room was gently being rocked by the waves, she could tell she was on board a ship, but it was clearly not a Western Imperial ship. In fact, it didn’t appear to be a ship from the kingdom either. The room was filled with strange designs she’d never even seen before. Juana had interacted with plenty of other countries before, but she couldn’t imagine there was a country out there where she wouldn’t even recognize the material the floor was made of. The ceiling was being lit liberally with magic tools powered by magic stones that she had never seen even in the castle, making it so that even though the sun was setting outside, the inside of the room was as bright as midday.

“Well, this won’t do. Why would the kingdom’s consecrated saint be aboard a Western Imperial ship? How did you get to the Simmons region from the castle? Would a guest like you not be required to have the queen’s permission to travel so far away? I can’t imagine she would give that permission while the king’s away either. This certainly is a mystery, isn’t it?” The freckled boy didn’t seem especially troubled or surprised, and seemed to be tilting his head to sell his act more than anything.

“Mmmgh!” This is bad. This boy knows Juana. That meant that he knew she was a saint, he knew the ship was associated with the Western Empire, and that it was strange for her to be here. A chill ran down her spine. She had a terrible feeling.

He can’t know about our plan too, can he? No. Calm yourself, Juana. It was impossible for this plan to leak.

Those who knew the plan were all bound by a restriction magic that made them unable to speak of it to anyone. They’d used some of their meager stocks of magic stones and charm magic to further prevent anyone speaking about it, all to keep the information confidential.

Besides, it was next to impossible for anyone to figure out the plan in the first place. Nobody in this world would possibly have the ability to think of something as patently ridiculous as a country attacking another country. Even if an exceptional spy were to infiltrate the Western Empire and see just what they were dealing with, only a truly eccentric genius would be able to come to this conclusion. There was no precedent, so it was unimaginable. And even if one was certain of this plan, you would have to be some kind of superhuman: even more of an eccentric genius who was proactive, had tremendous military power, and crisis management skills. Like hell someone like that would be here, today of all days.

“Sorry, but I won’t be untying you, even if you are a saint. I can’t have you firing those cannons on your ship, after all. It seems you have some mages with you, meaning you’d be capable of firing them as far as the castle, which is even more unacceptable.”

“Mmmgh!” Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there really was a superhuman eccentric genius right here on the ship with her. He’d found it all out and had seen right through their plans. But that still wouldn’t be a problem. After all, he was from the kingdom, and they hadn’t had a mage in over thirty years. They had no idea what sort of things magic was capable of anymore.

Juana gave her fellow mages a look. This was nothing to them. Even if their bodies were bound and they couldn’t speak, they could still use magic. A person from a backwater country like the kingdom who didn’t even know that much had no chance of winning. They could easily undo the knots on thread like...thread like...thread...like...?

“Mmgh? Mmmmgh?!”

Apparently, they couldn’t.

“Mmgh?”

“Mmmgh! Mmmgh! Mmmmmgh!”

It wasn’t just Juana who couldn’t undo her bindings. None of her underlings could either, and they were all shaking their heads frantically.

We can’t...use magic?! There’s not a single reason we shouldn’t be able to use magic!

Maybe their mana reserves had run out? But they’d been using the absolute minimum amount of charm magic necessary so they could preserve their mana for firing the cannons. There was no way they were out of mana. In fact, they could all feel the mana flowing throughout their bodies as proof. Yet something was blocking them from using it. It was the first time they’d ever felt this. Even if they wanted to try, they had no idea what it was that was blocking their ability.

“Now, I personally would love for you to lower those awful cannons of yours and have all you Western Imperials head back home peacefully, promising you’ll never do a thing like this again. Could you agree to something like that?” The freckled boy gave a confident smirk at the bewildered saint. “There were too many soldiers and sailors to fit in here, but they’re all tied up too.”

“Mmgh! Mmmmgh!”

But that’s impossible! Even if it was a scheme she was reluctant to carry out, she’d planned it so scrupulously. She’d designed the cannons, trained the mages, and done the major reinforcements on the ships to be able to handle the shock of firing the cannons. It was a grand-scale plan that had cost so much money, manpower, and magic stones. She couldn’t just agree to this and go back home. If she returned without having fulfilled her duty, Juana and all of her underlings would be sent to the borders. Juana and all of the other mages here were researchers. It was no exaggeration to say that the magic technology they’d developed was what had made the Western Empire into the prosperous country it was. But now, their organization wasn’t nearly as valued as it used to be. The Western Empire had used up so much of its magic stone reserves that they couldn’t provide the stones for research or development any longer.

“Oh, goodness. Why, you can’t answer if your mouths are covered, can you?” The freckled boy took a small, ivory-colored knife from his inner pocket and cut the thread covering Juana’s mouth. The thread (that she’d been unable to undo no matter how much she struggled) fell easily to the ground.

“What...?”

“Oh, Lady Juana... Have you been drinking?” The boy had gotten close enough to cut the thread, so he sniffed the air again to check.

“What?”

“By the smell of it...this must be Château L’encafé wine. An elusive red wine produced only in very small quantities each year from the Western Imperial Alder region, if I’m not mistaken?” Juana had just downed an entire bottle of it moments before, so it was natural she smelled of it, but this was freaky accurate.

There were winemaking places scattered all throughout the various regions of the Western Empire; in fact, it was well-known for having far more wineries than other countries. Each location had so much history, so much background, and so much to admire. In fact, it was said that once someone had fallen into the pit of wine obsession in the Western Empire, they’d wind up trapped in an unending cycle of learning and never emerge again. It was doubtful this boy was even old enough to drink, yet he was able to identify such an obscure wine, known only to a select few obsessives, by the smell alone? At the very least, Juana didn’t know anyone capable of that among the wine lovers she knew. If only she hadn’t met him here, she would have loved to have a nice chat with him about wine.

However, she knew it was wise to keep her mouth shut. As much as she would have killed to wine it up with the boy, this was not the time or place. Only an idiot would talk in a disadvantageous situation like this.

“Keeping quiet, are we? Well, I’ve already reported this to the castle and requested they send the knights in, so they should be here in a few hours. That’ll be when it’s time for a regular civilian like me to withdraw. I’ll leave the inquiry to the experts.” Even seeing Juana very clearly refusing to answer, the freckled boy didn’t seem worried in the least.

While Juana wanted to interject saying that someone who could swiftly overwhelm five mages (Juana included), the Western Empire’s proud soldiers, and a bunch of massive sailors could hardly call himself a regular civilian, but she resisted. After all, it was almost time for the cannons to fire. Juana let a small laugh escape her lips.

“Hmm? Is something funny to you?” The small change in Juana’s expression didn’t escape the boy’s notice. More proof that he definitely wasn’t a “regular civilian,” in Juana’s eyes.

“Heh heh.” As Juana lay prone and bound on the ground, she could see a certain someone before her. Their eyes met, and he nodded with a nervous expression. Standing there was a human. One small enough that one might mistake him for a bug. He was no larger than the tip of one’s thumb.

“What?!” Even the freckled boy couldn’t hide his surprise at a thumb-sized human. Even if he’d noticed the human, it was too late. That human was also a mage. Because he’d suddenly appeared before Juana, she realized that meant he could use magic. Thus, their victory was assured.

The thumb-sized mage raised his finger in the air and shouted in a high-pitched voice, “Kaboom!”

Kaboom!

The very same moment the thumb-sized mage cried out, they heard the sound of an explosion.

“No!” The freckled boy looked in the direction of the explosion. Though there were no windows in this room, Juana knew that the Western Imperial ships were in the direction the freckled boy was looking.

The ninjas had made certain there was nobody on the Western Imperial ships. Yet right then, the Western Imperial bombardment on the capital began.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, the Stewart family cats were fully enjoying their wet food banquet.

Meow-ow-ow-ow.

Meow-ow-ow-ow.

Meow-ow-ow-ow.

“Myah myah!” (Canned food really is the best!) said Guan.

“Myah myah!” (I love canned food, but I really wanna try those lickable kitty treats again!) said Zhang.

“Mrrrow myah!” (We’re having tuna today, but tomorrow they’re giving us chicken!) said Liu, using her foresight to tell her sons what their dinner the next day would be.

“Myah mroooowr!” (Yippee!) shouted Guan and Zhang, politely cleaning their faces after their meal as they started dreaming of chicken meals to come.

It was truly peaceful.

“Myah? Mroowr?” As Liu was washing her front paws and watching the others cleaning their soft fur, she stopped. (Hmm? Have you two put on weight?)

“Myah myah myah... Mrowr?!” (No way, that can’t be...) Guan looked at Zhang, Zhang looked at Guan...and both of their eyes widened as they realized it could be. Guan’s black fur made him look sleek and svelte, but his tummy was starting to look...maybe a teensy little bit pudgy. If you got Zhang wet, his fluffy white fur would flatten down to show he was only half his size, but even his collar was getting...maybe a teensy little bit tight.

“Myah myah?” Their portion sizes were the same as always. (Maybe since George and Leonard aren’t here, we’re not playing enough, so we’re not burning enough of our calories?) Liu surmised.

William tended to spend a lot of time reading books, which meant Liu was often lazing about resting next to him. When he was gone, her exercise levels didn’t change at all. She regularly used her foresight ability, so even if she ate the same amount as her sons, she still burned plenty of calories. George and Leonard would always wake up early to train for monster hunting, and Guan and Zhang would actively join in. As such, without the two men around, they were low on exercise.

“Mrowr...” (I’m getting fat...) Guan whimpered. (If I don’t shape up, George is gonna call me a little piggy-kitty. Sorry, piggies, but I just can’t deal with that! I don’t want him to switch me to diet food!)

“Mrowr...” (I’m getting fat...) Zhang whimpered. (If this keeps up, I’ll break my papa’s (bed’s) ribs (springs)... I don’t want that...)

“Myah!” (I’m gonna run around the yard!) Guan said, taking off.

“Myah!” (I’m gonna increase my patrols from meow on!) Zhang said, chasing after Guan.

“Mrowr, mrowr...” (Well, I guess that’s what we’re doing.) Liu said, then headed toward the yard with the other two.

◆ ◆ ◆

Skitter skitter!

The amblypygids had made their home inside a cave on the premises of the Stewart manor. They were all lazing about after having finished their dinner.

Just then, the cats barged in to invite them to a postmeal exercise session. “Mroooowr!”

Skitter skitter!

“Mmmrowr!” The servants are all on vacation, so let’s go to the yard! Zhang said, trying to push them all out of the cave. Given their horrifying shape and size, the Stewart family’s worker’s union (mostly Martha) requested they be put somewhere people didn’t have to see them—hence, the cave.

“Mrowr? Myaaaah!” Being cooped up in this cave all the time is bound to make you all gloomy, right? You gotta get out and stretch your legs sometime! said Liu.

Skitter skitter...

Skitter skitter...

We’re here ’cause we like it, bro... It’s just the right dampness... It’s like, perfect... The amblypygids thought, but their instincts had always told them never to disobey the cats, so they had no choice but to acquiesce.

“Myah!”

Skitter skitter!

“Myah myah!”

Skitter skitter!

“Mroooowr!”

Skitter skitter skitteeeeerrrrr!

That being said, the amblypygids did enjoy exercise. The cats might have only had four legs, but they were quite fast, meaning it was a near herculean task for the amblypygids to catch them when they played tag.

Skitter skitter!

Skitter skitter!

Skitter skitter!

The amblypygids, who were “it” for that round, used their numbers to their advantage and surrounded Guan.

“Myah myah?!” (I’m surrounded!) Guan said, as he looked around him.

