◆Chapter 19: Separation and Reunion
◆Chapter 19: Separation and Reunion
“WHAT do you think he wants to talk about?”
I’m walking side by side through the castle corridors with Lex. About an hour ago, when I returned to the city after finishing up my daily purification of the outlying regions, Sir Oden summoned us, saying, “I have something to discuss with you both. Please come to the castle once you’re finished.”
“Mayhap it has something to do with procuring raw materials. We are burning through wood faster than we feared,” Lex explains.
“But is that enough of a reason to call us all the way back to the castle, and into the royal audience chamber at that? Couldn’t he have just put in his request when he saw us? Why this out-of-the-ordinary change?”
“Y-You make a valid point…”
Talking the whole way there, we arrive at the audience chamber. I’ve visited it on countless occasions since I started living in the castle, but I’m always stunned by its sheer size. Although traces of damage can be seen here and there from its time under zombie rule, you can still feel the majestic and solemn atmosphere it was built to inspire.
“I have been waiting for you, Big Sister.” Cia stands from the innermost throne and welcomes me.
Since we normally don’t stand on formality when we speak, this is a curious spectacle for me. But with no one aside from Sir Oden around, there’s no need for me to be unduly nervous.
Lex suddenly kneels on one knee and lowers his head. There’s nothing strange about that when he’s before his princess and within the formal setting of the audience chamber.
“Should I bow too?”
“No. Please stay as you are. Lex, please be at ease too.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Lex replies shortly, rising.
Once he’s on his feet again, I make my inquiry known. “Can we get down to business now? Why did you call us here today?”
“Allow me to explain,” Sir Oden answers, stepping forward from his spot just behind the throne. “We have two matters to discuss. First, we would like to request your assistance in resupplying the overwhelming shortage of lumber.”
“Then the shortage has indeed become a problem, as we predicted,” Lex remarks.
“Veritably. Structures built with stone are still intact, but anything that used wood has faced severe erosion. Most wooden structures are in a state of needing to be rebuilt from the ground up. Lady Mizuha, I apologize for relying on you for everything, but…will you assist in this matter?”
“Of course.”
Spitting on things still doesn’t sit well with me, but it does no harm aside from the fatigue it causes me. I have no reason to refuse when it leads to a safer place for me to eat and sleep.
“You have my gratitude.”
“Please accept my heartfelt gratitude as well,” Cia says, expressing her thanks after Sir Oden. Being thanked is more uncomfortable for me than anything else.
“Uh… Please don’t feel bad. You aren’t asking too much of me. Anyway! You said there are two matters. What is the second?”
“Very well. I shall speak of it next.” Sir Oden is about to tell me when Cia speaks over him.
“Captain Oden. I am against this—”
“Your Highness, this is necessary.”
“…If you say so,” Cia weakly concedes. Our eyes meet, but she quickly looks away.
I’m briefly worried that she’s come to hate me, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Not only is she gnawing on her lower lip, but she’s curled her hands into tight fists in her lap.
Whether he knows how she feels or not, Sir Oden cuts to the chase in a commanding voice. “Though the process has been slow, the kingdom has gradually regained a state of calm. The senate has decided to restructure the Royal Knights back to their former positions in order to speed along the restoration.”
“So that is what this is about…” Lex seems to have figured it out, but I still have no clue. Stuck as the only confused party, I watch as Sir Oden faces Lex with the most rigid, demanding expression yet.
“Lex Irvine, you are hereby relieved of your duties as the holy priestess’s guard. From henceforth, you are to serve as Her Highness the Princess’s knight.”
◆◆◆◆◆
THE following morning, I’m waiting in front of the outer castle gate when two knights come before me.
“If I’m not mistaken, we’ve met before…” I venture.
“We are honored to be in your presence again.”
They are the two knights who volunteered to be bait when we were trying to take back the castle from the super-active night zombies. I’m not necessarily on familiar terms with them, but I’m relieved from the bottom of my heart that I was assigned people I know.
“I’m sorry you had to be reassigned as my guards.”
“Please don’t be sorry!”
“We applied for this assignment.”
They applied for it?
“Why?” I ask, earning a few blank blinks from them.
“Because of that, of course…yeah?”
“Y-Yeah.”
What are they talking about? It doesn’t help that they both have goofy grins. I feel bad saying this about people who volunteered to protect me, but they creep me out. Noticing my eyes have narrowed in on them, they quickly straighten up.
