Encounter with Grandmother…
The woman had soft, brownish-blonde hair tied up, and she gazed at me with gentle orange eyes.
If she was Mikhail’s grandmother, she should be quite old, but perhaps due to her high mana as a high-ranking noble, she looked only about forty years old. Her face… closely resembled my deceased mother.
“…Oh, I’m sorry. Calling you by my deceased daughter’s name, how foolish of me.”
“No…”
I didn’t know how to respond to the woman who smiled sadly with a troubled expression, and I shook my head slightly, a strange atmosphere hanging between us.
“…Cecilia. Are you alright?”
Perhaps sensing the mood, the Border Count called out with concern, and the woman called Cecilia looked startled and bowed her head to the Border Count.
“Belt-sama… I apologize.”
“No… it’s enough that you all are safe.”
Saying so, they embraced as if confirming each other’s safety, and then they immediately showed the faces of high-ranking nobles rather than a married couple.
“I want to hear what happened. Tell me everything that has happened so far.”
“Understood, Belt-sama.”
“Mikhail! Lead the members of the mansion and deal with the enemies! I will report to His Majesty using the long-distance communication magic tool!”
“Yes!”
Mikhail responded to the Border Count’s command with tension… and yet, he gave a glance that seemed to understand something, concerned about his grandparents and me, before rushing towards the castle walls. The Border Count, seeing off his grandson, turned towards me, his face slightly bitter.
“…Aria. Please help Mikhail.”
“Yes.”
The Border Count gave instructions to me as well, and Cecilia, who had started walking towards the mansion with Belt, worriedly saw off Mikhail, then turned back to look at me several times as if reluctant to leave.
“…………”
That person is my mother’s… But now is not the time to think about that.
I watched the two people who might be my “blood relatives” enter the mansion, and then I rushed towards the castle walls, chasing after another person who might be a blood relative.
But there—
“—【Magic Shield (Shield)】—!”
CRASH!!
I instinctively used 【Magic Shield (Shield)】 to deflect the mana attack aimed at Mikhail, but the unexpected high power caused the 【Magic Shield (Shield)】 to shatter with a phantom sound like breaking glass, and Mikhail, who was being protected, widened his eyes.
“Aria!”
“I’m fine.”
Was that attack an offensive magic? But it wasn’t an attribute magic, it was non-attribute Mana Particles. Still, it’s different from a Combat Art.
‘So you’ve come all the way to this place to interfere, Adventurer woman!’
A group different from the unit attacking here appeared, and a cloaked man riding a horse at the front shouted that. I can’t see his face. But this voice is…
“…Amor?”
Prince Amor. No, he should be the former Prince Amor now that the Border Count has arrived here.
Amor, who had been attacking from the rear, had reached this point. If our arrival had been delayed even a little, we might have run into each other.
Amor spotted me standing on the castle walls, and he broke away from the group, riding his horse into the air as if jumping over the unit that had been attacking earlier.
Amor’s horse has been enhanced…
“I won’t forgive you! I won’t forgive you!”
“Try to show me.”
To intercept Amor, I also jumped off the castle walls and into the air.
“!?”
Amor’s left arm stretched out as if catching me off guard. A moment of chills. With a bad feeling, I avoided it by kicking off the air to change my position, struck that arm with a Ball-Shaped Pendulum, and aimed for Amor’s neck with a general-purpose one.
Clang!
Amor’s sword in his right hand knocked down the Pendulum. Amor, whose extended arm was struck, lost his balance along with his horse, but even as he fell, he began to accumulate non-attribute Mana Particles in his returned left arm.
The mana attack from earlier!
“—【Critical Edge (Critical Edge)】—”
My Combat Art, 【Critical Edge】’s flash, cut through the shockwave of Mana Particles and attacked Amor. But Amor forcefully pulled the reins with his arm strength alone, using his horse as a shield to get through the Combat Art, and then fell to the ground as he was.
I failed to finish him off. I switched my focus in an instant, and while running horizontally across the wall using the Blade Scythe Style Pendulum that I had hooked onto the castle walls as a base, I shattered the ladders of the knights trying to climb the wall by releasing the Ball-Shaped Pendulum.
