Lucia Cries Again

Thanks to Miss Maria, we moved our conversation into the castle instead of on the road. On the way, the citizens welcoming me home was embarrassing, but still made me happy.

But there was one, just one, single problem.

“Sir Celes, put me down!”

“Don’t you mean ‘Celes,’ Lucia? But no can do — not putting you down.”

He’d picked me up again on our way, without a word as to why.

“Gross, Celes,” Miss Maria grunted.

“You’re one to talk, Sacred Maiden.”

“You’re so narrow-minded, Captain,” Eric pouted.

“You’ll understand one day, Eric.”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Yes.”

“Sir Celestino, I understand, but...” His Majesty started.

“No,” Sir Celes was answering everyone with a smile, but this was just weird! And embarrassing!

While I worried, His Majesty led our march, walking through the castle halls. We were in the same order as we were on our return from the journey of purification, but Sir Celes was making it awkward by not putting me down. I could feel everyone’s piercing gazes. Sir Celes didn’t understand how popular he was! The knights were staring, too!

“C-Celes, please put me down...” I groaned, nuzzling my face into his shoulder. I was so embarrassed, I thought my face was going to burst into flames.

“Celes...”

“Just leave ’em for now, okay?” Just as Miss Maria was about to try to talk to Sir Celes on my behalf, Sir Gaius moved to stop her. “I know you wanna spend time with her, but let him have this for now. He’ll probably let her go once we get to a room.”

“What’s with that?” Miss Maria pouted at Sir Gaius.

“Sorry, Lucia. Just hold on for a bit longer,” Sir Celes murmured.

I really had no idea why he had to carry me all the way to a room. Sir Celes wouldn’t tell me why, but Sir Gaius seemed to know. I’d have to ask him later.

As I wondered about this, we finally reached our destination.

Once I was finally freed, Miss Maria ran over to me. “Now it’s my turn to have you! I’ve been waiting for so long!”

“I’m sorry, Miss Maria. I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“But you were waiting for me to come back before you would go home, weren’t you? Even though you had Shiro’s crystal to use...” I touched the stone hanging from her neck. The golden “Drop of the Cristallo Sacro” and white stones were both on the same chain. The stone almost felt warm to the touch. It kind of felt as if Shiro were welcoming me home, too.

“You promised to see me off, didn’t you?” Her pale hand overlapped mine, and she smiled up at me. Being able to see her smile once again made me so happy, I started crying again.

“Oh, geez, don’t cry! You’re gonna make me cry too!”

“Yeah, Lucia! I’m tearing up, too! You should be smiling since you’re finally home,” Eric said, sniffling.

Lord Reynard followed up with, “That’s right. If you cry too much, Sir Celestino will get possessive again.”

Miss Maria and I buried our faces in each other’s shoulders as Eric and Lord Reynard smiled beside us.

“I’m just so happy... I missed you so much.”

I missed everyone, so, so much. Seeing them all smile made me deeply happy to meet them all again.

“Er... Lucia,” His Majesty nervously spoke up, his usual self-confidence nowhere to be seen.

“Yes?”

“I won’t ask you to forgive me. I can’t. It’s fine if you resent me and my father. In the end, there was little I could do to stop him. I relayed all the details about the two of you without thinking of how he would respond. Everything is my fault. I deeply apologize for making you go through that, and separating you from Celestino. Are you really okay?”

I smiled back at him. I didn’t resent His Majesty. I might have been sad, and it might have been hard, but that was all over now.

“I don’t resent you. But, um... What happened to the former king?”

That was what I was really curious about. Back in Riunione, we hadn’t even heard that our own king had changed. I didn’t know whether he had passed or just abdicated, so I chose my words carefully.

“He...passed. After abdicating, I had him retire to the villa where my mother passed, but he breathed his last soon after.”

“I see...” While I was slightly suspicious of his averted gaze, I nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss. Let the Cristallo Sacro bear his soul.”

As I said the usual words of lamentation, Eric suddenly spoke up, “So we always say that when someone dies, right? But wasn’t it monsters that the Cristallo Sacro sprouted? What does it mean? They say it because the myths say that all souls return to the Cristallo Sacro, right?”

“That’s true. I’ve never thought about it before.”

“If the trees bear the souls of the dead, does that mean monsters used to be people’s souls? It’s making me curious!”

“How’re you gonna research it, though?” Sir Gaius jeered.

