Long Time No See
The journey to Septimoa had been easy.
…To be precise, it had been easy for me and no one else.
All I did was sleep in the carriage, wake up to eat, and fall back asleep. Come evening, I'd shuffle into our lodgings half-dazed, eat dinner, and sleep some more. In between, I changed my bandages and received healing from the Revered One. That was the entire routine.
It was a lifestyle so lazy I genuinely wondered if I was allowed to live like this.
'No, wait. I'm a patient right now, aren't I?'
A patient's job is to eat well and rest thoroughly. So in other words, I wasn't being lazy at all — I was simply doing my absolute best as a patient. Right?
At any rate, after days of eating and sleeping like a beast being fattened up in a pen, I'd finally recovered to the point where I could walk around on my own. More accurately, as my body — weakened by demonic corrosion — gradually regained its strength, I'd become able to resist the curse the whip had left behind without the Revered One's help.
…When I checked last night, even my wounds were slowly healing. At this rate, I could recover just fine without Clarice's assistance. It would take a while longer, of course.
Once I'd recovered to a reasonable degree, I mostly rode up on the driver's bench rather than staying inside the carriage. I'd wanted to walk or ride a horse, but the Revered One opposed it so vehemently that we compromised on me sitting up front instead. It was just sitting beside the person driving the carriage, but even that was quite a refreshing change of pace.
The knights took turns driving, and today the one on the bench was Cassian.
I wasn't particularly thrilled about having to sit next to him, but my desire to escape the stuffy interior of the carriage outweighed even my aversion to his presence.
"Hup…"
"Saintess, how is your body feeling?"
The moment I sat down beside him, Cassian asked after my health.
…Well, back in the day he would have recoiled in disgust and refused to even respond, but these days we exchanged at least simple conversation.
Besides, he was someone I had to look at until I was sick of him. What was the point of constantly avoiding and resenting him when all it did was wear me out?
Suspicion and hatred are emotions that demand an enormous amount of mental energy. Sustaining them wasn't easy — especially when no one kept feeding the firewood the emotions needed to burn.
And lately, Cassian had shown nothing but a foolishly steadfast, honest demeanor — not a single suspicious act to be found. The only flaw worth nitpicking was how damned weak he was.
So I'd decided to be satisfied with keeping one ember of suspicion banked in my heart, ready to flare into flame at any moment.
"The Revered One has been treating me with such devoted care that I've improved a lot. Still, he's overprotective. Honestly, the man won't even let me walk."
I muttered, letting out a faint sigh. Granted, all that overprotectiveness and steady treatment had made my body visibly better, but even so — suffocating was suffocating.
"At this rate, I might actually get weaker."
Some musician once said: skip one day of practice and you notice, skip two and the critics notice, skip three and the audience notices.
Lately my rest days kept piling up, and I was starting to worry my skills might actually regress.
"Aw, come on, Sis. You think a little rest is gonna make you weak?"
Leonid, who had overheard my lament, jumped at the chance to pick a fight.
"…Why are you picking a fight out of nowhere? How do you plan on dealing with me once I'm all healed up?"
I looked down at Leonid, who was walking beside the carriage, with a look of utter disbelief. But instead of backing down, he was pointlessly confident.
"Isn't it just the truth? You drove off a legion commander single-handedly, Sis. Flip through the history books of the Holy Empire — you'll find maybe a handful of people who've achieved that. Would someone like you really get weak from a little rest?"
And threatening me doesn't scare me anyway. Once you're treated by Lady Clarice, you'll say you need to check my condition and hit me first.
Leonid grumbled on and on under his breath.
Well… he wasn't wrong, but why couldn't he figure out that saying so only earned him more beatings?
Anyway, I tuned Leonid out and turned my gaze to the road ahead of us.
We were traveling along the Ferrero highway. Ferrero was a city less than half a day's journey from Septimoa. We'd been following this highway for a while now, so we'd be arriving soon.
"By the way, how many days until the council? I'm not late, am I?"
All the half-lucid living lately had blurred my sense of the calendar.
"No, Saintess. We departed with plenty of time to spare, so even with a night's rest upon arrival, we still have a day left before the council convenes."
"You could've just said two days. Why make it so complicated?"
Perhaps because we'd left with so much buffer, we seemed to be arriving two days early despite the considerable delays along the way. Plenty of time to be treated by Clarice and recover.
"Saintess, may I ask what Septimoa is like?"
While I was silently enjoying the scenery, Cassian posed a question.