“We haven’t introduced ourselves yet. I am Kurt Becker.”
“Julian Graz.”
Sir Kurt is a charming young man with short hair, while Sir Julian is a good-looking young man with long hair who gives off the impression of someone who’s a bit of a stiff. As I’m thinking about how their names sound German, both men tap their fists to their chests in salute.
“I may be inadequate to fill in Sir Lex’s boots, but…I will do my very best as your guard, Lady Mizuha,” Sir Kurt swears, his expression staunch.
Lex has been by my side since the day I arrived in this world. That’s why his being removed from my guard detail didn’t feel real to me, but…the reality has finally set in.
I slowly tip my head. “I will be counting on you both.”
◆◆◆◆◆
AFTER joining up with the Raw Materials Harvesting and Transportation Squad, we depart for the forest. Meadows and grasslands abound in the nearby areas I had purified in the days prior. Thanks to that, I feel revitalized by inhaling deeply of the fresh, clean air, free of zombie stank.
“Excuse me… Has Lex always been Cia’s personal guard?” I ask Sir Kurt along the way.
“Yes, milady,” he answers, keeping pace with me. “You know of the Royal Knights, yes?”
“First, you have ordinary soldiers, then the Order of the Knights, and only a select few of those knights can become Royal Knights, right?” I confirm, repeating what Lex had told me before.
“Only the best of the best knights can become Royal Knights, to be precise. And it is only the strongest of the Royal Knights who can serve as personal guards to royalty.”
“Then what about Sir Oden?”
I’ve seen Lex in action enough times to know he’s strong. Judging from his charge attacks alone, Sir Oden isn’t lacking in the strength department either.
“Captain Oden’s duties as captain of the knights take precedence.”
“Then Lex isn’t necessarily stronger than Sir Oden,” I assume.
“That’s open to debate,” Sir Julian interjects, joining our conversation. “He is normally not all there, but”—so I’m not the only one who thinks he has a few screws loose— “I would say Lex is the far superior swordsman.”
His normal behavior being what it is, it’s never really stuck with me that Lex is a strong fighter, but they make it sound like he’s much more amazing than I give him credit for. I’m starting to regret after the fact that I used and abused him a little too much.
And so, we continue walking for another thirty minutes or thereabouts, chatting about nonessential stuff until we arrive at our destination.
“This is the Great Oak Forest. Plenty of fine trees excellent for use as building materials grow here, but…”
“The zombie rot hit this place hard, huh?”
All the large trees growing amid swaths of venomous purple grass are peeling, crumbling, molting, and splitting down the middle, creating a lurid forest. Buildings using these trees as material will surely crumble.
“Looks like it’s my turn now. Excuse me! Will you all please turn the other way?” I address the soldiers in the squad.
“I would love to witness the act of purification if you would so allow—”
“Please turn around.” I flash a murderous smile, causing everyone to flinch and whirl around until their backs are to me. I inwardly sigh. Being around people I’m not comfortable with is tiring. Lex made my life a lot easier on that front. Wait, what am I thinking?
Shaking my head, I quickly spit on the ground. Purification spreads to the trees. Bark regrows on the peeling trunks, followed shortly by the rest of the tree flourishing until green leaves sprout from all the branches. Before long, greenery fills the forest, drawing sighs of awe from the soldiers and knights.
I spin around and entrust the rest to them. “I’m finished. Please take care of the rest.”
The soldiers set about harvesting trees, chopping them down left and right before piling them on the carts. Taking into account that the forest might rot again once we leave, the soldiers plan to take every tree they fell with them. We have a shortage of helping hands and few carts capable of transporting full-grown trees. It doesn’t take long before the soldiers have all the carts fully loaded.
“Phew…” I sit on a downed log and take a break. Most of the work is finished, aside from tying down the lumber to keep it from rolling out of the carts.
“We finished up much faster than I had expected,” Sir Kurt comments, taking up position at my side. “This, too, was only possible with your assistance, Lady Mizuha.”
“I’ve barely done anything, though. Ahaha,” I say with a dry laugh. The trees are far too heavy for me to carry, so I’d just get in their way if I tried. In the end, I could only watch the soldiers do all the work.
“Didn’t you fetch water for us?”
“Only because I had nothing better to do.”
I had discovered a low cliff a short walk from here. I purified the small lake that happened to be at the bottom of the cliff and made several round trips carrying buckets of water from there to where the men were working.
“The men were grateful for your thoughtfulness.”
