The Princess Awaits
When we arrived at the Lacrima Outpost, we ran into someone we never expected.
Pina pointed in flustered disbelief.
"A-Alice-nim. I'm not seeing things, am I? Why is the princess here?"
I doubted my own eyes, but no matter how I looked at her, it was unmistakably the princess.
"Yeah, no kidding."
Standing before us on the white highlands was none other than the beautiful princess, Adelaide.
Her black-and-gold hair streamed in the highland wind.
"My hunter. I have been waiting for you."
I answered Adelaide's greeting.
"What are you doing here, Adelaide?"
"How dare you!"
At that moment, someone appeared from behind Adelaide and barked at me.
I wasn't startled, but poor Pina jumped so hard her whole body jerked.
I knew who he was the moment I heard his voice.
"You dare address Her Highness the Princess so casually? Have you no regard for your own life, girl?!"
It was the general.
The general who commanded the entire Lacrima Outpost.
He was threatening me in that authoritarian tone of his.
Of course, he wasn't wrong, so I had nothing to say back. Who would dare speak so casually to a princess of the realm? The general's reaction was perfectly normal. It was just that everyone I'd met so far had been easygoing enough to let it slide.
Shing—.
The general drew the sword at his hip and leveled it at me.
I calmly watched the gleaming blade. Even if he swung it right in front of my face, there was no way I wouldn't be able to dodge.
He'd meant to intimidate me, but when I didn't so much as flinch, the general's expression hardened further. I could see the strength building in his grip. The tip of the blade trembled, and the tip of his nose had gone red. Ah—that was probably just the cold.
My unbothered attitude seemed to be getting under his skin more and more.
"...Grrh!"
"Enough."
In that instant, Adelaide stepped between us.
"You've gotten too worked up."
Adelaide raised a hand. The trembling blade, which had lost its bearings, slid back into its scabbard.
The general's resentful eyes turned toward Adelaide.
"How can you simply let such a disrespectful person be, Your Highness?"
"Alice is my dear friend."
"Your Highness's friend, you say?"
"Yes."
The general looked at me in silence with sunken eyes. Was it that galling that a mere hunter had become friends with the princess?
Honestly, even if he'd swung, it wouldn't have mattered. I'd been hoping something interesting might happen—I was a little disappointed, to be honest.
"...Hmph. Consider yourself lucky Her Highness spared you."
I wonder who the princess is supposed to have spared, exactly.
I rolled my neck, rubbing my wrist. I didn't take the general's glare personally. He hadn't had a good image in the game either, so I didn't have a good impression of him myself.
The general took a step closer and spoke.
"Still, you are a Master Hunter, I trust?"
Instead of answering, I pulled my Master Card from my coat. The general glanced at it and nodded.
"So, a Master Hunter has finally arrived. I thought the Association had written off the Lacrima Outpost entirely, but it seems that wasn't the case."
The general was negative about everything.
I shot Adelaide a look. I didn't particularly want to keep standing around with the general. Adelaide seemed to catch my meaning and issued him an order.
"General Gero, go gather the soldiers."
"...Yes, Your Highness."
The general turned and left. Adelaide glanced at his retreating back and shook her head. Then she beamed and welcomed us.
"What a rough welcome the moment you arrive. You've both been through a lot. Come, come—let me give you a hug."
She's doing this even all the way out here.
Naturally, I didn't move an inch. The princess wasn't backing down either. Arms wide open, she looked ready to welcome us for eternity.
Pina, who'd been fidgeting beside me, crept over and shared a hug with the princess.
"It's been a while, Pina."
"You too, Your Highness!"
Adorable.
I watched the two of them patting each other and smiled contentedly. Adelaide looked at my face and whispered to Pina.
"Alice really isn't very honest, is she?"
"Right?"
"What are you talking about."
I came to help and got scolded for my trouble. I waved a hand to signal it was fine.
Pina asked the princess.
"But who was that man?"
"Ah, right. You two wouldn't know. He's a general. Name's Gero. A fairly high-ranking fellow."
"I see."
Pina nodded, then asked one more thing.
"Why does he hate hunters so much?"
"Same sort of case as that Melchior fellow. He sees hunters as a group that needs to be controlled."
Adelaide sighed.
"It's going to be a bit exhausting while you're here."
But that wasn't the important part. I had something I wanted to ask Adelaide.
"So why are you here?"
Hadn't she gone straight back to the capital from Antico?
