Imperial Princess (7)
The Imperial Princess of the Empire who had turned a poison smokescreen into her ally — Chartia — moved.
She did not rest. She did not stop her feet. Even as she pressed her assault like a storm, she knew better than anyone that the moment she halted, she would lose.
She even used the throwing techniques she had hastily learned, but they failed to leave so much as a scratch on the Saintess's robes.
In the end, the only weapons that could land a real blow on the Saintess were the defense-piercing daggers gripped in both her hands.
She was still at a disadvantage.
She had shackled herself with poison. Even so, the best she could manage was to dodge the Saintess's barrages by a hair's breadth — a razor-thin margin between survival and annihilation.
By her original calculations, the Saintess should have been moving far more sluggishly than this by now.
Did she have some way of neutralizing the poison?
Because the Saintess was holding up far better inside the toxic haze than expected, every exchange had become a high-wire act — one single mistake, and a direct hit from the barrage would end it all.
…She knew. She knew that the Saintess was going easy on her.
If the Saintess raised the output of her bombardment any further, Chartia would be swept up in it instantly. And yet the Saintess did not increase it.
The moment Chartia could no longer deploy more poison smoke, her defeat would be all but sealed.
The Saintess was probably waiting for exactly that — to end the spar without anyone getting seriously hurt, and to keep the friendship between the Church and the Imperial Family intact.
"…How mature of you."
The Saintess was mature. Chartia herself, by contrast, was shamefully young — in body and in heart alike.
Even so, she did not want to give up.
Andreus, Commander of the Holy Knights, had been right. Through this spar, through the clash of weapon against weapon, she had come to understand what she truly wanted.
It wasn't jealousy.
She wanted to stand as the Saintess's equal. Until now, the Imperial Princess had admired the Saintess. Admiration was a feeling reserved for someone above you.
And she had known, deep down, that you could never become true equals with someone you admired — that you could never become real friends.
Yes. What the Imperial Princess had wanted all along was to grow genuinely close to the Saintess.
So she would win. She would win so that she herself could accept that they were truly equals now.
And then she would say it. That her request was simply this: she wanted to be friends. Would the Saintess be her friend?
Pouring that desperate wish into every swing, she slashed with her daggers, then darted back. Strike and retreat. She kept up the pressure with her throwing techniques as well.
Then Chartia caught it — a momentary break in the Saintess's stance.
The poison smoke was nearly gone. This was her last chance. The thought flashed through her mind, and she closed the distance in a single burst.
She had struck the same spot dozens of times to punch through the defense. And now — now was the moment to break through.
With that thought, she was about to swing her dagger with everything she had when she saw it.
"…You've gotten astonishingly strong."
The muzzle of the Holy Relic in the Saintess's hands was not pointed at Chartia.
"But this time, I win."
The muzzle of the Holy Relic was aimed at the ground.
And then light swallowed the Saintess whole, as if sweeping the poison smoke away.
A point-blank barrage into the earth. The shockwave engulfed Chartia, who stood right beside it.
Her movement faltered. Her stance collapsed. Which was to say — an opening had appeared.
Her brain screamed danger. She twisted her body, trying to move somehow. But before she could, the muzzle of the Holy Relic locked onto her.
Evasion was impossible. Realizing that, she smiled as if resigning herself.
"I lost."
And the barrage swallowed the Imperial Princess.
I plopped down beside the Imperial Princess, who had briefly lost consciousness, unable to endure the pain of the barrage. Being caught in my own firepower for the first time was not a pleasant feeling.
So even I hurt when I get hit by my own shots. Good to know.
"…How was it?"
I took a moment to gather my thoughts at Andreus's question, then opened my mouth.
"Honestly, I was pretty surprised."
I never imagined she'd be this good.
Of course, she still had a long way to go. Her stance was rough, her weapon handling was rough — there were more rough edges than I could count.
Even so, I couldn't deny that sparring against her had been tricky. That was the level of potential the Imperial Princess had shown me.
When she first said she wanted to be a thief, I'd honestly been at a loss for words, but…
"If she keeps honing her strengths, I think she'll become incredibly powerful someday. Don't you?"
With talent like that, she might even survive the demonkin ambush that was coming in the future. That thought crossed my mind, too.
Anyway, the spar seemed to have wrapped up well enough. No one had gotten seriously hurt, after all.
Having finished treating both me and the Imperial Princess with holy power, Andreus rose to his feet.
"…I shall take my leave first, then. I have urgent business to attend to."
"Ah, wait a second!"
I was about to give him an earful for putting weird ideas about sparring into the Imperial Princess's head!
But Andreus was already gone. I sighed despite myself. Making people suffer and then irresponsibly running off — what kind of behavior was that?
"I'll have to give him a piece of my mind later, with interest."
Having made that resolution, I glanced over at the Imperial Princess.
"If you're awake, maybe you should get up?"
At that, the Imperial Princess slowly opened her eyes, pushed herself upright, and gave me an embarrassed smile.