“Mrowr mrah?!” (Th-That’s the Wet Food formation!) Zhang said, admiring the amblypygids’ precise formation.

Skitter skitter!

The amblypygids began slowly closing in on Guan.

“Myah... Myah myaaawr!” (You guys are good...but not good enough!) Guan said as he looked up to the sky. He could just jump over a couple of amblypygids!

Skitter skitter! (Oh no you don’t!) The amblypygids said and raised their pedipalps in the air to catch him.

However, just at that moment, Liu’s eyes lit up.

“Myah myah myah myah?!”

Skitter skitter?!

(What’s going on?!) Guan, Zhang, and the amblypygids asked.

“Myah myah... Myah myah myah...” (Something’s coming from the sky...) Liu said.

“Myah myah?” (Something...like what?) asked Guan and Zhang.

“Mroowr mroowr! Myah!” (I don’t know what! Foresight can’t tell you everything, you know!) Liu said.

“Myah myah myah!” (Well, if we don’t know, then we’ll just have to catch it!) Guan said, his eyes all atwinkle.

“Myaaaaah!” (If it’s coming from the sky, then we should go somewhere we can see better!) Zhang said.

Skitter skitter! (We’ll help!) the amblypygids said, all raring to go.

Just then, they all heard a loud boom like a firework going off.

“Myah?” Guan’s ears perked up and he started running in the direction of the sound.

“Myah?” (Here it comes!) Zhang said, and chased after his brother.

“Myah myah myah!” (We don’t know what it is, so be careful!) Liu cried, then took off after the others.

Skitter skitter!

An army of amblypygids followed after.

Giant cats and an army of amblypygids cutting across the Stewart manor’s yard was an exceptionally bizarre sight. Oddly enough, the fact that that firework sound went off while the sun was setting was a saving grace for the amblypygids. After all, if they’d gone out in the daytime, Martha, who was still looking after the manor, would have been able to see them and absolutely pitched a fit.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Ha ha ha! Well done!” Even while tied up, Juana was overjoyed. Even if she hadn’t wanted the plan to work, she knew she’d be in danger if it failed. She cared far more for her own life than the lives of the kingdom’s people.

“Ah... You fired them, I guess,” the freckled boy whispered, his hands pressing against his ears trying to cope with his ears ringing from the explosion.

“Hmph! Such obviously feigned courage is unsightly, boy. Your beloved kingdom is nothing but a sea of flames now!” If Juana didn’t want to be seen as the villain, she really wasn’t doing herself any favors.

“Could you please keep your voice down? My ears are still ringing...” the boy said, shaking his head to check his ears again.

“Don’t be ridiculous! How could you be worried about your ears right now?! Don’t you get it?! All those innocent people in the kingdom are as good as dead after that bombardment! Your house and school are probably engulfed in flames! Your parents and friends are probably dead! Even if they’re still alive, they’re probably suffering, buried beneath rubble! It’s all because you let your guard down! You brought this failure upon yourself!” Juana was cursing Joshua with as heavy a burden as she could muster. She knew if she didn’t crush him then and there, he could become a thorn in the Western Empire’s side in the future. She was deliberately saying the most horrific things, things that made her sick just thinking about them, to use against him.

“Sorry, but you’re the one who gave the orders to fire the cannons, and that...tiny person down there is the one who carried out the orders. It has nothing to do with me. If the kingdom is a ‘sea of flames’ and all those completely innocent people really are dead, it happened because you gave the order and the tiny person resolutely went along with it. The choice and the responsibility lies with you two,” the boy replied.

He continued, “Infants who were only just born. Young people working hard toward their dreams. The kind shopkeepers and seamstresses. The caring painters. All those little children. You two deliberately stole their futures from them. It’s just all too cruel... I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Just thinking of how many families, lovers, and friends will be ripped apart by the cruel jaws of death... It’s just too awful...”

“Hngh!” The boy’s counterattack was brutal. The curse Juana had tried to lay on him was returned a hundredfold. Just how psychologically resilient was this boy?!

“L-Lady Juana...” The thumb-sized mage had his hand to his chest, as though Joshua’s counterattack had physically hurt him. He looked at Juana with a pale, worried expression.

“Wh-Why haven’t you readied the next cannon, you imbecile?!” If all the soldiers in the ship had been captured too, then Juana needed to take the lead. If she wasn’t able to completely wipe out the capital, they wouldn’t be able to send in reinforcements anytime soon.

“B-But... S-So many people are gonna d-die...” The mages working under Juana were all researchers who were entirely unused to this level of violence. None of them had steeled themselves enough to hurt so many people. The thumb-sized mage was very obviously shaken by what the boy had said.

“This is an order! Do it! It’s just a bunch of strangers! If you don’t do it, then we’ll be the ones getting killed! If you don’t fire right now, your elderly parents and little sister will be meeting that grim fate instead!” Juana threatened her subordinate, still tied up with her cheek to the ground. The thread still wouldn’t budge. But there was no mistaking that victory was hers. Even if most of her personnel were bound, she still had her cannons ready and a mage to fire them. The kingdom didn’t have any way to protect itself against cannons firing at them under the low visibility of night. They didn’t have any mages to help save people crushed beneath the rubble, nor any magic to help quickly put out the fires either.

“Nngh... Aaaagh! K-Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!” The mage screamed like a man possessed and continued firing the cannons. He buckled under the threat to his family’s lives.

“Sorry to say, but there’s no lowlife depraved enough to attack a bunch of innocent civilians indiscriminately like that in the kingdom. I’m sure you’re aware, but there are people among the ones you’re firing those cannons at with elderly parents and adorable little sisters and darling families as well. And if you weren’t firing those cannons, they might still be alive.”

“Aaaaagh! Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!” The thumb-sized mage cried tears of anguish that he was forced to do such a thing, but he had to close his heart off to use his magic and fire away. While the freckled boy was looking down on him pityingly, the words coming from his mouth were positively merciless in every way.

The boy’s country was being attacked, and they were the ones attacking it. So how did this boy have the wherewithal to launch such brutal verbal abuse at them? Juana couldn’t understand.

But Joshua knew that if they were aiming for the castle from Simmons Harbor, those cannonballs would have to pass over a certain manor. And that manor had a home security system that had been able to easily save the Eastern Empire from the owatas’ destruction. It was the greatest home security system in the kingdom...or perhaps even the world.

◆ ◆ ◆

Skitter skitter! (We love the dark, but we can’t see what’s flying toward us when the sun’s setting like this!) the amblypygids worried as they chased after the three cats.

“Myah!” (Not to worry!) said Guan.

“Myah myah!” (Cats have good night vision!) added Zhang.

“Myah myah!” (Besides, we can just go with our gut even if we can’t see!) said Liu.

Skitter...skitter? (Your...gut?)

The amblypygids couldn’t understand what she meant by that, but then they looked at the sky.

Skitter?! (Something’s coming!)

Skitter skitter! (I think something’s coming this way!)

As a result of the training the amblypygids had been put through to defeat the owatas, that gut instinct that Liu was talking about was working quite well for them.

“Myah myah!” (That’s right! Don’t think! Feel!) commanded Liu, like a well-known martial artist.

“Myah... Mrowr?” (But...that looks a bit too high up for us to jump...) cried Zhang as he ran. Even with how high a kitty could jump, this Mystery Object X was so far up in the air, it didn’t seem they could possibly reach.

“Myah myah! Myah?” (George always says that the match ends the moment you give up!) Guan said. But then he noticed something blocking his path.

“Myah... Myah myah...!” (Wh-Why...what a perfect place for our trampoline!) Zhang cried in surprise. The thing blocking their path was a trampoline that Joshua had brought them recently. The armored boar leather stretched across it made it exceptionally sturdy. Just as Zhang had said, the trampoline was in a surprisingly perfect place for them to catch the Mystery Object X.

“Myah!” (This’ll do the trick!) Guan said, then jumped on the trampoline to launch himself high in the air toward Mystery Object X. The bounciness of the armored boar leather had Guan getting right up to the perfect height to catch the mystery object, but...

“Myah!” He’d gotten right in front of the object, but just as he was about to catch it, his whiskers and nose twitched. This smells like gunpowder... I can’t catch this! he thought. His instincts had him making a split-second decision to give up on catching it and instead hit it with a kitty bap.

“Myah myah ruff myah!” (Here comes a rough spike!) Guan shouted as he silently smacked the mystery object with a powerful smack.

The mystery object that had been making a beautiful arc toward the castle had been knocked completely off its path and was now falling straight toward the Stewart family’s yard.

“Myah?!” (No way!) Zhang cried from below and covered his head with his front paws.

“Myah?!” (It’s coming this way!) Liu cried and covered her head with her front paws too.

S-Skitter?! (E-Everyone run!) said the amblypygids, and they scattered like baby spiders, but they wouldn’t make it.

The moment Mystery Object X hit the ground, it exploded and the ground shook slightly.

“Myah myah!” (That scared me... You have to tell us before you drop it our way, Guan!) Zhang whined.

While most cannonballs in this world would unleash metal shrapnel, this one had been especially designed to explode so it would more easily envelop the kingdom in a sea of fire. The cannonball landed near Zhang. Normally, they wouldn’t have had the time to complain, but for some reason, the cats and the amblypygids were all unharmed. What was even more unusual was that even though the shock wave from its landing had been enough to make the ground shake a tiny bit and the blast rustled their whiskers, there had been no sound.

“Myah myah myah! Myah myah!” Liu looked around and saw that there was a plume of smoke rising up out of the circular tower they’d made out of owata bits, also known as the owatower. (So that’s where it fell! That really scared me!) Liu said, sighing with relief.

The tower—made out of materials from the ridiculously hard plant monsters that had troubled the Eastern Empire—didn’t even move an inch under the force of the Western Empire’s cannonball. It even had a muffling effect.

“Myah, myah myah!” (But if I’d caught it, my whiskers mighta burned off...) Guan apologized to the other two as he landed.

Skitter? Skitter skitter? (What? You were just worried about your whiskers burning?) The amblypygids, who had been running to and fro this whole time, were absolutely stunned.

“Myah myaaaaahn!” (But it was a ton of fun!) Guan said, looking up as the smoke steadily began to fade from the owatower.

“Mrooowr!” (It’s no fair that only you got to play, Guan! You think any more will come this way?) Zhang whined, looking hopefully in the direction the cannonball had come from.

“Myah myah!” (If any do, make sure you drop them in the owatower, okay? It’ll be way too dangerous otherwise.) Liu warned Guan and Zhang.

Skitter skitter! (Good thing we built it to be so sturdy!) the amblypygids boasted proudly.

“Myah myah?” (By the way, did I happen to hear you say “ruff” earlier?) Zhang asked, looking at Guan.

“M-Mrowr...” (N-No... You just imagined it...) Guan looked away awkwardly.

“Myah?” (You sure about that?) Zhang asked.

“Myah... Myah...” (Y-Yeah. I am...) Guan responded.

Then they heard another kaboom from the same direction as the first cannonball. And this time, there was more than one.

“Myah! Myah myah!” (I heard some more kabooms! A bunch are coming now!) Zhang said, listening closely for each boom as it came.

“Myah myah, myah myah myah!” (Oh my. That’s a lot. Amblypygids, I’ll help you jump, so you can play too!) Liu said as she pointed to the seesaw looking toy that Joshua had brought them.

S-Skitter skitter?! (W-We’re playing too?!) The amblypygids were taken aback.

“Myah!” (Of course! You can leave the aiming to me!) Liu replied.

Skitter skitter...

