The Seal Breaks
"I have to say, I didn't expect to find you in the royal capital. I thought you were off roaming around, hunting monsters."
"It isn't just anyone's wedding. It's Lady Yuria and Lord Roberje's. Of course I had to attend... Ah."
"...You don't need to fuss over me. That attitude is more of a nuisance."
"I'm sorry... Oh, and the wedding isn't the only reason I came to the capital."
"Oh? And what reason is that?"
"Well..."
Arit breaks off and glances around.
"If I start explaining, I'm afraid it will be a long story... Are you on your way to the mansion?"
"I am. From the look of things, those creatures have shown up somewhere besides the square. I need to get back to the mansion, and quickly."
"Then shall we go together? I can finish the rest of the story there."
"Fine. Let's leave at once. The mansion is this way."
Esmela sets off again at a brisk pace, her heels striking the stone. Arit falls in behind her, and I take the very rear.
Watching the sway of Arit's golden hair ahead of me, the fanboy buried inside me — devotee of Love in Arkesia — lifts his head once more.
Arit Ladaine. Saintess and villainess: two contradictory characters living in a single person. Of course, she only appears as a villainess on another route, so the Arit of this worldline has most likely gone on as an ordinary saintess of the Ladain Faith and married the male lead of the route she was written for.
Even so, I have just beheld the second villainess in the flesh. How could I not be glad?
I want to go further still and actually speak with her. But when a lady walks with her butler, the butler is not to address a stranger first unless his master introduces him. So I only follow quietly at her back, swallowing the regret.
I am still soothing that private disappointment when Arit suddenly turns her head, slows her pace, and comes up right beside me.
"Excuse me."
"Y-yes?"
"Are you the butler of House Herta?"
"Ah— yes. I am."
"I am Arit Ladaine of the Ladain Faith. If it isn't too forward, might I ask your name as well?"
"Ah, I— I'm Renit. Lady Esmela's exclusive butler."
"A pleasure to meet you, Renit. May Mitri, god of relationships, bless this first meeting."
She offers a brief prayer of greeting, then looks at me and smiles, bright as sunlight.
"...I could die happy..."
"Pardon?"
"N-no. It's nothing. I was talking to myself. Please don't mind it."
"I see..."
Damn it. The voice of my heart slipped out before I could stop it. But she noticed that a butler in my position couldn't speak to her first, and she came to me and introduced herself anyway. How am I supposed to remain unmoved by kindness like that?
I call up the seventeen-year-old Arit I remember from Love in Arkesia and set her beside the twenty-four-year-old walking next to me now. In the character settings her height was five foot five; she seems to have grown a little, closer to five-seven.
It isn't only her height. Her whole presence feels more mature. If her CGs in the game showed a saintess still soft with a girl's youth, the Arit before me has grown into a woman who looks as if she could embrace anything.
Some things have not changed. The golden eyes that mark a saintess still shine with that strange, vivid light, and her hair is still pure gold, glittering like the metal itself — nothing like Esmela's red-gold. The consideration that watches everyone around her, and the humility of speaking to all of them with honor, are exactly as they were.
If I tried to put the grown saintess Arit Ladaine into words, I would never finish.
"Hah..."
I draw a long breath and lift a prayer of thanks in my heart.
To whoever reincarnated me in this place — thank you, once again. A moment this moving is only the second of my life. The first was when I met Esmela...
I am still offering that devout prayer to the sky, a faithful worshipper of Love in Arkesia who has just witnessed a character in the flesh, when a prickle runs through me.
A sharp gaze stabs in from the front. I look ahead and find that Esmela has already turned, glaring at me as if she thoroughly disapproves.
"Arit."
"Yes?"
"Come here. I have something to say."
"Yes..."
Arit blinks, plainly bewildered at being summoned so suddenly.
"Then, Renit, if you'll excuse me."
She hurries to Esmela and falls in beside her. I see her off in silence, wearing the widest smile I can manage.
"Something to say, Lady Esmela?"
"Nothing important. How have you been?"
"Me? I've just..."
Listening to them, I can tell Esmela didn't call her over for any real reason. Is she still prickly from earlier? I can't see why she would go out of her way to stop Arit from talking to me.
I tuck the small, unsolved question away in my chest and simply follow the two of them toward the mansion.
Ten minutes later, we reach the nobles' quarter in the northwest district of Erka.
Most nobles who do not live beside the royal palace keep their mansions here. It is an upper-class district, and wherever I look there are lavish great houses attended by broad gardens. But even this place, where those at the very peak of nobility and wealth have gathered—
Ghhhrrk...
Kreeeek...
—has been taken by the living dead.
The three of us hide behind the wall of a mansion near the entrance to the residential quarter and carefully scout the street. Zombies that have lost any purpose stagger along the roads between the houses. Estates with high walls have managed to keep their gardens safe, but those whose gates stand open, or whose walls are low enough to climb, have already let the dead in without resistance.
"...This is the worst."
Esmela says it under her breath. She is right.
"Yes, my lady. How we're supposed to deal with those zombies and still reach the mansion..."
"What are you talking about?"
"Pardon? Well, I'm not at my best either, and if I count only the zombies I can see, there are more than a hundred..."
"I think you're misunderstanding. The worst part is that the zombies have spread this far at all. It means House Herta's mansion, in the north of this district, isn't safe anymore either. Clearing the ones in front of us on the way won't be difficult."
I am still trying to grasp what she means when Esmela and Arit stride straight toward the zombies, bold as anything.
"My lady?!"
I rush to her side.
"You can go hide somewhere. If you really want to be useful, clean up whatever small fry we miss."
She says it without so much as a glance back.
"How kind of you, Lady Esmela."
Kind? Which part of that was supposed to be kind?
"Hmph."
Esmela answers Arit with a light snort and closes her right hand around her own throat.
Announce
Utility magic — amplifies the voice
My thoughts still haven't caught up with her when the shout comes.
I clap my hands over my ears at the sudden roar. Esmela's voice, swollen with mana, rolls across the entire district, loud enough to shake it.
Gwek?
The zombies that heard her voice ringing out of nowhere peer this way and that, searching for her. And then—
KRAAAAAAH!
They find Esmela standing with her arms folded, proud and unmoved, and charge her all at once.
"Uh... uhh..."
I can't accept the sudden turn. My mind goes blank, and all I can do is look from Esmela to the zombies and back again. A wave of them is rushing straight at her, and still her face is pure confidence.
"Hmph. I warned them. Arit, I'm counting on you."
"Anytime."
The instant Arit answers, the air around Esmela begins to waver. Esmela closes her eyes, and a moment later her mana heart kindles once more. The difference is the color. This time the light is red threaded through with black.
A gale of black flame spills from her mana heart and wraps around her.
"Kh..."
The heat slams into my whole body, and I stumble several steps back. Through all of it, Arit stands calmly at Esmela's side.
Esmela opens her eyes. A crimson light kindles in irises that were already red, and a red glow pours from them. Her red-gold hair, only faintly red a moment ago, turns wholly red.
KRAAAAH!
She looks toward the horde still charging in from far away and begins to chant, low.
"O Herta's Flame."
She has not even finished the chant when a vast wall of black flame roars up before us, climbing with ferocious force.
The moment she gives that short command, a tidal wave of black flame swallows everything in sight—