Impatience
Impatience.
Sometimes riding the currents of the age, sometimes steering them, the kingdom boasted the longest history on the continent—and with that long history came a great many transformations.
If one had to name the period of the greatest change in all that history, one hundred people out of one hundred would point to the reign of the Sun King, Lucas de Boura.
Lucas was the son of Pia Toal, the youngest princess of the Toal royal house that then ruled Alphas, and Dios de Boura, the eldest son of the Ducal House of Boura.
His ascent to the throne had been pure accident.
A plague that rose out of nowhere shattered the Toal royal line, and the last remaining heir still living a life of dissipation promptly followed his ancestors into the grave. In the end, Lucas—one of the few drops of Toal blood left—found himself king: a succession so absurd that one could scour every corner of continental history without finding its equal.
Naturally, the internal backlash was ferocious. And with the Epios Empire—once dismissed as a joke, now risen into a true rival of the kingdom—surging into power, prophets of the kingdom’s doom began to appear as well.
Yet Lucas proclaimed the founding of the Boura Dynasty, unveiled a flood of reforms and measures to strengthen the crown, and the kingdom entered the greatest golden age in its history.
Later, Lucas’s endless extravagance and overreaching ambition cut that golden age short, and a brief dark age followed. But the changes wrought in that short flowering still held the kingdom up to this day.
“So Aegis has arrived safely?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Just now we received Viscount Belga’s report that he has finished escorting the Aegis students.”
And this palace where King Herid resided—the king who had crushed the First Prince’s rebellion and taken the throne—was itself a legacy of Lucas’s reign.
Lucas had declared that wherever the sun dwelled must be grander than any temple, and he had raised what was, at the time, the largest building on the continent. That was the Great Palace of Prache, known in the days when the kingdom stood as the strongest power on the continent as the Great Temple of Prache.
That Lucas, whose face as a wise king was as strong as his face as a tyrant, was still counted a great monarch at least within the kingdom owed much to this palace. The Great Palace was the Boura royal house itself, the living emblem of a strong crown; how could its creator not be called great?
“And the Third Imperial Princess’s reaction?”
“According to Viscount Belga’s report, she was somewhat flustered at first, but quickly recovered her composure.”
“Hmm… flustered. That’s rather awkward.”
“What, precisely, is awkward, Your Majesty?”
“Her reaction. Am I supposed to be wary of a girl with the guts to regain her composure that fast in the heart of enemy territory—or am I supposed to be relieved that the bastard emperor’s daughter can still get flustered at all? Truly awkward.”
The tone was a little too flippant for a king. But Marquis Bracheo, who was alone with him, did not bother to correct it. As Herid’s old tutor and steadfast ally, he was long since used to the king’s casual speech.
“It is true that she appears somewhat lacking in political skill compared to the other imperial princesses. Even so, I judge that she possesses abilities far beyond her years. Considering that she may one day become an adversary of the kingdom, vigilance would be—”
“Ah, enough, enough. I was only joking. Must you take everything so seriously? You’ve always been like this, Marquis—too earnest for your own good. Tell me, has your granddaughter ever said to you, ‘Grandpa’s boring! I’m going to play with Grandma!’?”
This little bastard?
Bracheo, who had been answering in all seriousness, found himself briefly weighing whether to punch Herid in the face. He was used to the king’s flippancy—but exactly one week ago, his granddaughter had, in fact, announced, “Grandpa’s no fun. Grandma’s more fun.”
Being cold-shouldered by the granddaughter he adored was already enough to sting; now his own student was scraping at the wound. It was enough to drive a man mad.
And it wasn’t even as if the jab had come from someone with real comic timing. Herid’s sense of humor was bizarre in the extreme. He would toss out lines that sat right on the border between joke and earnest remark; if you answered seriously, he mocked you for taking a joke so solemnly, and if you answered lightly, he scolded you for joking about a serious question.
To Herid it was nothing more than light teasing, but because the man was unmistakably his king and superior, Bracheo felt himself on the verge of losing his mind.
I miss the days when His Majesty was still a prince…
Back then he could have actually punched him in the face. He could have used the authority of a tutor to deliver a proper education. Those days were gone forever, and he could only long for them.
“Haha, don’t be so angry. All this teasing is just a disciple’s way of showing affection for his teacher, isn’t it?”
Whether the damn disciple knew that this particular brand of affection was about to make his teacher grab the back of his neck and collapse was another matter. If Bracheo had known it would come to this, he would have been far stricter in the old days…
“And how are the others reacting?”
Just as Bracheo’s patience was about to snap under Herid’s flippant laughter, the sticky levity vanished from the king’s voice. It was the signal that every word from here on would be serious business, with no room for jokes.
Watching Herid set aside the face of the infuriating disciple and put on the face of the king he was bound to serve, Bracheo swallowed down the anger seething in his gut. As a student, Herid was an irritating bastard; as a king, he was a lord who commanded respect and reverence.
