EPILOGUE

Respective Purposes and Burdens

War_in_Britain.

A lone carriage ran down a path without any streetlights in a dark forest. With its old lantern, it felt like a scene out of a picture book. In fact, its current passengers were the queen of England and the archbishop, so maybe it was perfect material for a picture book.

However.

Women sitting in a two-seater, four-person carriage chained to their seats by fifty restraints maybe wasn’t the kind of story you’d tell a child before bed. And when you added the truth, that they were being brought to London as captives after a coup d’état had captured the city…you might start having nightmares.

Elizard and Laura had been made to sit next to each other.

One of their escort knights was sitting in the opposite seat.

“…’Twould seem the majority of the Knight Faction is within the second princess’s hands, yes? You are surprisingly unpopular, Your Majesty.”

“The same goes for you. Their leader has been captured, yet none of the sorcerers of Necessarius seem to be coming to rescue you. Have they simply forsaken you, or is this a reversal of trust? I don’t quite understand this situation.”

The two leaders, having been hopeful for reinforcements, sighed at their misguided expectations. It was a simple gesture, the kind one might give after holding your hand out to stop a taxi and watching it drive by you.

Laura strained against her confinements, causing them to creak. “Urgh. I must say, to bind us above and below our breasts, they must be professionals. But I would appreciate it if they didn’t underestimate the English Puritan archbishop!!”

“…But they’re just pads, which wouldn’t hurt, so maybe you’re actually fine?”

“You fool!! These are verifiably genuine! Not that—I mean that the history of physical restraints is one and the same with the history of witch-hunting. In other words, we were responsible for all the restraints, torture instruments, and execution tools developed in this country. ’Twould it not be queer for me not to know how to undo them?”

The escort knight nearly got up out of his seat when he heard the dangerous talk, but the queen, in a cold tone of voice, added, “But you can’t, can you?”

“Wha—?”

“We’ve known each other a long time. I know you want to show off, but now that you’ve already failed, you’ve clearly lost your head. Let me warn you off this before anyone starts getting too hopeful. Stop trying. Not thirty seconds later you’re tugging at your restraints and griping. Once we’re attacked from all sides at once, it’ll just ruin your mood, and you won’t be able to endure that. Don’t force yourself.”

“I—I can too endure it!! The English Puritan archbishop is also the leader of Necessarius, you know! Where would I be if I couldn’t cope with vast kinds of sorcery from throughout the world?!”

“…So that’s the kind of pressure you’re feeling. I get it—I really do.”

“Wh-wha…? F-fine then!! If that’s what you want, I’ll show you right now! Showtime!!”

Laura Stuart shouted, tied to the seat by fifty restraints, and for some reason, her abnormally long blond hair began to gleam.

The escort knight, thinking she was about to coil her hair around to undo the locks, reached for the sword on his waist, but something was strange.

It could be described in sound effects.

Her hair’s sheeeen became a glaaaaare!!

To put it in slightly more explanatory terms, a golden light too bright to bear had filled the inside of the carriage. Yes—almost as though it were about to cause a massive explosion.

Without thinking, the knight shouted, “G-gwaaaahhhh?! Y-you fool, I thought you were trying to escape, but could it just be a bomb—?!”

“Be quiet already!! What matters is if I get these fifty restraints off, I’ll be the winner!!”

And then—

—with a bright-sounding bwooom, the cart exploded from within.

The two horses pulling the carriage gave high-pitched neighs at the excessive impact, and the explosion threw the drivers into a nearby stream, into which they splashed and sloshed. Then, scattering the wreckage like flowers, Laura Stuart stood alone in the middle of the wheelless cart, hands on her hips, drawn up to full height.

“Hm. Well, they were resisting my ‘hair clips.’ This much seems appropriate.”

“…I—I get it. Now I know exactly how little common sense you have,” groaned the queen, turned sideways in her seat, still fixed in place by her restraints. “Well, if you undid them, then fine. Free me, too, and quickly. We have to get away from here before those knights realize something’s up and send in reinforcem—”

“Hmm…? I wonder, what should I do about your restraints, meow?”

“…Hey.” Feeling a chill run down her spine, Elizard carefully asked, “You do understand the situation we’re in, right? If what those knights said is true, their coup d’état has taken control of almost all of Britain. The mastermind, my daughter Carissa, has cut ties with Academy City and might shoot missiles at France. This could be our only way to stop her and this disaster…”

“Well, but…Your heartless words hurt me gravely, Your Majesty. Hmm…I know. I might be more willing if you said something like, ‘I’m terribly sorry, wonderful Archbishop. A worm such as myself is only good for granting advice to the Puritan Faction.’ Then I might be able to make calm decisions. But you don’t have to…”

“Wh-why, you…?!”

Elizard’s cheeks twitched, but there was no point in arguing now. The Queen Regnant had a duty that was more important than personal pride—the duty to be concerned about her nation’s future. She’d have to accept the demand…but just as the queen resolved herself, she heard a snap.

The seat apparently hadn’t been able to withstand Laura’s explosion. As the cracks spread through the seat, the restraints binding Queen Elizard to the seat began to break of their own accord.

