The Delegation

Let’s turn the clock back a few hours.

The capital’s military headquarters was always a busy place, but anyone could see that today’s bustle was something else. Every member of staff who could still walk was rushing about without a moment’s breath, so much so that Aiden began to feel uneasy about whether he ought to be sitting there at all.

Hmm—

His eyes roamed in every direction while he swallowed a groan.

He’d known from the start that the delegation was coming for him. The problem was who they’d sent.

Aiden propped his chin on the desk and put on a blank face, the face of a man who had everything well in hand.

Princess Layla, is it…

He turned the name over in his head with great significance.

Well, then. He might be nobody special, but right now he held a ruinously unfair advantage: he knew the original. Whoever turned up, he could handle them, because he knew in advance exactly who they were!

Who is that…?

…That, at least, was how it should have gone.

No matter how hard he rummaged through his memory, he’d never heard the name. No, seriously, who was that?

“…”

Behind his blank face the blood was draining away fast, and through it all a sense that something was off shot through his head like an arrow. Given how much he knew about the Holy Kingdom’s key figures, that was only natural. The family tree of the royals of the Holy Kingdom of Craven was the most tangled on the whole continent, yet he had every scrap of information on its central figures down cold. So for someone he’d never once heard of to land a post as important as a delegation to the Empire made no sense at all.

This really is strange, isn’t it?

Something was out of joint, as though some intention he didn’t know about lay hidden behind it.

But strange was strange, and that was that. The delegation right under his nose was cold reality, and right now the way to get even a scrap of information about it was—

“Katya?”
“Hm?”
“What do you know about Princess Layla?”
“Nothing at all?”

“…”

“Nobody but Brother ever so much as chatted with me in the first place.”

…Ah, of course.

Asking her something like that had been thoughtless of him.

“…Still, I think there’s one thing I can tell you for certain.”
“Sorry?”
“Promise me just one thing.”

Katya said it evenly, and Aiden tilted his head. Had she ever talked about anything this seriously before?

“I’d rather you didn’t get too angry.”
“…Sorry?”
“Whatever happens, just don’t get too angry.”

“…”

Aiden blinked blankly.

“What’s that supposed to mean, all of a sudden?”
“…No reason.”

Katya muttered it without expression.

“People from the Holy Kingdom are… kind of like that.”

“…”

“They make me uncomfortable, and I bet I make them uncomfortable too.”

“…”

Well.

He knew that much already, but it didn’t feel as though Katya was saying it just to pass the information on. It felt more like a warning.

“So why are you telling me this all of a sudden?”
“When you get angry, you charge in without looking. You know you do.”

Katya narrowed her eyes and muttered it evenly.

“I’m fine, so don’t go doing anything pointless. This time there’s really no cleaning up the mess.”

“…”

“The one coming this time isn’t the wastrel you messed with last time, the one shoved out of the line of succession, and she isn’t someone from the Empire either. She’s a royal from another country, and a great power at that.”

Cause an incident this time and there really will be no handling it. Understood?

It sounded like an admonishment, and Aiden’s expression hardened with it as he met the eyes of the Katya looking straight at him.

…What’s this, all of a sudden?

She normally cared about nothing and looked down on everyone, so why was she suddenly throwing words like these around?

But before he could think it through, a ringing voice forced its way into his awareness.

“Princess Layla, entering!”

At those words the main door on the headquarters’ ground floor swung wide, and a party filed in in good order. There were Paladins in full plate engraved with the Holy Kingdom’s emblem, maids and attendants, and civil officials, and at their very head stood a woman who gave off an extremely sharp impression. She wore a monocle, her hair was gray, and her dress was cut in an old-fashioned style.

Huh?

The moment he saw her, Aiden’s face creased.

It was a very strange feeling. He was hearing the name Princess Layla for the first time, yet the woman herself plainly felt like someone he’d seen somewhere before. He couldn’t call the face to mind, and a déjà vu beyond any words came surging up in his head.

“Aiden. Have you finished your preparations?”

Dame Stella’s question cut into the thought, and once again he came to himself with a start.

“Yes. I am ready.”
“She is coming up right now. Please remain seated.”

No sooner had she said it than the door of his office was flung open.