The amblypygids couldn’t disobey the cats, so they dutifully lined up to get on one side of the seesaw like Liu had asked them to.

“Myah myaaaah?” (A-Are you doing the Lickable Kitty Treat formation?) Zhang asked the amblypygids excitedly as they all got in a line.

Skitter skitter... But to the amblypygids, they felt more like a bunch of criminals on death row lining up for the guillotine.

“Myah?!” (Well, looks like we won’t be bored tonight, huh?) Liu said as she bounced the amblypygids on the seesaw. (You two go have fun too!) she said to the other two.

Pow! Pow! Pow!

“Myippee!”

“Myippee!”

(Yippee!) Guan leaped onto the trampoline and Zhang came soon after.

The kitties sank cannonball after cannonball into the owatower with their toebean spikes, and the amblypygids put their front legs together to make a double axe handle to knock the cannonballs in as well. These strange balls that were flying toward the capital were dropped one by one into the owatower by the cats and amblypygids. They were all enjoying this spontaneous, late-night, hit-the-target game.

And so, the capital was saved from being turned into a sea of flames without anyone ever knowing. Juana wouldn’t find this out for some time after.

◆ ◆ ◆

“K-Kaboom! Hnngh... Kaboom! Kaboom! Sniff... K-Kaboo... Ka...” The unimaginably cruel act of massacring people with magic had the thumb-sized mage’s conscience screaming. Tears fell from his eyes one after another, until he suddenly fell to his knees in a mess of weeping. Magic was a wonderful thing, meant to help the world and all the people in it. These feelings the thumb-sized mage couldn’t put into words had merely devolved into sobbing, and he was in no state to use magic any longer. “Why... How did it come to this...?”

How many shots have I fired? I know I’ve fired so many... I’ve fired...so many...

Regret was choking him out.

Just how many people have died with all those shots? How many people were hurt? How many homes did I destroy? How many places are burning to the ground? I don’t know how many...but I know it’s a lot. Because I fired so many cannons. So many people died. So many people were hurt. So many places were burned and destroyed. The capital, a place I’ve never seen, is now nothing more than a sea of flames.

“I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”

Is this what I became a mage for? Magic is supposed to be a special power used to protect people from monsters! It’s meant to defend!

“What are you doing over there?! You have more cannons to fire!” Juana was still bound by thread, as she ordered him to kill more. Destroy more. Burn the capital to the ground.

“No... I can’t...”

“Do you not hear me? This is an order!”

The thumb-sized mage had always looked up to Juana as a famous magic researcher. She was the one who had looked after him when he’d unfortunately shrunk. He couldn’t possibly refuse an order from a superior like that. Yet his body and mind were begging him not to do it. His conscience and his desire to do as he was told were at war with each other.

“I can’t...” The thumb-sized mage cowered and held his head in his hands as he trembled all over.

“It’s not good to be so forceful, Lady Juana.” Joshua picked up the thumb-sized mage between his thumb and forefinger and placed him on the palm of his hand. “Poor thing. An incompetent leader will only lead to broken subordinates. You’re meant to give orders based on your subordinate’s individual capabilities and aptitude. This one’s already unilaterally and indiscriminately murdered legions of the kingdom’s people on your orders, hasn’t he? All while using the gift of magic.”

“I’m sorryyyyyy!”

“Nngh...”

The thumb-sized mage was trembling on Joshua’s hand and burst into tears again. Additionally, Joshua’s carefully chosen words inflicted psychological damage on the other mages captured, and on Juana as well. Mages were a very rare breed. Not one of them had gone without wondering why they had to use such a special power to kill people.

Click.

Just then, the door to the room opened.

A blue-haired boy poked his head in, then spoke in halting language as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The knights of the kingdom are here.”

Juana’s eyes went wide.

Why are the knights here?! Why are the knights here, at Simmons Harbor, when they should be stationed at the castle right now?!

Just based on the distance, this would have meant the knights had set off toward the harbor hours ago. The barrage was supposed to have destroyed the knights, the castle, and the entire kingdom right then and there. But if they were here now, it meant that the knights had already been nearby when she’d started the cannon fire.

“They’re here sooner than I expected.”

So why were the knights at Simmons Harbor? Because naturally, Joshua had called them there ahead of time.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Uh. What?” The knights just kept asking the same question over and over again.

“I said, this is Lady Juana. She’s the one who ordered the cannons to be fired on the capital.” Joshua gave the same explanation to the uncomprehending knights at least a dozen times. It was the unmistakable truth that the Western Empire’s ships had fired several shots directly at the capital. The knights should have been able to see it themselves as they approached Simmons Harbor, unlike Joshua, who was inside the ship with no windows. However loud it might have been, it reverberated so much that he couldn’t tell what direction it was going, and at the distance the knights would have been, those with good vision would have been able to see the cannonball’s trajectory.

It turned out that only half of the knights Joshua had requested had made it to the harbor. Once they saw the cannonballs, the other half retreated back to the capital. It was a bombardment from a region surrounded by the sea, with no barrier border and exceptionally low monster rates. In other words, this was an unprecedented emergency. The half who made it to Simmons Harbor were most assuredly worried about how the capital was faring as well. It was plain on their faces that they wanted to hurry up and figure out what had happened so they could get back to the crisis. Yet still, though Juana was very plainly tied up before them and Joshua was very patiently explaining the situation to them, the knights just kept repeating the same baffled response.

“There’s no way. There’s just not,” the knights said, firmly shaking their heads at Joshua’s explanation. In fact, they were actually angered by the explanation. Joshua assumed they were convinced that a saint who had been officially consecrated by the church could never do such a thing. No matter how articulately the boy worded it, the knights were unreceptive to it.

“I saw Lady Juana give the order with my own eyes.” It was odd enough that Juana would be here when she should be at the castle. That alone should have been enough to convince the knights of what he was saying, but they still looked perplexed.

“That’s not what I mean. It’s... This isn’t Lady Juana. Don’t mock us with such an obvious lie!”

Apparently, they were upset about something else entirely.

“What do you mean?” Joshua furrowed his brow.

The knight looked reluctant to speak, so he whispered into Joshua’s ear. “What, haven’t you seen her? Sure, this woman’s eyes are black and her hair is nearly black. But Lady Juana’s more...y’know...young... Right, yeah! Young and cute!” It wasn’t becoming of a knight to speak ill of a lady’s appearance, so he couldn’t say it out loud.

“What? I haven’t been up close and personal with her, no, but I do attend the same academy. I know I’ve seen this woman before. Did she appear differently to the rest of you?” Joshua hadn’t spent a lot of time at school because he’d been dealing with all the people complaining about the cotton shortage, but he hadn’t been shirking his responsibility to check out the new person on everyone’s mind in the capital. If she’d changed appearances, Joshua would have been the first to know. From his perspective, the girl tied up and on her knees before him looked exactly the same as the Juana he knew from school—he was absolutely positive.

“What? I mean, the Lady Juana we know is a teenager... She’s young and cute and her face is... Huh? Wait... What kind of face did she have again?”

“Don’t be stupid, man! It was... Wait... Why can’t I remember?”

“How could you forget? I mean... Huh?”

The knights were trying to describe Juana’s beauty, but they quickly realized then that not a single one of them could recall her face. No matter how appealing they’d thought Saint Juana was, they couldn’t remember a single detail. Yet even if they couldn’t remember, they were absolutely certain that the woman tied up before them was not her. The girl saint they’d all been smitten with didn’t have such a...well...plain face. None of them would have used their precious lunch break to go get a glimpse of this girl. Other than her eyes and hair implying royal lineage, there was nothing she had in common with Lady Juana.

“Young and cute? Are you sure you’re talking about Lady Juana?” Joshua put his hand to his chin and thought for a moment. If every single knight agreed that the girl in front of them didn’t have the same face as Juana, then they might be right. Perhaps the fact that Joshua couldn’t see such an obvious difference meant he was the odd one out here. When he thought of someone being cute, Emma was the only face that came to mind. Perhaps Juana’s “cuteness” didn’t work on him, and that was why he didn’t notice a difference? No, that couldn’t have been it.

Perhaps it was their ages? From the day Juana started attending school, he’d thought she looked a bit too...old to be attending school. However, she’d been living as a commoner near the border her whole life. Compared to noblewomen, it wasn’t all that odd for a commoner to look older than their age. In fact, it was normal. Joshua knew from his work trips to all the various regions of the kingdom and all the people he’d met along the way that one’s appearance and age didn’t always match up. Even if one was young, the harder they worked, the more it would show in their appearance. When everyone was responding so positively to Juana’s appearance, Joshua only thought it was the nobles having weird interests as always. Apparently, it had all been leading up to this. At the very least, the knights had all seen Juana as young and beautiful before, and the disparity was so great that they couldn’t believe Joshua no matter how he explained that the girl before them was truly Juana. Apparently, Joshua had been seeing this version of the saint from the very start.

“I think...that could be, er...charm? Magic.” Momochi, the ninja, who had been standing invisibly behind Joshua, whispered to him. The Eastern Empire had had mages until recently, so he knew more about a mage’s capabilities than Joshua. Momochi informed him that charm magic was one that could make you look different to other people. “Lord Fukushima told me that when he would go out drinking with his mage friend, he’d desperately want to round out the night by treating him to Middle Kingdom-style soba. Soba’s not a big deal to order, but every time they went out, his friend looked like the most beautiful young lad, so he desperately wanted to spoil him...or something like that.”

“I...see?” Setting aside Lord Fukushima’s personal preferences, it seemed it would be best to think Juana had been casting charm magic ever since she’d arrived in the kingdom. It would have explained her unusually persuasive powers she’d had since becoming the saint too. The reason the knights were all unanimously convinced that the saint looked different must have been because something was canceling out her charm magic.

Joshua crouched down and whispered so that only Juana could hear him. “Are you unable to use magic right now?”

But Juana wouldn’t answer. After all that screaming at the thumb-sized mage, once the knights showed up, she went completely silent. It was as though she’d thought her work was done after having fired the cannons at the capital.

“Is she out of mana? That’s one reason a mage couldn’t use magic,” Momochi answered Joshua in Juana’s stead.

“Out of mana, huh...?” Joshua had heard that mages couldn’t use magic infinitely, just like humans couldn’t run forever. Once they were out of mana, they wouldn’t be able to use magic.

“It is strange, though. Even we ninjas know that a mage can still use magic, even if their mouths are, um, covered and their limbs are, um, bound. That’s why they could gather in a, um...windowless room on the ship. But the only one who actually used their magic was that, um...little one.” Momochi told Joshua, thinking it odd the more he considered it. There were five mages, including Juana, in the room, yet the only one who used magic was the thumb-sized mage.

“Interesting... So they don’t need to chant a little spell or use a wand?” The mages Momochi told Joshua about had a lot more freedom in how they used their magic than he’d imagined. Apparently, they could use it at will.

“Why would they need to chant? Are they...cursing someone? And why a wand...?”

“Huh?” Joshua had always thought you had to say a little spell and have a wand to use magic. Just like Momochi said, Joshua had never read anything that claimed you needed spells and wands either, so where had he gotten the idea???

“Oh.” When he thought back to try and figure out where he’d learned such a ridiculous tidbit, he realized the exact cause: Lord William. When they were both younger, William would tell him all about these “magical girl” stories. He remembered they were supposedly young girls who wore colorful clothes and fought for their world or something. While Joshua didn’t understand why young girls should be forced to fight, by the time he’d met William, it seemed the concept of magical girls had already been set in stone for the boy. Joshua had been internally a bit taken aback that William was so particular about the little details when all they were doing was playing pretend. He’d figured that maybe because the Stewart family lived so close to the barrier in the Pallas region, which already didn’t have a large population, and he had no friends his own age, he’d grown a bit obsessive with his imaginary friends.

