A room in the royal palace.
In that place borrowed as a command center, I was listening to Luxion’s reports.
“The Forest of Ladies and the Orthodox Royalist faction—both groups have been detained.”
Hearing the name Forest of Ladies made me sick.
In the first place, the reason I’m going through this mess is because of them.
Ange, who was listening nearby, removed pieces from the map.
“That was surprisingly fast.”
“Well, they were far too shoddy to begin with.”
Julius was also present, placing pieces in response to the enemy’s movements.
“The difference in information transmission speed is just too great. It almost makes me feel sorry for the enemy.”
“It also helped greatly that Roland predicted the enemy’s movements in advance.”
“Father read things this far ahead? …That’s unexpected.”
Even to Julius, Roland’s foresight seemed surprising.
Ange moved a piece.
“The enemy fleet heading for the royal capital is being handled by Brad and the others, isn’t it?”
“Yes. We’ll be hitting them before they can assemble.”
“Greg and Chris are dealing with the armors rampaging in the royal capital. Jilk is capturing enemies. It’s practically over already, isn’t it.”
Only a few enemy pieces remained.
“—We’ve raided the Viscount Doniel’s mansion. It seems they were sheltering enemies.”
Julius wore a bitter expression.
“So many of the nobles with mansions in the royal capital have been betraying us.”
Weapons for the uprising had been brought into their estates.
I folded my arms.
“Am I even needed?”
I was just standing around here.
Ange scolded me.
“A commander should act with dignity. This battle is already as good as over. What matters now are the enemy nations that are likely to move next.”
The Rachelle Holy Kingdom.
A great power with a large floating island, even though it’s smaller than the Holfart Kingdom.
It’s also the enemy of Mylene-san’s family.
“They’re afraid of me, yet they’d still attack?”
From the intel, they seemed to be building up a sense of crisis about me.
But I never expected them to invade.
Do they have some secret plan?
Ange explained it to me.
“Lion is close to the Queen, after all. If they’re going to be enemies anyway, perhaps they want to exhaust the Holfart Kingdom. They don’t know detailed information about you. They might think that once they’ve worn down our national strength, we won’t have the leeway to invade.”
Is that possible?
As I tilted my head, Julius said the same thing to me.
“This coup was meant to drive a wedge into the kingdom. After it’s suppressed, they’ll probably try to incite nobles across the country to rise up.”
Luxion turned its single eye toward me.
“They likely believe that attacking the Fraser family will delay reinforcements. …Oh my, it seems the Orthodox Royalist Volunteer Army has also been detained.”
“The name alone... but man, they’re something else.”
It’s like they’re insisting they’re justice itself.
No, they probably genuinely believe that.
When the door was knocked, Master entered.
Pushing a service cart, and behind him were Livie and Noelle as well.
“Mister Leon, I have prepared tea.”
“Master!”
As Master began setting out the tea, he told me about Livie and Noelle.
“I had the two of them help me. Both of them were very worried about you, Mister Leon.”
“Huh?”
Livie looked at me while hiding her mouth behind a tray.
“I—I didn’t want you to push yourself too hard.”
Noelle handed us our light meals rather roughly.
“There’s no need to force yourself to fight, so just stay put, okay.”
Faced with the two of them, I was at a loss for words, and Master spoke to me.
“Mister Leon, there are times when things will not be conveyed unless put into words. Merely treasuring them is not enough—your fiancées will feel anxious too, you know.”
“R-Right...”
As the three of them turned their eyes on me, I agonized over how to respond.
Just then, Marie came in carrying Julius’s light meal.
“Julius, here are your sandwiches.”
“Ooh, wonderful! With Marie’s sandwiches, I’m a hundred men strong!”
Seeing Julius overjoyed, I thought to myself.
The expectant gazes of three people.
—Are they telling me to act like Julius?
I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and told them.
“I love all three of you!”
Immediately after, the room fell silent.
Marie turned her head, looking to someone for an explanation.
“Huh? What? Did he get so tired he’s gone weird or something?”
Julius turned a serious face toward me.
“Bartfort, even I can tell that’s no good.”