“…”

“…”

Elizard and Laura said nothing for a few moments.

Eventually, the queen slowly rose and brushed the dirt off her ostentatious dress. Then she reached for something that had fallen amid the wrecked carriage.

“Oh, what’s the Curtana Second doing in a place like this?”

“Wait, wait! I’m sorry for getting so full of myself, so don’t point that national treasure at me!!”

“Don’t worry about it. This sword isn’t for killing anyway. It’s ceremonial—doesn’t even have a blade, see? …All it can really do is cut dimensions a little, so you’ve nothing to worry about.”

“Wouldn’t that mean death?! Wait, the Original stole almost all its power, and that’s all it has left?!”

Laura trembled, trying to make herself small, but the queen wasn’t really going to fillet her like a fish. After returning the Curtana Second to its sheath, Elizard sighed. “Anyway, when you consider that they wanted us in London, everything you just did was a complete waste. We might as well have gone to the capital and started rampaging.” As she spoke, she looked around. “You did a wonderful job on the carriage. It’ll have to move some other way now.”

“…I-in that case, I have a quite ingenious stratagem.”

Laura wobbled back to her feet and looked into the darkness.

From it, they could make out what looked like car headlights coming closer.

Elizard was shocked. “D-don’t tell me you’re going to do the legendary—”

“Ta-daa! My grand hitchhiking stratagem!! Hey, hey, you there, the filthy-looking truck operator! Would you happen to have any desire to drive with a beautiful lady such as myself?!”

Laura Stuart stuck out her right thumb and struck a pose, topped with a glamorous wink.

After that, the truck came to a slow stop fifty meters in front of her, did a slow U-turn, and, with precise driving technique, left.

Laura, face still stuck in a smile and glamorous wink, said, “…Get him?”

“Are you dumb? The driver made the right choice,” said Elizard, looking at her like she’d look at useless garbage, before suddenly spotting a Soul Arm in the carriage wreckage.

It appeared to be the one the knights were using to communicate.

“I see,” said the queen. “…So, William Orwell has returned, Ascalon in hand.”

“Acqua of the Back from the Roman Orthodox Church? As the leader of the Puritan Faction, this gives me complicated emotions, but if he has come as a mercenary unswayed by the intentions of groups such as the Knights, he is for the third princess, Vilian, the mightiest dagger. In fact, it seems just like a chance to turn the situation around, does it not?”

“The strongest, eh…?” said the queen, tossing the communicator Soul Arm aside. “…But will things be that easy?”

“I’m terribly apologetic to interject as you mutter profound things only you understand and then bask in the afterglow, but what, pray tell, should we actually do? You’re not telling me to ambulate my way through this dark forest, I hope.”

“Really? Thanks for ruining the mood over here,” spat Elizard before looking around.

Her eyes stopped on the two horses that had been pulling the carriage. The tools attaching them to the carriage had been torn apart. The queen gently batted them away, then quickly mounted a horse, which didn’t even have a saddle.

As Elizard took the reins—which were awfully long, due to their being made for controlling the horses from the carriage—and bundled them in her hands so they’d be easy to use on horseback, Laura made a clearly displeased face.

“Whaaat…? I don’t understand barbaric things like how to ride war horses.”

“All right, let’s go. We’re off to London!”

“You’re about to leave me behind here with a smile! Oi!! Wait, wait, at this rate I’ll be all by myself…And hitchhiking is out of the question!!”

Touma Kamijou managed to make it to the English Puritan women’s dorm.

It was his first time in the building, but he didn’t have time for sightseeing. All of the bare necessities had been carried away, and it also looked like most of the people had already fled. The only ones left were those whose job was combat, bringing up the rear and stalling the Knights’ pursuit. It pained Kamijou to ask them to save Lesser with their healing magic when she was originally an enemy sorcerer from New Light, but…

“Oh my. It has been quite a while.”

“Wait, Orsola?! You have zero combat power—you should have run away first thing! What are you doing here?!”

“Well, everyone was in such a hurry that I couldn’t keep up with them.”

There was supposed to be a limit to how dull someone could be. This was Kamijou’s acquaintance, Orsola Aquinas. A huge-knockered older woman who specialized in deciphering the encryption in grimoires.

She looked at Lesser, who was hanging limp in Kamijou’s arms. “My. The same development as always, I see.”

“…I don’t get your meaning, but anyway, would it be all right to leave her in your care?”

After she gave him an “Okey-dokey. With healing magic, right?” Kamijou handed the New Light girl over to Orsola.

…It seemed like the sister, in exchange for being awful at ever-changing, high-speed combat, was fairly good at work she could do at leisure. Despite not being an expert in healing magic, it seemed like she’d manage with some simple first aid, just repairing the torn blood vessels.

“I know it’s rude of me to ask, but in exchange…”

“I know. I’ll be one of the rear guard, too, and help you all escape,” answered Kamijou, waggling his right hand.

Saying the Imagine Breaker might get in her spell’s way, Kamijou left Orsola for the time being. As he walked through a dark passage where the lights were dimmed, he encountered a nun who had remained here as the rear guard (and this one with a serious, sharp look on her face).

