Chapter Two: The Country Called Bahairam

I was all too aware that my hands were trembling.

“Please, don’t move...”

The object I was holding was unquestionably a weapon.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time I had held a weapon. In order to gain citizenship, I had spent some time in the imperial army of the Holy Eldant Empire, where I had learned how to use the sword and the spear, in addition to offensive magic.

But the lump of metal in my hands at that moment was something else entirely.

This was a weapon from the country of Ja-pan. I believed I had heard Minori-sama refer to it as a “nine milli-meter hand-gun.”

“Myu... Myusel?” Elvia-san watched me dimly. Her usual cheerful smile was gone. Instead, I saw her face harden as the situation dawned on her. Her tail stood straight up against her back, motionless, perhaps from alarm.

She understood that a careless move could get her killed.

Living under the same roof had given us ample opportunity to see Minori-sama’s various tools in action. I was sure the nature of this weapon wasn’t lost on Elvia-san.

I had purposely taken Minori-sama’s nine milli-meter hand-gun because without it, I had no leverage against a werewolf. Elvia-san was stronger and faster than me; I would never have been able to defeat her with a bladed weapon. I could have tried magic, but chanting and targeting would have given away what I was doing, and my spell would have been simple enough to evade. Moreover, Elvia-san would have been just as aware of this as I was, and she wouldn’t have been intimidated by my threats.

So as bad as I felt about it, I had snuck into Minori-sama’s room and borrowed her nine milli-meter hand-gun. In addition to the one she normally carried on her person, she had a spare that I knew she kept in her room.

“Q-Quit it already,” Elvia-san said, frowning. “Th-That’s Minori-sama’s, innit? Wont’cha get in trouble for taking it?”

Trouble. Yes, that seemed likely. There was every chance this wouldn’t end with a simple scolding.

At that moment, however, it was my only choice... My only hope.

“I’m begging you, Elvia-san.” My voice shook as violently as my hands.

Yes, I had been in the military, but I had no experience of actual combat. I had never personally confronted anyone with weapon in hand.

On top of that, a nine milli-meter hand-gun was different from a sword. According to what I had heard, there was no need to swing this weapon. In fact, all you had to do was move your finger a little bit, and it would push your opponent with a force vastly quicker and more powerful than a blade. If it impacted any vital point—the head or the throat, or even the heart—its killing power was much greater than a sword. With this weapon, it wasn’t possible to hold back or to temper one’s attack.

“This is... This is the only way...”

“Myusel!”

I heard someone call my name from the door of the room. I didn’t have to look back to know it was Minori-sama. No—I heard two sets of footsteps, so it was likely that Matoba-sama was with her. Brooke-san or Cerise-san would have sounded different.

I could hear both Minori-sama and Matoba-sama drawing in their breath. I have good hearing—my long elven ears aren’t just for show.

“Stop this right now! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Minori-sama! Matoba-sama! Stay back!” In an attempt to force them to keep their distance, I stretched out my arm so that the nine milli-meter hand-gun was just inches from Elvia-san’s nose.

“Eeeep!”

“If you come any closer, I’ll... I’ll...”

“St-Stoppit!” Elvia-san yelped.

The footsteps ceased. Minori-sama and Matoba-sama must have frozen in place.

“Elvia-san, I’m begging you,” I said again. “Take me to Bahairam!”

I could practically feel the shock from Minori-sama.

“T-To Bahairam?” Elvia-san asked, wide-eyed.

Was my request really that surprising? Didn’t everyone realize that this was the only way left to rescue Shinichi-sama? Neither Ja-pan nor the Eldant Empire was going to do anything for him. Minori-sama and Her Majesty both found their hands tied in respect of their positions. If anyone was going to volunteer to rescue Shinichi-sama, it would have to be me.

It had to be Shinichi-sama.

It couldn’t be some replacement for him.

Otaku culture had spread as successfully as it had because of Shinichi-sama. He was the one who had built the school, taught us soccer, and helped us make a moo-vee.

Shinichi-sama was the reason all of us were able to live and work together: Her Majesty; Elvia-san, the former spy from Bahairam; Minori-sama; Brooke-san and Cerise-san; all the people from the Jay Ess Dee Eff; everyone at the school; and even me.

“You must know how to get into the country, Elvia-san.”

After all, that was where she had come from, wasn’t it? As a spy? That meant she had to have crossed the border between the Kingdom of Bahairam and the Eldant Empire without being caught by the border patrols. She must know about a secret path, a hidden route, something. And of course, she would have to be acquainted with the geography of Bahairam.

The past several days, Elvia-san had looked noticeably different from before. She kept sighing during meal times and was visibly upset. When she didn’t have anything else to do, she shut herself up in her room and wouldn’t come out.

I assumed this was because it was Bahairam that had kidnapped Shinichi-sama. Elvia-san was a spy from that nation, but she was also Shinichi-sama’s artist-in-residence. Shinichi-sama had saved her life. Now the country of her birth had kidnapped the person she owed her life to. It had to be an uncomfortable position.

But it was no guarantee that she would work with me.

What if I asked and she refused?

Helping me when she knew I was going to go rescue Shinichi-sama would be tantamount to betraying her own country. And although I was sure she felt a debt to Shinichi-sama, did it run deep enough to cause her to set aside her national loyalties? I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure.

And that was why...

“Er... I...”

“You must know by now that they say it was Bahairam that captured Shinichi-sama.” I looked Elvia-san straight in the eye. “And there’s no one left to help him except me!” Anxiety made my voice crack.

I sounded awful, and I was sure I didn’t look any better. It was about more than how my face looked with a mask of anxiety on it. I was standing there threatening a friend who lived in my own home with a weapon.

But I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Ja-pan won’t help Shinichi-sama, and neither will the Holy Eldant Empire! If no one at all is going to rescue him, then this is the only way...!”

“Myusel...”

It wasn’t just fear on Elvia-san’s face. There was concern there, too. Part of me felt guilty. What was I doing?

And yet...

“Myusel.” Minori-sama’s voice was more sure. “Let me ask you something. Did you pull the slyde and put the first bullette into the chaymber?”

“What...?” I hardly understood half the words she had said.

She pressed further: “A nine-millimeter doesn’t have a hand-operated sayfety, so as long as there’s a round in the chaymber, it’ll fire with a pull of the trigger. But it doesn’t look to me like you’ve got the hanmer cocked. You have to pull the slyde and chamber the bullette, or you can pull the trigger all day and never shoot a thing. I really doubt you’ve used the decocker, right? So if you don’t have the hanmer down, there’s a pretty good chance you don’t have the slyde in place, either.”

“I... What...?”

What in the world was she talking about?

“For that matter, Myusel, did you even put bullettes in it? I’m pretty sure I left the magazeen in the spare empty.”

“Er... Yes?”

I was completely flummoxed.

Almost before I knew what was happening, Minori-sama had closed distance with me and plucked the weapon out of my hand.

“Oh...!”

“Eep!” Elvia-san flopped to the ground.

Minori-sama flipped the nine milli-meter hand-gun around in her hand and said in exasperation, “I knew it. Look. It doesn’t even have a magazyne in it!”

“Er... Um...”

“Myusel.” Matoba-sama, who had been silent until that moment, spoke. “I suppose you overheard us talking the other day.”

I didn’t react.

“How careless of me. I forgot you could understand some Japanese.” He sighed. “How much did you hear?”

“You said it was Ja-pan’s fault that Shinichi-sama was kidnapped. That somebody new was going to come to replace him...”

“What?” Elvia-san said with surprise.