“That’s it!” Eric said, pointing at him. “I’m gonna study the trees.”

“Huh?”

“Eh?”

Eric looked proud as we all spoke up in surprise.

“Up until now, we haven’t been able to research the trees because of all of the monsters. People at the Academy have wanted to study the sources of magic for a long time. It’s always been too dangerous, but now the Sacred Maiden and Lucia have gotten rid of all the monsters, right?”

“Are they really all gone?”

“Yep. The Knights have been searching high and low since you purified them, but there hasn’t been a single sighting,” Eric said, nodding strongly at my question.

“Ah, we didn’t see any on our journey, either,” Sir Gaius added with a hand on his chin.

“Right!? So this is our chance! I’m all ready to go. Since Lucia is home safe now, I’ll be going to Kyriest with the investigation team.” Eric couldn’t contain his excitement as he told us his plans. “I’m so excited!”

We already knew he loved researching, so it seemed as if he was ecstatic to have a new subject to look into.

“You’re such a research dummy,” Sir Gaius grunted.

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

After exchanging his usual banter with Sir Gaius, Eric faced me again with a huge smile. “So next for you is your wedding to the Captain, right? Everything’s nearly ready for the ceremony!”

“Ah, Eri-kun! Don’t tell her that!” Miss Maria spoke up, seemingly trying to stop him.

“Huh? It was a secret?”

Ceremony? I looked up at Sir Celes, thinking he must have asked them to get things ready, but he shook his head.

“I didn’t do anything!” he said.

“Yeah, we left to search for you right after everything happened. He was so mad, he wouldn’t have been able to.” Sir Gaius slapped Sir Celes’s shoulder while he nodded with a grimace.

The two of them had gotten so close since the end of our purification journey.

“It was me,” Miss Maria mumbled guiltily, raising her hand. “The only thing I could think of to help you while I waited was to get things ready for you to marry Celes. Like...he’s popular, right? I didn’t want any other women worming their way in, so I got Ed to publicize your relationship to cement your place. Sorry.”

“Oh, you mean the play?” I asked.

“You knew!?”

It seemed that the play about our relationship was Miss Maria’s idea.

She looked up at me, surprised, before apologizing again. “I’m sorry for doing it without your permission. I couldn’t take the fact that you’d worked so hard and no one knew the full truth. And after Celes ran off to look for you, people started talking about marrying him off, so I just couldn’t resist.”

I wasn’t the only one to be shocked by what she said.

“What!?” Sir Celes’s face went white as a sheet. And for some reason, Eric and Lord Reynard shot up to hold Sir Celes back, too.

His Majesty spoke up immediately, “Don’t worry! I refused them all! You can still marry Lucia, so calm down!”

“...Thank you.”

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as Sir Celes nodded. What happened?

“We’ve done all of the preparations for your wedding dress so you can get married ASAP. We’ve got lots of designs drawn up, and the fabric, and clear schedules!”

“A dress...” I repeated.

Miss Maria looked at me worriedly. “What, you weren’t planning on having a ceremony!?”

“No, since Sir Celes is a Knight Captain, I thought we’d have a little something, but...”

“So you’re saying you don’t want a big one? You’re so reserved! Ed’s covering the bill, so you should go crazy with your choices!”

“No, that’s...” I shook my head at her. Unsure of how to respond, I looked at Sir Celes and asked, “Do... Do you want a ceremony?”

“Hmm, I was thinking we might have to do something before we eloped, but I’m not sure.”

The talk we’d had on our way to Arldat ran through my head.

“What? What are you talking about?” Miss Maria asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“If you mean this, I’ve been keeping it safe,” Sir Agliardi said from farther in the room, taking Sir Celes’s emblem from his pocket. He tried to hand it back to Sir Celes, but was refused.

“Lucia and I were talking on our way back, but I’m going to quit the Knights.”

“What?” Sir Agliardi’s eyes widened.

“Huh!?” His Majesty lost his words.

“W-Wait, Sir Celestino!?” Lord Reynard panicked.

“What’re you saying, Captain!?” Eric asked.

“Celes, what are you talking about? You can’t go into marriage unemployed! How are you going to support Lucia!?” Miss Maria moved closer and started grabbing at Sir Celes’s collar.

Sir Gaius stepped in between them and said, “Wait, wait, calm down for a sec. Don’t criticize their decision.”