The knights, their wills extinguished, couldn’t move on the spur of the moment without a direct attack on themselves, and fell to the ground from the shattered ladders without being able to put up much resistance.
“You, how dare you do that to His Highness!”
But a knight with a will mixed among them swung a Spear at me from the top of the ladder, for dropping Amor.
“—【Phantom Pain (Pain)】—”
“Giga!?”
If they have a will, 【Phantom Pain (Pain)】 will work.
While kicking away the screaming knight, I snatched the Spear from his hand, stabbed it into the heart of a nearby knight, shattered all the surrounding ladders, and then ran back up the castle walls like a pendulum.
Ooooooh—…
The Melrose soldiers couldn’t help but let out a voice at me, who had crushed the enemy’s general and siege weapons in just a few seconds of fighting. But it’s not over yet.
“You bastard!! Adventurer woman!!”
Amor, who had been dropped to the ground, echoed with a voice of resentment. He seems to have some grudge against me, but it’s desirable for the attacks to be concentrated on me.
Even so, to fall to the ground with his horse and be unharmed, has he also become Undead? More than that, I frowned at the “face” peeking out from the torn hood.
“Did you give up on being human too?”
“That’s Insolence! I have surpassed fragile humans!!”
Amor’s head had turned into a mass of wriggling small insects on the left half. That is… the guy who was among the Undead. Probably his left arm too. I don’t know what would have happened if I had taken Amor’s attack at that time.
I had a vague feeling that he would create Undead, but it seems he really gave up on being human.
He was an emotional man from the start, but now I can only feel madness from Amor’s eyes.
From the feeling of the earlier match, Amor’s current physical abilities would allow him to cross the castle walls and rampage on his own.
What is the reason he didn’t do that? Is it to use the people in the mansion as Bait to lure the Border Count, or has that transformation and madness diminished his intelligence?
Or is there another big reason…?
“Men, begin the attack! Drag that woman down from there!!”
“Oooooooooooooooo!!”
The Undead of the Second Knight Order raised their voices at Amor’s shout. But still, Amor didn’t move himself and left the castle siege to his subordinates.
Should I strike out immediately too? If I defeat Amor, the Undead will probably stop moving as well. Still, I can’t fight a hundred Undead and that Amor at the same time by myself.
There are people I need to protect behind me. If I start a fight without thinking, I will put those people in danger.
If I cooperate with the Melrose knights, I can see a way out, but can they cooperate with me, an Adventurer, even if I am a Princess’s escort?
“Miss Layton!”
At that time, the escort knight who was with the Border Count appeared and called out to me.
“The Border Count’s wife would like to speak with you. Would you please come?”
“…………”
Now that I’ve destroyed the siege ladders, I have some time. Still, if I leave here, I will be in trouble in case of an emergency.
“Aria, please go. I think… it’s probably necessary.”
“Mikhail…”
Mikhail nodded quietly to me as I turned to look at him. When I looked around, the Melrose knights and soldiers also had a little vitality return to their eyes, and they nodded as if they knew something.
“Please go. We will show you that we can hold this place.”
“…Understood.”
Trusting in their pride, I headed to the mansion with the knight who had come to pick me up.
The Melrose mansion, which I was entering for the first time, felt dimly lit because the magic lights were kept to a minimum, perhaps because they were currently in battle.
“This way.”
Guided by the knight, who treated me with more courtesy than one would expect for a mere Adventurer for some reason, I proceeded through the mansion and was led to a place in the back.
It was neither the prime minister’s office nor a reception room. It seemed like a place used by family members, but the guiding knight left, and I was left there, looking around the room and being captivated by the large “portrait” hanging on the wall.
This “woman” is…
“—That child is my daughter, who left home more than fifteen years ago.”
Cecilia’s voice was heard from the entrance. I had noticed that she had entered the room, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the portrait.
A woman with “pinkish blonde hair” lightly tied up. That person was… a little younger than I remembered, a little older than I am now, and looking at me gently.