Of course she was surprised. She knew that Bahairam had kidnapped Shinichi-sama, but even Her Majesty didn’t know that Ja-pan was behind it.

“So you said Shinichi-sama was going to be abandoned... And that means the only choice left is for me to go.” This was the conclusion I had come to after three days of agonized thinking. “I’m... I’m the only one who can, aren’t I?!”

I was surprised to find myself shouting, but Minori-sama remained calm to the end as she asked, “And you planned to make Elvia be your guide?”

“...Yes.”

At this point, I saw nothing to do but be honest.

“I’m truly sorry,” I said, looking at Elvia-san, Minori-sama, and Matoba-sama in turn. “I won’t... I won’t trouble you any further.”

“What...?” Minori-sama looked taken aback by this.

“I’ll go alone.”

“Huh? Hold on— Myusel!”

“It’s been an honor serving all of you...”

I bowed my head, then made to walk out of the room.

Eldant and Bahairam shared a land border with each other. True, that border was ringed with treacherous mountains, but if I made sure to have plenty of food and equipment ready, I had faith that I could make it across them. I would need a weapon, too, in case soldiers from one nation or the other found me. In my head, I already had a list of everything I would need...

“Myusel, I demand that you wait,” Minori-sama said, grasping my shoulder.

“Please, don’t stop me.”

“All I’m saying is wait!” Minori-sama sighed, then said, “Because I’m going, too.”

“What...?” I turned to her, shocked.

Minori-sama was wearing a thin smile. “I’m... part of the reason Shinichi-kun was captured.”

“Minori-sama? But you—”

“I was supposed to be his bodyguard.”

“But... But that’s...”

It was the job the nation of Ja-pan had charged her with. And now that nation wanted Shinichi-sama forgotten. Minori-sama had no more business protecting him.

“Listen. I haven’t been given any orders yet relieving me of my duties as his bodyguard.” Minori-sama shrugged. “Right, Matoba-san?”

“I suppose so. It makes a nice pretext, anyway.” The old man was smirking.

And that meant...

“Minori-sama...”

“Yeah.” She gave me a firm nod. “Let’s go get him. Together.”

Ahh...! I felt myself shake with happiness. Minori-sama was on Shinichi-sama’s side. She would go to Bahairam with me. That made me feel ten times, a hundred times braver.

“But...” Still smiling, Minori-sama pulled out the hand-gun. Not the one she had taken from me, but the one she always kept at her hip. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she leveled it at Elvia-san, who was still sitting on the ground.

“Guh?!” Elvia-san said, trembling.

“You’re right. We’re going to need a guide.”

Elvia-san made a choked sound, her tail standing on end.

“I think you had the right idea, coming to Elvia. Given the rumor that Shinichi-kun was kidnapped by Bahairam, she was the first person I thought of, too.”

“I—I swear I didn’t have anything to do with this!”

“Sure, I know that.”

Elvia-san tried to back up, but found the wall immediately behind her, cutting her off. Minori-sama crouched down in front of her. There was a click, and she stuck the hand-gun squarely in Elvia-san’s face.

“Help us, Elvia. I’m begging you.”

“B-Begging, nothing!”

She didn’t look convinced. Maybe she was hung up on the fact that helping us would mean betraying her country.

“Myusel and I don’t know anything about Bahairam’s geography. You came here as a spy—that has to mean there’s a way to sneak in and out, right? A way to cross the border without too much fuss?”

“W-Well, that’s—”

“Are you saying you don’t want to help us?”

“I’m telling you, it’s—”

“You don’t want to help Shinichi-kun?”

“It’s... It’s...” Her eyes were swimming by this point.

“Hmm.” Minori-sama tilted her head. “I see. Bahairam matters more to you than Shinichi-kun, doesn’t it? No other choice, then. You’re a Bahairamanian spy, aren’t you, Elvia?”

“Y-Yes... But...”

“Ah. So you admit it.” Minori-sama’s glasses glinted eerily.

Elvia-san shook violently.

True, it was an open secret among all of us that she was a spy from Bahairam, but for the time being she had been granted a stay of execution, the excuse being that there wasn’t enough solid evidence to convict her.

But now...

“You’ve just admitted that you’re a spy from Bahairam. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Er... Agh...”

“Sadly, Elvia, you’ll have to be executed.”

Elvia-san’s face went pale. In the space of a few words, Minori-sama had completely cornered her. From my perspective, sticking a hand-gun in her face seemed to make the attempt at rational persuasion redundant, but what did I know?

“Oh, but... you’re a girl, Elvia. So who knows what they might do to you before they kill you? ‘She’s gonna die all the same!’, they’ll say, and then they’ll have their fun.”

“What... What kind of fun will they have...?”

“Eyteenandup dohjinshi stuff, you know? I can hardly bring myself to describe it! Just imagine, a bunch of hardened soldiers... very hardened...”

Elvia-san trembled again. I wasn’t sure what eyteenandup dohjinshi was, and I didn’t think Elvia-san knew either, but the thrust of what Minori-sama was saying was still perfectly clear.

“I’m really sorry, Elvia. I want to cover for you, believe me—but you’ve got to give me something to work with. Something I can present to Her Majesty and Minister Cordobal, something so compelling that they’ll have no choice but to forgive you even when they find out you’re an enemy spy!”

Elvia-san hung her head, exhausted by the fear. She spent a moment groaning unhappily before she finally said, “Yeah, fine...”

“Hm? What was that?” Minori-sama said, cocking her head.

Elvia-san gave Minori-sama a scathing look and shouted, “I said, fine! You win.”

I sat in a chair at my desk with my chin resting on my hand and let out a very long sigh. Amatena’s words from the day before kept whirling around in my head.

“You will use your abilities to make the children many times more loyal to the father-ruler. They will work harder for him, fight harder for him, and be more overjoyed to do so.”

That, apparently, was why the Kingdom of Bahairam had kidnapped me. Spies in the Holy Eldant Empire must have passed Amatena and her friends word of the movie we had made. They heard just how much people’s estimation of Petralka—their “loyalty,” to use Amatena’s term—had gone up after the film premiered, and they were bent on doing the same thing for their own monarch.

In short, Amatena and whoever she was working for believed the movie had been a ploy to manipulate the populace.

That was one serious misunderstanding, I thought. It had never been our plan for Petralka to become a pop star; that was mostly sheer dumb luck. It was never the stated goal. But then, strictly in terms of the outcome, the movie had indeed turned out to serve that purpose.

To an absolute monarchy like Bahairam (not that the Eldant Empire was any different in this regard), that probably looked like a pretty effective political tool.

“Oh, for...!”

But, come on. Do the same thing here? It wasn’t that easy.

For starters, this place didn’t even have the equipment to make a movie. To be fair, Amatena and her superiors didn’t seem hung up on the idea of a film as such. As long as the King of Bahairam—their beloved “father”—grew more popular with the people, it didn’t really matter what I did.

For example, I could take a page from certain countries and religions in our own world, where people sometimes made up stories out of whole cloth in order to bring power to a head of state or religious leader. Anything from “he deflected lightning with his bare hands” or “he predicted an earthquake,” right up to “he spoke with august figures from the past across time and space, and they acknowledged him” or “he’s the bodily reincarnation of the soul of so-and-so.”

Ridiculous propaganda like that wasn’t exactly uncommon even back on Earth. Plenty of national founding myths and legends were basically attempts in their own time to control people or consolidate power. That might explain why, unlike most folktales, so many of these stories are concerned with bloodlines and the legitimacy of those lineages.

My point is, what I was being asked to do was nothing new. But that still left me wondering:

“What the heck am I gonna do?”

