Amy's SIDE
"Everyone, calm down! Right now, don’t panic—evacuate to the designated area!"
Some of the academy’s teachers were desperately trying to guide the students to safety, but because of the tremendous roar we’d heard a moment ago, not only the students but a good number of the teachers as well had fallen into confusion, so no proper evacuation was being carried out.
At a time like this, the third-years of the upper school were supposed to keep their composure first and bring the younger students together—and yet, because one of the third-years had shouted, "The royal capital is going to be attacked by the enemy any moment now, so staying here is actually more dangerous!" it seemed some students had already fled the academy. If this kept up, either the chaos inside the academy would spread to the outside, or the chaos from outside would come pouring into the academy…… Either way, it could turn into something terribly dangerous.
"In any case, going to the evacuation site in this state is too dangerous, so until things settle down a little, let’s all of us in this class huddle together over at the edge!"
At times like this, it’s usually Tiida who brings everyone together, but right now Tiida was at the royal castle in case the worst should happen. If it came to that, apparently he would have to take the field as one of those in charge.
So instead, I—who am also the class representative—was the one giving everyone instructions, and for now at least, everyone was obediently following me. Most likely the title of "Tiida’s fiancée" was working in my favor.
Still, the members of my class listen to me because they know me well, so I think it would be hard to bring the other classes together. So if only someone with more sway than me—some student or teacher—would come, maybe I could calm the surroundings a little, but…… things didn’t seem likely to go so conveniently……
"Amy, I found you!"
"Huh? Luna?"
Just as I was thinking such things, Luna—the highest-ranking person at this academy after Tiida—came running up.
"Why are you here? Didn’t you go to the royal castle with Tiida?"
"There was some talk of that, but I’d only get in the way if I went back, and if we both went off to the royal castle together, people might think we’d run away to it, so I stayed on this side. I’m worried about all my friends, too."
When Luna said that and turned around to look behind her, a group of middle-school students—more numerous than my own class—were watching us. Not all of them could be Luna’s friends, but they seemed calmer than the upper-school students around here, which was a relief.
"For now, we have to get everyone to calm down, so let’s bring out the golems. I’ve got lots of the small ones my big brother gave me, so if we set out the ones that aren’t reserved for a real emergency, I think just that alone would be enough to calm some people down."
Originally, we’d been told to keep the golems we’d received from the teacher hidden away in case of a true emergency—and yet Luna seemed intent on using them here. Well, if the chaos kept on like this, we might find that assassins or traitors from the empire had slipped in right beside us before we knew it, so now that she’d decided to stay here, putting the golems out now might actually be the right call.
"Amy. I’m going to bring out the twenty little ones I have on me now, plus the ten I always carry, so you bring some out too, Amy."
"Got it."
Just as Luna said, out of the golems I had, twenty mass-produced ones and ten of the type I’d received earlier were all
that
much
I brought out. In truth, I had more of both the mass-produced type and the type I’d been given before, and I still had the specially made golems left over too, but if Luna was specifying a number, there was probably some reason for it.
The forty mass-produced golems and twenty standard ones the two of us had put out, we arranged around us to protect my classmates and Luna’s friends, creating a makeshift safe zone.
"Teacher! Over here! Please come over here~!"
"Lady Luna?"
"We’re going to head to the evacuation site while moving these golems along, so, teacher, please call out to the students as you move with us."
"Ah…… yes! Understood! Teachers, to Lady Luna’s side!"
When Luna called over the teacher who’d been giving instructions to the students nearest us, that teacher called over another teacher who’d been raising his voice elsewhere, and from there the number of students gathering to us kept growing in a chain reaction.
"Just in case, upper-year students, move the younger ones even a little further inside! But there’s no need to panic! The one who made that voice earlier has gone far away, and outside the royal castle the Kingdom’s army has the
upper
hand
, driving the empire back little by little, so we’re told! Let’s follow the teachers’ instructions and evacuate calmly!"
Being the most senior student, I ended up taking the lead, but even so everyone was lending an ear to what I said. It bothered me, though, that Luna had suddenly gone quiet and that the teachers who’d first gathered to us were nowhere to be seen—but as the number of calm students grew, the confusion seemed to be subsiding. And yet at that moment,
"Luna! ……Huh?"
One student lunged at Luna…… and was immediately subdued. The one who subdued him was the teacher Luna had first called over.
"So there really was one…… Take him away at once."
"Yes, ma’am!"