“No no, her eyes were bigger and more beautiful than that!”

“Oh, yeah, her eyes were pretty big... But I don’t really remember how big.”

While Joshua was thinking, the more artistically inclined knights were trying to draw a picture of what they thought Juana looked like, but the others kept saying this, that, and the other thing weren’t right.

“That’s not the same person,” Momochi, who had stayed invisible and took a peek at the picture the knights were drawing, whispered to Joshua.

“I see... Which means...” The proof that the knights had had charm magic cast on them was more solid, and now that magic had worn off. But why? “Violet...?”

Joshua came to this theory as he looked at the thread binding Juana. Violet’s webbing was all-encompassing. It could heal wounds, work as binding, act as bowstring...it really could do it all. The string they’d used to tie up the mages was made from Emma silk with some of Violet’s webbing mixed in. If Violet’s webbing had some kind of antimagic properties to it, that would also explain why the charm magic hadn’t worked on Joshua. After all, he always wore the cuff links Emma had given him. When he thought back to how things were at school, it wasn’t like the entire populace were Saint Juana’s adoring fans either. Emma’s friends and the boys from the areas around Pallas who’d also received cuff links never acted any differently toward Emma. And it wasn’t just the cuff links either; all those little trinkets that Emma had made in her Embroidery class and generously given out to had saved the entire school...no, the kingdom at large from the worst. Lady Rose’s connection to the Stewart family had the royal family procuring their goods as well. If that charm magic had reached the king himself, the kingdom would have been done for.

“Ha ha...” How could Emma not have been named a saint? Just how greatly would Emma surpass Joshua’s expectations? He was well aware that he wasn’t just one foot in the Emma obsession swamp—he was drowning all the way up to the tip-top of his head. To think that he could sink even deeper into the swamp filled him with surprise and had him shuddering with indescribable joy.

Anyway, the all-purpose nature of Violet’s web was also far greater than he’d thought. As a merchant, he realized he probably should rethink the market price he had set for this glowing purple thread. As he calculated it, he decided it might be wise not to distribute it outside of the Eastern Empire. Violsok was still fulfilling her side of the duty even while away, and Nyacom was doing their duty to protect the Stewart family home and the kingdom itself. The Stewart family home security system really was one to be proud of. Joshua thought he should make sure to prepare them some snacks as thanks next time he saw them, then turned to face the knights to tell them that the woman in the picture was indeed Juana.

“I believe she may have changed her appearance using magic. That may be why you can’t remember her face, though her eye and hair colors appear to be the same as her natural ones.” Even after Juana was unable to use magic, there was no change in her eye or hair color, which was a blessing, since her unusual hair and eye colors made it easier to convince the knights. (Unfortunately, it didn’t wipe away the allegations that the king had had an affair.)

“This is what the real Lady Juana looks like? But she was so cute...”

All the knights were shocked speechless by Joshua’s explanation. They remembered vividly thinking how adorable that smile had been as she’d personally passed out all that cotton...but they couldn’t remember the smile itself. The people of the kingdom were hardly familiar with magic, as it was practically the stuff of fairy tales to them. Yet the knights were far more astounded that Juana’s beauty was all a lie than the fact that magic was cast on them.

“No... It can’t be... Tell me you’re lying!” The younger knights were especially devastated, as they’d regularly fought to get even a glimpse of Juana in the courtyard, where she often spent her time. How could that Saint Juana be...this?

“No... She stole our hearts... Give them back!”

Emma likely would have blown a gasket if she were present.

“Now, hold on. You’re all being hasty.” One man among the bewildered knights, their commanding officer, knelt down in front of Juana. The very stern officer didn’t seem like he was about to criticize Juana in the slightest.

“Wh-What have we been doing?! Even if we were tricked, how could we be criticizing a lady’s appearance so?!”

“W-Wow... Leave it to the squad leader... He’s truly a knight among knights...”

“He’s still completely calm even after such a striking before-and-after...”

“We still have much to learn... How could we have been so thrown off by an enemy’s appearance?!”

The younger knights all felt terrible for immaturely criticizing the poor girl so freely. A knight’s creed began with protecting women. As such, the fact that their squad leader hadn’t said a word about her appearance was demonstrable proof that he was a true knight among them.

Luckily, the younger knights didn’t hear their squad leader, a man who would be turning fifty next month, whispering, “Well, I’ll be... No, she’s not bad. In fact, she’s the opposite. She’s very, very good. Incredibly so, I’d say! Yes, she’s magnificent!”

The Fogey’s Fancy had struck again.

Juana looked just like Emma had in her past life as Minato Tanaka. Yet even Juana didn’t know the special power her face held—the one she’d subconsciously activated right there.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, in the Western Empire...

The senior envoy, who had returned from the kingdom after the social season had ended, donned his bespoke silver armor. His large belly shook as he laughed.

“The gunfire must have started by now. Heh heh heh... That means the kingdom is no more. The whole place must be razed to the ground. And then, our Imperial Army will take over the kingdom, with me leading the attack!”

Vvvvmmm...

A giant magic circle began to glow. Mass quantities of magic stones had been used to build this prestigious magic circle, making it capable of transporting a thousand people at once. There was a destination circle in the kingdom that they’d spent many long years secretly building in a remote region where nobody would ever have gone.

Come to think of it, if they’d used the magic stones they’d spent on this magic ring on the barrier instead, perhaps they wouldn’t be in nearly as much trouble as they were right now. But that didn’t matter. If the Western Empire didn’t have something, they could just take it. That went for magic stones, for mages, and for beautiful women.

By sea, they’d attack with cannonfire. Then by land, their enemy would be overrun by monsters, finally the envoy’s thousand-person army would invade with him at the head.

The king, the only one who could command the kingdom’s army, was absent, and the firstborn prince was already under their control. The capital would be destroyed and their government would collapse with them. With such a perfect plan, there was no way for the kingdom to escape its fate.

“Heh heh heh... All for the glory of the Western Empire. The kingdom will be a worthy sacrifice. Now, what was her name... Emma Stewart? That pure young girl they all called a saint? I simply can’t wait to see how she looks when she’s been utterly ruined.” The chief delegate still didn’t know that the first strike of his “perfect plan” had failed, but the danger facing the kingdom had only just begun, because the Western Empire was now truly beginning their invasion of the kingdom.

Chapter 92: Awaken

The effects of Violet’s web had reached the castle as well. When Juana was bound, her magic was cut off, meaning the spell cast upon the firstborn prince Maximilian had dissipated. The shock from having his mind free after so long was so great that he was unable to stay conscious.

“Your Majesty, it’s an emergency! The prince! Prince Maximilian has fainted!” Given the firstborn prince was as brawny as his father and had never once gotten sick, while everyone in the castle was panicking over his collapse, the queen was quick to act. She had the prime minister and the captain of the knights carry Maximilian, called for the king’s concubine, and drove everyone else away so nobody would even come close to him.

“Nngh...” When Maximilian came to, he was lying on his bed.

“Max!” He could hear his mother’s voice.

“Your Highness!” And the prime minister’s.

“Huh...?” Maximilian realized the change immediately. All sounds around him had been muffled ever since the incident, but everything sounded clear to him now. When he opened his eyes, he saw his vision was no longer obscured by what felt like a veil separating him from the world. “What... Huh?” His cry of surprise actually escaped his mouth and reached his ears. That absolutely normal thing, something that was so natural, had his whole body shaking.

“Max, are you hurt? Does it hurt anywhere?” the queen asked, her face scrunched up with worry.

“Huh? Mo—Your Majesty?” His mother was always so calm. It might have been the first time he’d ever seen her make such an expression.

“Your Highness, you fainted out of nowhere.” The prime minister, who was standing behind the queen, explained what had happened.

“What? I fainted? Wait! Is my body... Can it...?” Maximilian had been spacing out and rubbing his head since he’d woken up. His eyes widened and he squeezed his hand shut, then opened it again. “Ah... Aaah... It moved... My hand moved!” Maximilian’s body moved exactly as he wanted it to without any resistance. His mind and body, which had been separated until now, had finally been put back together. Ever since he’d met that mage in the Western Empire, no matter how much he’d begged and screamed and cried, his voice would never be heard. He hadn’t even been able to move a single finger freely. But now...

“Ha... Ha ha... It moved! I can move again! I’m... I’m finally free!” Now, everything moved exactly as he wanted it to. He couldn’t even express how happy it made him to be able to show his emotions on his face exactly as he wanted.

“Your Highness, is everything all right?” Next to his mother was the king’s concubine, Rose Alicia Royale. It was rare to see her sitting next to his mother. It might have been the first time since his father had insisted on making her his concubine.

The king had been quick to act back then. While he’d said it was because it was love at first sight, no matter how many times the prime minister told him that there was no precedent for a concubine and tried to convince him to just take her as a lover, he wouldn’t hear it. Maximilian now understood exactly why his father had been so pressed about the matter.

Ever since Maximilian had gone to study in the Western Empire and been put under that mage’s spell, he’d seen so many horrible things he wished he hadn’t. Maximilian now knew just what happened to the poor “saints” the Western Empire gathered from all the other countries. Someone as extraordinarily beautiful as Rose would have been a candidate for such “sainthood” without a doubt. The reason this woman was able to smile next to his mother now was because his father had protected her, not yielding to any criticism he faced for it.

Now that he understood his father’s true intentions, he was truly touched. But at the same time, he realized his own foolishness. Not only had he failed to protect them, but he had fallen right into the Western Empire’s trap, having his body used to aid in the Empire’s schemes. All that his father had protected, all that his father tried to protect, would be brought to ruin because of the charm magic that had been placed on him.

Seeing the concubine up close, she really was beautiful. How was it that even after decades, she still maintained such dazzling beauty? In fact, it was as though she’d gotten even more stunning in his absence. Maybe it was the new dresses giving her a different air, but she had both a cute and elegant aura about her, and an undeniable sexiness to her as well.

Suddenly, Maximilian felt gazes upon him. Very odd gazes. As the firstborn prince, he was used to people staring at him, but these were very strange. A kind he’d never felt before.

“I-Is something...the matter?”

His mother, the prime minister, and even the captain of the knights were all gawking at him. They weren’t even trying to hide their rudeness either. In fact, his mother, who was always a stickler for etiquette, was staring at him the hardest out of all of them.

“He looked, didn’t he?” Queen Victoria quietly confirmed with the concubine sitting next to her.

“Y-Yes,” Rose responded, her face slightly red.

“He did! I saw him look!” the prime minister agreed wholeheartedly.

“Yes, without a doubt! I saw it with my own eyes!” the captain of the knights, who was standing behind them, leaned forward with enthusiasm as he answered.

“Huh? What are you...?” Maximilian was completely confused. For some reason, his mother looked overjoyed and the prime minister and captain of the knights were putting their hands to their chests in relief. What was more, Rose seemed slightly embarrassed.

Then, his mother finally cried out in joy, “Maximilian looked at Rose’s breasts!”

“Wha?! Moth—Y-Your Majesty, what are you saying?! I never would have—” Maximilian raised his voice at his mother’s completely unexpected outburst. Why in the world would his own mother call him out like this?!

“There’s no point hiding it, Max! I know you were looking at Rose’s ample bosom! There’s no two ways about it!”

“Yes, I saw it too. Unfortunately, Your Highness, you’ve been caught.”

“You really can’t hide it, Your Highness. We only just learned ourselves that...she notices even the sneakiest of our glances.”