Adelaide blinked at my question. Then she drooped her eyes in a pitiful look and put on the saddest expression she could manage.
"Am I not allowed to be here?"
"That's not what I meant."
Pina piled on and scolded me too.
"Why would you say that to Her Highness?"
You were the one who asked me about her in the first place.
I put on a deliberately wounded expression. The princess saw my face and chuckled.
"I couldn't very well let Melchior take all the credit, could I? I'm joking—new monsters have appeared, and Cartadia could be in danger, so I came as a princess."
"What about your domestic duties?"
Adelaide paused for a moment at my question.
"...Father is there, and so is my little brother, so it's fine!"
I stared hard at Adelaide as she declared this with gusto. So she was saying she'd dumped everything on her father and little brother and come here.
The king was elderly, so coming to a place like this would be hard for him, sure. As for the little brother... I just felt sorry for him. Both his older brother and sister had run off.
But hadn't the little brother tried to stop her?
"Didn't your brother say anything?"
"I actually didn't tell him."
Adelaide laughed softly. What a wonderfully close family.
"You're something else."
"I'm sure my brother will understand."
Adelaide had a remarkably convenient way of thinking.
People were starting to murmur near the brazier. It seemed General Gero had assembled the soldiers. Adelaide glanced that way.
"We should start preparing. You two unpack at the lodgings and rest easy."
Adelaide rolled her shoulders once.
"Attendant, let's go."
"Yes, Your Highness."
The attendant, who had been watching us from a distance without a word the whole time, moved at Adelaide's command. So that was the princess's attendant. I'd never seen them before, but since she'd come here on official business, they'd come along.
I watched Adelaide and her attendant's backs for a moment, then said to Pina.
"Shall we go too?"
"Yes."
I rested a hand on Pina's shoulder. Even as she walked forward, Pina kept glancing at the hand on her shoulder.
The hunter lodgings were at least well-built of brick, keeping the cold from seeping in. The interior facilities weren't much different from the wasteland, but...
"It's cold..."
"How can it feel like we're freezing even inside a building?"
Even so, the ambient temperature itself was so low there was nothing to be done about it. It was almost funny that white breath was coming out of our mouths indoors.
We unpacked with arms made clumsy by the cold. A bundle packed full of Thermal Powder. A leather pouch containing various weapons. And a few other daily necessities, all neatly arranged in place.
Finally, I tossed Thermal Powder around the hunter lodgings. Only then did some warmth circulate through the room, and things felt considerably better.
Pina gently rubbed the red powder between her fingers as she spoke.
"It's really amazing. That this kind of powder can produce heat like that."
"It's the power of monsters."
Monsters were that inseparable from our lives.
As the temperature inside the lodgings gradually rose, Pina peeled off a layer of clothing. She gathered her scattered hair and tidied it up.
"So what do we do now?"
"Us?"
There wasn't really anything to do. Heading straight out to hunt monsters or explore would be too much. Fatigue aside, our bodies hadn't adapted to this high-altitude region yet. My body was already going limp.
I plopped down on the bed and lay back.
"Let's adapt for a few days first. Don't do anything in particular."
"Yes. So we're resting?"
"Yeah. And gathering information while we do."
I had no intention of leaving the outpost for the next few days. In that time, I needed to gather necessary information—tracks of the yeti Neveumano and other monsters, that sort of thing.
General Gero clearly wasn't going to cooperate. Rather than hand the credit to a hunter, he'd want to monopolize it safely for himself. Petty stuff. Looking down on hunters just because his eyes were clouded by something so trivial.
I couldn't help laughing. As long as I was here, things weren't going to go the way he planned. And with Adelaide here too, the current would flow even more smoothly.
General Gero—whatever you're plotting, it won't go the way you think.
Heh heh heh. I'd been laughing to myself for a while when Pina looked at me uneasily.
"A-Alice-nim. What's so funny?"
"I was thinking about what's coming."
"Are you going to do another mass slaughter like last time?"
Pina's words left me feeling oddly wronged.
"That was something that had to be done. I never enjoyed it."
"For someone who didn't enjoy it, you seemed to be having a really good time..."
"When did I?"
"Ah, you definitely enjoyed it."
You know far too much.
Just then, my stomach growled.
"Shall we eat first?"
"Yes, I'm hungry. I wonder when mealtime is here?"
"Good question..."
We really didn't know a single thing. We were, quite literally, two idiots.