An Audience with the King
Looking back on it now, it's such a damn shame.
"Raise your heads."
The royal palace. The throne room.
Riel and I had kept our heads bowed in proper etiquette, waiting for the king to take his seat. A man's deep, heavy voice gave the command, and we lifted our gazes.
A middle-aged man sat upon the throne in opulent robes, a beard the same rich brown as his hair. The arms left faintly bare by his sleeves were carved from thick, corded muscle.
This was the man who ruled the Kingdom of Pallazinia. King Galarus Oldin Pallazinia.
He was a mountain of a man — so enormous that the rumors of him once claiming victory at the Martial God Festival in his youth became instantly, viscerally believable.
"I present myself before His Majesty the King."
"I-I present myself before His Majesty the King!"
Riel was extremely nervous. And she had every reason to be.
King Galarus, seated upon that throne, had to stand well over six and a half feet, and his shoulders were so broad that the sheer weight of his presence pressed down like a physical force. The great throne itself looked almost pitiful beside him — no grander than a dining chair that had wandered into the wrong room.
"Hrm..."
King Galarus studied Riel and me with those sharp eyes of his, taking his time. Beside me, I could hear the tight, anxious sound of Riel's breathing.
Strangely enough, though, this oppressive presence felt... familiar.
Ah.
This pressure — it was just like what I felt whenever Princess Aine "sparred" with me. Which is to say, whenever she beat me half to death.
Like father, like daughter. No wonder they were cut from the same cloth.
"So. You are Silvia's son."
King Galarus's eyes locked onto mine.
God, look at those eyes...
I'd said I was used to this kind of pressure, but honestly, I was just hiding it. He was terrifying.
"Kyou Ventus, eldest son of House Ventus."
"Ah. That was the name, yes."
King Galarus nodded, then his gaze shifted to Riel beside me.
"Lady Riel... I haven't seen you since you were a babe."
"I-Is that so, Your Majesty?"
"Indeed. Duke Ignis used to carry you around everywhere, showing you off when you were still small."
Huh.
So Duke Ignis had been a hopeless doting father.
"I see. Father was..."
"...Ah."
Riel's voice dropped a little, as if the mention of her father had caught her in the chest. Hearing that, a flicker of awkwardness crossed King Galarus's face.
"As for Duke Ignis, the royal family has committed considerable funds and personnel to the search."
"Th-Thank you, Your Majesty."
"Think nothing of it. It is only what the Crown ought to do."
Not that I was surprised the Crown had been caught off guard. Even Eve and Riel — his own family — hadn't realized the Duke was missing. On the surface, Duke Ignis had always been the sort to rush from place to place on official business, rarely returning home. When Riel, needing to see him, had asked Eve to track him down, his whereabouts had simply vanished. The royal family had only belatedly realized that Duke Ignis had disappeared.
The records of the regions he'd supposedly visited on business were all in order; nothing about the paperwork itself had raised any flags, which was why the Crown hadn't been paying attention. The problem was that while the records existed, not a single person in those places had actually seen him.
"Hrm... we've strayed from the matter at hand. I summoned you today because I wished to speak of the World Tree Church."
"Yes, Your Majesty. We heard the gist of it in the carriage."
"Then we can move through this quickly."
King Galarus went on to recount the demands the Church had made during the Martial God Festival, and the negotiations that had followed. Once I'd heard it all, everything fell into place.
From the Church's perspective, Alan was a commoner — they could persuade him, or simply drag him off by force, and either way it would have been possible. Riel, however, was the second daughter of a ducal house. The Church could not take her by force. They had apparently tried persuasion through Alan as well, though whether that farce deserved to be called persuasion was another question entirely.
Which was why they had attempted a quiet kidnapping — that dormitory intruder incident. And as for me, they had simply intended to kill me.
The problem was the reason they had done all of this. According to the king, every last bit of it stemmed from an oracle delivered by the World Tree Yggdrasil.
The World Tree Yggdrasil. Come to think of it, in the original novel it had never appeared even once, aside from the mention that it had granted Alan its blessing.
"Lady Riel. As to the matter of how we have dealt with the one who sought to do you harm..."
I pulled myself out of my thoughts to find King Galarus speaking of Alan. The moment Alan's name came up, Riel's expression went rigid. Fair enough. She had already despised him, and after the attempted assault the other day, that dislike had only deepened.
"I am sorry that the matter was settled with little more than permanent exile. Truth be told, I would have liked to take an arm off him at the very least..."
King Galarus said it as though he genuinely regretted the leniency. According to His Majesty, they had held a summary trial for Alan after he was brought in for the attempted assault of a high-ranking noble.
The problem was that the Alan they dragged in showed not a shred of remorse. He insisted he had only been trying to save his precious childhood friend, treated Phyllis — who had been protecting Riel — as some kind of villain, and spouted nonsense the entire time. In the middle of all that, he had also claimed that I was a shadowy mastermind and a villain who had used Phyllis and Emilia to deceive Riel.
Phyllis was my personal maid, so that part wasn't technically wrong — but why Emilia had suddenly entered the picture, I had no idea.
Because of all that, the magistrate had concluded that the criminal showed not the slightest intent to repent, and had been prepared to hand down the death penalty.