His mother, the prime minister, and the captain of the knights kept piling on with excitement.

“No, but... I-I didn’t...”

“Yes, you did!”

“Agh...”

He tried to make excuses for himself, but the queen, prime minister, and captain of the knights didn’t seem like they were willing to let this slide. He’d never seen the three of them acting with such solidarity like this before. But as the firstborn prince, he couldn’t possibly have done such a thing. And even if he had, he couldn’t acknowledge it. He couldn’t deny...he might have looked, but it was only for a split second. Just for that split second, his eyes just...were drawn to them all on their own. It wasn’t on purpose. It was just like...a sort of reflex.

Hmm? Wait. What was it the captain just said?

The captain’s warning finally sank in.

We get caught...even if we’re just sneaking a glance? But that’s ridiculous...

Maximilian looked at Rose again.

If that’s the truth, then...does that mean this whole time...?

When Maximilian met Rose’s gaze, she put her hands to her flushed cheeks and smiled bashfully.

“Nngh...” Even if she was his stepmother...she was so cute. Had she always been the type to smile so gently?

Wait, no! Does that really mean she... She’s known? She’s known it every time?!

“Oh, he looked again! Maximilian peeked at Rose’s breasts again!”

“M-Mother, please! Not so loud!”

Please, stop! Why does my mother have to announce to the whole world that I tried to get a glimpse of a girl’s breasts?! Maximilian’s face grew flush but then pale. This is hell, isn’t it?! I-I can’t help it! It’s just a thing men do if they see a bountiful bosom! I-I can’t help that! It’s just instinct! Pure instinct!

“Your Highness... Please don’t be so self-conscious... It’s not just you. Er... Everyone does it.” Rose timidly tried to offer him a lifeboat, her cheeks still red. She had her hand on her chest with embarrassment, and her eyebrows were lifted ever so slightly as she told him not to worry about it.

Even that little action is so adorable...

“I-I’m so sorry!” If a tiny little glance like this was enough to get him caught, then it meant every time he looked, he’d been caught too. Maximilian threw off his blankets and lowered his head. The royal family wasn’t meant to lower their heads so easily, but...he had to apologize for this.

“Er, i-it’s really quite all right. Please, raise your head. Really, it’s not just you. Everyone does it...” Rose replied sheepishly. They hadn’t brought him there to make him apologize. There was a lot that needed to be explained, so Rose gave the prime minister and captain of the knights a pleading look.

“W-We’re sorry too!” Unfortunately, they mistook her intention and they lowered their heads too.

Boys of the world, listen closely: No matter how much you think you’re getting away with it, you’re not.

The queen let out a sigh of relief as she looked at her son bowing down in apology. “I’m so relieved... I really am.”

“Wait... You think this is a good thing?” That I’m being a creep? Maximilian couldn’t believe his ears.

“I am too.” Rose agreed with the queen.

“Huh?”

“Because it means you’ve finally returned to your senses.” The prime minister was pinching the bridge of his nose with joy.

“I-I have?”

“We were really worried for a second there...” The captain rubbed his shoulders and cricked his neck.

“Huh?” Did this mean... “Did you all realize I’d had a spell cast on me?”

The kingdom hadn’t had a mage in many long years. That was why they had next to no defenses against magic. The Western Empire was a major power with plenty of magic. With such an advantage, they were sure the kingdom wouldn’t have recognized if the Western Empire had made a move. By the time they did, they would have already been invaded. That was exactly what the mage who cast the spell on him had said between cackles.

“Why, of course. We’ve already dispatched the knights to Simmons Harbor too,” Queen Victoria responded reassuringly.

“What?!” At this, Maximilian crawled out of bed and rushed to the window. How could he have been spacing out this whole time?! The castle, and the whole capital, was going to be nothing more than a sea of flames by evening! Once the sun set, cannons would be fired right at them from the harbor... “Huh?”

The sun had already set. It was out of sight, and the lights around town were already burning. Apparently, several hours had passed since he’d lost consciousness.

“The capital...is safe?” The prince collapsed to his knees as his head whirled with what was happening. The plan was that the capital would be a sea of flames and the castle would have been utterly destroyed by now.

“Prince Maximilian, now’s not the time to slouch. We need you to tell us what the Western Empire did to you, what they plan to do to the kingdom, and anything else you can remember,” the captain said, still in the royal bow. The only information the kingdom had had come from a single merchant, and they desperately needed more.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Maximilian murmured. He knew that even if the capital hadn’t been engulfed in flames, the kingdom still had no way to survive. Maximilian had been despairing ever since the day he’d come face-to-face with the horrors of magic. There was magic on a scale that people of the kingdom couldn’t possibly imagine. Nobody could have imagined the enemy could invade from places other than the sea. “There’s no time left.”

“Your Highness?”

If the king had gone on the school field trip like he had every year, then even his great father was no longer with them. Maximilian felt tears stream down his face. Finally, his body belonged to him again. He could finally cry again. He could finally cry for his country, and for himself.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Are you feeling any better now?” Rose softly asked Maximilian.

“Yes. I’m so sorry you had to see me like that, Lady Rose.” Maximilian had told them all about the danger coming to the kingdom. About how the Western Empire was using a horrifying weapon, a teleportation magic circle, to invade. It was likely that the Skyte region, where they’d been sending their monsters, was already in ruins. Then, to truly put the nail in the coffin, they were going to send the Western Imperial Army directly to the capital using the same circle. “It’s only a matter of time before the capital falls into the Western Empire’s hands. And father is probably already...”

No matter how strong his father was, there was no way he could possibly survive against those monsters. Maximilian plummeted into the depths of remorse over the kingdom’s imminent destruction. The Skyte region was quite far away, and even if they got enough knights together to respond, they wouldn’t make it in time. Even if they could make it, the results would be the same. There was no way the kingdom could stand a chance against the might of the Western Empire. There was nothing they could do.

“Max...” The queen held Maximilian in her arms as he agonized over their imminent destruction.

“It can’t be...” The prime minister fell to his knees. First the cannons, now the monsters and the Western Imperial Army?

“It’s just unthinkable...” The captain clenched his fists. How could they be so powerless?

“Hee... Hee hee.” Rose gave a little laugh, as though she’d gone mad over it.

“I’m so sorry, Lady Rose... I know Edward’s in Skyte too...” Maximilian only realized when he heard Rose laugh: It wasn’t just the king attending the field trip that year. Rose’s son, the second-born prince Edward was participating as well.

“Rose...” The queen looked worriedly at her.

“Hee hee. It’ll all be fine. Please don’t worry, Queen Victoria.” Rose smiled so brightly, it could dispel the dark feelings that had come over them, and she held Victoria’s hand in her own. “And you as well, Lord Maximilian!” She took Maximilian’s hand in her free hand. “Now, I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but that...teleportation magic circle thing? Well, I believe the Western Empire is going to regret having made the Skyte region its destination.”

“Please, spare me the pithy comforts,” Maximilian muttered as he shook his hanging head. Even that kindness only brought him more pain.

“Do you have some reason to believe that?” the queen asked Rose, who was still smiling. She was deathly serious.

“Mother?” Maximilian took notice of his mother’s expression.

“Max, a king must never let any possibility pass him by.” The queen wasn’t telling him to cling onto every tiny possibility; she was telling him that he should prepare himself for anything so he could cope with whatever transpired.

“Well, because Emma’s in the Skyte region right now!”

“What.”

Rose’s assurance hardly sounded like even a tiny possibility.

“George and William are with her too!”

“Uh...?”

“And even Count Stewart and his wife are there!”

“Okay...?” Even the queen was wondering where she was going with this.

“Lady Rose, what could five people possibly change about this situation?” Maximilian couldn’t comprehend it.

“The Stewart family will be able to help,” Rose insisted, doing her absolute best to hide her own worries. The Stewart family had defeated slimes, so surely they could defeat any monsters the Western Empire sent their way. She just had to tell herself to believe that they could even beat the Western Empire’s Army. That way, the king and Edward would come home safely. She knew it was a heavy burden to place such hopes and pleas on the family, but she wanted to believe. She wanted to believe that Emma could solve any problems, no matter how impossible, with that angelic smile of hers.

“The Stewart family...?” They ruled over the rural Pallas region, which had recently and very rapidly grown quite prosperous. That was about all Maximilian knew.

“Come to think of it, the Stewart family was the one who discovered the way to defeat a slime while actually facing one, saving the whole kingdom from danger.” The queen didn’t disagree with Rose’s outrageous statement. After all, the reason the queen knew about slimes in the first place was because she’d read the reports about the localized barrier crisis. There was no monster more dangerous than a slime, according to the report. Yet the family who had defeated three was now in the Skyte region... If that was the case, then it really was a glimmer of hope.

“But it’s still not that simple...” Maximilian murmured. It was already a certain fact that the Western Empire was invading the kingdom.

“Max, if the situation’s already come to this, then why not try to think positively?” The queen had already made up her mind. “If the kingdom’s already been invaded, then the royal family will be executed before anything else. There’s no point thinking about what happens after we’re dead. So instead, wouldn’t it be more fun to think about what we can do if the Stewart family does pull off some miraculous feat?”

“Fun?”

“I didn’t get involved with politics because I became queen. I became queen so I could be involved with politics. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened in the world, right? Let’s come up with a perfect charge for restitution that’s so ironclad, they’ll never even think about attacking the kingdom again.” The queen’s face was filled to the brim with determination.

“Lady Victoria, that’s a splendid idea!” Rose said, raising their still clasped hands in the air.

The queen extended her free hand toward Maximilian. “Max?”

“Ha... Ha ha ha... Yeah. That does sound pretty fun.” His mother was right. The Western Empire would never let the royal family live. If, as Lady Rose said, they were able to do something about all this, the information Maximilian had come across while the Western Empire was controlling him would come in handy. With his information, they could make a demand so airtight that the Western Empire would have to pay whatever price they set. Maximilian took his mother’s hand. He gave both the queen and Rose a look, one after the other, and made up his mind. He thrust his two mothers’ hands up in the sky as well. “Let’s do this!”

As a result of their preparations that day, Maximilian Lewin Royale’s name would go down in history as the Great Negotiator who made massive contributions to the kingdom’s growth and solved countless national crises with his superior wit, information gathering skills, and courage when push came to shove...but that’s a story for another time.

Chapter 93: Danger Approaches

Meanwhile, in the monster-infested forest in the Skyte region, where the Western Empire was closing in...

“Mmm... Nngh...”

The king, the most important person in the kingdom, had gone mad from an encounter with one of the Skyte region’s usual monster denizens and had been knocked out by Kongming’s powerful paw pad, then been stripped of his belongings by Emma. He’d finally regained consciousness.

“Your Majesty!”

“E-Emma?” The first thing that popped into the king’s vision was a smiling, frail, young noblewoman. She was the daughter of a count and known to all. She never should have set foot in such a dangerous forest. “Wh-Why are you here?!”

“Oh, I’m so glad! You’ve regained your sanity again!” Emma giggled with a perfect smile that absolutely did not belong in a forest like this. She peered at the king’s face with a hand on his chest.

“You kinda went a little... Er, a bit... Okay, look, you lost your mind because of the monsters here.” The king could see Leonard’s relieved face behind Emma. His blood had run cold when the Hunting Techniques instructor rushed to find him. When Leonard regrouped with the others, he’d been absolutely gobsmacked to see Kongming, Emma, and their fellow noblewoman friends. William explained the whole situation, and naturally, it was enough to make the poor man’s head spin. He’d tried to get Emma to back away because, if the king woke up still in his berserk state, she would have been in danger, but Emma stubbornly refused to leave his side. The king waking up with his wits about him gave some much needed relief to Leonard’s stretched-thin nerves.