“It was more me trying to find a job to do, but I’m glad it was appreciated.”
“OINK!” A pig’s snort interrupts our casual conversation. I sweep my gaze over the surrounding woods until I spot a pig several feet away. It looks exactly like the pigs in my world. Our eyes meet for a second before the pig quickly turns its rump toward me and trots away.
Why is there a lone pig here? I’m trying to figure it out, when all of a sudden my whole body shudders. Seconds later, I hear trees snapping and breaking. I’ve got a seriously bad feeling about this. Trees fall over in the direction the pig disappeared in, revealing an enormous human-shaped zombie.
“Boneless Ham…!”
Boneless Ham’s roar echoes through the forest. Shock courses through the soldiers. Not only have some fallen to their knees, but others flee in different directions. And they call themselves soldiers?!
“Please calm down, everyone! It’s still light out! He probably can’t r—”
He can’t run—that’s what I was about to say, when Boneless Ham breaks into a sprint, his heavy feet pounding the ground.
“H-He can freakin’ run?!”
I’d assumed Boneless Ham couldn’t move fast in daylight, like the other zombies, but my assumptions were wrong! The soldiers I had just started to get under control fall into an even worse panic. They scatter every which way.
“Please run away too, Lady Mizuha!” Sir Kurt bravely steps in front of Boneless Ham’s path and throws rocks at it. Then he spins around and bolts in the opposite direction of everyone else. “Come here, fatso! I’ll take you on!”
Sir Kurt is trying to lure it away as bait, but Boneless Ham doesn’t even look his way as it fixates its charge on me.
“No way?! Why is it coming straight for me?!”
I whirl around and flee. Boneless Ham is so heavy, the ground shakes with its every footstep. I glance over my shoulder and see Boneless Ham smashing down trees and plowing through soldiers as it bears down on me.
I can purify him if I can just touch him somehow, but with his charging me like this, I’ll sooner turn into a Mizuha pancake than be able to get my right hand on him. I’m done for the moment he gets close. If I’m not squashed under him, I’ll be splattered all over by his hammer-like arms. On the bright side, he’s significantly slower than the regular zombies during their souped-up night mode. I’m just barely keeping ahead of it because of that. The question is: Just how long can I keep this up?
“Lady Mizuha!”
“Sir Julian! That THING is clearly after me! You’d better get away from me!” I shout in warning to Sir Julian, who’s running parallel to me. Instead of distancing himself, he runs closer. He glances once at Boneless Ham before returning his gaze to me.
“Draw him to the place where you purified the water!” he instructs.
“Good idea! I’ll try to get him to fall in there!”
Zombies are weakened by purified water. Our last battle with a Boneless Ham proved they have the same weakness. I’ll just keep running until I can dive off the cliff into the water, bringing the Boneless Ham down with me!
“Lady Mizuha!”
“Wha-?!”
Shoved from behind, I tumble on the ground. Confused about what just happened, I narrowly catch sight of a large tree crashing into Sir Julian. Boneless Ham must have thrown it! Sir Julian falls end over end, bouncing several times off the ground until he stops moving altogether.
“Sir Julian!”
“I am…alive…m-milady,” he splutters between gasps for air. “Please! Run away!”
Blood is spurting from his head, and he can barely move. He’s seriously injured. I can heal him with my left hand—
Boneless Ham’s ferocious roar immediately dissuades me. It’s almost here. This freakazoid of a zombie is after me. One wrong move and I could get Sir Julian killed in the process.
Mind made up, I kick off with my right leg to run, but a painful sting in my ankle turns my run into more of a fast limp. I might have sprained it when I tried to catch my balance after he shoved me. Understanding why I’m hurt doesn’t do anything to help me move faster, though. Boneless Ham is charging right at me from the closest distance yet.
I’m done for.
A horse’s neigh echoes through the forest like a beacon of hope.
“Take my hand!” a familiar voice commands.
For a moment, my brain doesn’t process in the confusion, but I reach out for that hand faster than I put the pieces together. My body is yanked into the air. As soon as I am on the horse’s—Vianta’s—back, I shout to the knight gripping the reins behind me.
“Lex…why are you—?!” Here; I thought you were supposed to be on Cia’s guard detail—is what I’m about to ask when he speaks over me.
“Save your questions for after we take that monstrosity down!”
Boneless Ham remains in hot pursuit even after I’m escaping by horse. I have loads of questions for Lex, but I have to get my head in the game first so I can live to hear the answer!