“……Mikhail also loved this painting. When he couldn’t see me when he was little, he would always stare at this painting.”
Just like I am now…
Cecilia came to my side, not answering, and looked up at the painting with me.
“The women of Melrose, both Belt-sama’s older sister and aunt, were all strong. They were the kind of people who guided everyone and gave them hope…”
Cecilia began to speak in a slow voice, as if reminiscing about the past.
“I loved the free way of life that they lived, which I couldn’t. That’s why this child also abandoned her status and position so easily and flew away to fulfill her own wishes. She also had free ‘silver wings’.”
A free way of life. Some people criticize it, but she taught me that it was not just selfishness, but always for someone else.
…My mother, although she was one of the candidates for queen, stepped down for the sake of her friend who would become queen, and went down to the city to be with my father, with whom she shared her heart.
“A while ago, there was talk of finding this child’s daughter, who had been missing. But I couldn’t think of that child as my granddaughter…”
“…Why?”
When I finally spoke, there was a silence as if time had stopped for a moment.
“…Well, I didn’t feel a ‘connection’. Is that too vague a reason? More than that, that child didn’t seem like a ‘Melrose’. And that child, as well as Belt-sama’s older sister, had very beautiful pink hair. The same color as the ‘Moon Rose’… and so do you.”
“…………”
When I turned around at those words, Cecilia looked at me with tearful eyes as if enduring something… and gently hugged me.
“I…”
“You don’t have to say anything. Belt-sama also said that you are already a person with your own thoughts. If you try to bind you, you will fly away and disappear…”
“…………”
Margrave Melrose. I realized for the first time that even that person, who had always kept a distance from me, was looking at me with such thoughts.
I sought freedom in order to escape from the ‘fate (game)’ that that woman sought. I sought power for freedom, and gained the power to resist ‘fate’.
Fate has begun to change. There are no longer any shackles here that try to bind me.
I may not have to pretend anymore. But… even so.
I still have someone to fight.
There is someone I have to settle things with.
There are people I have decided to protect.
“…Ah.”
When I touched her thin shoulders and moved away from her, Cecilia let out a small voice.
I took out the amulet pouch that my mother had given me from my chest, took Cecilia’s hand, and gently placed it in her hand.
“Not yet…”
“Yes…”
“Someday, surely…”
“Yes.”
To my clumsy words that couldn’t fully convey my feelings, she—”Grandmother”—quietly nodded and squeezed my hand tightly in return.
“…I’m going.”
Releasing that warm… the same gentle hand as my mother’s, I turned my back to her to head to the battlefield, and a small voice called out to my back reached me.
“Come back safely… Aria.”
When I finished talking with Cecilia and went outside from the entrance, there were knights and soldiers who had been in the mansion, those who could fight, greeted me and knelt on the spot.
What are these people doing…? Before I could ask that, Mikhail appeared from among them, and he reflected me in his eyes with a different “understanding” than before.
“Aria. This is a formal order from Margrave. The First Knight Order has already departed from the Royal Capital by order of His Majesty the King and Princess (Your Highness). We will hold out here until they arrive… but we can’t end it like this after all this.”
There have already been a considerable number of casualties on the Melrose side as well. The anger could be seen in the eyes of the knights and Mikhail as well.
“Everyone here will follow the instructions of the most powerful person here, you. …Will you do it?”
“Understood.”
That’s what I intended from the start. I nodded back to Mikhail without any hesitation and started walking, and the knights and soldiers cleared the way and followed after me.
“We will defeat the rebel Amor and his army!”
“””””Hah!!”””””
In the voices of those who replied to my words, I felt a vigor like enthusiasm that was not just for the temporary commander.
The conclusion has not yet been reached.
The ending will be at the Graduation Party.
Next time, the point of view will return to Dandole’s side.
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Volume 2 is now on sale (?). It seems that buying it at a bookstore, as with the works of other authors, makes it easier to continue the series.
Reservations are now being accepted for Volume 3 and the first volume of the comic adaptation.