Since we’d gotten his advice during our trip back, he wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

“And your reasoning is...” Sir Agliardi asked, a pensive look on his face.

“I can’t protect the person I want to protect most as a knight. A knight protects their country — but there’s someone I care about more than my country. If I can’t protect her, I don’t need to be a knight.” Sir Celes answered his question clearly, taking my hand. “If me continuing as a knight is going to be a burden to her, then we’re going to either return to her hometown, or live somewhere far away.”

I looked up at him with mixed feelings. I’d told him over and over that he didn’t have to quit the knights for me, but honestly, it still made me happy to hear.

I was weak for losing to my fear of being alone, and counting on him saying he’d protect me. Our country needed “the Dragonslayer” in the Knights. I didn’t want to make such an important member leave just because of my selfishness. Still, I wasn’t sure whether I should accept his strength in saying he’d be with me, or if I should support him as a knight.

“I see.” King Edoardo accepted Sir Celes’s decision immediately.

“Your Majesty!?”

Holding up a hand to quiet the Commander, His Majesty walked up to Sir Celes and me.

“Honestly, I had guessed that you’d quit the Knights.” We both went silent at his quiet voice, listening. “While you were searching for Lucia, we’ve done a lot of talking. This country is centered too much on my power as King. Maria has brought up that there’s nothing to hold me back if I make any mistakes. After speaking with her and Fernando, we’re going to assemble a parliament.”

With a strong glint in his eyes, and a smile on his face, His Majesty continued:

“There were many people who could have stopped my father in regards to you and Maria. Me as the Crown Prince, Fernando as the Knight Commander, the Academy Headmaster... Not a single one of us protested. We all thought he wouldn’t listen, that we would be acting beyond our positions — that we should take care of ourselves. We need someone whose job is to stop another tragedy from happening, but having someone powerful enough to stop the King would end in unnecessary conflict. So instead, we’ll give the authority to an organization instead of a single person.”

“Well, even with a parliament, one bad apple may spoil the bunch. But having a parliament is better than having nothing,” Miss Maria added.

The rest of us were shocked at the direction our country was headed in. Having lived in another world, Miss Maria knew another way of life, where the King wasn’t the most important — where their word wasn’t law.

“It won’t be made only of royalty and nobles. The citizens are the ones who know their lives best. We’ll start with me as the King, the Knights, the Academy, each lord and association, and representatives from each town. We’ll assemble and decide things from there.”

“And the scholars from the Tower of Learning are here too, so there’s lots to learn.”

After His Majesty told us about his future plans, he suddenly turned and looked straight at Sir Celes and I. “Celestino, have you already decided on what you’ll do after you leave the Knights? You said that you’d move far away, but have you thought of where to go?”

“No... We’ve only just had the idea. First, we were going to go to Hasawes to see Lucia’s parents, and then return to Mist for a time, but other than that...”

“I see. In that case, I had a few territories of my own as the Crown Prince. I’ll give you two the one you like best, so why not settle down there? It would serve as your reward, and would allow me to try to repay Lucia. A territory could never be enough to repay her, but it’s all I could think of.”

Sir Celes and I looked at each other after hearing His Majesty’s offer. What should we do? His offer is just too much!

“Why not just take it?” Miss Maria popped in, encouraging me.

“Yeah. It’s really not anywhere near enough to cover what you’ve done, Lucia. Oh, the Sacred Maiden too,” chimed in Eric as well.

“That’s right! Instead of me, Miss Maria should...” I started, before Miss Maria silenced me with a soft smile.

“I’m fine. I’ve already got so much from you, Lucia.”

“Miss Maria...”

“I’m glad I came to this world. I was careless at first, but I’m glad I got to work hard with you. I was able to see that I could do something for someone else’s sake, and I learned that I could care for someone without expecting anything in return. If I’m everyone’s Sacred Maiden, then you’re mine. You were the one that saved me.”

She paused, touching the stones around her neck.

“...I told you I was going home, right? Now that I know you’re okay, I’ll return home for a bit. I’ll get everything done that needs doing, and then I’ll come back. Ed said he’d wait for me, and I want to study before I return, so I can help even a little bit more. I thought being the Queen would be a pain, but I won’t run. I’ll definitely come back once I can do more.”

“I’ll be waiting... waiting for your return, Miss Maria.”

“Yeah. I’ll be back in a few years, so you’d better!”