“There’s a small lake up ahead! We just have to drop him in it!”
“Will do, m’lady!”
Traveling by horse gets us to our destination in no time. I can’t see the lake, but I do see where the ground falls off. The lake is below.
“Please hold on tight, m’lady!”
“What?! You aren’t about to—”
“We are going to jump it!”
Vianta picks up speed and leaps off the cliff. A blue sky fills my vision that had nothing but trees and leaves in it until now. Just how high did Vianta jump?! After what seemed like being suspended in midair for a long time, the shock of impact courses from my butt up through my body.
Rather than feel relieved we’ve safely landed, I’m more surprised we leaped over the entire lake. Small though it is, it should’ve been impossible for a person—or even a horse—to jump over. Apparently, the horses of this world are capable of things not possible for horses in my world.
Three whole beats after we land, Boneless Ham charges onto the top of the cliff. Just when I thought it’d careen right off the ledge and into the lake, it skids to a halt at the last second. The sheer weight of it, though, works against it as the ground beneath its feet crumbles. It loses balance, the top half of its body swaying to stay upright.
“Fall on down, monster!”
Swinging its large arms through the air, it manages to hold its ground. Is it my imagination, or did Boneless Ham’s grotesquely big mouth twist up in a triumphant sneer? We almost had it too!
“URAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Just as I hear that abrupt battle cry, Boneless Ham’s massive body pitches forward. Unable to catch itself this time, it falls into the lake! KER-SPLASH! Water sprays everywhere in a giant tidal wave. The area is soaked by droplets as if a sudden spring rain had fallen.
“Looks like I somehow managed to steal the show.”
“Sir Kurt!”
Sir Kurt is holding up a shield on top of the cliff. He literally had perfect timing! I shift my gaze from Sir Kurt down to the lake where Boneless Ham is lifelessly floating at the surface. Purification will be a piece of cake now.
◆◆◆◆◆
SIR Julian fully recovered from his wounds with a touch from my left hand. It drained the energy completely out of me, leaving me exhausted, but I’d take that any day over letting him die. With the chaos under control, the soldiers are preparing for the journey home.
“Okay…time for you to spill. Why did you come here? Or rather, how were you allowed to come?” I ask Lex, who is standing at my side watching the soldiers put things in order.
“I was relieved of my duty as royal guard.”
“You were? Why?”
“I was there in body, but not in spirit. That mind-set seems to have been the reason.”
“Do you mean…”
What do I do if I get this wrong? With that fear in the back of my mind, I can think of only one reason why he wouldn’t be there in spirit. Seeing Lex’s awkward smile gives me confidence that I have the right idea.
Lex takes on a serious expression and slowly goes down on one knee. “If it so pleases you, please make me, Lex Irvine, your knight, Lady Mizuha.”
I can’t help blinking at this unexpected turn of events. Honestly, a part of me rejoiced when I heard he was relieved from his duties as Cia’s guard. Sir Kurt and Sir Julian are very good men, too, but somehow it just didn’t seem the same with them.
That’s why I’m delighted Lex has returned to my side again like this. I’m genuinely happy to hear he wants to serve me. But…while I don’t know much about knights, I get the sense this isn’t something I should accept with half-hearted feelings.
“Lex, there is something I want you to know.”
“…Yes, m’lady?”
“Do you remember…when I told you how I came from another world?”
“Yes, around the time we first met.”
At the time, I wasn’t sure if Lex believed me or not from his response, “It only affirms you are our holy priestess.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. It’s the truth. So you see, Pino is searching for a way for me to return to that world. That’s why—”
—I might disappear from this world forever. Lex speaks sooner than I can tell him that, though. “In that case, I shall become your sword and shield for the duration of your time in this world, Lady Mizuha.”
His declaration, without an ounce of hesitation, leaves me blinking in disbelief. And then, I giggle behind my hand. “Weirdo. You almost sound like a real knight, Lex.”
“I am a real knight.” Lex raises his head, another joyous smile gracing his handsome visage.
“I’m also…comfortable with you. Other people stress me out.”
“Pardon the question, but is that something for me to be happy about?”
“I’ll leave that to your imagination.” I flash a teasing grin. I can see the expedition squad has finished preparations for the journey home; they seem to be waiting for us now. “Ready to go home?” On my way to join the others, I abruptly turn around and call his name. “Lex! I’m looking forward to our continued time together!”
“…Me too, m’lady!”