There was no knock and no word of warning; she barged in as though it were her own house. The people around were plainly flustered, but Princess Layla, at the head of her party, clearly didn’t care a fingernail’s worth about any of it. She strode into the room, swept a cold gaze over her surroundings, and fixed it on one spot.

“Aiden Kellermain?”

Her voice was high-handed, and Aiden answered with a polite bow of his head.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Princess Layla.”
“Sit. There’s a great deal to talk about.”

…Well.

In a good many ways, she was going to be exhausting.

When he checked his objective, winning favor came first, as ever.

The Holy Kingdom’s royals are basically a gold mine.

In the Holy Kingdom, only someone who could handle the supernatural power called divinity could keep a place among the royals, and so every one of them held some unique trait or other where divinity was concerned. Even short of Katya’s level, which went so far as to make its user undying, each of them carried several powerful traits that aided the use of divinity. At the very least, they’d surely hold an ability that would help more than anything in the coming Lord Protector subjugation battle.

Yet as he stood there chewing that objective over, Aiden could say one thing for certain.

The whole thing was chicken ribs¹.

At least with this person.

“You must be tired after such a long journey. Perhaps something to drink—”
“Do you know why I’m here?”

“…”

Strong or not, whatever she held, he had to win her favor and copy it before he could make any use of it. Yet she showed no intention of even holding a conversation with him, and Aiden’s temples began to throb at once.

“…I heard you had come because I can handle divinity.”
“Divinity is the Holy Kingdom of Craven’s own resource, and any human who can use it is a subject of the highest importance, one the state must manage. They’re among the humans holding up the foundation of our country. If you know how to use divinity, then you’re one of those humans too.”
“Ah-ha.”
“Which is why I was sent to take you back to our country.”

Having said that, Layla let the rest fall evenly.

“It’s the day after tomorrow. Get ready.”

…It was a bomb, and it sent his sense of reality off into the far distance in one go.

“…”

Aiden blinked blankly for a good while before he opened his mouth, dazed.

“Sorry?”
“You’ll need to put your affairs in order before you go off somewhere else, won’t you? Given the matter, I ought to take you this instant, but custom says I have to give you two days—”
“No, no, hold on a moment.”

Aiden hurriedly cut her off.

“Shouldn’t we at least get our positions lined up before you say something like that? This is far too sudden, isn’t it?”
“You seem to have the wrong idea. This isn’t a place for negotiation.”

Whatever his reaction, Princess Layla shot back without batting an eye.

“You’ll shortly be escorted to the Holy Kingdom under guard. I don’t intend to accommodate every little circumstance on your end.”

“…”

“See that you’re ready. Everything will proceed on the schedule I’ve notified you of.”

…Her voice was so utterly brazen that it was hard to react right away.

Beside him, Dame Stella’s mouth had dropped open. Rudeness on this scale went past a major diplomatic incident and verged on an outrage; it was no different from saying let’s fight here and now. The mood in the room chilled fast, and the Holy Kingdom’s people and the armed staff under Dame Stella felt it most keenly of all.

Just as more hands were drifting to their scabbards, someone’s voice dropped lightly into that powder keg.

“Hey.”

It was Katya, who had kept quiet at Aiden’s side until now.

“Even so, that’s not okay, is it?”

She spoke with a faint smile.

Layla’s eyes turned slowly toward her, as though she’d only now noticed Katya was there, as though she ‘had not so much as paid her any mind’. And the moment she saw Katya, what filled the eye beneath the monocle was, unmistakably, ridicule and contempt. It was the look of someone eyeing a pathetic thing.

“Even so, if this is diplomacy between nations, you’ve got to keep to common sense. This is just plain thugger—”
“—Princess Katya.”

The next sentence Layla let fall, coldly, ran along the same line.

“Who said you could open your mouth?”

Aiden’s expression hardened at once.

…Katya, though, kept her smile even at words like that.

“You’re a watchdog that exists to handle Her Holiness the Pontiff’s business, and you couldn’t even live up to your reason for existing. You ought to keep quiet, shouldn’t you?”

“…”

“If you’d done it right in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to come all this way.”

Katya meekly shut her mouth, and Aiden’s eyes narrowed.