Problem one: I was more of a messenger than a creator. Making up stories has never been my strong suit.

Problem two:

“Pardon me, Sire.”

I heard the words through the door—not the door to the outside that Amatena always came through, but the one that led into the kitchen and bathing areas. That door wasn’t locked.

“I’ve brought your tea.”

It was Clara.

“Sure, come on in.” I stood and opened the door for her. Clara was standing there with a tray in her hands and a surprised look on her face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said after a moment. She shook her head and came into the room.

I remembered, then: I had gotten the same reaction from Myusel once.

She seemed to be surprised that I had gone to the trouble of standing up and opening the door for her. Social differences were pretty pronounced in this world, and social superiors rarely showed that kind of consideration for their social inferiors. Bahairam touted how all its citizens were equal, but even just looking at the difference in clothes between the average citizen and members of the military suggested that equality only went so far.

“Here you are.”

“Thanks.”

On my desk she set a brass teapot and cup, along with a baked treat like a cookie. The tea must have been freshly steeped, because it was still steaming, and the cookie must have been freshly baked, because its aroma was still rich and tempting.

And yet, I didn’t feel like touching them. I just couldn’t seem to summon up an appetite. I was too worried about what Amatena had said.

“It’s something the matter, Sire?”

“Er, ah, no... I just... I guess I’m not that hungry.” Then I quickly added, “Oh, but I’m happy you took the trouble to bring them by.”

Clara was silent. She looked confused again. The whole beast-girl thing probably amplified just how outrageously cute and moe the expression was, like a delicate bird or a tiny squirrel. But forget about that.

“If you are pleased, Sire, then that is good,” Clara said. “Since I can’t serve you by having relations with you, I must find other ways to make you happy, or consider myself to have failed in my duties.”

“Uh-huh...”

I couldn’t help feeling a little exasperated. Why was this girl so hung up on “relations”? Clara was currently under the impression that I suffered from If-I-Do-Dirty-Stuff-With-Girls-I’ll-Die Syndrome (note: that name hasn’t been vetted by the medical journals), so for the time being I had avoided any more being jumped on or gotten naked with.

But Clara believed that if she couldn’t “serve” me that way, she had to discover some other way to earn my goodwill, and she had been very assiduous about doing so.

It felt different, though, from Myusel’s cheerful devotion. Myusel worked hard on my behalf because she personally recognized me as her master—her actions showed it, and she had even told me as much herself. But with Clara, there was something dutiful about it, like she was doing it because she had no other choice. In extreme terms, you could say there was no feeling in it, that the way she did things was kind of mechanical. Not enough to make her seem unhappy, exactly, but she didn’t seem to have any particular affection for me, either.

All the more reason, I figured, why I really wanted to avoid doing it with her.

“Look, Clara,” I said, looking her square in the face. “You don’t especially like me, do you?”

I succeeded only in provoking another perplexed expression.

“I mean... You know.” I hesitated for a moment. “These... relations, or whatever. Do you have any experience with them?”

“I do not. Do you find that unsatisfying about me, Shinichi-sama?” She cocked her head as if to ask whether I might prefer a woman with lots of experience.

“No, look, that’s not my point. If you don’t have any experience, then... then I think it’s even more important that you do, you know, kissing and stuff... with someone you really care about.”

“Is that how things are in Eldant?”

“Wait, what do you mean by...”

“Are you saying that isn’t how things are here?!” I wanted to exclaim, but somehow resisted. Cultural differences could really be... well, different. Maybe in Bahairam, this sort of, er, stuff didn’t have anything to do with love. I’ve heard that in prewar Japan, marriage partners were usually chosen for you by the people around you, and sometimes you wouldn’t even see your partner’s face until the day of the wedding.

“Do you hate me, Shinichi-sama?”

“No, listen, that’s not really what I’m saying. I’m asking how you feel. You’re not exactly in love with me, are you?”

When Amatena walked into the room, Clara’s tail stood straight up. But when she was with me, it dangled listlessly behind her. Of course, it was always possible that unlike with some animals, her tail didn’t really say anything about her emotional state. But still...

“So I just have to wonder. What makes you so interested in ‘relations’ with me?”

As though it were blindingly obvious, Clara replied, “Because that is my duty. I have been told to please you, Sire, and to earn your exalted affections.”

I was struck dumb. In doujinshi and stuff, two-dimensional maids offer to “serve” their “Sires” at night all the time—but those are just stories. Fiction. Not reality. That’s why it works. And yet here was an actual girl right in front of me saying this stuff, and it turned out to be a complete turn-off. At any rate, it definitely didn’t make me eager to be all, “Well, then!” and just climb on.

I guess because that would mean...

“It would mean completely ignoring the girl’s feelings, wouldn’t it?”

Now Clara looked more confused than ever.

I know: some people in the world choose to do this sort of thing for work, of their own volition, and if it’s their choice then I leave that to them. But Clara didn’t strike me as being in that category. More likely, she had just been brought up this way. That was why she believed that when it came to sex, the feelings of the people involved didn’t matter. Or at least, her feelings didn’t. It was her job, nothing more and nothing less. That was why she had thrown herself on me over my objections, all the while saying that it was in order to please me.

This was one more reason why I couldn’t accept Amatena’s demand.

The way that town had looked. Those people. Even that king. And now, the way Clara thought like this. What could produce any of that but a straightlaced, closely controlled society?

People were raised to suppress their natural emotions; even the blossoming of love wasn’t permitted. They were simply supposed to be good little cogs of the state. They had to repress everything they felt, channeling it into “loyalty” and “patriotism.” And as a result, the people didn’t even realize how constricted their worldview really was...

Maybe individualism wasn’t something they knew about in Bahairam.

In this country of all places, Amatena wanted me to help them manipulate the populace even more thoroughly.

And I just couldn’t do it.

To me it was even worse, even more inhuman, than being made an accomplice to cultural invasion.

I sat there, my brow furrowed with all these thoughts, when—

“It’s me.”

There was a knock on the door, and I heard Amatena on the other side.

Without waiting for me or Clara to respond, she walked imperiously into the room.

“Are you progressing?”

The question was directed at... Clara?

Huh?

Not at me?

I had been sure she was asking about how I was getting along with Operation Make Everyone Fall in Love with the King (provisional name). Did this imply that it was Clara, and not me, that she was going to trust for information on how things were going?

Clara’s tail was standing straight up again. I was pretty convinced by now that this girl was happy to see Amatena.

“Well? Is there progress or no?” Amatena asked again.

Clara answered, “Yes,” but only after a hesitant beat.

Wait a second...

Maybe the progress she, or perhaps her superiors, were interested in was progress in “pleasing” me. She was asking whether I had been served, whether I had been happy with it, and whether Clara had managed to insinuate herself into my “exalted affections.”

Had she hesitated to answer because we hadn’t actually, you know... done anything yet?

I would definitely feel bad if that fact ended up getting her in trouble... but not bad enough to say “Welp, there you have it, no choice,” and jump into bed with her.

“Hm. I see.” Amatena nodded, apparently satisfied with Clara’s answer.

As for me, I stood up and spoke. “Amatena.”

“What is it?”

“Could I trouble you to show me the outside?”

“As I recall, you saw it yester—”

“I mean I want to see how the people of this country actually live,” I broke in.

I kept wondering whether the impression I’d gotten from the scene of the “father-king” waving at the crowd, along with the vibes from Amatena and Clara, was accurate or not. Who knew? Maybe the bland townscape I’d seen was actually all warehouses or something, and the places where people lived looked different.