“—I thought so too. But the words just wouldn’t come out.”
Master was rubbing the inner corners of his eyes.
“I had thought Mister Leon was skilled at wooing women.”
I’m not skilled at all! Master, I’m a virgin who knows nothing about handling women!
Ange let out a sigh.
“I suppose we’ll have him learn slowly from now on. Now then, the problem right in front of us.”
When we turned our attention back to the map, Luxion’s eye flashed intensely.
“What?! What is it!”
When I asked at its reaction, Luxion answered in a more wary tone than before.
“—Master, I have confirmed a reaction from a magic armor.”
“A magic armor? —That old man Black Knight’s one?!”
Luxion had picked up a reaction from the magic armor that the old man Black Knight, who had given us so much trouble before, had used.
Ange’s expression too grew stern.
“This is bad. We’ll dispatch a unit at once. Where’s the enemy?”
“Its movement speed is slow. Its shape also differs from past data. Its destination is—the Academy.”
Livie was shocked and asked Luxion back.
“The Academy? Why not here?”
“Unknown.”
We immediately checked the map and verified which forces could be moved.
“The ones on standby above the royal capital are—”
Julius pointed to a single piece.
“Baron Bartfort’s flying ship.”
“My brother, huh.”
I agonized over whether to send my brother.
If possible, I didn’t want to make him fight.
But if I pulled him back because he’s family, it would set a bad example.
“I’ll—”
Before I could declare that I would go, Luxion relayed a report from an ally to us.
“—It’s from your elder brother, Master. He says he has spotted the enemy and is heading that way. We will immediately dispatch troops to the Academy.”
“I’m going too. Bring out Arroganz.”
The moment I said that, Ange grabbed my arm.
“Leon!”
But Julius, though troubled, admonished Ange.
“If an opponent on the level of the Black Knight has appeared, we have no choice but to count on Bartfort. Bartfort, I’m sorry, but will you sortie?”
“Of course I will. Finley and the others are there too!”
As I tried to go outside, Noelle stood in the way in front of the door.
“Noelle, what is the meaning of this?”
“—You, at this rate you’re really going to break.”
When she said that, I immediately understood what she meant, but if a magic armor had appeared, it was better for me to go.
At worst, I’d use Luxion’s main body.
“I’ll just go deal with the magic armor and come back. If it’s Luxion, there’ll be damage to the royal capital. Besides, leaving it alone is harder on me mentally.”
If I launched an attack powerful enough to blow the magic armor away, it would blow away the capital too.
Using Arroganz is the right choice.
Noelle hung her head and was about to step aside—then this time Livie came out in front of me.
“Livie, we’ll talk later.”
“No, I won’t stop you. Leon-san wants to save his family, right?”
“—That’s right. I’m a failure as a commander. That’s exactly why I hated being put in this position.”
As I grumbled, Livie looked at me and smiled.
“I won’t stop you. But please make just one promise.”
“A promise?”
“Just as Leon-san wants to protect his family, I want to protect Leon-san’s heart. So Leon-san, please move more selfishly. The aftermath, the troublesome things—we’ll handle it all. So please do as you want to do.”
“As I want to? If I do that, it’ll turn into an even bigger—”
“No, it won’t. Leon-san is a kind person. Factions, the country, war—please don’t worry about such things anymore, just do as you like. It’s all right. We’ll be by your side.”
Her straightforward eyes felt as if they could see right to the bottom of my heart.
“If I don’t have to worry, that sure would be easy.”
“Yes. I’m sure Leon-san wouldn’t walk down a wrong path.”
When I looked down, Luxion joined the conversation.
“I am here as well. I can manage most things. To begin with, the worries that Master shoulders aren’t even worries to me.”
“You’ve got a mouth on you too.”
I laughed, then let my gaze wander before telling everyone to reassure them.
“As I thought, I hate troublesome stuff, so I’m leaving the cleanup to you. I’m gonna go blast the enemy away!”
Ange shook her head.
“Go. We’ll handle the post-processing for you.”
Julius was the same.
“You always overdo it, after all. I’ll help with the cleanup too.”