The problem was that here, the Church had thrown itself into opposition with a ferocity far beyond what anyone had anticipated, as though prepared to abandon nearly everything they had. However little influence the Church might wield inside the Kingdom of Pallazinia, that was true only within the kingdom's borders. On the international stage, the Church's reach was nothing to take lightly.
They had even declared themselves willing to go as far as a holy war if that was what it took to bring Alan back unharmed. King Galarus had decided that carving too deep a rift with the Church over one criminal whelp simply wasn't worth the cost.
In the end, Alan was permanently banished from the kingdom, and forbidden from ever approaching the victims again. The penalty for violating that order was severe enough that if he were beaten to death for it, no one would have grounds to complain. On top of that, the Church had supposedly "gifted" the Crown various lands and business shares it held within the kingdom. I had a feeling some manner of deal had been struck behind the scenes.
"The Church was insistent on taking that whelp back intact."
"...Probably because of that oracle. They couldn't very well have their hero end up a cripple."
King Galarus grumbled that they should have at least taken a finger. I couldn't argue. I had thought more than once that on the day Riel was attacked, it would have been better if Phyllis had simply taken one of the bastard's arms.
Looking back on it now, it's such a damn shame.
"The Church may have withdrawn from the kingdom, but there is no telling when they will come after you again."
"Y-Yes, Your Majesty..."
Riel trembled faintly, unease running through her. I couldn't blame her. When the subject of that oracle had come up in the carriage — the part about her sharing love with Alan — she had worn an expression of pure revulsion, as though she might be sick. If the Church ever got their hands on Riel... I didn't even want to think about it.
"And so, for the time being, I intend to station a knight order around the Academy and the dormitories."
"A knight order..."
Even with the safety of a duke's second daughter at stake, posting knights under the Crown's direct command was a rather extraordinary measure.
"Well. I'll not deny I also have little interest in giving those Church dogs anything to smile about..."
...
I had heard that our royal family and the Church did not get along. I hadn't realized it was this bad.
"The Church's movements of late have been... unusual, as well. I cannot help but feel it may be connected to why they want the two of you. A gut feeling, nothing more."
As I listened to King Galarus, I found myself sinking back into thought.
The World Tree Church. The World Tree Yggdrasil. Alan, the Child of Yggdrasil. The oracle the World Tree had supposedly delivered. And a Church that had begun to move in strange ways of late.
I had a bad feeling — the kind that said something was genuinely about to happen.
A wet, cheerful crack rang out as a monster's skull burst apart, blood spraying in every direction.
"What the hell is that human?!"
"Our powers aren't working on her!"
Alicia kicked the monster whose head she had just exploded, sending the corpse flying, and charged the next one. The creature roared and swung an arm lined with razor claws —
A sickening crunch.
Alicia's mace was faster. It shattered the claws and the arm together and hurled the monster away like a rag doll.
"She's terrifying! Terrifying!"
"Why isn't our power working?!"
The fairies cowered, crushed beneath the force of Alicia's presence. Their gift was interference of the mind — the power to show people false visions and lead them astray, and, nastier still, to amplify emotions or make someone appear hateful, stirring up fights. Thoroughly vicious abilities.
And yet none of it seemed to work on Alicia.
No. In truth, it was working, to a degree. Her head was pounding, and the world kept swimming in front of her eyes; the fairies' power had left her in no good state at all.
But Alicia raised her weapon and went on a rampage all the same. To smash those blasphemous, filthy insects who had dared to drag monsters into the forest where the World Tree had once dwelled.
"Haaaaah!!"
"Kyaaaaah!!"
In the end, one of the fairies paid the price. They had been hiding themselves among the monsters, vanishing between the bodies — but that did not mean they had no physical form. Hit them and they were hit. Cut them and they were cut. Crush them and they were crushed.
One unlucky fairy lost its life that way.
"Aaaaaagh!!"
"Scary! It's so scary!"
"No! Save us, Lady Belia!"
The wretched death of a single fairy sent the rest into a panic, tripping over one another in their rush to flee. Some of them cried out to Belia for help, but that help would never come.
Saint Belia was a spirit bound to this forest to begin with, and she was only using the power she had stolen from Yggdrasil in a half-baked, incomplete way. Hers was not a body that could simply appear wherever it pleased.
"......"
The last of the monsters was crushed to death, and the surroundings fell quiet. The fairies had all fled, it seemed; not a trace of their presence remained.
"Slippery little things..."
She was furious that she had let those blasphemous, filthy insects escape. She would have liked to kill one or two more, but hunting them down one by one in a body without holy power was impossible. Next time we meet, I swear... Holding that thought, Alicia stowed her weapon in her pack and headed for the place they had agreed upon.
Beneath the promised boulder, Andrew Ignis was clinging tightly to his mother, an orb clutched to his chest.
"I've returned."
"L-Lady Alicia! The blood... there's so much blood...!"
"Ah..."
Alicia had pulled travel leathers on over her pure white priestess vestments. The outer leather was soaked through, of course — but so were the vestments beneath, dyed a deep, vivid crimson. Small wonder Andrew had gone pale.
"It's all right. You needn't worry so."
"But this much blood..."
"It's all right. It isn't mine."
Alicia looked at Andrew and smiled the same benevolent smile she had always worn for the faithful at church.
Her face, too, was stained with blood.