Granted, I knew it probably wouldn’t be possible to learn absolutely everything and then make a completely objective judgment—but at the very least, I wanted to avoid drawing a snap conclusion from just one angle. That was dangerous and ugly. Not to mention, otaku knew something about being the victims of such narrow-minded verdicts.

“I’m not entirely sure that’s necessary.”

“How can you expect me to make up myths and legends about your father-king that the people will accept if I don’t know anything about the people?”

Amatena appeared to think this over for a moment before she nodded and said, “Very well. They say that success in battle hinges upon knowing one’s enemy. Perhaps knowledge of the other is equally important in all areas of life.”

I found myself blinking in surprise. Hang on. Could it be that Amatena is... actually pretty smart?

It hardly took her more than a few seconds to take what I had said and cast it in a form that made sense within her worldview. You would have to think pretty hard to come up with battle as an analogy for brainwashing people. Or at least, she would have to be someone who didn’t stop at the surface meaning of words.

“Get your outdoor clothes on. I will be waiting outside,” Amatena said, and then she left the room.

When we told Her Majesty that we had something to report about Shinichi-sama, she admitted us to her presence immediately.

We were shown into the audience chamber, but not the one we had been in several days before. This room was several times the size of the other one, and we weren’t the only ones there: there were at least twenty other people, ministers and influential nobles of all types. Her Majesty must have been in the middle of a meeting with her advisors, and she had interrupted it just for us. That made it obvious how worried she had been about Shinichi-sama.

“Excuse us,” Minori-sama and I said as we approached the throne were Her Majesty sat.

Minister Cordobal and Prime Minister Zahar were in attendance beside the throne, while the rest of the audience chamber was packed with people of high station. Normally it would be unthinkable that I should so much as be near these people, let alone interrupt their conversation.

Understandably, most of those in the room had fixed us with glares that said, What are these impudent low-borns doing here? I could practically feel their eyes burning my skin.

Her Majesty spoke from the throne. “Minori. Myusel. You say you have something to tell us about Shinichi?”

“Yes, Majesty,” Minori-sama said with a reverent bow. “We effectively have proof that Kanou Shinichi was abducted by the Kingdom of Bahairam. However, I’m given to understand that the Holy Eldant Empire cannot act to rescue him.”

“It pains this nation deeply, but that is correct.”

This answer came—not from Her Majesty, but from Minister Cordobal. Perhaps he wanted to make sure he spoke before Her Majesty had a chance to.

“Would it be at all possible to entrust the matter to myself and Myusel?”

“Come again?”

“What I mean is...” Minori-sama turned and spoke, not to the shocked empress and her minister, but to Prime Minister Zahar. “Myusel and I wish to go to the Kingdom of Bahairam and bring back Kanou Shinichi. As individuals acting on our own, of course. I’m a member of the military, but not a citizen of the Holy Eldant Empire, and Myusel is currently nothing more than a household servant. On the chance that there was any kind of problem, the Eldant Empire could easily claim ignorance, and I don’t believe it would lead to any trouble for the empire.”

That set off a buzz in the audience chamber.

“Hmm.” Minister Cordobal, his brow furrowed, cut through the chatter. “Logical enough. But, Koganuma Minori, what good do you think the two of you can do by yourselves? You have a hunch he was captured by Bahairam, but no actual proof. You don’t, of course, know where in Bahairam he might be. We’re talking about a country with enough military might to oppose the Holy Eldant Empire—it’s not a small place. How do you intend to find him?”

“We’ll have Elvia guide us,” Minori-sama said.

“Elvia? Ah, the werewolf spy that Shinichi said he would keep close in order to keep an eye on her. I believe she was in the imperial soccer exhibition, was she not?”

“Yes, sir. Considering that, as you say, she was originally a spy who infiltrated the Eldant Empire, I have to imagine she can offer us at least some useful information.”

“That is true; however...” The minster made a thoughtful noise and then went quiet. Maybe he hadn’t expected what Minori-sama said—maybe no one had, because Her Majesty and Prime Minister Zahar were looking at us with troubled expressions, and the other ministers and nobles were all turning to each other and whispering.

As for me, I simply kept my head bowed and waited for Her Majesty’s judgment.

But I wasn’t to get off that easy.

“Myusel,” Her Majesty said.

“Y-Yes, ma’am!”

“What are your thoughts on this matter?”

“M-My thoughts, Your Majesty...?”

The question threw me into a panic. Our plan had been for Minori-sama to do all the talking. It had never even occurred to me that I might be asked to speak in front of such an august company.

I couldn’t hold back a panicked cry as I glanced up—and found myself looking straight into Her Majesty’s eyes.

“Um... Er...”

I shot a helpless look at Minori-sama, but she didn’t say anything, only nodded broadly at me. I thought she was saying, You’ll be fine. Just speak from the heart.

“I just... simply... want to help Shinichi-sama. That’s all. That’s... I’m sorry. I’m too much of a fool to consider anything more complicated than that... I only...”

“Hmm.” And Her Majesty nodded.

“But, Myusel Fourant,” Minister Cordobal said, “you have been in our military, have you not? If you should infiltrate Bahairam, and happen to be captured, do you understand that you are likely to be seen as an Eldant spy?”

That set me back on my heels. Unconsciously, I touched the magic ring on my finger.

Yes, I had spent some time in the armed forces. As a half-elf, effectively an orphan with no one to support me, military service was the only possible way to gain Eldant citizenship... to gain anything resembling a decent life.

But...

“That magic ring has your personal information and service record engraved in it. Given that fact, your current ring shall be forfeit. Can you accept that?”

Did that mean I was going to lose my status as a citizen?

I hesitated... but only for a moment.

“I understand.”

I was ashamed of myself for my reluctance. I was weighing my citizenship against Shinichi-sama’s life, but how could the two even be compared?

Then Minori-sama spoke up from beside me. “But Minister Cordobal, being unable to communicate telepathically with Myusel will impair my ability to work with her. I humbly request the temporary provision of a new magic ring.”

“Naturally, that was my intention. Lack of a magic ring would make things harder after you entered Bahairam, as well. The accent there is impossibly thick.”

.............What?

What was Minister Cordobal saying?

“We see that you are far too determined for us to stop you,” Her Majesty said, “short of putting you in chains. Myusel, your devotion is more than evident to us. We must grant you a parting gift as well.”

“What...? Um...”

The whole reason we had come to the audience chamber in the first place was to let them know that we intended no trouble for the Holy Eldant Empire by our actions, and if possible to request provisions, tools, and perhaps some way across the border with Bahairam.

But what could this “parting gift” be?

“Your Majesty?” the Prime Minister asked dubiously. The other worthies were also chattering amongst themselves. Minister Cordobal, however, let out a small sigh, as if he had a hunch what Her Majesty intended to give us. He rubbed his beautiful eyes with one hand.

“Fine, very well.” The minister turned back to us once more. “When do you mean to depart?”

“As soon as we can be ready. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Indeed,” Her Majesty nodded.

From the assembled advisors and nobles there came no objection. Her Majesty’s clear approval, accompanied by the lack of rebuttal from either Minister Cordobal or Prime Minister Zahar, left the others in the room hard-pressed to express a dissenting opinion.

“Minori. Myusel.” Her Majesty spoke our names again.

More than that, in fact: she rose from her throne.

“Bring him back to us. Please.”

Her voice was powerful and clear—and yet, there was an undercurrent of desperation, even pain. Perhaps Her Majesty wanted as much as I did—maybe more—to go help Shinichi-sama herself. But she had her position as Empress to think of. Unlike me, she had real responsibilities. It was unimaginable that she might abandon those duties to follow her own heart.