…Far from getting angry, she was plainly submitting, and meekly at that. There was even something practiced about it, as though she’d been through this countless times.

…What is this?

He already knew that Katya wasn’t treated well in the Holy Kingdom.

Even so.

This plainly crossed the line. They were both royals, so an insult like this could have led to a duel with both their lives at stake, and no one would have found it strange.

And what followed was worse.

Colorless flame flared up around Princess Layla. It was divinity, at a considerably high temperature, and it carried plain hostility.

“…!”

The Empire’s people drew their swords in alarm, and the Holy Kingdom’s Paladins drew their own weapons in answer.

“Katya.”

Princess Layla’s voice fell coldly.

“Answer.”

It was as though she meant to impress upon Katya which of them stood in the ‘superior’ position, as though she were disciplining an ‘animal’ that had dared to defy her.

“There’s something you have to do, isn’t there?”

“…”

“Shouldn’t you be apologizing?”

The divinity moved at once.

“—On your knees.”

Then.

In an instant it reached Katya, who had been standing perfectly still, and ‘pierced through’ her knee joints. It was a merciless blow, enough to take their function away in one go, as though it didn’t matter if she was hurt, since she would ‘regenerate’ anyway. Her forelegs lost their balance and buckled at once, as though she were kneeling.

“What in the world are you—!”

But before the words could explode from his throat, Aiden faltered, because Katya was holding one hand out toward him, as though to say: do not step forward.

…And she was still smiling.

Anyone could have read what her sidelong glance meant.

“I’d rather you didn’t get too angry.”
“It’s fine, so don’t go doing anything pointless. This time there’s really no cleaning up the mess.”
“The one coming this time isn’t the wastrel you messed with last time, the one out beyond the line of succession, and she isn’t someone from the Empire, where there are forces that shield you. She’s a royal from another country, and a great power at that.”

“…”

Only now did he realize why she’d said all that in advance. If he saw how she was usually treated, he’d plainly go furious to the roots of his hair and charge straight in.

“An apology. Aren’t you going to?”

“…”

And after an act like that, without a single change of expression, Princess Layla was preparing her next ‘attack’. Aiden’s gaze rolled back toward her, glinting.

…Honestly, it was unbelievable. Why on earth didn’t he know who this human being was? That he couldn’t remember the particulars of someone this much like garbage!

Yet as his head boiled over, his gaze came to rest on the divinity Princess Layla was wielding.

“…?”

Something.

It was around then that he spotted it was off. His eyes narrowed, and slowly they followed the trajectory of the divinity as the princess moved it.

Ah.

And at a certain moment, he understood what the wrongness he’d felt all along had been, and what that déjà vu was, the sense of plainly having seen Layla somewhere before.

With a click, a switch went on inside Aiden’s head: his own device that always turned over in a pinch, when there was something that had to be done.

“—”

The calculation was fast, and the decision was faster still. What he had to do here and now was settled in an instant.

“You can’t have gone mute, Katya. Shall I break your other leg too?”
“I’m sor—”

Katya was still smiling as she began, but Aiden’s voice cut lightly across her.

“Princess.”

Katya’s eyes went round as she turned to look at him.

Anxiety hung on her face, like a plea for him, please, not to cause an incident. If this grew any bigger, then never mind her, harm would come to Aiden without fail. So please, do not step forward… That would be what it meant.

But Aiden was already certain what he was allowed to do here and now. Put another way, he was certain what he had to do.

“Apologize.”
“…What?”

Princess Layla asked it in pure disbelief, and as she did, divinity flared up from Aiden’s body.

“You heard me perfectly well, so don’t go pretending you didn’t, Princess.”

Then.

The divinity he had raised ‘cut away’ Layla’s where it pierced Katya’s knees, as though to show that his was the superior.

“…!”

Layla’s eyes flew wide while Aiden went over to the kneeling Katya.

“This isn’t a negotiation. I’m notifying you of my schedule, same as you did.”

He took her by the shoulders and raised her to her feet as he said it evenly, as though handing back exactly what he’d heard a moment ago.

“Apologize before you get pounded flat. To my friend.”

“…”

“I’ll give you five seconds.”

Layla’s expression went rigid.