“Your Majesty, I apologize for asking you this after you’ve just awoken, but I have some questions I need to ask you for prudence’s sake,” Arven asked from a little distance away. It was his own little secret that he’d been gripping his bow tightly, ready to strike the king down if anything could possibly bring harm to Emma. (It turned out the king’s life was in danger whether the Western Empire arrived or not.)

“Huh? Oh, uh... Nothing really hurts in particular.” The king was still unaware of what exactly had happened to him, but he answered Arven’s questions in earnest.

“Lady Emma truly is an angel... Did you see how devoted she was to nursing the king back to health?”

“No matter how Count Leonard tried to convince her she’d be in danger, she wouldn’t leave his side for a second...”

“She just stayed there, stroking his body while he was still unconscious...”

As the king was undergoing Arven’s interrogation, the Skyte hunters and the knights accompanying the king were all praising Emma’s actions. If he’d gone mad again, it really would have been dangerous. Yet even after seeing his rampage with her own eyes, Emma had shown no fear. Rather, she’d had a smile on her face the whole time as she’d treated him...or so it seemed to them.

“Are we sure Lady Emma isn’t a true saint?”

Going against the church’s teachings came with the risk of being branded a heretic, yet everyone there had to agree.

Well, except two people. George and William happened to be listening in on it too.

“We never could get sis away from those muscles, huh? Er, I mean the king.”

“Y’know, for all her insisting that she didn’t want to consummate anything... I’m pretty sure the only reason she misheard any of that was because she was self-conscious about wanting to.”

The two brothers’ troubles really never ended. Both of them could only sit there with indescribably bitter expressions.

◆ ◆ ◆

Meanwhile, in the Western Empire, a cage was being rolled along on a cart which made a horrific rumbling sound. The cage was draped in a jet-black fabric so it was impossible to tell what was inside. The trolley was being pulled by several brawny men, who all seemed stiff and nervous. The Western Imperial Army was surrounding them all, and in the center was a massive magic circle.

“Ah, they’ve made it,” the chief delegate muttered, then laughed. With this, the kingdom was as good as theirs. “Wonderful. Put the cage in the magic circle and unlock it.”

They would be using the magic circle to send the contents of the cage to the kingdom before the army made its move.

“Er, it’s not too late, sir... It’ll be extremely dangerous to let it out.” One of the men surrounding the cage said. It had taken the lives of thirteen men just to capture it alive.

“Hmph. All the better. That’s why we’re sending it to the kingdom. It’ll take care of those pests before we even get there. With any luck, it’ll take down all the hunters stationed in the forest and the nearby villagers, making our jobs a lot easier when we get there.” In fact, it should take out the poor unlucky king who just happened to be on the field trip there as well.

The envoy was rather knowledgeable about monsters. Unlike in the kingdom, those who specialized in monster studies in the Western Empire were treated quite well. In the kingdom, monster hunting was left up to the lords on the borders of the barrier, but in the Western Empire, hardly anyone who had such knowledge was sent to hunt them. Those who dedicated their intellect to monster studies were seen as especially valuable, and would spend their time in an office in the capital of the Empire simply giving orders. Interacting directly with monsters was left solely to those called “safekeepers.” Though the practice was outlawed in the kingdom, there was no small number of slaves among those safekeepers in the Western Empire.

The delegate gave a nasty grin. “Were you aware? There’s a certain little monster that likes to run around near the barrier in Skyte where our magic circle is set up.”

“A certain little... No, you don’t mean rainbow raccoons, do you?!” The shock spread through all the men who had brought the cage.

For a little while, there had been a thought exercise that had become popular among the safekeepers: What would be the worst possible combination of monsters you could encounter if the monsters of the northern and southern continents were in the same place—something that could never possibly happen. Of the combinations they came up with, the worst possible one they’d all agreed on was the monster they were sending in that cage from the southern continent, and rainbow raccoons, which only appeared on the northern continent. They’d barely managed to capture this beast because it was all alone, but if there were rainbow raccoons in the kingdom...

This envoy was about to re-create the exact nightmare scenario the safekeepers had only ever considered in hypotheticals.

“Well, I hear the safekeepers...or, sorry, I believe they’re called hunters in the kingdom? I’ve heard they’re quite skilled. Surely they can wear it out to some degree. We can just wait until it’s exhausted and capture it again,” the envoy said, ignoring the men’s fears.

“But...but we’re talking about rainbow raccoons! There’s no way! There’s nothing we can do if they’re in the same place!” The envoy’s idea was pure sophistry. What would a man who only knew of that monster, who’d never even come face-to-face with one, possibly know? There was no way that a human could possibly face one of those monsters and a rainbow raccoon at the same time. Not only would it be enough to bring the whole kingdom to ruin, but it would also be putting the Western Imperial Army in trouble when they came out of the magic circle afterward.

“Oh, quit with your whining and move the damn cart already,” the delegate ordered, before the men’s fear could spread to his squadron. He had been waiting for the perfect chance to bury that awful, irritating king for so very long. Out of all the kings he’d known as the chief delegate, none had ever made a fool of him like King Charles Constantine Royal. Just remembering it was enough to make him seethe.

“Sir, the cage is in place.” The cage had been left on the cart in the center of the magic ring. The men carrying it had all stepped away save for one, who remained behind to unlock the cage. “It really is dangerous, though. Please make sure it gets teleported immediately after the cage is unlocked. You can’t be even a second too late.”

By now, there were worried looks among the men opposing the plan and the soldiers who were standing by surrounding the area.

“I heard you the first thousand times! I’m well aware! You hear that, mages? Make sure you teleport it right as the cage is unlocked if you don’t want to become charcoal.”

At the envoy’s orders, the mages surrounding the magic circle lowered their hoods to cover their faces, which had gone pale with nerves. After all, it had taken many precious magic stones to make the cage they’d used to capture the beast. If the plan failed, it would cut them off from getting more magic stones, which meant the mages’ lives would soon be a living hell.

Vvvvmmm... The magic circle lit up.

“I’m unlocking the cage!” the poor soul left in the middle of the magic ring shouted. His voice cracked with his nerves.

“That’s too soon, you idiot!”

“Graaaaah!” The moment the cage was unlocked, flames rose up all around them.

“Teleport it already!” the envoy shouted.

“Graaaaah!” The man who’d opened the cage was unable to run and was engulfed in flames.

“Eeek!” The mages surrounding the magic circle all drew back in fear of the fierce flames.

“Yeeeagh!”

“Eeeeek!”

“Aaaagh!”

Suddenly, they heard screams coming from the Western Imperial Army, who were on standby even farther away than the mages. They’d suddenly been engulfed in flames and were screaming madly in the unbearable heat.

“You imbeciles! How many times did I tell you not to look directly at it?!” The delegate clicked his tongue at the soldiers, who were rolling around trying to extinguish the flames. These utter buffoons, getting themselves hurt before we even get to the kingdom...

Vmmmm...

In the chaos, the magic circle finally activated, and the cage and its contents disappeared without a trace. The teleportation was complete. Oddly enough, once the beast was teleported, all the flames burning the soldiers suddenly went out. It was as though they’d never been there in the first place.

“Check how many injured we have and report it. We’ll use this magic circle to head to the kingdom in two hours.” The delegate, who was thoroughly irritated by the whole affair, ordered his squadron and gave icy glares to all the soldiers who were lying about on the floor. Despite the fact that they’d been engulfed in flames, there weren’t any traces of burns on their clothes. Yet all skin that was visible was red and inflamed, and blisters were starting to form. The combat medics gulped at the sight of the horrible wounds from flames that seemed to only target what was human.

The chief delegate plopped down in the chair that had been readied for him and sneered. “I suppose it’s not so bad. Given how much chaos it’ll cause for us in the kingdom, a few losses are perfectly acceptable.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Back at the Skyte region in the forest by the barrier...

“Anyway, we need to retreat as soon as possible,” Leonard pressed the king, who had just awakened from his kitty-induced slumber. It had taken ages for everyone to reconvene because of the king’s rampage, and on top of that, they’d had to wait for the king to regain consciousness. They were going to be returning to camp far later than they had planned.

Honestly, what is with this king? He’s been nothing but trouble! Leonard couldn’t hide the wrinkle forming on his brow.

“Hmm? Oh... But if we keep going a little bit further, we’ll reach the barrier, right? I’d really like to see it...” The king didn’t seem to notice Leonard’s impatience at all. He just figured since they’d come this far, they might as well see the barrier while they were at it.

“Nngh...” The hunters and knights all did their best to hide their groans. They were too tired to interject anymore.

“That won’t do, Your Majesty. The sun is already starting to set. If it gets too dark and we encounter any monsters with good night vision, not even we can guarantee your safety,” Arven insisted. When fighting monsters, the most important thing was to determine what monster one was up against. It was quite difficult to tell certain types of monsters apart in the dark. What was more, a lot of nocturnal monsters were particularly nasty to deal with, so hunters tended to avoid hunting at night.

“Hmm? Oh! Father! Uncle Arven!” Emma, who’d been gawking and staring so as not to miss a second of the king’s muscles, took a look around her for a moment and immediately called to her family. She felt a little guilty for having been so taken by the king’s muscles that she hadn’t noticed it until just then. Their path forward was completely blocked off.

“Oh, shoot... Are those...what I think they are?” When William followed Emma’s gaze, he turned to look at the Skyte lord, realizing this could be a problem. These monsters would be a bit tough to handle with their current party. Even though his father, brother, and uncle were all used to hunting, even they could be a bit unpracticed around monsters that weren’t native to Pallas.

“Of all the rotten luck...” The one-armed Skyte lord gave each of his hunters a look to signal them. The monsters before them were ones that appeared in Skyte relatively frequently. Usually, there would only be one or two of them, but now there were far more than usual. At the lord’s signal, the hunters nodded silently and quickly lit their lamps. Though it had gotten a bit dark, they’d only been using minimal lantern light so monsters wouldn’t find them. However, that wasn’t always the right call. These monsters were worse to fight in the dark, because the dark was something people feared.

“Can you tell we have monsters blocking our path, Your Majesty? They’re not all that big, but you still need to be careful. These monsters attack the psyche, so I want you to listen. Do not look directly at them. However, you also cannot lose track of them.” Arven explained as he readied his bow.

“What?” The king was baffled by these instructions, but he did his best to only look right in front of where the monsters stood, though they seemed to practically blend in with the dark forest.

“Those are called rainbow raccoons. They can change the color of their bodies to blend in with their surroundings like a chameleon. We need to defeat them before the sun has fully set!” William began teaching the inexperienced knights and king about the monsters’ characteristic behaviors as he counted the number of rainbow raccoons. If there were no light, the rainbow raccoons’ fur would blend completely into the dark, leaving their only hint of visibility the glowing of their eyes...which was exactly what the monsters wanted. It was a very clear rule that one should never look a monster that attacked the psyche in the eyes, because that was how their attacks worked.

People were naturally afraid when they were faced with any sort of monster. Rainbow raccoons would take the fear in those people’s hearts and make it grow and grow until it turned into full-blown panic. Similar to the charm magic mages could use, it was more effective on people with weak hearts. Once one person began to panic, it would spread through the group, sending the whole party into hysterics and destroying the ability for them to cooperate. That was why it was best to fight them with only a small crew. Unfortunately, they’d happened to encounter the worst possible monsters at the worst possible time, when there were more people on the hunt, including the king and the prince.