That was why she sent her heart with me.

Minori-sama and I both gave one emphatic nod.

“We will!”

On and on went the identical houses at identical intervals.

The same shape. The same color. In Japan it was possible to see public housing developments where everything had been built to the same blueprint, but this was... it was on a different scale. From one end of the street to the other, everything was the same. And I had the impression it was this way on all the other streets, too.

What was more, the scenery passing by the window of the dino-drawn carriage seemed impossibly dry. Partly that was due to the lack of greenery anywhere in the city, but I got the sense that the actual humidity was very low.

I’d also experienced the severe temperature differences between day and night. So it wasn’t just the clothes—the climate, too, was a lot like Earth’s Middle East.

I stared out the window. I didn’t see any people in town.

Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Once in a great while I would spot someone, but the number of people I saw seemed so small compared to how big the town was.

It was quiet. Too quiet, as they say. It felt lifeless, with none of the spontaneous chaos that usually characterizes an inhabited area. I felt like I was looking at a ghost town.

“Are these houses... all empty?” I asked.

“Hm?” Amatena gave me a questioning look. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s just... I don’t see anyone on the street.”

“That’s because it’s time for work,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Most people are out in the fields.”

“Fields, huh?”

“Some work in factories or have special assignments, but the majority of our nation’s people are engaged in agriculture.”

“So most of you are farmers?”

“Farmers, soldiers, family.”

I let a questioning silence hang. I didn’t follow.

Soldiers I could understand. Some countries have militia systems, where in times of emergency everyone was expected to pick up a weapon and be part of the army. Most of the time they were farmers, but they were also soldiers in reserve.

“Family,” though...

“You said you wished to see how our people live, didn’t you?” Amatena said. “Then wait a bit longer. I believe what you see will satisfy you.”

With that, she fell silent again.

At length, she announced, “All right. We’re here.”

The dino-drawn carriage came to a stop. Wherever we’d been going, apparently we’d arrived.

I looked around, poking my head out the window of the carriage. I saw a large building ahead of us. Not as big as the “temple” from whose balcony the father-ruler had been waving, but several times the size of any of the houses along the street. The high ceiling gave the impression of some sort of storehouse; in any event, a quick glance at the outside made it clear that this was no ordinary house. Despite its size, it seemed to be just a single story.

“Let’s go,” Amatena said, disembarking.

We entered the foyer, then proceeded into the building proper.

“Huh...”

As I’d expected, the inside was a vast, open space. It was supported by a series of pillars, but there were no walls dividing the interior area. I assumed this was the main living space in this building, possibly supplemented by some smaller attached rooms. It almost looked like the worship hall of a church.

The building’s bland exterior belied the colorful inside, which was adorned with what seemed to be traditionally made decorations. It was different from anything else I had seen to that point. Could it be that the other seemingly plain houses were like this inside, too?

“What’s going on?”

Gathered in the large space were several dozen men and women. Humans made up more than half the group, but there were a lot of beast people, too. I didn’t see anyone resembling an elf, a dwarf, or a lizardman, though.

Everyone was dressed in traditional outfits—the beast people, in particular, seemed to show a lot of skin.

Now I get it.

I had always thought Elvia seemed pretty exposed, but I could see now that it was just part of Bahairam’s culture.

Desert people in our world often covered their entire bodies to avoid sunburn and help regulate temperature, but as Elvia’s “phase” made abundantly clear, her fur could get very thick, and when she shed it again, the skin could be very sensitive. So it was actually better for her to trap less heat by wearing fewer clothes.

This was a culture that had naturally been forged by the daily life and work of its people.

“And that’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” I remarked.

Maybe the overwhelmingly bland townscape I had been seeing all this time made the feeling more intense than it should have been, but the people in front of me seemed, in my mind, to embody at once both the culture of Bahairam and the nature of its people.

“I see,” Amatena said slowly. Just for a second, something dark passed through her expression.

Huh? Was that the wrong thing to say?

Amatena must have noticed me looking at her, because she shook her head. “Hrm? Ahem. It’s nothing.”

That was another way of saying she wasn’t going to answer any questions about it. Instead, I decided to ask about our location.

Amatena and I stood up against one wall, watching. “What kind of gathering is this?” I was pretty sure it wasn’t a cosplay convention...

“It’s a wedding.”

“Oh, of course, a—”

A wedding?

I guessed that explained all the people dressed in traditional costumes. However—maybe the ceremony had just started, but there was one crucial element of a wedding that I didn’t seem to see.

“Where are the bride and groom?”

“They’re right there.”

“Right... where?”

Amatena pointed to the men and women in the center of the room. But the gesture seemed to encompass at least a dozen of each.

“Sorry... Who’s getting married, there?”

“All of them. You can count at least thirty couples.”

“Thirty?”

Thirty brides and grooms?

“So, wait. Is this one of those, you know... mass weddings?”

“Correct.” Amatena nodded calmly.

As for me, I didn’t know what to say. Intellectually, I knew every country had its own culture and customs, shaped by its own history and conditions, so it was hardly the place of a foreigner—let alone someone from another world—to be judgmental or critical. But marriage was one of the most important events in a person’s life. Did everyone really not mind being wed all at once?

“Er, is it really okay for us to just drop in on a wedding ceremony like this?” Especially with an absolute stranger like me.

“It’s fine,” Amatena said curtly. “It’s only natural that family be present at a wedding. And although your disgusting self is not family, you’re with me, so you may join us.”

“Hold on... Family?”

Did Amatena have some blood relation in that group? I did spot a few werewolf men and women in there...

But then again, we had come here because I’d asked Amatena to show me something of the city and its people. Didn’t that mean that she wouldn’t have gone to this wedding if I hadn’t asked to go out?

And that suggested...

“No way...”

Father-ruler, the title they gave their king, danced through my head.

As if to lend credence to what I was thinking, three figures appeared on a balcony that ran along one wall of the open area. One of them I recognized.

“Is that...”

“Mm. The father-ruler,” Amatena said.

It was him: the same King of Bahairam I’d seen the day before. Two muscly guys, each wearing the same sort of uniform as Amatena, flanked him; maybe they were bodyguards or something.

“But what is the king of the country doing a wedding ceremony?”

“Our father-ruler himself says the words of blessing at family weddings in our nation. One makes an eternal vow to the father-ruler, along with a vow of loyalty to him. That is the ceremony.”

“You don’t vow to... to God, or something?”

“Did I not say we vow to the father-ruler?”

I didn’t speak for a moment. Was this... you know? One of those things where His Majesty the Emperor was also a living god?

“So the reason everyone’s getting married at the same time...”

“They were waiting for the father-ruler to come to us,” Amatena said.

So the king made these periodic tours of his kingdom, and whenever he showed up, they would have mass weddings or whatever. I had somehow always pictured a king as someone who stayed shut up in his castle, but it sounded like the King of Bahairam really got around.

Think about it. Based on their dress and culture, I might guess that Bahairam was made up of people who were originally nomads. That meant it was likely that this sort of settled lifestyle was a relatively new thing for them.

As I was ruminating about all this, one of the people standing beside the king opened a piece of sheepskin paper and called out a word I couldn’t decipher. I gathered it was somebody’s name. Given that this was a wedding ceremony, that implied it was one of the new brides and/or grooms. But... wait a second. So did that mean the guy wasn’t a bodyguard, but more of a priest?

Whatever the case, from the crowd of couples emerged a man and woman; they came forward and knelt.

“In the name of our most honored father, I administer to you the eternal vow,” the man beside the king said. “Be ever loyal as members of our family.”

