The Empire Returns
"Young Master! Did you hear? We return to the Empire tomorrow—"
"I already heard, so stop fussing."
Even after I woke, time kept rushing past at a relentless pace.
By now the injured had recovered to the point where they could manage to move about, if nothing else.
But that was precisely the problem—manage to move was all they could do. I'd assumed the return trip to the Empire would take longer still, until—
'Ah, by the way, the Empire brought supplies with them, Lady Sylvia.'
'...Now that you mention it, that wrinkled-bearded old man did arrive hauling quite a load.'
The medicines and potions provided by the Empire when Azakh visited the Great Forest had solved the problem, and the forest's side didn't have supplies to spare for the injured and their Imperial guests. So it seemed they'd chosen to send the Imperials home.
"...."
"What will you do once you return, Young Master?"
"For now, I have to go back to the Academy. Any more absences and I'm finished."
"Ah, yes..."
"And..."
Before I could finish, my head tilted back.
She touched her hand lightly to my forehead, and I let out a long sigh inwardly.
'...I'll have to meet the Emperor, won't I.'
"Young Master? Are you feeling unwell again?"
"No. I'm fine."
While I was reassuring Ella, who watched me with worry, the hours kept slipping by regardless—and before I knew it, tomorrow had arrived.
Tomorrow. The one thing I could not have dreaded more.
"A pity I cannot go with you."
"Not at all, Your Grace. You still have duties left here."
I took it as mere politeness, but she seemed genuinely to regret it, a faint wistfulness lingering at the corner of her mouth.
Then she bowed her head once more, a great many elves standing behind her.
"...Allow me to thank you once again. Because of you, we... live."
"...."
Her head rose slowly, and her face came into my view.
Her hair scattered on the wind, and the sunlight blazed brilliantly behind her.
"It would hardly be fitting now to wish the Great Forest's blessing upon you again."
"...?"
"Because you are no longer a stranger to us."
"...?"
"We are prideful, it is true—haughty as well. But we have never once forgotten a debt of gratitude."
And with those words, her final farewell was different from her first. A sunlit smile sat on her lips, entirely at odds with the gravity of her words and tone.
"May the Great Forest walk with you, always, on the road ahead."
So she said.
"Young Master."
"What is it?"
"When you go back... what will you do?"
From her seat across from me inside the rattling carriage, Ella spoke up. Her hair swayed with every jolt of the wheels.
"...Why do you ask that, all of a sudden?"
"It's just... it suddenly hit me... that I never know when you might not come back, Young Master."
"...."
"My parents died when I was little. Both of them."
"...."
"Simple bandits. They broke into our house and even set it on fire."
I began to notice her hands trembling, just slightly.
Perhaps her body was rebelling against the bad memories. Even so, she didn't stop mid-sentence—as if this, at least, she had to say.
"Father and Mother were ordinary people. That's why they couldn't beat a robber with a sword."
"...."
"My little brother and I were lucky—a passerby happened to be going by our house and saved us. But by then it was too late for them."
"...."
Ella's head, which had been bowed throughout the entire conversation, lifted to look at me. A single round tear clung to her eye.
"Young Master, the Madam also told me to take good care of you."
"...Yes, I know."
"But the way you are right now... it frightens me, honestly."
"...."
"It feels like one small slip and you'll shatter—break so completely there'll be no putting you back together."
"...."
"I want you to live a long, long time. You're precious to me now too, Young Master."
My collapse must have shaken her deeply, because words she would never normally dare say came spilling out of her, one after another—every one of them thick with feeling she'd been holding down.
"So... what I'm trying to say is..."
"...That's enough, Ella. I understand perfectly well what you're trying to say."
"...Pardon?"
"I'll take better care of myself from now on. And I won't go throwing myself into danger."
I stepped in myself and cut her off before her voice could break any further. She looked like she could barely go on. Besides, it wasn't as if I couldn't understand her fear.
She had watched someone she thought of as family lying unconscious for three days straight. For someone who had already lost her family once before, it must have struck all the deeper.
'...I really do need to look after myself for a while.'
That promise, one I had no way of keeping, circled only inside me today as well.
Unheard by anyone.
"We've arrived, Commander."
"Phew... get the injured moved first. I'll handle the paperwork."
"Yes, sir!"
"And see to those people as well."
The carriage door swung open, announcing our arrival in the Empire.
