Chapter 25

The following morning, after breakfast, Princess Kana and the others were preparing to depart when Edgerton came to offer his farewells, accompanied by several of his subordinates.

“I apologize for disturbing you so early in the morning. Once again, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the extermination force and Saintess-sama for all your efforts on our behalf, as well as for the supplies you provided. If possible, after the ceremony to be held in several days, I would like to humbly request an audience together with my foolish younger brother.”

“Oh? So you have a younger brother, Edgerton?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, my younger brother Delano is presently occupied with preparations for attending the ceremony and with clearing up his remaining duties, so he was unable even to come and greet you. I sincerely apologize.”

“It matters not. That is precisely why we were dispatched here. Very well, then. I shall look forward to meeting the two brothers together.”

After the princess agreed to grant them an audience, Henry called out to her.

“Saintess-sama, everything is ready!”

“Aye, understood. I am coming. Then, until we meet again!”

Seen off by Edgerton and his men, who bowed deeply with formal courtesy, the princess and her companions headed toward the Caradine March.

It took them roughly one hour to travel from Edgerton’s territory to the lands of the Margrave of Caradine.

They spotted several mana pools along the way, but Princess Kana and the others actually purified only three that had villages or towns nearby. They intended either to purify the rest on their return journey or leave them to House Caradine as they continued onward.

Perhaps because the border was so close, every town in the area appeared to have defensive walls, though they varied in size. Moreover, within those walls were modest fields and pastures, seemingly enough to ensure a certain supply of crops even during emergencies.

(It is almost like a castle prepared for a siege. Perhaps this is wisdom born from the long experience of those who live near the border. When I meet Shaila’s brother, I shall ask him.)

Just as they were nearing the territorial capital, the princess came upon soldiers of House Caradine surrounding a mana pool and casting spells. Since she had never actually seen how people here performed purification, she decided to watch from the sky.

Suō stopped beside her, while Henry explained what was happening below.

“The one in the white robe is capable of purification magic. However, since that person is waiting behind the others, they may not intend to purify the entire mana pool.”

Princess Kana nodded and watched. A wind suddenly rose, blowing the mana upward, and then a spell aimed directly at the center violently tore up the earth.

“Oh, there it is!”

“…There really was one.”

“So that was the cause…”

Those voices rose from below.

“Here I go!”

A slightly high-pitched voice rang out, and the white-cloaked figure from earlier stepped forward.

The magician seemed to chant something, and a white light shot from her hand, enveloping the pot. The instant the light appeared to be drawn entirely into it—

CRACK!

The pot shattered into countless pieces.

“All right, it worked!”

“Ria, well done!”

“Leave the rest to us!”

At the voice of an older man, water magic spread outward as though wrapping around the mana floating in the air, creating a small pool where the mana pool had been. The water, however, quickly soaked into the ground.

“What was that?”

“They did not purify the mana itself. They likely dissolved it into the water and allowed the soil to absorb it. As long as this is not a field or pasture, it should cause little trouble, so for a small mana pool, that method should suffice.”

“I see.”

“For now, it is a method that prioritizes purifying and removing the pot itself. I think it is an effective way to reduce the number of mana pools with limited manpower.”

“They must have been experimenting with various methods,” Henry concluded. While Princess Kana was admiring their ingenuity, Burley waved broadly toward the people below and called out.

“Hey! Dwight-dono! Up here!”

“Captain Burley!?”

Apparently startled by the sudden voice from above, everyone present looked upward at once. At first, the princess could not tell which of them was Dwight, but she soon figured it out.

The moment one man noticed the white foxes and Princess Kana, he apparently realized who they were. He immediately dropped to one knee and bowed his head. Seeing him do so, everyone around him hurriedly followed suit. Even the figure in the white traveling cloak knelt, though she looked confused, apparently not knowing why.

“Suō-dono, could you land beside them?”

At Burley’s request, Suō glanced toward the princess for permission, and she nodded.

The white fox marked with patterns of flame then descended with particular elegance, as though deliberately showing off his skill. Seeing that, Kaō gave a snort and landed gracefully just behind him.

Burley climbed down from Suō and guided Princess Kana, who remained seated atop Kaō, to the man kneeling at the front.