The subdued student was carried off somewhere by several teachers…… or rather, he vanished, teachers and all.
"Luna, are you all right?!"
"I’m fine. This was
with
in
expectations
, after all."
Not understanding what "expectations" she meant, I was about to ask for a fuller explanation, when—
"Lady Luna, he talked. The students who plotted the assassination…… no, the
as
sass
ins
—there are ten left. We’ll interrogate the others as we capture them and draw out further information."
"Please do."
"Huh? ……Really, what is going on?"
No sooner had the teacher who’d subdued the student suddenly emerged from within the wall of people than, from behind him, the other teachers who had joined us—though they’d changed their clothes—appeared one after another and ran off in every direction, returning about ten minutes later each carrying an unconscious student.
"Please wait a moment."
Saying that, the teachers again seemed to vanish somewhere…… or made it look that way, and stepped into a dimension bag. And then,
"The assassins those men know of number eleven in total, so that means we’ve captured them all. However, we can’t rule out that other, undisclosed assassins are still lurking, so please allow us to continue guarding you."
"Please do. In a little while, I think additional people will come from the royal castle."
—they were, as ever, having a conversation I couldn’t quite follow. Then, into that,
"Lady Luna, it seems reinforcements have arrived."
"The escort unit, Chris and ten others, have just now arrived."
Right on cue, Chris of the escort unit came, leading nine knights. Chris and the teacher went on talking about something, but I couldn’t catch the details—the only thing I made out was that more escorts would be coming again later.
"So, Luna, I’d really like it if you’d explain now…… is what I’m thinking, you know?"
When I asked Luna, who had come to my side together with Chris, she made a troubled face and glanced toward Chris before saying,
"Well, you see, the Crown’s own intelligence unit got hold of information that there was a noble plotting to assassinate the royal family. Apparently they caught that noble himself right away, but it turned out there were other collaborators too…… and to flush them out, I became the bait!"
"Stop doing such dangerous things!"
Luna said it with about the lightness of someone caught in a bit of mischief, and I couldn’t help shouting at her, but—
"Amy, this was a decision of the royal family, and it was Lady Luna herself who proposed it."
Chris told me the reason Luna had become bait. As it happened, there had apparently been talk of keeping Luna in the royal castle as an anti-assassin measure, but that could invite talk of the royal family holing up in a safe place during a war, so Lord Lyle went to the front lines, and Lord Ernest, as the one in charge of the guard corps, left the castle and was moving around within and about the royal capital. But since those two are always surrounded by soldiers and escorts, they couldn’t lure the assassins out, so instead Luna ended up being the bait at the academy.
The deciding factors, apparently, were that at the academy no unfamiliar adults could slip in, and that even if a student were made to attempt an assassination on their parents’ orders, Luna’s guards (a special unit disguised as teachers, and the like) were more than capable of dealing with a mere student.
"Well, even if something happened to me, so long as Father or Big Brother is alive, the royal family will manage somehow."
"That’s exactly why—stop coming up with plans that sacrifice yourself! Never do it again!"
"I’m sorry!"
When I got angry in a stronger, louder voice than before, Luna looked startled and bowed her head.
"Amy, that’s enough. If you raise your voice here, you’ll stand out in a bad way. And there may still be assassins around, you know."
"Yes……"
Cautioned by Chris, I resolved to save my scolding of Luna for later, and once more took stock of the situation around me—but……
"Chris, are some of Luna’s classmates actually knights mixed in among them?"
Even though they were in a lower year than me, there were several students whose atmosphere was clearly different. From the look of them, their way of staying on guard struck me as closer to an adventurer’s than a knight’s, but here and there it was mixed with mannerisms like Chris’s, so if I’d spotted them in town I might have taken them for former knights turned adventurers, or adventurers turned knights. But I didn’t think anyone like that would go to the trouble of re-enrolling in the academy (and besides, they looked younger than me, or about the same), so perhaps they were knight-apprentices with adventuring experience.
"As expected of
the adventurers’ town’s
innkeeper’s daughter. This is actually a secret, but with you, Amy, there’s no problem. Just as you guessed, they’re knight-apprentices sent by the royal family as Lady Luna’s shadow guards. They’re sons of the royalist faction who have sworn loyalty to the crown, so it’s only natural they’d move like knights. And lately, thanks to Tenma’s influence, there are many knights trying to take in the good points of adventurers, so it’s no wonder they strike you as adventurer-like, Amy."