This was exactly why we’d split into two groups, with one making sure the road ahead was safe! If the king hadn’t gone mad, then we wouldn’t have joined back up into one again! Everything went exactly the opposite way it was supposed to! William thought.

Just then, Leonard shouted, “Numbers check! Seven!”

“Seven!” Arven responded.

“Seven!” George, who was standing a bit behind them, guarding the girls with the prince and Arthur, answered.

“Seven!” William, who had just finished counting a moment ago, responded. When fighting multiple monsters, it was important to make sure everyone was on the same page about how many there were.

“Nine!” Emma answered last.

“Nine, huh...” Leonard agreed.

“Huh?” The king cocked his head. Normally, if opinions were split four to one, the majority ruled. That wasn’t how it worked for the Stewarts, though. Instead, they deferred to Emma’s eyes, which she’d honed through her copious insect collecting.

“I guess it’s nine, then...” Arven didn’t doubt his niece either, but that was more because he was completely niece-brained than anything else.

“Where are the other two, sis?” William asked, since he couldn’t find them.

“They’re hiding behind the third raccoon from our right.” Emma pointed at the rainbow raccoons that were lurking in the grass, trying to hide. Their fur was blending in with the grass, so it was hard to see them without looking very closely.

“Oh, there they are... I was thinking there were more whiskers than usual. Must’ve been because they were overlapping!” George bopped himself on the head, as if to say, Boy, they really got me!

“Wait, you can see their whiskers?!” Arthur and the prince were both shocked. There were over fifty meters between George and the monsters, and he was standing behind them. They couldn’t understand how he was able to see their whiskers but not look them in the eyes.

When the two boys tried to look at the monsters, George covered their eyes in a panic. “Agh, Lord Arthur! Your Highness! You can’t look at them! They’ll make you go crazy with fear! Be like Lady Marion and the others!” This was exactly why having amateurs was so dangerous.

“L-Lady Marion... That’s a real monster.”

“Calm yourself, Lady Francesca. We learned about those monsters in our extracurricular lessons, didn’t we?”

“We did.”

“We learned about them too, didn’t we, Caitlyn?”

“We did learn about them too, Catherine!”

Francesca and the twins agreed with Marion.

“Then what is it we’re supposed to do?”

“Keep our eyes closed and stay put!”

“Mroooowr!” Kongming gave a meow of praise to the girls’ answer.

They’d all remembered the explanation from class and Emma’s helpful tips after. According to them, “If you panic, you risk hurting yourself, making other people panic, and getting in the way. Therefore, you’ll have a much higher chance of survival if you just close your eyes and don’t move.”

“I need you to listen, okay, Lord Arthur? Your Highness? The most dangerous people in this situation are those who have a good sword arm, okay? The Skyte hunters are used to these guys, so neither of you need to butt in, okay? Even if you just wanna look good in front of the girls, it’s gonna fail a hundred percent of the time when you’re dealing with monsters,” George said, really drilling his point home.

“I know.” Edward thought back to the horrible memories of when they’d fought the slimes and obediently closed his eyes.

“Myah!” (It’s harder for me to protect you all if you move around all willy-nilly, so keep your eyes closed and stay close to me!) Kongming said. Emma, who normally would have interpreted for her, was out of earshot, so they shouldn’t have known what Kongming was saying, yet the prince, Arthur, and the girls all nodded. After all, kitty language was all about vibes and enthusiasm.

“E-Emma? Emma, shouldn’t you and William be going that way too...?” the king asked worriedly, pointing toward the girls being protected by the cat.

“I’m okay! Actually, you should be going there, and I... Hmm?” Emma was going to say that she wanted to see a real rainbow raccoon in the flesh so she could expand her monster karuta deck, but then she felt something poking her elbow. Nobody was there when she looked, but she heard a voice whispering in her ear.

“Lady Emma... Remember what I’m here for?” It was Hugh. Having been trained in the ninja arts by the ninjas at the Stewart household, Hugh had made himself invisible and poked her elbow, muttering because it was hard for him to bring up at this time.

“Huh? Oh!” Emma had completely forgotten why she’d come into the forest in the first place. “Your Majesty...” Emma took the letter she’d received from Hugh and handed it to the king.

“What’s this?”

Their way was blocked by monsters with psyche attacks, and the Skyte hunters were slowly making their way toward their enemy without looking directly at them. It was already an incredibly tense moment, yet Emma was still smiling as she responded.

“It’s a letter from the queen!”

“Wait, now?!”

“Yes! It’s apparently really important, so you should read it right away!”

“Okay, but now?!”

“Yes!”

The king swore it couldn’t possibly be something he needed to deal with right then.

The first round of attacks from the Western Empire had been avoided without any further problems thanks to Joshua and the kitties back home. However, that was just a taste of what was to come. Soon, the Skyte region would be taken by the Western Empire’s evil clutches. So what would the Stewart family do, when they’re still unaware? What about the monsters? The Western Imperial Army? Would the Tanaka family be able to stop this world’s very first war of conquest?

All that will be revealed next time.

Special Side Story: Arven and the Stewart Family Women’s Association

“I’m so sorry to have called you all here during such a busy time,” Arven said, bowing his head deeply. Arven, the acting lord of Pallas at the time, was bowing to three of the Pallas lords’ wives.

“Busy? None of us are nearly as busy as you are, Arven.” An older woman with white hair and excellent posture smiled at him. She was Abigail, the wife of Gane Stewart, who became the ruler of what once was the Passott region before it was put under the Stewart family’s control.

“Hee hee. Lord Arven, you’ve really prepared us a fine cup of tea, haven’t you?” Next to Abigail was a refined older woman who praised Arven’s tea with beautiful manners.

“I’m thrilled to hear you enjoy it, Lady Serena.”

She was the wife of Zack Stewart, ruler of what was once the Lengrend region but had now come under the Stewart family’s control.

“So, what didja want with us?” the middle-aged redhead sitting next to Serena asked bluntly. This woman, who was most unfamiliar with noble niceties, was Carolina, wife of Zack and Serena’s son, Guillermo. Arven had called the whole Stewart Family Women’s Association to the Stewart household, after all.

“I’ve heard tell of what you all have been capable of, so please, first and foremost, allow me to thank you.” Arven once again lowered his head. If not for these women, Pallas would have been an absolute mess after all of their husbands decided to up and visit the capital.

Arven was supposed to have gone to the capital by himself, and he’d made all sorts of plans to that effect, but they were all (physically) taken from him by these women’s husbands. If things had gone his way, Arven would’ve been hanging out with Emma right at that moment.

“Well, you know the kinda men they are. It’s to be expected,” Abigail said with a dignified tone, as she raised her eyebrows apologetically. “The things we do for love, right?” In a family full of people who were terrible at math like the Stewarts, Abigail was a priceless addition, being the daughter of a merchant. She was the only person Arven could trust with all his heart to manage the ledger.

“Hee hee. Yes, we’re quite used to this,” Serena agreed, with a dainty aura about her. Serena was the particularly carefully raised daughter of a high-peered noble. When Zack had graduated from the academy in the capital and was meant to return home, she was practically forced to elope with him to stay with him. In other words, despite her dainty appearance, she actually was quite bold and courageous. As the majority of the Stewart family struggled with high society, she was the one who single-handedly took responsibility for all of the social niceties with the nobles around them.

“Eeexactly. We’re just doin’ what we can,” Carolina agreed. Carolina was born and raised on Stewart family land, and therefore had a very strong personality and body. She’d been friends with Guillermo since they were kids. She was older than him, and strong enough to work as a monster hunter. In other words, she was what one would imagine a Stewart woman to be.

“When you put it that way, I really can’t apologize enough for having to ask you for your help again...” Arven was nervous before the three of them. They were all completely different from the women Arven usually spent time around. It wasn’t just Leonard; all the Stewart family men had incredible taste.

“Oh, that’s right... It’s about that time, isn’t it?” Abigail sighed, realizing summer had come to a close.

“Eugh, they’re comin’ back again, huh?” Carolina’s thoroughly displeased expression showed how much she already missed summer. Once summer was over, Pallas had to prepare to bring in a bunch of hunters from regions without any monsters. Number five on the Six Precepts for Regional Monster Subjugation was that rulers of borderlands would have to regularly accept hunters from less monster-laden lands to instruct them in the art of hunting. And every year, it was a tremendous pain.

“I truly hope nobody causes too much trouble this year...” Serena looked off into the distance, the reality too harsh for her to face. Every year, Gane, Zack, and Guillermo were at their wits’ end dealing with this. Unlike Pallas hunters, the hunters they’d have to train weren’t hardened warriors. They were a bunch of nobles who were raised comfortably at home, and several of them were second- and third-born sons who were particularly unmanageable.

“We had to pay tremendous damages last year when they sneaked out of their lodgings to party at the nearby taverns...” Abigail, who had looked over all the ledgers in Pallas, moaned as she rubbed her temples.

“Hmm... Well, I know our husbands will probably be back by the time these jerks show up, but I don’t wanna leave you to prepare for it all on your own either, Lord Arven.”

“Naturally, we’ll help out.”

“Of course.”

The other two women agreed with Carolina.

“Thank you so much.” It made things much easier for him that all the women in the family were able to deduce what he needed before he’d said anything. It sure wouldn’t have gone this way if he’d gone to the Stewart men. “Now, there’s one thing I thought about changing up a bit this year...” Arven said as he deftly passed out some papers he’d prepared.

“You want to make new lodgings?”

“Starting now?”

“But that’d be...”

The three women looked over their papers, then shifted their gazes to Arven in surprise.

“Yes. I just received a large quantity of these from my brother in the capital yesterday,” Arven said as he placed a shard of something about the size of his fist on the table in front of them.

“And what are these?” Asked Abigail.

“These are parts of a plant monster called an owata.”

“An owata?” Serena cocked her head, having not heard of such a monster before.

“That’s right. There aren’t any records of them having ever appeared in the kingdom, so it’s no surprise you haven’t heard of them. These were souvenirs my brother’s family sent us from the Eastern Empire.”

“So they’re from the Eastern Empire?” Carolina remembered the lord’s family hadn’t come home last summer because they’d been in some foreign country. It really was just like them to send monsters home as a souvenir. Carolina took one of the owata parts into her hands and looked at it with deep interest.

“Goodness... This is quite convenient, isn’t it?” Abigail said with a smile as she looked over the paper Arven had given her.

“Is it, now?”

“In fact, it says it’s strong enough to withstand a barrage of a hundred monstauruses!”

Neither Serena nor Carolina could believe their ears.

“Apparently, you can use these owata shards to make a very strong structure both quickly and easily.” Quickly and easily. Reading the information on the souvenirs they’d received had given Arven a great idea. “I was thinking of using these to make a new boardinghouse in the area where monsters appear the most here in Pallas.”

The thing that caused them the most trouble during these training sessions was their hunters sneaking out of their lodgings and bothering the locals. The Stewarts loved the people under their rule, so they wanted to avoid getting under their skin at all costs.

“I see... With a bunch of monsters wandering about outside, nobody would think to sneak out, would they? Hee hee. Goodness, Lord Arven. You do have a nasty streak, don’t you?” Abigail snickered as she continued reading the papers.

“Normally, we start with lectures, then field trips to monster processing centers, then lastly get some practical lessons in with real monster hunts. But this year, I’ve reversed it entirely.” According to all the reports Arven had perused, the people who caused problems always did so in the first half of the summer. Once they’d laid eyes on monsters for the first time in the latter half, they were nice and obedient.

“But isn’t it dangerous to bring a buncha know-nothings onto the hunting grounds?” Carolina asked. As a hunter on the front lines, she had to worry.