“A few of the knights have questions about Your Majesty’s decision, but most of them interpret it as a warning directed at the Empire.”
“Good. Just as I expected. It was a hard line meant to put pressure on the Empire; if the reaction had gone another way, we would have been the ones in trouble.”
If the knights saw Aegis’s visit as a warning to the Empire, that meant their attention was fixed on the Third Imperial Princess. Exactly the situation Herid wanted—and proof that the preparations for the plan he intended to set in motion were complete.
“Then, Marquis. I leave the meeting with those three to you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. As you command.”
The aim of Aegis’s field practicum was simple.
Travel to every corner of the continent, resolve the problems you find there, and be of help to the people.
Put more bluntly: Go out on assignment and clear requests.
“We come all the way to the royal capital and all we get is monster hunting?”
“It may be ‘all’ to you, but to ordinary people it’s extremely dangerous work.”
“I know that. Still, it’s nothing like what I was hoping for!”
Having packed their bags in twenty minutes on Noir’s orders, Team A was already on the move under Willie’s assignment. Rouge had been quietly looking forward to whatever spectacular mission the kingdom would hand them.
Escorting a high noble of the realm? Hunting a sealed monster deep in the kingdom’s heartlands?
It’s a mission from Aegis, the continent’s foremost academy. Of course it’ll be something amazing!
Instead, the assignment turned out to be clearing the magic beasts that had recently appeared around the capital. Not even a single B-rank among them—nothing but C-rank hunts from top to bottom.
It wasn’t that she had been craving an impossible trial, but C-rank beasts? Wasn’t that a little too ordinary? Lyceum was already crawling with C-rank magic beasts; there was no need to come all the way to the kingdom for that.
“Teacher said he’d give us light work on the first day, so starting tomorrow we should get something more challenging, don’t you think? They’re only C-rank. Let’s clear them as fast as we can.”
“‘Only’ C-rank…?”
Jerry, for his part, was thrown by how casually the others on Team A treated the assignment. The way Rouge and the rest spoke of C-rank magic beasts was far too light.
In the Adventurers’ Guild, the line between veteran and amateur was often drawn by whether you could handle a C-rank beast; they were never creatures to take lightly. And while B-rank and higher beasts rarely showed themselves to people, C-rank beasts appeared at every opportunity. The magic beasts that inflicted the most damage on the populace were none other than C-ranks; some even said ordinary folk feared them more than the A-rank monsters they would never meet in a lifetime.
For Jerry, raised in an ordinary household, Noir’s offhand “only C-rank” did not sit easily.
“My lady.”
“Mm!”
I spread Bokja wide to snare the beasts’ ankles, and in the same breath a wave of white flame came roaring from behind and swallowed the enemy whole.
As always, my lady was the perfect mistress. To answer my every move with such flawless timing… Once upon a time I had been the one matching her rhythm; now we propped each other up, a perfect link of two halves.
Heh. Truly the finest mistress imaginable.
“Blanc, keep covering me!”
“Yes, leave it to me, my lady.”
Every character in the game has a role and a position. Even tanks of the same broad type differ in their finer duties and how they are meant to be used, and each character has stages where they shine. If I had to describe myself as a game character, I would be closest to an evasion tank—or a boss-fight damage dealer.
I was confident in one-on-one combat with Bokja, but in a melee I had one major flaw. Bokja, being the shadow of a Super☆Perfect Maid, was extremely capable. But because we were linked, there was no way for me to strike at long range or across a wide area. That was why, against many enemies, I took the tank’s role of disrupting the enemy line rather than dealing damage—a strategy I could only trust because I knew my lady could sweep them all up once I had thrown their ranks into chaos.
“All right—next!”
“Yes, my lady.”
But why did my lady seem so rushed today?
She was doing her best to project calm, yet to my eyes her impatience was painfully clear. The white flame she unleashed ran a full two degrees hotter than usual; her stride was a whole centimeter longer; the greatsword she swung was about 0.8 seconds faster. Her breaths per minute were up by three as well. As her exclusive maid, I could not help but worry.
“Blanc!”
“Yes, my lady.”
Hmm. Even that beautiful voice calling my name was a full decibel higher than usual…
Why is she so restless? She looked for all the world like someone who wanted to finish the mission this instant and hurry back to the lodgings.
Well… surely not.
My diligent lady would never entertain such an improper thought.
“Blanc!”
“Yes, my lady.”
That’s my Blanc. Just her name, and she answers with the perfect move, the perfect support.
Hehe. Blanc really is my best partner.
And I’m definitely her best partner too!
Anyway—time to wrap this mission up fast!
Same room as Blanc!
Same bed as Blanc!
Finish the mission, and we can get back to the lodgings that much sooner!