"Weren't you a mercenary? You've never even been to Septimoa?"
I didn't know much about the lives mercenaries led, but didn't they travel all over taking on commissions? If he'd worked as a mercenary in the Holy Empire, I'd assumed he'd have passed through Septimoa at least once.
"Unfortunately, the opportunity never arose."
"Well, it's a beautiful and magnificent place. Look ahead — you can see it starting now."
I pointed into the distance, at a shape like a white giant reclining against the massive mountain range. Cassian's gaze followed my finger.
"Is that what you mean?"
"Yeah. It's still a ways off so it's hard to make out, but those are the white ramparts. The outer walls that protect Septimoa."
"…Even from this distance, it's overwhelming. What an imposing presence."
"Wait till you see it up close."
Honestly, I'd been stunned the first time I saw it too. Even if holy law and magic exist, how do you build something this scale in a medieval era? That's exactly what I'd thought.
"Septimoa is beautiful, yes, but it's also a natural fortress."
"A natural fortress? In what sense?"
He wore an intrigued expression. That fortress would interest him more than beautiful — I rather liked that about him. A Hero should have his head skewed toward combat rather than sighing over natural scenery, after all.
"You'll understand once we get closer. No matter how well I explain it in words, seeing it once beats a hundred descriptions."
With that, the conversation lapsed. We traveled on along the highway, and before we knew it, we'd come right up to Septimoa itself.
"Whew…?"
Cassian, who had been driving the carriage beside me, let out a gasp of awe at the sight of Septimoa. Seeing the perpetually serious man make such a goofy expression was oddly funny, and a snicker escaped me before I could help it.
Septimoa, capital of Sectia — the only empire on the Lorentia Continent — was a city with almost no rivals, whether as a hub of trade or a center of culture. And as I'd said earlier, it was famous both for its beauty and as an impregnable fortress that could never be breached.
The rugged Balark Mountain Range loomed behind it, and sheer cliffs fell away in front. The only ways into Septimoa were across Emerald Ridge — the great bridge connecting the city to the clifftops — or over the Balark Mountains themselves. The Balark Range was so treacherous, and so heavily patrolled by the fairy rangers, that crossing it was all but impossible. Emerald Ridge was wide enough for ordinary traffic, but far too narrow for a large army to move through.
Moreover, the interior of Septimoa possessed water sources and food production capacity enough to be fully self-sufficient. Even if besieged and cut off from supply, the city could hold out for years on its own stores. It was, in the truest sense of the words, a fortress gifted by nature itself.
"It hardly seems like a sight from this world."
"Impressive, right? The capital of the Holy Empire ought to be at least this much, don't you think?"
The cityscape was magnificent, but even just gazing at the mysterious terrain nature had carved was a feast for the eyes. My first time here, I genuinely lost track of time staring at this view. Most people react the same way I did when they see Septimoa for the first time.
Probably this Cassian fellow would be no differ… hmm?
Why is this punk sweating so much? And why are the hands holding the reins trembling like that?
"Hey."
"…Yes, Saintess?"
His answer turned my flickering suspicion into certainty. This punk was shaking.
"Pfft. Do you have a fear of heights? Are you scared?"
"…No."
"Your hands are trembling — what do you mean, no?"
This guy was hilarious.
He seemed to be trying hard to hide it, but ever since we'd set foot on the bridge, Cassian's voice and body had been trembling faintly.
Well, it was a bottomless chasm below, so a little trembling was fair enough. But this guy was a Hero Candidate, wasn't he? Shaking just from being somewhere high — his nerve seemed about the size of a bean. Aside from a decent face, wasn't there just nothing about him worth cutting slack for?
He wasn't some host bar heartthrob, and a pretty face hardly ranked among the virtues a Hero needed.
…I should give him a sparring session or two at the training grounds later, then.
With that thought, I gazed at the city gates drawing ever closer.
As long as the empire wasn't at war, the gates stayed open for travelers at all times, so we'd only need to complete a simple identity verification.
"…Ah, right."
A fact I'd completely forgotten in all the chaos suddenly surfaced in my mind.
The others had all attended the Holy Council at least once, so there was no need to warn them. But there were things Eric and Cassian needed to know.
Being the capital, there was plenty to consider — but what I wanted to tell them about was the variables. Five of them, dangerous enough to be nearly constants. Near-certainties, really.
"Eric, come here."
I beckoned Eric over to the side of the carriage.
"Cassian, Eric. There are things you two need to know."