The blond-haired, blue-eyed woman did him the favor of speaking in Japanese. “The Knights are steadily shoring up all entrance routes, including the secret entrance you slipped in through. We’ll have no choice but to break through their numbers…Can I count on your help?”

“What’s the plan?”

“After shaking the Knights up with all the long-range bombardment we can muster, everyone will break out and flee in all directions. We’ll stall for time as they’re scared and wondering what to do, but I can’t calculate who will end up drawing the short straw.”

Another improvised plan, thought Kamijou with a smile. “Anyway, what the heck do those Knights want to do with this coup d’état? I thought the country was just having problems getting resources supplied. Why would they want to be isolated…?”

“According to the intelligence we’ve intercepted, they seem to have their eyes on marine resources,” said the nun. “Britain’s ability to be self-sufficient isn’t that low. While we would face several ill effects in daily life, we wouldn’t immediately starve to death. Queen Elizard was acting carefully out of concern that the populace would riot out of unhappiness, but the second princess, Carissa, is trying to stamp out the problem in a completely different way.”

“By using the military on a national level and suppressing the nation by force…”

“With regard to foodstuffs, the main concern is that about half our seafood is reliant on foreign imports, but they may be able to manage by reviving the closed harbors. Whatever the case is, the civilians won’t ever cause riots if they risk people being slaughtered by the hundreds or thousands. Normally, people can tolerate most things if they’re held at sword-point.”

“But food’s not the only problem, is it? What about oil and metals like iron?”

“They appear to seriously believe they’ll be able to mine it from mountains on the seafloor. Britain has always been an island nation, protected by a natural rampart in the ocean, but it has planted things on the seafloor to make that rampart more effective. I hear that Carissa and the Knights have been working on them in secret, preparing to convert them into large-scale excavation sites…

“Still, if everything will really go that well for them, I’m not sure why the queen would fret over the seafloor tunnel being bombed,” said the nun.

She ended the topic there and returned to the mission at hand. “Regarding what to do after breaking through the Knights encircling the dormitory…We’ll all be heading for a designated meet-up point, but I believe you would be better served heading for Waterloo Station…I know the basic circumstances. Don’t worry—if you use the Eurostar line, you can go straight to Folkestone, where the Index is waiting.”

“…That might be hard.” Kamijou made a bitter face, and as he brought Index to mind, he said, “The overhang and the rails were severed by stray shots in the battle. I don’t think that train is going anywhere.”

It was over one hundred kilometers from London to Folkestone. He couldn’t very well walk there. The only way would be to use a train or something.

“That isn’t necessarily true,” said the nun.

Kamijou looked at her again.

“She may have the Curtana Original, but the second princess, Carissa, the commander in chief of the Knights, hasn’t entered any specific fortress, so she’s currently exposed in Folkestone. In order to prepare enough forces against the Puritans, the Knights will need to transport people and goods and quickly get their defenses nailed down…In other words, they’ll need to move that train, no matter what.”

“Which means…?”

“In case of power outages or electric transmission difficulties, they have diesel cars that will pull the other cars behind them. Even if they’re useless when the lines are cut, they can still be moved. The Knights will probably use a crane to try to cross the broken overhang. If you can sneak into their ranks during that time…”

The path to Folkestone would be open.

Kamijou’s right hand naturally balled into a fist at the nun’s words.

Seeing that, the nun said quietly, “…But that all comes after we escape from here safely.”

“Fine by me…As long as I’ve got a goal, this is as good as won.”

The two of them began to prepare for battle.

To the town of Folkestone in the south of England came one man:

William Orwell.

Seeing the tall man holding a Soul Arm called Ascalon, having rushed here to rescue Third Princess Vilian, Second Princess Carissa gave a thin smile.

Unswayed by the intentions of any organization, he had, at times, unhesitatingly crushed plots laid even by the Royal Family Faction—all “for the good of Britain.” A detestable man.

As everyone stood dumbfounded at the arrival of a certain mercenary, she thought, Ascalon? The holy sword, the Soul Arm, from the legend of St. George?

Carissa knew.

Knew the man originally specialized in water. Knew that after his mercenary days, he had evolved his power as a member of God’s Right Seat, and that it would be strange if he didn’t wield incredible might.

Why does he need something like that? Folkestone is a port town. And there’s a mountain providing water right nearby. His proud water is everywhere—so why would he bother to rely on an easily understood weapon like Ascalon?

And then she knew.

Knew why this certain mercenary hadn’t used the water. Until now, Britain and Academy City had a pipeline built between them. Because of that, she’d heard the reports that a man named Acqua of the Back, who commanded the POWER OF GOD, had invaded Academy City—and that he’d lost.

He’s injured. That’s why he can’t use the water. That’s why he has to rely on that overblown Soul Arm. And if he’s a mere saint now, one who has lost his power, the Knight Leader in his current state can easily drive him back. This isn’t just theory, either. He’s already proven it in his fight with the saint from the Far East.

As she matched the information she already had with the information she was getting now, Carissa smiled.

Ultimately, she came to this conclusion:

…If we do it now, we can kill him. We can kill that detestable mercenary with our own hands.