“Normally yes. However, these are all the sons of nobles. They should have learned plenty in their Monster Studies classes. What they lack isn’t knowledge, but fear of monsters.” Since Arven had gone to the academy, he knew just how thorough Monster Studies classes were. If a noble was working as a hunter, then it could be assumed that they’d already completed Beginner’s Monster Studies.

“That makes sense.” Thus the plan was to plant the seed of fear in the newbies’ hearts so that the novice hunters would take their lessons seriously afterward.

“We also received this as a souvenir,” Arven said as he fetched the gift from the other room.

“Holy mackerel!” Carolina’s eyes were sparkling.

“Armored boar shields. And they’re made from the extra strong nose parts too. We’ve gotten a hundred of them.”

“Y’don’t see stuff like this in Pallas every day! And the nose parts?! Dang, just look at how well-made this is!” Armored boar shields were a necessity on a monster hunt, and hunters practically foamed at the mouth trying to get their hands on shields made from their noses.

“With a hundred of these...we can practically guarantee everyone’s safety, can’t we?” Serena smiled warmly at Carolina, who was rummaging through the shields.

“Indeed. With these in hand, you can survive the majority of attacks you might be faced with.” Arven seemed quite pleased with himself.

But then, Abigail piped up. “Lord Arven, let’s rent these out instead. You can still participate in the lessons without these shields, but I think once they come face-to-face with a monster, they’ll understand just how necessary they are. Let’s see... Each year, we get about seventy or eighty people, right? If we rent them for thirty silver a day, I believe we can get back all the money we spend to provide for them each year.”

Even if these lessons were forced upon them by the royal family, the border lords never received any financial assistance for it. It was the sort of thing they had to operate entirely at a loss. Unfortunately, given the damages from the localized barrier crises in the past, the border lords couldn’t exactly refuse either.

Arven trembled at Abigail’s suggestion. “Lady Abigail... You’re a genius, aren’t you?”

◆ ◆ ◆

A few days later...

“Man, it really was a cinch building with these things!” Carolina looked up at the lodgings they’d made using owata pieces on the boundary where monsters appeared most in Pallas.

“Indeed. Since owata pieces can be used as bricks, all we had to do was stack them. They’re quite sturdy too.” They’d been faced with countless monster attacks while they were building the lodgings, but didn’t lose a single brick.

“Heh heh. The rooms are nice ’n’ simple too, and the kitchen looks easy enough to use.” For however much more difficult they made it to go outside, they made the inside perfectly supportive for daily life.

“Indeed. Owata pieces are extremely versatile, so we were able to use them not just for the walls and ceilings, but for the bathtubs, stove, furniture, and everything else you could need.” Arven had done as suggested by the letter he’d received with his souvenirs and made the whole building out of owata shard bricks. He seemed quite pleased with the results.

“This way, this whole place’ll stay standing even if I go buck wild in here, huh?”

“What?”

Carolina spun around with a big grin.

“I’ll look after the little turds comin’ to hunt with us!”

Nobody ever wanted to look after the hunters coming to train with them each year. They never listened to a word anyone said, they’d get all pouty if anyone spoke to them too harshly, then whine about how they got hit or whatever.

Carolina was likely stronger than any of the hunters coming to study, but she was also a woman. Funnily enough, nobles were always raised to treat women like they were delicate little flowers. If, in the worst-case, they tried to lash out and got their butts whipped by Carolina, it was very unlikely they’d complain about it as a matter of their “manly pride.”

Arven shuddered at Carolina’s suggestion. “Lady Carolina... You’re a goddess, aren’t you?”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day...

“The preparations for training are coming along quite nicely, aren’t they?” Serena had stopped by to visit the Stewart family manor.

“Yes. Lady Abigail did even more cost breakdowns on our armored boar shields, and we’ve just received notice that we should be able to get by with renting them for just thirty-five silver pieces.” They’d also made a special four-day rental course for a slight discount of two gold. While the hunters’ meals in the boardinghouse would be provided for free as usual, they could now pay an additional fee to get alcohol with their dinner as well. While their health expenses would be paid for as usual, they would have to pay extra for transportation costs in the event of any major injuries. There was also a training insurance system one could purchase at the start of the event for four gold in case anything happened. If one elected to purchase it, all paid services would be free, and any injuries that took over a month to recover from would have their fees paid for up to five gold pieces. In the worst-case event that someone died, they would send ten gold pieces to the bereaved family. The Stewarts would explain this just after the hunters arrived, once they’d seen the monsters roaming about inside their carriages and their fear was at its peak.

If Lady Abigail hadn’t married into Gane’s family and had instead taken him into hers and worked for her family’s merchant business, she likely could have been a rival for the Rothschild Company itself.

“Lady Abigail always does have such marvelous ideas!” Serena tittered elegantly. Just having Serena there was enough to make one forget they were on the border. It was like they’d been transported right into the midst of high society instead. “Why, I had an idea of my own, actually...”

Unlike Abigail or Carolina, it was quite rare for Serena to come forth with any ideas about monster hunting.

“I’d love to hear it.” No matter how busy he was, Arven was always willing to listen to the women of the family. After all, it was a treasure just being able to have an intellectual conversation here in Pallas.

“Well you see, I heard that Lord Theodore from the Ward region is soon to be wed.”

“That’s...wonderful to hear?” From what Arven could remember, Count Theodore Ward was the ruler of a land near the previous Lengrend region and was significantly older than Arven himself. He’d been friends with Gane and Zack since they were young, so he was on considerably good terms with the Stewart family. Gane once laughed and told him that Emma said she “wuvved” Lord Theodore once, causing some tension in their long-lived relationship.

“It is. Yet I also hear his bride-to-be is much younger than him... She’s only still a teen herself.”

“What?! Well, uh... Isn’t that something?” Lord Theodore’s wife had passed long before he did, and he had no children. Maybe that was why he wanted someone so much younger than him? But even still, that was so much younger than him.

“I’ve heard they get along quite well,” Serena followed up, as though she could tell just how much the age gap had surprised Arven by his expression alone. “I thought it might be nice for the two of them to come by Pallas for their honeymoon sometime soon.”

It might have been because they were worried about the age gap, but the viscount had told her that he wasn’t going to be holding a ceremony. That was when Serena suggested he come to the Pallas region to have a wedding dress made of their famous silk.

“Why, don’t you think a young woman would love to wear a wedding dress like that? Even if she doesn’t have a ceremony, just having a portrait would be enough to make them happy, don’t you think?” Serena seemed as enraptured as a young girl when she started talking about the wedding dress.

“I suppose you’re right.” Arven had no objections, but he didn’t think she needed to go out of her way to ask him permission for something like that.

“Therefore, I would like to offer them some Emma silk. Even just a little bit.” The Rothschild Company had put a limit on how much Emma silk was available, so it wasn’t very easy to procure.

“What for?” It wasn’t as though Arven couldn’t ask, after all.

“Well, Lord Theodore is about as much of a warrior as Lord Gane and my husband. I thought that if he were to stay here in Pallas on his honeymoon, he could be a great boon in the event any monsters might appear,” Serena said, peering into Arven’s eyes.

“He might, but since I’m here, it’s not... Wait. L-Lady Serena, you didn’t!”

“You have a field trip to get to, don’t you? Lord Gane, my husband, and my son will be coming home from the capital soon, so try to be gone before they get home,” Serena said, not breaking her gaze for a moment as she gave a mischievous wink. As sheltered as Serena’s life had been as a high-ranked noble, she had attended school in the capital as well, so she knew what sort of thing the field trip would be. In other words, she was telling Arven to go ahead and get to the capital. If he waited to leave until the others arrived, it would lead to another battle for who got to go. There was no such thing as a “turn order” when it came to seeing Emma. Therefore, whoever set out first would be the one to go.

“Lady Serena... You’re my savior, you know that?” Arven choked back his tears at Serena’s suggestion.

Thus, with the help of the Stewart Family Women’s Association, Arven was able to finish preparing for training faster than ever, head out to the capital, and participate in the school field trip.

As usual, a bunch of hunters from regions without any monsters came along being cocky as ever, but were soon to be subjected to a hell far worse than in any previous years. From seeing monsters for the first time, to being craftily exploited for every coin they had, to the ridiculously strong woman who could drink them under the table, to the worst of all, the teachers, who were all furious at Arven for getting ahead of them.

Their Monster Hunting teacher was Gane Stewart.

Their Monster Processing teacher was Guillermo Stewart.

Their Monster Lecture teacher was Zack Stewart.

From that year forward, training hunters in Pallas became a lot easier for the ones training them and a lot worse for those receiving said training. However, for as strict as it was, their skills improved significantly. No matter how much they begged and pleaded to train in a different region, nobody would let them.

◆ ◆ ◆

“You’re beautiful, my love,” Viscount Theodore Ward said to his new bride, clad in her wedding dress. The dress was so pure white that it practically glowed, and it made Lila’s light-blue hair look even more beautiful.

“Lord Theodore, I really can’t thank you enough for such a lovely dress,” Lila replied with tears in her eyes. Given that her family had been practically disgraced, Lila had given up on having a wedding ceremony, as she didn’t have any relatives or friends she could proudly invite. That was why she hadn’t even thought it possible that she could come here on her honeymoon and wear a wedding dress at all.

“This is the greatest painter in Pallas. Now, now, Lord Ward, don’t get too taken by your bride now. You need to stand next to her!” Serena insisted as she pushed the two newlyweds together.

“I’ll paint you the greatest wedding portrait of all time,” the painter spouted his usual marketing spiel and began his rough sketch. “Pallas is on the border of the barrier, but it’s about as advanced as the capital now, so I’m sure you’ll be able to enjoy the rest of your trip as well. You should try the black monstaurus for dinner tonight. Oh, and there’s a monstaurus cheese fondue that’s pretty popular with the ladies too!” The painter seemed to like talking, so he did his best to entertain the couple as he worked.

“Lord Theodore... I’m truly happy right now,” Lila whispered to the much older man.

“Why, what a coincidence. I feel the very same,” the older man replied with a smile as he ran his fingers through her light-blue hair.

“Oh, no moving please!” the painter teased with a very serious face as he put the finishing touches on his painting. This painter was a well-regarded artist who was always up-to-date with the latest trends from the capital. In the capital, a patron by the name of Carne Lombart had gathered all sorts of up-and-coming artists who were bringing all sorts of new styles to the world of art. “And lastly, we’ll put just a teensy bit of pink on the new bride’s elbow here, and we’re done!”

Naturally, several months later, the border land of Pallas exploded in popularity as a hotspot for honeymoons.

Afterword

Hello, everyone. This is Choco. Thank you for reading my isekai light novel, The Tanaka Family Reincarnates Volume 6: a book made by curry lovers, for curry lovers, about curry lovers. The scene with the roc came to me when a black kite attacked me while I was taking a walk with a bento in my hands. (I defended my bento to my dying breath.)

I ask that you all please do not look up images of bird attacks from the sky without fully preparing yourself for it. (I was so confused, I wound up just throwing in my usual warnings.)

Since Liu’s staying home in the capital right now, Kongming is the cover kitty again. The curry on the cover looks so delicious, I’m obsessed. It’s making me hungry.

I’d like to use this space to thank kaworu, who always provides me with incredible character designs and illustrations. And lastly, I want to thank all of you who have supported The Tanaka Family Reincarnates. I’ll devote myself wholeheartedly to writing more Tanaka family for you while wishing you all the best in health and success. I hope you’ll keep reading! Thanks as always!

Choco