Five Days Later
Five days had passed since the attack on the Golden Festival.
Because of the incident, the standing of House Leonhart—long regarded as one of the foremost names among the ducal families—had dropped considerably. The wealth of prestige they had already amassed meant it was nowhere near a true collapse, yet the house that had always stood at the absolute peak was no longer the undisputed best. The aftershocks of that shift would be enormous.
In the meantime, Lucius had finally managed, through exhaustive inquiry, to identify the two assailants who had tried to seize Dandelion. One was Gellas Matana, a former royal knight and escaped convict who had been imprisoned for murdering a comrade. The man Noir had run through with her greatsword was a mage named Elsha Dravan, expelled from the Magic Tower for dabbling in forbidden research. Both had vanished without a trace after committing major crimes; neither the kingdom nor the Magic Tower had any idea where they had gone. If that was true, then the organization that had sheltered them was dangerous enough to evade the eyes of both the crown and the Tower.
With no further leads on the culprits, the Leonhart knights had no choice but to wait for the white-haired girl who had protected Noir to open her eyes.
"Are you truly just going to leave that child alone?"
The head of the household's office. Knight Commander Makel, who had been away from Preas on personal business, had raced back the moment he heard of the attack on the Golden Festival. By the time he arrived, everything had already been resolved. They had failed to capture the perpetrators of the terror, yet they had successfully defended Dandelion—the apparent target—thanks to the efforts of young Lady Noir and a mysterious snow-white girl no one knew.
"Yes. Of course we will question her, but I have no intention of locking her up."
Makel felt frustration rise at Lucius's answer and asked the same question several times more; the answer never changed.
"She is one of those terrorists. Leaving someone who threatened Preas free—are you in your right mind?"
"But in the end she betrayed those terrorists. And she protected the future of House Leonhart."
Lucius closed his eyes and recalled what had happened that day in the underground of the arena. In the center of a chamber reduced to pure chaos by the traces of battle, Noir had lain collapsed on the floor together with a girl. The knights who reached the room had hurriedly moved both Noir and the girl to safety and recovered the bodies of the two assailants.
"Noir! Noir, are you all right?! Noir!"
Seeing his fallen granddaughter, Lucius had felt his heart plummet as he was reminded of the son and daughter-in-law he had already lost—but mercifully Noir had merely collapsed from exhaustion. Amid that ferocious battlefield she had returned without a single injury. In stark contrast to the unscathed Noir, the child lying beside her was covered in wounds. None of them were deep enough to threaten her life, yet the blood seeping from the countless smaller cuts was far from negligible. Why did Noir bear no wounds while only this girl was injured? Lucius was not so dense as to miss the reason. This child had burned herself to protect Noir.
"If that child protected the future of Leonhart, then we too have a duty to protect her future."
Lucius had no intention of simply abandoning the girl. Naturally she would be placed under Leonhart surveillance. Should she ever harbor sinister designs, the knights of Leonhart would be the ones to judge her. But if she had betrayed her organization and risked her life to protect Noir, then House Leonhart would answer that sacrifice with the repayment it deserved.
"Failure, is it… So Nine's seat will remain vacant for a while."
In the audience chamber of the old castle, One listened to Dante's mission report beneath the multicolored light streaming through the stained glass. Dante had waited at the rendezvous point after ending his fight with Lucius. When no one appeared no matter how long he waited, he concluded the mission had failed and returned straight to the castle.
"But even M died?"
"I'm still in shock myself. Never imagined M would go down together with V."
Upon his return Dante had immediately entered the audience chamber and given One a full report of the mission's progress—except for one single lie.
"Seven, if I fail the mission, could you tell them I died?"
"Huh? Why should I? And why would you even need that in the first place?"
"I am currently devising an extremely fun and cool plan for Yeoro. And for that plan I will need to stay hidden for a while."
Hearing M's words, Dante had ultimately delivered a false report to One. He had not been told what M's plan actually was. But if M herself had called it a fun and cool plan, then it had to be something incredibly stylish—something he could never even imagine! And he was going to take part in that stylish plan!
"Is that so. A pity to lose such talent."
Yet Dante had no idea. The magnificent plan she spoke of was nothing more than a plan to become a maid. He was being thoroughly used by M, who merely wanted to become a maid.