“It is our profound honor,” the man and woman replied. They both looked deadly serious—and, if I may say so, not very happy.

And then...

“Next!” the man beside the king called out. The first bride and groom quickly moved to the side, and another couple walked forward. They were given the same brief, and oddly condescending, address, and they too answered, “It is our profound honor,” before moving aside.

By the third couple, I was starting to get a little tired of it. What was this, an assembly line?

I mean, granted, if His Majesty the King really attended every wedding ceremony in the country, then he didn’t exactly have the luxury of time. It was more like... yes, he was dealing with strangers, but was this really enough?

Then Amatena added another twist of the knife. “In our country, when a man or woman reaches the appropriate age, he or she marries a partner chosen for him or her.”

“Huh? Chosen? Like, an arranged marriage? Who does the choosing?”

“The father-ruler,” she replied quietly.

Okay, wait. Hang on.

The king chooses everyone’s marriage partners? Even by this country’s standards, that sounded insane.

It seemed like it would have to be hard enough attending every single wedding ceremony in the country. For him to also personally pick everyone’s partners had to be impossible. Presumably, in practice, it was someone close to him, or maybe an official in each region, who made the selections.

But even that would mean...

“So you don’t get to marry the person you love—just the person the king chooses for you?”

“That’s correct.”

“That’s nuts is what that is.”

“It is natural for one to obey one’s honored father,” Amatena said bluntly.

“...Right...”

I didn’t know what else to say. All I knew was that it made me feel sick. It wasn’t right. People’s free will was being totally ignored.

But then... I couldn’t deny that this, too, could be considered a cultural difference. Manga and anime and games and light novels were overflowing with stories based on strategic marriages—matches made by the parents of the partners. As I recalled, during Japan’s era of civil wars, something like ninety percent of the marriages warriors made were political, with the partner acting almost as a hostage. Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s love marriage to Nene was the exception, or so I’d heard.

Of course, in most of these works, the main characters object to the arranged marriage, and it becomes a whole drama. But the fact that it can be used for that kind of conflict is another way of suggesting how common it was in the past. So maybe it was me and my objections that were really crazy.

I figured the best thing to do at this point was to change the subject.

“Um... You mentioned family. Who here are you related to?”

“Everyone.”

“Come again?” I said dumbly. “Everyone?”

I looked around the room once more. There were dozens of men and women there, and many of them weren’t werewolves. I was sure not every single person present was there to get married, but it was still just too many people for every last one of them to be part of Amatena’s family.

So I guess that must mean...

Given the way they referred to their king as the “father-ruler,” it implied that all subjects of the kingdom were children of their god and father, His Majesty.

Amatena probably didn’t realize she was confirming my suspicions when she said, “All of us are equally children of the father-ruler, so everyone is family to everyone else. That is the tie that binds us together and which makes the august nation of Bahairam possible.”

I didn’t respond right away. It looked like while we were talking, the vows to the father-ruler had finished.

Wait, that was fast!

True, at thirty seconds a couple, thirty couples would only take about fifteen minutes. Finally, the King of Bahairam said, “May all my children joined together here today have long lives and many progeny,” and then he withdrew into the building. Hold on a second... That was the king’s entire blessing?!

As I stood there practically fuming, the brides, grooms, and everyone else involved in the ceremony took the king’s cue and started filtering out of the room.

“Is there a reception after this?”

“Ree-sep-shun?” Amatena asked. “What is that?”

“Huh? I mean...”

It had happened again. When you used a word the other person had no concept for, the magic interpreter ring wouldn’t be able to translate it. In and of itself, this wasn’t that unusual. But this time...

“It’s, you know... The party they have after a wedding ceremony. Fancy-ish food, maybe some drinks...”

“Our country no longer has such dissolute functions,” Amatena said sharply.

“Hold on. Dissolute?”

You’d think that if there was ever a time for a party, after a wedding ceremony would be it. The whole point of a wedding was for a couple’s friends and family to celebrate as they set off on a new stage of their lives together. The reception was the couple’s way of showing their appreciation for everyone’s good wishes.

And she thought that was dissolute?

Could it be that in Bahairam, parties like that were considered an unacceptable luxury?

While I stood there in shock, everyone else in the room left. It was just me and Amatena now.

“The word bahairam,” Amatena said as if it had just occurred to her, “means family in the old tongue. We are all of us children of the exalted father-ruler, and in him we are all equal. We do not have a discriminatory system of divisions like Eldant does with its nobility. Nor do we have any decadent customs. We are all one great family, living together here in this paradise.”

“Paradise,” I repeated.

The word sounded impossibly cold there in that empty room.

Dragon Knights delivered us and our cargo to the border.

To get into Bahairam, we would have to cross the mountainous region in the west. It was a difficult and dangerous area; while a beast person may not have worried about it, humans, elves, and dwarves were likely to find the going quite hard.

Thus Her Majesty the Empress, seeking to ease our burden however she could, instructed the knights to take us and our belongings as far as was feasible.

The quickest and easiest thing of all would have been to ride those wyverns straight over the border, but if Eldant Dragon Knights were spotted in Bahairam, it would only intensify the border disputes again, so they stopped before crossing into the other nation.

“Right, then.”

We were in a relatively open space in the forest that stood at the foot of the mountains on the border, doing a final inspection of our equipment. Bird-drawn carriages were obviously out of the question here, so we planned to bring only what we could carry. I say planned, because for some reason there were five large wooden chests with us.

They were from Her Majesty, who had wished to help us with equipment in any way she could. Still, we could hardly take all of this. And so I opened the chests and began the task of figuring out what we would bring and what would stay behind.

“Look at this!” I exclaimed when I opened one of the boxes.

A piece of paper, labeled “To Myusel” in Ja-panese, sat inside.

Truth be told, I can’t read or write the Eldant language. The Ja-panese writing I learned from Shinichi-sama is the only thing I’m literate in. So somebody wishing to write me a letter would have to use that language...

The only person capable of writing to me in Ja-panese, and putting the letter in this box, no less, was Her Majesty.

I picked up the paper and turned it over. On the back was secured a small magical item, a thin piece of steel with a magic spell inscribed on it. I recognized it. It was a magic tag used to seal up a word-spirit; in the military, such things were routinely carried by messengers.

I touched the item and intoned, “I’m Myusel,” and just as I expected, the word-spirit inside—the voice of Her Majesty—was released.

“Myusel. In consideration of our office, we are unable to accompany you on your journey. We send this with you instead. It is a battle dress we used ourself once, but it has been tailored to fit your body. The magical spells embroidered on the lining will surely aid you. If anything, we expect they will work better for one whose veins flow with the blood of elves.”

With much reverent trembling, I peered into the wooden chest. To my astonishment, inside sat folded an outfit clearly fit for nobility or royalty—a battle dress of silk with lavish gold and silver stitching. Supposedly, according to the message, one once used by Her Majesty herself.

What a tremendous honor...

“What’s up, Myusel?” Minori-sama asked, looking over my shoulder into the box.

“It’s... Her Majesty, she...”

“Oh. Ohhh. I get it,” Minori-sama said, not seeming especially surprised. “So this is why she wanted to know your syze.”

“I’m sorry...?”

“You remember how I measured everyone’s bodies when we made that movie?”

“Yes...”

I remembered Minori-sama measuring me, Elvia-san, and even Her Highness during the production of the movie. She had said it was necessary to create the costumes.

“Well, a while later, Her Highness ordered me to give her your measurements.”

“Uh... huh.”

