Blanc, Sit
The royal capital is a city much like a coin.
If the glittering face of the city—crowned by the Grand Palace—is the side shown off for all to see, then the people scraping by day after day amid that splendor form the reverse.
"Haha, you know your face is filthy right now, right?"
"Ha! Look who's talking!"
The street the boy and girl were walking down lay a fair distance from the Grand Palace, in a residential quarter where ordinary commoners gathered. It was not quite a slum, but close enough that no noble had any business being there. Yet the boy, noble though he was, came and went as freely as if it were his own backyard. When he first appeared on this street everyone had eyed him with suspicion; now no one thought it strange at all to see him wandering about.
"Oh, chicken skewers. Perfect—I was getting hungry."
"Ah! Buy me one too!"
Covered head to toe in dirt, the boy bought two skewers from a street vendor. Even at a glance the meat looked plump with juices; the savory aroma of the meat mingled with the rich scent of the sauce slathered over it, enough to make anyone's mouth water.
"Wow! Thanks!"
"Hold it! When did I say I was giving you any?"
"Huh?"
The boy casually slapped away the girl's hand as she reached for the skewer he held. Her look of utter devastation was so ridiculous it was almost funny.
"Aw, why?!"
"Because it's about time he showed up."
"Showed up? Ah...!"
"Hyung!"
While the girl was still trying to snatch the skewer from the boy's hand, a golden-haired child came running from the lane that connected to the noble district. He waved as he dashed toward them, tripped over a rock and went sprawling, yet never lost his smile and scrambled back up to keep running.
"Hello, Young Master!"
"Yeah! Hello!"
Beaming, the child threw himself into the boy's arms. The girl greeted him in turn. The child's answering smile was pure and utterly innocent.
"I'm a noble too, so why is only this brat 'Young Master'?"
How could one person be so two-faced? The girl treated the boy and the child so differently that the boy could only stare in disbelief.
"Hmph! Because you don't look like a noble at all!"
"Yeah! Hyung doesn't look like a noble!"
Even the little brother he trusted had betrayed him and taken the girl's side. It left a bitter taste.
"Anyway, what's that you're holding, Hyung?"
"Chicken skewer I bought for you."
"Whoa!"
Snack time had already passed, but refusing food his older brother had thoughtfully bought for him would hardly be noble behavior. At a moment like this a true noble was supposed to accept that delicious-looking skewer with elegance and grace!
Enchanted by the aggressive aroma rising from the skewer, the child reached for the one the boy held.
"No."
"Huh?"
But once again, before the younger brother's fingers could touch it, the boy swatted his hand away.
"Who said I don't look like a noble?"
This older brother had bought a tasty chicken skewer thinking of his little brother, and the little brother had the nerve to betray him. At times like this it was important to reassert the pecking order.
"Hyung is the most noble noble in the entire kingdom!"
The child, instantly reading his brother's mood, flipped his attitude like a coin. Only then did the satisfied boy hand over one of the skewers.
"Sheesh."
The girl looked on with pity at the boy being so petty over mere food. Was he really going to act like that even toward his own little brother? Toward a kid five years younger than them, no less...
"How is it? Tasty?"
"Yeah!"
"Then eat mine too, Desan."
The boy watched his little brother happily devouring the skewer and ruffled his hair with a fond smile.
Today, as always, was a peaceful day.
Our first day of missions—short yet somehow long—was over.
The mission window had opened at ten; it was now three in the afternoon. Factoring in the separate meal break, we had cleared that mountain of tasks in a mere four hours. Even accounting for Team A's above-average skill, the result was startling.
"Blanc, you felt it too, right?"
"Yes. The magical beasts were in an abnormal state."
The reason we had finished so quickly was almost certainly that abnormal state. Ordinary magical beasts fled when danger loomed or they faced a superior foe. That was true of every living creature, not just beasts. Even the most powerful beast still possessed a survival instinct.
Yet the ones we met today moved as if that instinct had been stripped away. Gut them with a blade and they still bared their fangs as though nothing had happened. Sever a leg and they lunged on whatever limbs remained. Even a wall of scorching flame failed to make them flinch.
Their mindless ferocity had actually let us finish the hunt faster. We managed, but if ordinary people had encountered beasts in that condition, disaster would have been inevitable.
"Are the magical beasts around the capital always this vicious?"
"Hardly. If the beasts near the capital had always been this savage, no one would have built the capital here in the first place."
While Blanc and I sat in the hotel lobby drinking coffee, a man's voice drifted from behind us—someone who sounded as if he had just woken up. I glanced back. As expected, it was our teacher.
"Oh, cookies."
He joined our table without ceremony and popped one of the cookies lying there straight into his mouth!
Those were the chocolate cookies Blanc had made for me! I had been saving them, hadn't even tasted one yet, and he dared to eat Blanc's cookies before I did! Teacher or not, that was unforgivable!
"Whoa! These are amazing! Where'd you buy them?"
"I baked them myself."
"You should open a shop someday. Your cooking is seriously next-level."
