Between the Sun and the Sea Breeze
One night after the battle…, the tension in Everis’s workshop in the royal castle was still as tense as the battle itself.
As usual, items like junk were scattered around the room, and it looked like there was no place to step.
On a worktable like an operating table, a woman’s corpse, divided into two parts, was laid out, and around it, Everis was writing magic formulas all over a sheet of paper.
Little by little, she rewrote the numbers, invoking her magic over and over again.
René watched this with a bated breath.
René’s wyvern body was tucked away in subspace or somewhere, and she was now back to looking like a normal girl (except for the cut around her neck).
“If this doesn’t work, … I guess I’ll just have to somehow splice her body together to make her a Revenant and have her use magic on her own … But that’s something I haven’t done either… hmm!”
A moment later, a lightning bolt struck with a pitter-patter sound.
A large amount of junk fell next to the workbench.
The items piled up in a rough heap, about half of them broken, like something had ripped them apart, they were all magic items.
This was the items that Loretta, the magician of the “Decisive Drolette” that rested on the workbench, had died while plunging into subspace with the storage magic.
Originally, there was a possibility that the items could not be taken out as they were, but René had asked Everis to reverse the process.
There was information that Loretta had been made to carry the luggage by magic.
And none of the three had the “contents of the treasure chest”. If that was the case, the only hope that remained was here.
“Okay, it’s connected!”
“≪Poltergeist≫!”
René immediately began to sort through the pile of items.
The pile of junk was magically arranged into a rectangular shape.
When she was halfway through digging through the pile, she found what she was looking for.
“There it is!”
Inside a cloth bag, thick and drawstring-like, was the items.
The remains of a silver whip, scorched by the evil energy, and two burnt rose brooches were inside.
“Thank goodness …!”
René sighed and held them to her chest.
For René, they were the most precious things after her life (or should it be ‘existence’, since she was already dead).
“Well, I’m glad it worked out. By the way, Princess. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
Everis, who had successfully completed the emergency project, asked while shaking her head and relaxing her shoulders.
René stiffened. There was no condemnation in Everis’s tone or emotion, she had every right to question René.
René abandoned Terra Kaine in order to get this back from the “Decisive Drolette”. It was a simple question of priorities.
But then, it seemed that Ghislain had gone on the rampage again in Terra Kaine.
Everis received a call from Alastair, and accompanied by Mialanze, went out on her own to settle the battle. They ended the battle and prevented the army from suffering any losses.
The undead army was safely on its way home. The Bloodsuckers they had made there would be reduced to ashes at dawn, but the rest would soon arrive at the royal capital.
Looking at the results alone, the girls took the brunt of the damage caused by René’s abandonment of the battlefield, and they were left to clean up the mess.
Mialanze, who was supposedly still in bad shape, returned to the basement to rest again.
Tracy, who had apparently done something very reckless, was sleeping comfortably on a bed in the corner of the workshop with what looked like a fluorescent intravenous drip connected to his body.
“I’m still a little unclear on what’s going on. I wish you would have told me if there was something serious enough to warrant a withdrawal from the front lines. I’d have had to make that calculation, and I’d have been prepared to defend it if you had told me in advance.”
“That’s …”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just wondering why you didn’t tell me anything.”
René stammered.
The reason why she kept this matter hidden was because it was ‘too painful to talk about’ for her.
Just mentioning it would surely make René lose her composure.
But what Everis said was also correct.
Everis had a well-defined plan for the attack on Terra Kaine, but it was René’s actions that disrupted that plan. It could be said that Everis miscalculated in her planning because of the data that had been withheld about René’s secret.
She had to make up her mind.
René was, after all, their master. The one who stood on top could not be unjust.
“…Ah.”
“I’m sorry! Shall we end this story here?”
Everis suddenly said this at the very moment when René was about to open her mouth.
“Eh?”
“Enough, enough, don’t say it. That was a bit much for me to say, even though I am also a vassal in the first place. If I may say one thing, you know, the new development of storage magic. I only wish you had instructed me to give it a higher priority. If that magic had been perfected, you could have fought without any worries, couldn’t you?”
“Ah, erm…”
Everis stopped René with a fluttering wave of her hand.
René, who had been shrugged off, let her gaze wander around, seemingly searching for a place to put the resolve she’d almost consolidated.
“I’m sorry…”
In the end, René said just that.
Everis tilted her head with a troubled look on her face.
Reading her emotions, it seemed that she neither accepted nor disapproved of the apology, but rather, Everis felt a sense of withdrawal.
The underlying emotion was, perhaps, as warm as the exhaust heat of a computer.
“You know, Princess …”
Tracy had long since woken up.
He was still immobile and covered in tubes, but from the sound of his voice, he was fine.
“I know I’m a prisoner of war, and I’m in a warrior’s position, but…don’t be too hard on yourself, okay? I’m an adult, and the witch has been alive for hundreds of years.”
“Tracy. Don’t talk about age with an older lady☆.”
“When that happens, I want to care about it appropriately. You know, like a child needs to be protected. Princess-sama seems rather sophisticated, but she just turned ten, right? It’s hard to see a little girl pushing herself so hard, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to… Well, if you know that there is such a thing, you can manage to some extent. I don’t want everything to be a secret. I’ll be flexible with this level of information.”
Tracy, a skilled speaker, was good at deceiving others, but he was also good at conveying words of sincerity.
Everis did not deny Tracy’s words of concern, like a friend.
Everis must have sensed it. She knew that it was a part of her that should not be touched.
“… To whom. You think you’re talking to me. How can you … say such a thing?”
“Well, you see…, I can’t really dislike you except for the part about how “if you leave her alone, she’ll go around killing people”. And I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“Ah, then I have no reason to dislike the Princess. Witch-san doesn’t care how many people die except for herself.”
They said this in a jokingly light tone, not lying.
Roaring, René could feel the wind blowing through her ears.
René.
She turned on her heel and put her hand on the door of the workshop.
She didn’t want them to see her face.
“… Everis. Tracy. Nice work last night. One of these days, I’ll have a reward for you.”
“Ah, wait a minute…”
Without further questions, René ran out of the workshop.
＊ ＊ ＊
René was running down the hallway.
She had to go to work on Mialanze in the basement. She was sick (?). She pushed herself to work hard for her despite of her illness.
“Fufufu… It’s a good thing that my subordinates are so loyal to me… At most, pity me and serve me well.”
No matter how hard she clenched her teeth, the tears flowed by themselves.
The tears she wiped away with the palm of her hand felt hot, even though her body was supposed to be without body heat.
With a cold, sarcastic smile, René cried.
She was cared for.
Both by Everis and by Tracy.
As for Everis, while cooperating with the countermeasures, she should have nailed René to prevent such “whims” from happening in the future.
Tracy, on the other hand, was in the position of being forced to follow her, so he could have complained about yesterday’s battle.
But the two of them cared for René.
That made her very happy, but she felt that if she indulged in that feeling, something would break down.
If she were to confide all the pain in her heart, if she were to cry and cling to someone and be consoled,… she would never be able to go back to being the “Rose Princess of Hellrage” again.
When she took a deep breath, she didn’t trust herself enough to think that she could get up again.
–Don’t come near me without permission. But… if you don’t mind, please don’t go too far.
René felt keenly how much of a bother she was.
Although she wanted it, she had to reject it.
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