“We had actually already talked about making you something like this. I may be Shinichi-kun’s bodyguard, but I was sure an outfit like this would be useful for you. There’s a lot of things I can’t do by myself, you know.”

It was true, I was with Shinichi-sama almost as often as Minori-sama was.

“I know you can use magic. And you can handle a sword, too, can’t you?” Minori-sama pulled a cape and a sword out of the chest.

“I only received the most basic training...”

I had learned a little bit about swordsmanship in the army. The most I could say was that I knew more about how to hold and strike with a sword than someone who had never picked one up in her life.

“Well, how about you borrow this one, then? You’ve got this cape. Wear it over your clothes and close the front, and no one will be able to see your equipment.”

“Right. That sounds like a good idea.” I nodded.

The honor of what the empress had done was almost overwhelming, but if I let it keep me from making good use of Her Majesty’s gift, that would be the most shameful thing of all. I decided, gratefully, to use the battle dress.

Elvia-san was in her usual outfit, while Minori-sama was wearing a basically normal shirt and pants. Then there was me and my cloak. No one would mistake us for people from Bahairam, but we might look enough like traveling merchants not to stand out too much.

Minori-sama looked up at the towering mountains and sighed. “There was a mountain phase to my training, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s frustrating to have to go this way when every minute counts.”

“You’re right,” I said.

There were several valleys that cut through the mountains, but they were all closely watched by both the Holy Eldant Empire and the army of Bahairam alike, and there was no way we could hope to get through them.

“It sure would be nice to just fly right over in a chopper. If only...”

“Chop-per?” I didn’t recognize the word.

“It’s a vehicle we have back in Japan. It flies through the sky.”

“You mean like a wyvern?”

“No, not really. It’s made of metal, see? And it’s got a big spinning wing...”

“A metal object that can fly through the sky?” I could hardly picture it. It seemed that the technology of Ja-pan had given birth to things that beggared the imagination. Like the “auto-mo-bile” that Minori-sama and the others sometimes rode in: it managed to move forward even though there were no animals pulling it. They claimed it didn’t operate on magic, but still...

“Then again, I guess a helicopter would be even more conspicuous than some wyverns.” Minori-sama gave a half-smile.

True, being able to fly would save us an awful lot of time. I dearly wished that we could fly, as it would get us to Shinichi-sama that much sooner.

“Even I needed a couple of days to cross these mountains,” Elvia-san said. “There’s lots of dangerous monsters, too, so we’ve got to be careful.”

That was one of the things I was concerned about. Rumor had it that wyverns were among the wildlife in this area, and unlike the mounts ridden by the Dragon Knights, wild wyverns were violent and dangerous. There were also stories of wild dogs and ghosts around here. Crossing these mountains would cost us more than just time. It could cost us our lives.

“Well, standing around here worrying won’t do us any good,” Minori-sama said, and went back to sorting through the luggage.

For my part, I took out the battle dress Her Majesty had given me and tried it on.

At that moment, Elvia-san said, “Huh? Is that...”

“What’s going on?” Minori-sama said, following Elvia-san’s gaze.

I did the same—and then froze stiff.

“That’s...”

A dark shadow circled lazily in the clear sky. Because it was backlit by the sun, we couldn’t make out many details, but the silhouette alone was enough to tell us what we were looking at.

“A dragon...!”

It was, without question, a True Drake, the creature people generally meant when they referred to a dragon. True Drakes were an order of magnitude bigger than wyverns, and probably more dangerous than any creature alive. On top of that, magic hardly affected them. Brutally violent by nature, encountering one was as good as a death sentence.

And here one was, right here.

Could this be coincidence?

“Or is it one of Bahairam’s...?”

One of their puppet drakes, perhaps. Had they found out about us and come to stop us?

I glanced over at Elvia-san, but she shook her head emphatically.

“I— I don’t know anything about this! I was totally in the dark about any puppet drakes!”

“Forget it, just hide!” Minori-sama ordered, and I quickly sheltered behind the wooden chest.

Ideally, we would have run somewhere we could hide better, but unfortunately, the dragon was immediately above us. Any thoughtless movement could have drawn its attention.

The monster passed directly overhead, then made a large circle and came back. Almost like it was looking for something in this area. Had it spotted us? We kept fearful eyes on the dragon, trying to keep our bodies loose enough to be able to make a run for it at any time.

Suddenly Minori-sama shouted, “He found us?!” and jumped for one of the boxes. It seemed there was some kind of Jay Ess Dee Eff weaponry inside—although it probably wouldn’t do us much good now. I began quietly chanting Tifu Murottsu, just to be ready. It might not have any effect against a dragon, but it might just buy us some time. That was all we could hope for from magic in this situation: a little time.

We had come here to save Shinichi-sama. Were we going to be killed by a dragon before we even made it into Bahairam?

That was definitely what Elvia-san and I were thinking, both of us stiff with fear.

But then we heard it: “Miiinoooriii-senseeeiii!”

The dragon seemed to be calling Minori-sama’s name.

Wait... What?

Elvia-san and I looked at each other, stunned. We both knew dragons couldn’t speak any human language. And that meant...

“Hang on... That voice!” Minori-sama said excitedly, looking up at the dragon.

I joined her in staring into the sky. “Oh...!”

The dragon made an abrupt descent. A face popped out from behind it. No, two faces. Two faces I recognized, in fact. Just as Minori-sama no doubt did.

“Loek? Romilda?!” Minori-sama’s voice was just on the edge of cracking. From surprise, surely.

Yes: riding on the dragon were the elf boy Loek-sama and the dwarf girl Romilda-sama, both students at our school. Although both were demi-humans, they came from families that had been recognized for their contributions to the empire, and as such were treated more or less as nobility.

“We invited ourselves along!” Loek-sama said, waving and smiling broadly. Waving so hard, in fact, that he looked like he might fall clean off the dragon. Romilda-sama grabbed him by the collar to stop him.

“And just what do you mean by that?” Minori-sama asked, shocked.

She certainly wasn’t more shocked than me and Elvia-san. We could only look on in astonishment as the two children and their dragon got closer and closer.

On closer inspection, we discovered that whatever it was, it wasn’t a dragon. Yes, it looked like one, especially at a bit of a distance. But most dragons didn’t make the sound of scraping metal when they landed on the ground.

Was it possible that this was...

“Minori-sensei!”

While I stood staring, Loek-sama jumped down from the dragon(-like thing)’s back and ran over to Minori-sama.

“Ahh, Minori-sensei! How I longed to see you!” He had both arms open as if he was expecting a hug.

Minori-sama, however, was looking at the dragon, still astonished. Loek-sama continued to run forward, embracing Minori-sama—

—almost.

“You dumb, stupid idiot!”

Ker-smash!

A long-handled axe slammed into Loek-sama’s head with a sound that was practically visible, throwing the elf to the ground.

Holding the axe was Romilda-sama, who had been a second behind him dismounting the dragon. Dwarves like Romilda-sama may not have looked like much, but she was easily swinging an axe that I probably couldn’t even pick up.

“You pervert! Stalker! Sexual harasser! We haven’t been talking to her for five minutes, and look what you’re doing!”

“Wh-Why you stinking, hole-dwelling—!” Loek-sama, rubbing the back of his head, reacted to Romilda-sama’s yelling with some shouts of his own. “I don’t have to take orders from you! And you just hit me out of nowhere! I knew dwarves were violent, but you’re a menace! The purity of my love shall not be stymied by anyo—hgghr?!”

As Loek-sama declaimed, Romilda-sama trundled over on her stout legs and planted a foot firmly on his back, cutting him off.

