The Queen's Latest Folly
People’s gazes snapped to the suddenly appearing magic circle. The mages and soldiers stationed for crowd control tensed for a moment, but at the sight of the composed Rowell and Aegina, they chose not to intervene.
“Ooh……!”
As the circle faded and the summoned beast revealed itself, I saw countless eyes glaze over in awe. A chorus of low gasps swelled into a full-throated cheer. From within the emerald sigil emerged a large green parrot the size of a grown man—Pata Kakix. Among all the summons I had contracted, its appearance was by far the most striking.
Its feathers were made of what looked like emerald minerals, its talons gleamed gold, and its eyes sparkled like rubies. To the onlookers, it must have seemed like a bird sculpted entirely from gemstones.
The crowd stood momentarily entranced by Pata Kakix’s dazzling form. Just as an awkward silence threatened to settle, someone in the throng shouted.
“It’s Lord Anak! The Summoner of Deception, Lord Anak!”
Success. They had recognized me.
“Quite the flashy entrance, Anak.”
“I know, Aegina. But this is the only way they’ll notice me.”
And notice me they did.
“Waaah! Waaah!”
When Pata Kakix spread its wings wide and circled above the crowd, the cheers erupted in earnest. Some people even reached out, half-hoping a feather might fall, though the bird’s plumage would never shed—and even if it did, the fallen pieces would quickly lose their luster and crumble.
Most of the onlookers didn’t know that, of course. I noticed the growing hunger and longing in quite a few eyes, so I guided Pata Kakix down to perch on the railing of the carriage behind me.
“Knew contracting it was the right call.”
In truth, Pata Kakix wasn’t particularly useful in combat, nor did it excel at anything else. Its somewhat stiff feathers existed solely to protect it from predators—nothing more, nothing less. Its overly extravagant appearance was the real problem; it drew every eye, friend and foe alike.
The only reason I had contracted with it was that very appearance. I had used it whenever I needed to draw attention.
“At first I only caught it because I thought I could sell it if we ever ran short on travel funds, but that never happened.”
Even in the shadow of world-ending crises, it was surprising how many people clung to their sense of commerce. That same instinct had helped preserve what little social order remained, yet it had also led to some truly outrageous price-gouging whenever money ran low.
“You always asked for far too much whenever you tried to sell it, Anak.”
“That was the lowest price!”
Even if I had sold it, it would only have been as an ornamental pet. Considering the economic situation at the time, the price had indeed been steep—but only those with money to spare had shown any interest.
“If they were buying it just to show off, the least they could do was not haggle like misers.”
“Still, ten gold coins was a bit much……”
“Back then the only currency in circulation was silver and gold. I already said I was willing to negotiate down to a point. But five silver coins for something worth ten gold? There was no room to haggle at all.”
Five silver coins. The sheer audacity.
“Well, thanks to that we managed to wipe out that slave-trading ring, didn’t we?”
When I refused to sell for five silver coins, the merchant had offered to throw in a few slaves on top. That had given us the opening to interrogate him and uncover the hidden locations where slaves were being traded.
“That much is true, at least.”
We continued the parade amid the city-wide cheers. It was quite some time before we finally reached the royal palace.
“Haaah.”
We sank back into our seats at last. Everyone except Bagloros let out the sighs they had been holding in. Mine, unlike the others, was closer to physical relief than emotional release.
“Honestly, the moment Father and Brother see us they put us straight to work……”
Aegina glared toward the palace interior as though she might charge in at any second, yet her gaze soon swept across every corner of the building.
“Aren’t you happy to be back after so long?”
At Rowell’s gentle question, Aegina’s cheeks flushed for a moment before she broke into a breathtaking smile.
“Of course I am.”
I looked away from the pink-tinged couple and turned my eyes to the palace and its gates visible through the carriage window.
“Feels like old times.”
When we had first arrived in the Ayman Kingdom, it had already lost its first and second princes to two separate assaults by the Demon King’s army. Both princes had fought bravely on the front lines and died honorably while evacuating civilians, but that did not make their deaths any less tragic.
Because the kingdom lay some distance from the main front, the scale of each attack had been relatively small—yet they were still the Demon King’s forces. The Ayman Kingdom had already been pushed to its limit, and another assault was imminent.
The king had been conscripting troops to repel the coming attack. Rowell and I had volunteered for the defense force. We knew roughly what to expect from the Demon King’s army, and we had already defeated a regular Demon King unit led by Medun, even if only as low-ranking soldiers. We weren’t particularly afraid—until Rowell suggested we move to the very front of the vanguard. That had given me pause.
At the time, few among the conscripted soldiers possessed the skill to fight the Demon King’s army properly, so placing the two of us—who had actual experience—on the front line had been the most efficient choice in many ways.