"…You knew?"
Hearing that, I couldn't help but smile as I answered.
"You might want to practice playing dead a little more."
I'd seen plenty of people on the battlefield play dead to survive, so I'd recognized her act with unfortunate ease.
"A-are you all right? You're not having trouble moving because of the poison or anything, are you?"
"…If you were going to worry about that, maybe you shouldn't have used the poison smoke in the first place."
I'd completely lost count of how many times she'd detonated those toxic clouds.
If it hadn't been for the holy power dwelling in my body, and the lingering effect of the World Tree's final blessing, the drop in my physical abilities from the poison would have been far worse.
The Imperial Princess seemed to realize she'd gone a bit overboard, because her head drooped.
"I'm sorry…"
"Eh, it's fine. Nobody got seriously hurt in the end, and for me it felt like real combat experience, so it was actually good."
The moment she heard that, the tension in her face seemed to ease a little. She'd apparently picked up on the fact that I wasn't just being polite.
I watched her in silence for a moment, then smiled.
"Anyway, since I won, you know you have to grant me one request, right?"
At my words, the Imperial Princess flinched. Only then did the karmic debt of her past self seem to come into focus.
"Th-that is… I'll do my best."
"It's nothing major. I was just curious what you were going to ask of me that made you go so far as to make a bet."
"Ah."
Her expression froze solid, as if she'd never expected a question like that to be the request.
Of course, I had no intention of letting her off the hook.
"Do you need to swear to the Goddess first that you won't lie? Or I won't believe you."
I didn't really think she'd lie, but just in case, I thoroughly cut off every avenue of escape.
All right. Let's hear it. What kind of request had been so important that she'd proposed a bet first?
"I swear to the Goddess I won't lie. …The truth is, if I won, I was going to ask you to… be my friend. That was what I was going to—"
As the Imperial Princess finished speaking, silence wrapped around the two of us.
Uh. Um. I had not expected that answer at all.
The Bombardment Fairy criticizes you for even asking that.
The Bombardment Fairy teases you, asking if you were trying to shame the Imperial Princess into suicide.
And of course, the Bombardment Fairy was busily mocking me without a shred of tact. One of these days, all that karma is going to come back around and hit you.
First, I needed to fix this awkward atmosphere. I thought for a moment about how to react, then made my decision.
In situations like this, going brazen was actually the kinder option — it made the other person less embarrassed. Right. I needed to own it.
"…Imperial Princess, are you an idiot? After going at it full tilt, winning, and then asking the person you just beat to be your friend — how do you think the other person is supposed to take that?"
"…I'm sorry. I felt like something had possessed me, too."
Yeah, it seemed that way. She'd been weirdly worked up, for lack of a better description. Anyway.
"Then shall I state my request now?"
"Huh?! I already told you! I wasn't lying!"
"What are you talking about? I said I was curious, but I never said that was my request. You just assumed on your own and spilled everything."
"Th-th-that's so cheap!!"
The Bombardment Fairy says that is not very Saintess-like at all.
What was she talking about? That was just the loser's excuse.
Take note: life is a live-fire exercise!
Of course, I only thought that to myself and didn't say it out loud. Instead, I said something else.
"And honestly, settling a request with just one question feels a little off, doesn't it? Don't worry. It won't be anything too difficult."
"…All right."
Originally, I'd planned to just ask the question and leave it at that. I hadn't particularly wanted anything from the Imperial Princess. But after hearing her answer, I'd changed my mind a little.
I smiled easily at her and said,
"Let's drop the formal speech with each other."
"…What?"
"Of course, we'll still observe proper etiquette in official settings. What do you think?"
There wasn't any particular reason. After hearing her answer, I just wanted to say it.
Maybe spending more than a week sharing the same room had closed the psychological distance without me noticing.
Or maybe seeing how hopelessly awkward the Imperial Princess was had moved something in me.
Well, the fact that roommates who'd been sharing a room for days still couldn't drop formal speech was kind of a problem in its own right.
"Uh, um, well."
"I'll just start talking casually. If you don't like it, just say so. Char — what about you?"
"Ch-Char?"
The Bombardment Fairy marvels at how bold your speech is, wondering if even your brain has been dyed by bombardment.
This is the driving force of a real man (Saintess), I'll have you know!
"Chartia is a bit long, don't you think? So what's it going to be?"
"…I'd like that."
"Casual speech!"
"I'd like that!!"
After that, neither I nor the Imperial Princess said anything. We just looked at each other in silence for a moment, then started laughing at the same time — as if we'd made a promise beforehand.
It just felt like the right thing to do. Honestly, it was a little funny, too.
And so the spar that had come about so suddenly ended on a good note.
For the record, the Imperial Princess also said she'd challenge me to another spar later.
That was a problem for future me to handle. I believe in you, future me!
Fortunately, it looked like I wouldn't have to worry about that for a while.
Because the very next day after the spar, we were headed straight to the battlefield.