“Quiet, you perpetually horny tree-hugger!” There was a muffled squeaking as she ground her boot into Loek-sama’s back.

One might not expect Romilda-sama to be very heavy given her short stature, but then, she was still holding that giant battle axe. The combined weight had to be rather unpleasant. We could hear the occasional “hrgh” and “hagh” and “grrk” and other odd noises emanating from Loek-sama.

“H-How did you two come to be here?” I finally asked. “And what is this dragon...?”

The monster stood still and silent behind them. It was nearly the size of a house, but it showed no sign of going berserk—or for that matter, even of being alive. But then, if this was what I was beginning to suspect it was, that was only natural.

“Could this be... from our fyl-ming?”

“You got it,” Romilda-sama said, even as she continued to work her boot into the unfortunate Loek-sama. He was flailing his limbs, but didn’t seem to be making any progress at escaping from her. “It’s a fake.”

A very convincing fake, definitely, but if you looked very closely you could see that the “skin” was made of cloth held in place with metal fastenings, all covering something resembling metal armor.

“B-But we saw it flyin’,” Elvia-san protested, approaching the dragon warily.

She was right. Shinichi-sama had asked Romilda-sama’s parents to build a dragon puppet for us when we made our movie, but it was nothing more than that: when we wanted it to “fly,” we had to attach strings to it and have wyverns pull it up in the air.

This thing, though, seemed to be flying on its own. We certainly didn’t see any wyverns around.

“We use wind magic to make it move,” Loek-sama said nonchalantly from his place beneath Romilda-sama’s heel.

“Yeah,” Romilda-sama added. “Plus we move the wings and tail to help it ride the wind better. Magic, too.”

According to the two students, they used wind magic to move through the air, while magic that resonated with the metal was used to make the body move.

“We borrowed a few ideas from some of the anime we’ve seen,” Loek-sama said. “Zo*ds and Dan**uga and stuff.”

“Uh... huh.”

Neither of those sounded like very useful resources to me. The fact that these two had actually turned them to account was perhaps just more proof that they really were heirs to great families of the elves and the dwarves, respectively. Whatever the race, if a line of demi-humans had been acknowledged by the Holy Eldant Empire as especially distinguished—probably in part for the powerful use of magic to better the Empire—then their traits most likely included formidable magical abilities. They must be able to do things that would seem impossible to an ordinary person.

“But,” Minori-sama said, finally speaking, “why are you here? How did you know we would be here?”

“That’s because I so desperately wanted to be of help to you, Minori-sensei!”

“Yipes!”

Loek-sama summoned a burst of strength enough to finally escape from Romilda-sama; he flew over to Minori-sama and took her hand in both of his.

“That’s all well and good, but I mean, how did you know—”

“Ah, you and Myusel-sensei went and spoke to Her Majesty before you left, didn’t you? My father was present at that audience.”

“Oh...”

I thought back to the audience chamber packed full of important people. So Loek-sama’s father had been among them. He must have gone home and spoken to Loek-sama, who rushed after us in his desperation to help Minori-sama.

That, however, would have been after we had already left with the Dragon Knights. So it seemed that after some deliberation, Loek-sama went to talk to Romilda-sama. Why had he gone to her instead of to his friends among the elves? For one thing, he claimed they had had plans for some time now to convert the now-unused prop dragon into something that could actually fly. But most importantly, his father was extremely influential among the elves. An unguarded word to one of his friends could easily reach the ears of his friends’ families, and then his father would soon find out about his plan.

And so we found ourselves here...

“Minori-sensei!” Loek-sama practically shouted. “Take me with you!”

“I think you mean ‘Take us with you,’” Romilda-sama said with a frown. “Because I know you can’t manage the simplest thing by yourself.”

Minori-sama looked at them both—and then shook her head. “No. This isn’t a game.”

She was right. We were risking our lives on this mission. Considering Minori-sama’s position, it would be unforgivable for her to let Loek-sama or Romilda-sama get involved.

Still, Loek-sama went on. “I know that! I’m serious!”

“Serious or not, this is dangerous!” Minori-sama said.

“I swear we won’t slow you down,” Loek-sama said, showing no sign of being deterred.

“That’s not the real issue here,” Minori-sama said with a deep sigh.

I was sure Loek-sama was telling the truth when he said he was serious. Even with Minori-sama sounding her sternest, Loek-sama didn’t seem the least intimidated, but just kept insisting he would come along. Somehow, it made him look almost... heroic.

“He’s really that devoted to Minori-sama...” I whispered, without meaning to.

To my surprise, it was Romilda-sama who answered. “That’s not all it is,” she said. “This isn’t all about Minori-sensei.”

“Then...”

“You aren’t the only ones... who are worried about Shinichi-sensei.”

I caught my breath.

Ahh! To think, there were other people who were this genuinely worried about Shinichi-sama. The thought made happiness well up in my heart.

“Anyway! I am absolutely not going back! Leave me behind if you want—I’ll just follow you!”

“Oh, for crying out loud...” Minori-sama was starting to sound thoroughly irritated—and tired out—by Loek-sama’s stubbornness. She put her hands to her head as if she might tear her hair out. She looked as if she just didn’t know what to do.

Again, given her position, how could she not hesitate to bring Loek-sama and Romilda-sama along? But there was every likelihood that if she turned them down, Loek-sama would simply trail us anyway. Actually, he had a dragon (or whatever it was). That meant he might even arrive at Bahairam before us, and then who knew what might happen?

“Um, Minori-sama?”

“What is it, Myusel?” Minori-sama’s voice was unusually sharp, and for once she didn’t bother to look at me as she spoke.

“I think it may be best to let them both come along.”

Minori-sama and Elvia-san both turned toward me with shocked expressions. Loek-sama and Romilda-sama, on the other hand, looked thrilled.

“Not you too, Myusel. You do remember we’re marching straight into enemy territory here, don’t you?”

I didn’t respond immediately. I noticed Elvia-san, standing next to the dragon-like thing, twitch at Minori-sama’s words. I wasn’t sure if Minori-sama noticed, but she went on in a hard voice, “If they catch us, you know what they’ll do.”

“Yes, I know, but...” I thought for all I was worth. “But I have to confess that Loek-sama and Romilda-sama seem very set to me, and that nothing we can say will convince them to go home.”

“That’s—”

“In fact, I think that even if you leave them here, they’re likely to try to infiltrate Bahairam on their own. That being the case, I have to think it might be safer to have them with us...”

Minori-sama didn’t say anything.

“And it will save us a lot of time to fly across the border on this dragon marionette rather than to cross the mountains on foot. I know a little bit of wind magic myself. Between us, Loek-sama and I should be able to make it go a little quicker...”

My magical abilities weren’t as strong as those of a pure-blooded elf like Loek-sama, but I would be able to contribute.

“And in order to make the creature fly properly, we need Romilda-sama’s magic, too...”

“That’s absolutely right,” Romilda-sama said, taking up the thought. “We tried to have Loek-sama control it with just his wind magic a few times, but it never worked.”

Minori-sama was frowning deeply, her arms crossed. She let out a deep, long groan and then, finally, a defeated sigh.

“Myusel.”

“Yes?”

“I think Shinichi-kun’s rubbed off on you.”

“Er? O-On me?”

“For better or for worse,” she said with a half-smile. Then she turned back to Loek-sama and Romilda-sama. “Looks like I’m left with no choice. You swear not to slow us down, right?”

“Yes, ma’am!” For once in their lives, the eternally arguing pair answered in unison.

“Once we get into Bahairam, you will follow my orders absolutely, without question. That’s my condition.”

“Yes, ma’am!” they answered, in unison once more.