Moreover, my fighting style back then had been different from now; the composition of my summons and my soul synchronization rate had made fighting in the vanguard more necessary than staying in the rear.
Even so, standing at the very tip of the spear had never been appealing. The cavalry and knight orders took the foremost position, with regular soldiers and conscripts behind them, but it was still the most dangerous place on the battlefield.
Well, even then, I hadn’t been able to refuse that look in his eyes.
“Come to think of it, Aegina, how did you manage to keep your identity hidden until the very moment you stepped onto the front lines?”
Despite being a princess, Aegina had disguised herself as a man and fought alongside the knights at the front. Neither the king nor the commanders who had sortied with the royal guard, nor even Rowell and I—who had ended up fighting beside her from the middle of the battle onward—had realized the truth until after the fighting was over.
“Honestly, I already thought it was amazing that someone besides Rowell could fight like that. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she was a woman—let alone the princess.”
Even while wearing armor that completely concealed her face and figure, Aegina had dominated the battlefield. No matter how well she fought, however, the number of soldiers and knights around her steadily dwindled until she was eventually surrounded. Rowell had rushed in to help her.
“The armor smelled awful. No one wanted to get close to me right up until we sortied. Everyone was frozen with tension from the moment we left until the battle began.”
“Ah, so that was where the smell came from. I just assumed it was the scent of some new kind of monster……”
Rowell trailed off under Aegina’s quiet, steady gaze. Right. Regardless of everything else, that had been their first meeting. Hearing that the hero had smelled something foul the first time he met her was not a story any woman would want to listen to—least of all a princess. It was a memory she would rather erase.
Aside from that one detail, it had been quite romantic: a hero rushing to save a princess in peril.
Well, the fact that the princess had already taken down nearly a hundred enemies with her bare fists before needing rescue made the scene a little ambiguous.
In any case, while we held the stronger enemies and shock troops at the front, the remaining knights and units encircled and eliminated the rest of the Demon King’s forces. We won the battle.
“Our names started spreading after that fight. The king’s expression that day was something else. One of the nameless heroes who had turned the tide and flown across the battlefield turned out to be the daughter he thought he had left safely inside the castle.”
I could swear that when the king saw her face after she removed her helmet, he stood frozen for a full three seconds before nearly fainting. That vacant, unfocused stare. I had been shocked myself to learn she was a woman, but watching the king look as though he might collapse right there had nearly stopped my own heart.
That battle marked the beginning of our names becoming known to the world. After a few more incidents, Aegina joined Rowell and me on our journey.
“Everyone, we have arrived.”
While we were lost in old stories and memories, the carriage came to a stop. It had halted not at the main gate but deep inside the palace grounds, in the relatively quiet garden of a detached palace. Before I could wonder why, an elderly attendant waiting there opened the carriage door wide.
“Welcome, Princess Aegina. And Lord Rowell, Lord Anak, and Lord Bagloros as well.”
“It’s been a long time, Uncle Scott.”
Aegina offered the man a warm smile as he held the door. Scott returned it with a gentle, grandfatherly expression. If my memory served, he was one of the attendants who had looked after her since childhood and had also taught her martial arts.
“Shall we go?”
A long red carpet stretched across the ground outside, flanked on both sides by knights kneeling with swords drawn in salute—the highest honor usually reserved for a lord from their vassals.
“Everyone, welcome!”
“Was the parade too tiring?”
At the end of the carpet stood Aegina’s father—the current king of Ayman—her third older brother, acting as regent, and Sir Levrant, Rowell’s father. They approached us with somewhat cautious steps, smiles on their faces yet clearly studying Aegina’s expression.
“Your Majesty.”
Once we were close enough, we began to kneel, but the three men hurriedly stopped us.
“What’s with the formality between us! Be at ease! Be at ease!”
“Exactly! We’re not strangers. Besides, you’re the heroes who saved the world.”
Even as the king and the regent spoke, their eyes remained fixed on Aegina rather than Rowell. We had endured the parade for hours, but it was obvious these two had been just as anxious while waiting.
“…Isn’t that right, Aegina?”
“Isn’t that right, my beautiful little sister?”
For a moment I felt genuinely sorry for them. That was practically begging.
It was true that Aegina didn’t particularly enjoy stiff, grandiose ceremonies. But did they really need to act like this?
Even before the Great War and afterward, she had attended plenty of such events because of her position, and she had never thrown a fit over them. The sudden parade had tired her a little, but a few mild complaints would have been the extent of it. So why were both men glancing at her as though they expected to be struck, while Sir Levrant stood beside them trying to soothe the situation?
“Father? Brother?”
See? Even Aegina herself looked bewildered. A strange silence fell over us. Finally, as though she had realized something, Aegina let out a deep sigh. She glanced away slightly before calmly asking her father and brother, who were both avoiding her gaze.
“…What kind of trouble has Mother caused this time?”