Marie, while flustered, looked at me and raised her fist.
“Just go blast away all those troublesome people already!”
Noelle, opening the door, had a resigned look.
“Leon really has a troublesome personality, you know. Way too crooked.”
“Sorry, but I’m a man who’s honest with himself.”
As I left the room, Master nodded.
“Mister Leon, may fortune favor you.”
“—Leave it to me.”
When I stepped into the hallway, Livie was smiling at me.
Luxion drew close to my right shoulder.
“I will have Creare come in my place. Master, Arroganz will land in the courtyard.”
“What a pain. So, enemy, was this your trump card after all?”
Out in the hallway, I hurried toward the courtyard where Arroganz would land.
And then, waiting in the hallway was Fin.
“Fin, you go evacuate. Mia-chan will be worried.”
“I’d like to, but the troublesome one showed up, didn’t it? I’m not unrelated either.”
Kuro-suke, floating near Fin’s left shoulder, nodded its single eye.
“They’re parts of a magic armor without a core, but they’re our comrades.”
Luxion seemed disgusted.
“We will dispose of it so that not even dust remains.”
“The partner’s saying he’s gonna lend a hand!”
When I looked at Fin, he was staring out the hallway window.
“Kuro-suke says the magic armor fragment this time is troublesome. Mia still seems to want to continue her study abroad, and it would be a problem if the royal capital turned into scorched earth.”
I shrugged.
“What a siscon. Then, lend a hand.”
“Yeah.”
◇
“Ihyahyahya! Feels incredibleaaa!”
Lūtoart’s voice resounded through the royal capital.
Listening to that muffled, cracked-sounding voice was Nicks, on the bridge of his flying ship.
Looking down at the Academy, the evacuation had not yet finished.
“Continue the bombardment!”
Nicks, who had been on standby above the royal capital, was intercepting the enemy that had arrived.
“What about Jenna and Finley?!”
“W-we still haven’t found them!”
He had dispatched knights who had boarded armors to rescue the two, but they couldn’t find them.
The flying ships that had been on standby above the royal capital were gathering.
They carried out the bombardment, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything at all.
Nicks brought his fist down on the armrest of his chair.
“A monster.”
(Why does it sound just like Lūtoart’s voice?)
The child of his father’s legal wife, who had made them suffer.
He was his older brother, but he didn’t have a single good memory of him.
From the monster before his eyes came Lūtoart’s voice.
“The Bartfort family crest? Bartfort—Bartfortoooo! That’s my family crestttt! The status, the honor, everything that guy has is mine! I’m the one who deserves it! The marquis’s status, the duke’s daughter, the Lost Item—all of it is miiiiine!”
Floating in the sky was a massive lump.
The ugly lump of flesh had a black surface, and veins seemed to be pulsating on it.
The lump floated, slowly advancing above the royal capital toward the Academy.
At its front was something that looked like a human face, attached to long, slender hands.
At the back, a tail-like thing grew and wriggled about.
From its body, tentacle-like things were also sprouting.
“What is that thing?!”
When the captain said that, Nicks spat out his words.
“How should I know? Man, every time I get dragged along with Leon, it always turns out like this.”
It was probably better than the super-massive one he’d seen in the war against the principality—but facing an enemy that didn’t so much as scratch no matter how many shells they fired, Nicks broke out in a cold sweat.
(If I run here, what’ll happen to the students?)
The spider-shaped robots clinging to the Academy’s roof were also firing from the ground.
But Lūtoart didn’t stop.
“Of all places, it’s targeting the Academy?”
It had originally been an evacuation site; the surrounding residents had also evacuated to the Academy.
In order to buy time, Nicks couldn’t move from this spot.
(I’ve contacted Leon. I’m sure that guy will manage something—)
All over its body were red naked eyes, which were darting around its surroundings.
Those eyeballs simultaneously turned toward the flying ship Nicks was aboard.
“Everyone, brace for impact!”
As Nicks gave the order, countless fireballs were released from the eyeballs and came crashing down on the flying ship.
(—This time might really be impossible, huh.)
They exploded, and the flying ship was engulfed in flames.