I woke the sleeping Ella, stepped outside, and found servants unloading cargo beside the carriages and knights helping the wounded down—while up ahead, the Knight Commander was busily writing something.
"Hey, careful with that!!"
"That crate might be worth more than your wages!"
The servants chattered away as they hauled the luggage, and from further off came the noisy din of the street—
"—that one was rather expensive, you know..."
"—the news of our return has..."
"Gyahaha!! Mom, over here, over here!"
Just as it finally sank in that we had, at long last, made it back to the Empire after that endless journey—
"G-get out of the way, all of you!!"
"S-sir, please, you mustn't—!"
"Didn't you hear me?! Where—where is the Knight Commander?!"
Up ahead, someone came shoving through the knights carrying the wounded. A fat man with a gleaming head, purple cloak flying from his shoulders, came sprinting toward us.
For some reason he was desperately searching for the Knight Commander, and the moment he spotted him he charged straight over, seized him by the collar without so much as a greeting, and began shaking him violently.
The Knight Commander made no reaction whatsoever to the man's rude, completely unhinged behavior. He simply stood there, waiting in silence for the man to exhaust himself.
"Hah... hah... where... is he..."
"Please compose yourself, Duke Blem."
Before long the man, gasping for breath, sank to his knees, panting hard. But those words from a moment ago—if my ears hadn't deceived me...
"Duke, you said...?"
"Wait... don't tell me that's..."
"That's the head of House Blem, isn't it?!"
"Oh my, then that means Lord Robert... gah!!"
Apparently I hadn't misheard, because the servants' frantic whispers carried all the way over to us.
The head of House Blem—Gren. One of the precious few dukes in the Empire, and—
"Wh...what?! Ro...bert is... dead?!"
"...I am sorry... keugh!"
"Don't spout that crap!! Where are you hiding my son?!"
He was also the father of Robert—the first of us to fall in the Great Forest.
"...I deeply apolog—"
"Spare me the apologies and bring him to me. Bring me my son—now!!"
The Knight Commander's voice cut off mid-sentence—cut off by the flat of some man's hand swinging at his face.
Crack—
Crack—
The Knight Commander's head snapped left and right, blow after blow.
"You... you lot should have died instead!! Weren't they sent to protect him?!"
"...I am truly sorry we could not—"
"If you're so sorry, then go bring my son back alive!!"
Again the man's hand flew at the Knight Commander's face—this time not an open palm, but a tightly clenched fist.
"That is quite enough."
"Wh...why, you—who the hell are you?!"
But the fist never landed. Someone had caught it mid-swing.
A blond man in armor bearing golden pauldrons and a lion crest upon his chest. The massive sword strapped to his back looked as though it would take two grown men just to lift.
He was famous enough that even I, who barely set foot in high society, knew his face and his name. The man widely acknowledged as the strongest individual warrior in this country—the Guardian of the Empire, the Golden Knight, Luindel.
And there he stood, gripping Gren's fist in his hand.
"Y...you?! Who are you?!"
"This knight order belongs to the Empire. Not to you, Your Grace."
"Wh...what...!"
"Your son's death is a true tragedy, but I cannot tolerate further violence."
"You... you wretch, I am a duke of this realm—!"
"And I am the Commander of the First Imperial Knights, His Majesty the Emperor's personal force."
Luindel stood a head and a half taller than any ordinary grown man, looking down at Duke Gren, who was a touch below average height. The sheer difference in build—like David before Goliath—made the duke flinch for a moment, but he quickly recovered and began shouting his grievances at the top of his lungs.
"How can I possibly stay calm?! My son died in a distant land because of these incompetent fools!"
"...It is a terrible tragedy. That is why we must first hear the other knights' reports and assess the situation—"
"Assess the situation?! My son is dead because of them!!"
Rude and out of control as he was, he was still a duke of this realm. Not a man who could be dealt with lightly. And with him raging like this, there were only two ways to calm him down: overwhelm him with force and deal with the consequences later, or have someone even a duke couldn't touch—another duke, at the very least—step in and hold him back.
'...Well, neither is very likely—'
"Pardon me—might I intrude for a moment?"
"Oh, now who—hrk...!"
From behind that towering frame, a snow-white old man inserted himself, clearing his throat.
There was someone even a duke could not touch. The ruler of a single faith, the man who held every priest in his grasp.
"Th...the Pope?!"
"Heh heh, I came to tend to the wounded... but it seems I've arrived at an interesting scene."
It was the Pope's entrance.