"And what would that be, Saintess?"
I deliberately put on a grave, serious expression. Sure enough, both their faces turned grave in turn.
Before getting to the point, I frowned and rubbed my temples. My body already felt terrible, and just thinking about meeting those women made my headache throb worse.
"Hoo… At this council, the saintesses of the other orders will all be gathered."
Saintesses are not obligated to attend the Council of Seven Stars. And yet, strangely, every single time a council convened, the saintesses of all seven orders showed up. They'd gathered in full every year, so this year would be no different.
"Do you wish to caution us against showing disrespect to the saintesses of the other orders?"
"…No, that's not the problem."
I let out a faint sigh. Explaining everything piece by piece would just be a headache-inducing mess, so I'd simply tell them how to handle it.
"If anything that looks like a saintess comes up and talks to you, forget courtesy — get away from her immediately. If she comes after you later lecturing you about manners and propriety, use my name."
Because those women? Not a single one of them had a working brain cell between them.
Cassian — newly become our order's Hero Candidate — and Eric, the newcomer, would surely look like prey to them. Perfect little playthings to toy with however they liked.
We had to block their approach by any means necessary.
If poor Eric got targeted, well… I could shrug that off with a 'can't be helped, every holy knight goes through it at least once.'
But if the saintesses of the other orders poked at Cassian — who was more spoiled than rotten — and came down with food poisoning, our position would become genuinely awkward. So the best course of action was to keep these two from crossing paths with the other orders' saintesses as much as possible.
For the boys' sake — and for the sake of those doomed saintesses too.
"May I ask the reason?"
Cassian asked, his expression serious.
Ugh, when a superior tells you something, just say 'understood' and be done with it. Why the footnotes?
Still, I supposed I should answer. If I didn't, I'd only pique his curiosity and risk some bizarre situation erupting later.
Hmm… but how should I put this? It was a genuinely awkward thing to explain.
Ugh, fine. Just the blunt facts, straight up.
"Because apart from me, not a single one of the saintesses is right in the head. Nothing good will come of you getting tangled up with them."
"?"
"?"
And there they went — like twins, like some alien species linked by an invisible thread, Eric and Cassian wore the exact same expression. A look that said, plain as day: Does the Saintess really have the right to say that?
"Do you two actually want to die?"
When I growled and raised my fist, they both averted their eyes with exaggerated effort.
Don't come whining and tattling to me later — just listen to what I'm telling you properly. Got it?
"…Our apologies. We will do as you say, Saintess."
"Don't just say it — actually carve it into your heads. If you regret it after meeting them, it'll be too lat— ah, dammit."
Mid-rant, my eyes caught a carriage standing before the gates of the Third Wall, and a curse shot out of my mouth on reflex.
Because the crest emblazoned on that carriage was one I knew far, far too well.
A laurel wreath and an owl.
The ones who bore that crest were the order that worshipped the goddess of wisdom and victory, standing on the front lines alongside Justitia and us —
the Order of Nike.
"…Hey, everyone. Don't so much as glance in that direction. And Cassian?"
"…Yes?"
"Slow down naturally, then stop. Once that carriage is gone, we go in."
"…That carriage? Judging by the crest, isn't that the Order of Nike?"
"Yeah, it is, so drop back. Hurry."
Cassian tilted his head in confusion, but obeyed — easing our speed and then slowly bringing the carriage to a halt.
"…We weren't spotted, were we?"
Leonid, who had tensed up alongside me and was staring at the Nike carriage, whispered through trembling lips. The rest of the holy knights were just the same.
Only Eric and Cassian wore baffled expressions, as if wondering why on earth is everyone acting like this?
Then—
THUMP—
A weight landed, and the carriage jolted. The startled horses shrieked and reared, whinnying wildly.
"Hello there, Trixie? Long time no see."
"…Ha. What a bitch."
I pressed a hand to my forehead at the familiar voice behind me. Turning my head, I spotted a woman who had hopped onto the roof of our carriage, swinging her legs casually.
Green hair, jade-green eyes. A beauty whose most striking feature was the long, pointed ears jutting up through her hair.
"First to arrive was Justitia, then us, and third comes your Eris. How about that."
Ugh, I don't want to hear it, you accursed woman.
I already knew exactly what this madwoman was about to say, and my head was starting to ache in advance.
That person… no, that fairy, was the Saintess of the Order of Nike — Elysia.
"Wanna bet with me on which order arrives last, Sis?"
Gambling-addicted lunatic of a woman.