"The ones most influenced by my big brother are especially in the
youn
ger
genera
tion
, aren’t they."
When Luna cut in, overlapping the explanation Chris had been giving, Chris’s eyes turned severe for an instant. It was a gaze so sharp you’d have sworn the temperature around us had suddenly dropped.
"B-by the way, Chris, how did you get that injury?"
To draw Chris’s attention away from Luna even a little, I tried asking about the injury of hers I’d been curious about for a while, and—
"Ah, this. I made a bit of a blunder…… I got quite a terrible wound, but thanks to Tenma’s medicine I can move this much. In exchange, I got pulled from the front lines, though……"
It seemed I’d succeeded in diverting her attention from Luna, but this time Chris’s aura became frightening over something else.
"At any rate, we’re continuing the evacuation guidance! You lot! If there’s a student who won’t follow the guidance, make them obey even if you have to smack them! And if there’s still a teacher in a panic, either knock them into their senses or make them settle down, even if you have to punch them!"
When Chris gave orders to her subordinates around her, they all saluted in unison (even the apprentice knights guarding Luna, and unrelated students and teachers besides). And, incidentally, so did I……
The evacuation afterward went so that many students were able to move to safety without incident, thanks in part to Chris’s precise instructions. Of course, that didn’t mean every single student was accounted for—among them were people who’d gone wild in their confusion and had to be subdued, people who’d gotten hurt, and people who’d already fled the academy.
As for the injured, apart from broken bones it was all within the range that medicine could handle, so we managed. But as for the students who had run off from the academy on their own, we decided to leave them be, only confirming them in the later roll call. Since they’d fled of their own judgment, the academy apparently bore no responsibility no matter what happened to them.
"Well, it’s not as if the inside of the royal capital is caught up in the fighting, so I think they’ll be fine…… but it’s not only the academy that’s in chaos, so there’s no telling how things will turn out."
There was apparently a chance things had become even worse than at the academy…… but there was no point in me worrying over students I didn’t know, so I prayed for their safety just once and then decided to put it out of my mind.
"Lady Luna, it seems the additional knights have arrived. Lady Luna and Amy will be moving to a place separate from the other students, so please be ready to move at any time."
It seemed they couldn’t leave Luna indefinitely in a place with the risk of assassination, so they were apparently preparing some classroom, avoiding areas where people were densely packed. And in the bargain, I—as Tiida’s fiancée—apparently had to go along too.
For the royal family to evacuate to a separate place with special treatment, unlike everyone else, could apparently be criticized after the war—but since students had actually turned into assassins and come attacking, it was only natural to move Luna, who’d been clearly marked as a target from among people where you couldn’t tell who was an enemy, along with the royal family’s associate (me), who ran the risk of being targeted, to a place where they could be protected more easily. And if they were criticized even so, they’d apparently weather it by making scapegoats of the students who had tried to assassinate her and their parents. That said, even if there were no criticism, the students would face harsh punishment for having taken part in an assassination.
When I heard that talk, honestly I was glad I had no acquaintances among the students involved in the assassination. And I thought too that it was only natural for harsh punishment to fall on students who had gone that far and their relatives (even if the student’s family had known nothing), and that I couldn’t feel any sympathy for the perpetrators at all.
"Ah! Chris, what is the teacher doing right now?"
I tried asking Chris—who was about to go talk with the additional knights—about the teacher, but—
"Sorry. No matter how much you’re Tenma’s family, Amy, it’s an emergency right now, and Tenma is involved in a top-secret mission, so I can’t tell you."
—she said, and I couldn’t get her to tell me anything.
Hearing Chris’s words, I somehow got a bad feeling, but the teacher would probably breeze through that top-secret mission too, so it’s probably fine…… or so I want to believe.
Amy’s SIDE, End
"Huh? Wha?"
It may have only been on the forehead, but being suddenly kissed left me stunned, when—
"Tenma, you can move now, can’t you?"
The Black Ancient Dragon spoke to me in a voice that sounded almost exasperated.
"Huh, ah…… I can move. More than that—strength is surging through me."
I didn’t understand why it had been a kiss, but with that kiss my stamina had returned to normal, and it seemed I’d gained even greater power.
"With this, Tenma is no longer human. Having also received my divine protection, Tenma is a demigod—an existence above man and below god. You’ve earned the qualification to become one of the gods after death, and become a special existence for this world."