Well, he was a Sage—he had good taste. Blanc's cooking really was the best in the world. Even our picky head of house had tasted it once and declared it the finest food of his life. There was a reason Blanc, despite being a maid, had been named special chef of the Leonhart kitchens.
Since he at least recognized the value of the cookies Blanc had made, I would forgive him—this once. Magnanimity and forgiveness were important virtues, after all!
"So the magical beasts were behaving strangely?"
"Yes. Even after taking fatal wounds they kept charging. It felt as though fear and the survival instinct itself were simply missing."
"I see."
For such a serious report, Teacher's reaction was remarkably calm—almost as if he had already known.
"You were already aware?"
Even we, who had only just arrived in the kingdom today, had noticed the beasts' condition. There was no way Aegis or the kingdom itself could have missed it. Moreover, no matter how capable Team A was, the volume of missions assigned to us today had been excessive. Had the beasts been normal, the work would have taken at least eight hours. Even for Aegis's notoriously harsh curriculum, an eight-hour magical-beast extermination was not something you handed first-years barely past enrollment. The only conclusion that made sense was that they had factored in the beasts' abnormal state when they issued the assignments.
"Yes. I already knew."
"Hold on. You knew in advance and didn't say a single word to us?"
Teacher's calm admission that he had known about the beasts' condition made the young lady's voice rise. As the leader responsible for Team A, her reaction was only natural.
"Please don't tell me this was another 'accident,' or that you simply couldn't be bothered to mention it."
"Even I wouldn't go that far."
So he had deliberately concealed the beasts' frenzy. The young lady's expression hardened further. The targets had only been C-rank, and Team A's ability far surpassed that of ordinary academy students. Still, a battle was a battle. In combat, the smallest unexpected variable could snowball into catastrophe. Omitting such a critical fact from an extermination mission was unquestionably a problem.
"But nothing went wrong, did it? I'm sorry for hiding it, but with your skill it was never going to be an issue—that's why I kept quiet."
Even after pulling a stunt like that, Teacher remained completely unabashed.
"Haa... So why did you hide it?"
Concealing the beasts' condition had been a problem, yet in the end nothing had happened, just as he said. After that brief flare of temper the young lady recovered her composure, pressed her fingers to her forehead, and asked for the reason.
"The reason... Hmm. It's a bit early, but I'll tell you anyway."
"Young Lady."
"Huh...?"
In an instant, vast quantities of mana began to gather around Teacher! The mana collected in his hand was forged into chains of pure force that started to coil around the three of us!
"Blanc, sit. This is nothing more than a simple sound-blocking spell."
"..."
I knew Teacher would never harm us. But as a maid whose duty was to protect the young lady under any circumstances, I could not help but remain wary of someone who had suddenly begun casting magic. I moved to shield her with my body as best I could—
"Blanc, sit. You're overreacting."
"Yes, Young Lady."
Yes—exactly as the young lady said, I had been a little oversensitive! And to think I had doubted Teacher, of all people! That was something I needed to reflect on!
"Huh..."
Watching me sit down the moment the young lady ordered it, Teacher stared at me with a rather incredulous expression.
Hmm. What exactly was so shocking about that?
What the hell is this kid?
The fact that she even reacted to my magic was impressive enough, but the way she completely dropped her guard at a single word from Leonhart left me speechless. Look at her—sitting there as if nothing had happened the second Leonhart spoke. Even a loyal hound wouldn't obey its master that thoroughly.
"Haa..."
Well, part of the blame was mine for suddenly casting magic. If the person you were talking to suddenly started weaving spells, that kind of reaction wasn't exactly strange.
"Let's get straight to the point."
Once enough time had passed and the two of them had fully calmed down, I decided to dive right in. Of course I also double-checked that the spell was functioning properly. I wasn't about to botch a casting, but the topic I was about to raise was not something that could be spoken of lightly.
"Do you know about Calamities?"
Calamity.
A word for unforeseen misfortune or natural disaster. Calamities took many forms. Sometimes they appeared as earthquakes, sometimes as towering tsunamis; sometimes they had no form at all. At first, when Teacher mentioned "Calamities," I had no idea what he was driving at—until the words that followed made his meaning crystal clear.
"Ah, of course I'm not talking about volcanoes or earthquakes. What I mean are those ancient bastards."
Those ancient bastards.
He could only mean the entities known as the Ancient Calamities—the Banished. Humanity's ancient nemeses, sealed away since time immemorial. And sixteen years ago, one of them had appeared in the Empire's Riomain Province—the Leonhart Duchy—and plunged the land into chaos.
"Yes, of course we know, but..."
The resurrection of the Ancient Calamity known as the Poison Dragon Hydra had left an unforgettable scar on Riomain Province. Hydra's poison had rendered the southern reaches of the province uninhabitable; countless of Riomain's people had been infected by its venom. My own mother had died after contracting that same poison. To the Leonhart ducal house—and to every soul in Riomain Province—the words "Ancient Calamity" were a forbidden term that could not be spoken lightly.
"Why bring that up now?"
Why now, of all times, was the subject of the Ancient Calamities being raised? And from the mouth of the very hero who had defeated one, no less—that dreadful word.
"The Calamities are reviving."