The spring breeze that carried the gentle sunlight became the vigor that breathed life into everything. Fields overflowing with that spring vigor bloomed into multicolored beauty and announced a new beginning.
Leonhart Manor in Preas. In a quiet room occupied by only two people, Noir felt the spring wind drifting through the window as she quietly read a book.
Types and History of Imperial Swordsmanship
A crude, terse title on the cover. The book within, however, bore a completely different name.
Betrayed by the Demon King, I Turn Back Time to Become a Hero's Companion. Volume 4
It was the volume Noir had bought at the bookstore the moment she recovered. The story was exactly what the title promised—a trite plot of the sort one could find anywhere these days. Yet Noir found it thoroughly entertaining. Not because she had a taste for devouring any entertainment novel like a starving dog, but simply because the title of this book made a certain girl's face rise in her mind. The protagonist of the novel had been betrayed; that girl had done the betraying herself. The difference was trivial enough to ignore.
"Nnngh…"
"Oh!"
A small groan escaped from beside her. Noir hastily closed the book she had been reading—not forgetting, of course, to slip in a bookmark first—and approached the bed where the girl lay. Five days had already passed since the incident. Watching the girl who would not wake, Noir had felt a mounting dread that something terrible had happened, and so she had remained at the girl's side the entire five days.
"Ah…"
And after that long wait of five days, she was finally able to see the girl's beautiful crimson eyes again.
"Where… is this?"
"This is Leonhart Manor."
"If it isn't too forward of me… may I ask your name?"
The first thing the girl who had opened her eyes after five days saw was the beautiful smile Noir wore.
I dreamed.
In that dream I was a maid. The master I served was a maid. And the master whom my master the maid served was also a maid. And the master whom the master whom my master the maid served—who was also a maid—served was likewise a maid. And the master whom…
It was a truly ecstatic dream. We were maids living upon the soft, great palms of maids. Upon the palms of those who always served and devoted themselves to their masters, entire worlds of maids had been born. And upon the hands of the maids living in those worlds there would be still more worlds of maids. The lights glittering in the sky above were not stars but the halos radiated by the maids who cleaned the cosmos. The sunlight that announced morning was the burning passion of maids gathered together; the moon that announced night was the gentle kindness of maids offering rest to their masters. People always paint the universe using only black and white. And a maid's uniform is made of black and white. Therefore the universe is a maid. It is not that the vast universe embraces us with its boundless generosity. It is that a maid named the Universe, possessed of boundless generosity, embraces us.
In the beginning there was the Maid. This is common knowledge that everyone in the world must already know. And I was a single maid living upon Maid Planet within the Maid Nebula nestled in that vast maid's bosom. Everyone wore maid uniforms; maids swam through the seas like fish. Maids ran across the green plains, and inside the body of that vast Cosmic Maid countless shooting-star maids streaked about. If heaven existed, it would look exactly like this. I wanted to live forever inside that heaven called a dream.
"Nnngh…"
But every dream in this world must eventually end. Thin light seeped through the cracks of my barely opened eyelids. That light smashed, shattered, and destroyed the maid paradise that had existed inside the dream. No. You satanic light. Return at once to hell. Yet that damned spring sunlight demolished my paradise and thrust the wretched scenery of reality before my eyes.
"Ah…"
Defeated by the Satan named Reality, my eyes reflected not a world filled with maids but a pure-white bed and the smiling face of Noir.
"Where… is this?"
"This is Leonhart Manor."
The moment I saw Noir beaming the instant I opened my eyes, I grasped the rough outline of the situation. Before losing consciousness I had drawn V's attention and then collapsed on the spot. Noir must have brought me here to the manor and treated me. After all the trouble she went through to save me, this much was only proper. I would have been quite disappointed if she hadn't.
"If it isn't too forward of me… may I ask your name?"
While I was lost in thought, Noir leaned her face in close and asked for my name. Name… Hmm… What am I supposed to answer at a time like this?
"I have… no name. Please call me M, or Nameless."
There was no longer any need to hide my name, so I simply told the truth. But perhaps my answer had been strange. Noir's body went rigid in an instant and her face turned deathly pale. The lips that had been curved in a gentle arc fell downward, and her eyes began to tremble violently.
What? Why all of a sudden? Does she need the bathroom?