Indeed, it’s power that makes "demigod" feel like a fitting description. But—
"Even so, whether you can win against that woman is uncertain. That woman, though she falls short of her former power, is a former god. In a sense, an existence who became a demigod by a different method than Tenma."
I hadn’t seen the opponent’s full strength, so I couldn’t say for certain, but by my own sense of it, we were evenly matched at best.
"And on top of that, she has many subordinates—zombies and dragons. As things stand, we’d be at a disadvantage. If, in
this
form
of
mine
as
I
am
, I could go outside, I could win for certain, though."
The Black Ancient Dragon’s current form was, apparently, one reproduced from its past memories and limited to this space; outside, it would be unable to move, or even to make a sound.
"But rest assured. It’s true that at this moment you’re weaker than that woman. However, that’s because you’ve only just become a demigod. That woman will grow no stronger. On the contrary, as things stand, if the subordinates she’s divided her power among keep being whittled away, there’s even a chance she’ll grow weaker. Well, she may temporarily boost her power by absorbing it from her subordinates, but she won’t be able to choose to greatly reduce their number. If she did, Tenma’s comrades fighting around the royal capital would come this way."
"Even for a demigod, taking on Namitarou and Behemoth in addition to Tenma is suicidal."
"Ho—so Behemoth has come too. Then all the more, she can’t thin out her attacking force around the royal capital. Though if I were her, I’d gather up all the power I could, withdraw from this place, and devote myself to running for a hundred years or so while watching for the next opportunity. That way, at the very least Tenma would no longer exist in this world, and with a surprise attack Namitarou and Behemoth couldn’t move right away—or would have no reason to move—and she could destroy the Kingdom more easily than now."
"But then she wouldn’t obtain Tenma. If her aim is the revival of a human she favored, and Tenma’s body is the most suitable for reviving them, then she wouldn’t run."
"That woman is poor at fighting. And her field of vision is narrow. You could say she finds it easy to focus on one thing, but if she had a little more perspective, she’d have considered the possibility of Tenma being taken back, and gone straight to the depths of the ‘Forest of the Elder’ or somewhere without any detours. And when she brought Tenma down, if she’d killed Merlin and made him a subordinate, she’d have obtained another powerful pawn…… that she didn’t do so is because she’s unaccustomed to battle."
Indeed, just as the Black Ancient Dragon said, because she’d let Grandpa go and then taken a detour, I’d gotten a chance to strike back.
"Well then, let us leave this place before long…… Tenma, you can win this fight. She may have many subordinates, but not a single one of them is a comrade who would stake their life for her. All she has are a few
li
za
rds
whose interests happen to align. But Tenma has many comrades. Not only me, but mighty ones like Namitarou and Behemoth—and though they can’t lend a hand directly, the gods too, this God of Death among them…… Now, get on my back!"
When the Black Ancient Dragon told me to, I jumped with my usual sense of it and landed on its back in a single bound. Normally something like this would be impossible without using magic, but I had the conviction that the me of now could do this much easily.
"Tenma, before I forget, I’ll hand over
Me
r
lin
’s
ar
m
. The flow of time is different here and outside, so if you treat it right after going out, Merlin’s arm should return to how it was."
The God of Death, who had somehow ended up behind me, handed over Grandpa’s arm.
The blood had stopped as though time weren’t moving, but from its warmth I could tell it had been severed mere seconds ago, and fresh anger welled up in me toward the woman who had reduced Grandpa to this state.
"Don’t get thrown off! ……Well, for the you of now, that’s a needless worry."
With just a few beats of its wings, the Black Ancient Dragon lifted its body high, and began flying upward at tremendous speed just like that. It seemed faster than when I flew at full power, yet the Black Ancient Dragon still had plenty to spare.
I didn’t know how vast this space was, but riding the Black Ancient Dragon, in about a few minutes I could see light shining from the direction we were heading. Without a doubt, that was the exit of this space.
"Come to think of it, do you not have a name?"
With only a few minutes left before we could get out of here, it suddenly crossed my mind, and I asked the Black Ancient Dragon its name.
"I do have one, but it is not one given to me in this form."
Even as we spoke, the exit gradually drew nearer. Most likely, once we left here I’d never be able to speak with this Black Ancient Dragon again.
"My form may change, but the name given to me is, now and forever, only one."
The exit was right before our eyes.
"I’m rather fond of it, you know—the name Tenma gave me: ‘Kogarasumaru.’"
With those words, we dove into the light.