“Saintess-sama, this gentleman is Dwight Caradine-dono. He is Shaila-sama’s second-eldest brother and commander of the frontier and border forces. Dwight-dono, this is the Saintess who came to our world through the recent Saintess Summoning, Princess Kana-sama.”

At Burley’s words, the man at the front lowered his head even further.

“It is an honor to meet you for the first time. My name is Dwight, and I have been entrusted with protecting the Caradine March. We are truly honored that Saintess-sama herself has taken the trouble to come all this way.”

“I am Kana. So you are Shaila’s brother. There is no need to stand upon such ceremony. She has been of considerable help to me, after all.”

With that, she prompted him to stand.

“I have something entrusted to me by Shaila, so I shall have it delivered later. Also, we purified three mana pools on our way here, so I believe there should be no problems along the highway. I would like to discuss that matter as well, so I ask that you guide us.”

“It’d be easier for us if you just purified all of them…”

The muttered remark from the figure in the white traveling cloak reached the princess’s ears.

“I heard that, child.”

“Child…?”

The other person was clearly offended at being so openly treated like a child, but Princess Kana was not one to relent over something so trivial.

“Your superior is in the middle of greeting me, yet you speak out of turn. If that does not make you a child, then what does? Besides, we are not here to make your lives easier. Do not misunderstand our purpose. Our duty this time is merely to ensure that Shaila’s family can reach the royal capital without incident. Do not attempt to push onto others tasks you are capable of doing yourselves.”

Princess Kana saw the man beside the white-cloaked figure bring his fist down on her head, so she said nothing further. Instead, she and Burley asked Dwight whether he would be willing to ride on Suō. They wanted him to judge from the air whether there were any mana pools requiring purification, and decided that having him with them would also save unnecessary trouble when they entered the territorial capital.

“Oh, this is… magnificent.”

Aboard Suō’s back as the fox soared into the sky, the commander of the frontier and border forces looked thoroughly delighted.

“Then, let us be off.”

At the princess’s words, the white foxes resumed their journey, and thanks to their new passenger, they flew straight over the defensive walls of the territorial capital and reached the lord’s estate without any difficulty whatsoever.

At Dwight’s request, after he had cheerfully waved to the gate guards, both Suō and Kaō landed at a training ground beside the rose garden. Two men who closely resembled Dwight came racing toward them with terrifying expressions.

“E-Elder Brother? And Father too…”

Muttering that this looked bad, Dwight dismounted Suō with agility hardly befitting a middle-aged man, only to somehow get caught by his brother and father and immediately dragged into a rough scuffle.

Princess Kana stared dumbfounded at the sight of not merely grown men, but middle-aged and elderly men grappling with one another while words such as “Why?” and “That’s unfair!” reached her ears.

“Those are Darwin-dono, Shaila-sama’s eldest brother, and their father, Clarence-dono.”

Burley explained with an unmistakable wry smile.

“I have something entrusted to me by Shaila, but perhaps I should wait until later.”

Apparently they heard her, because all three men instantly stopped wrestling and knelt before the princess.

“Saintess-sama, I sincerely apologize for showing you such an undignified sight immediately upon your arrival. As the one entrusted with governing this land, allow me to welcome you on behalf of us all from the bottom of my heart.”

The elderly man bowed as he spoke, but the quiet complaint he muttered while glaring at his son beside him also reached the princess’s ears.

“Still, this rascal… getting to ride all by himself…”

(What? So those gentlemen merely wanted to ride Suō…)

Relieved once she understood the reason for their scuffle, Princess Kana was afterward escorted to a room where she was able to hand over Shaila’s letter without further incident.

Holding the tea that had been served to her, she decided to ask Darwin, the current lord, about something that had caught her attention: the fields and pastures within the defensive walls that she had seen on the way there.

To her surprise, while they were indeed intended as preparation for a siege, they also served as experimental grounds. He explained that new varieties of crops and livestock were raised there, and if the experiments proved successful, the results were shared with the people of the territory, sometimes even through tasting gatherings open to everyone.

“We have people who continually research crops that can be cultivated in less time, or that can produce greater yields within the same period. The same applies to livestock. We believe it is also our responsibility to support their efforts and spread the results.”

Hearing that, Princess Kana understood how this kingdom had managed to endure two years of suffering from magical beasts and mana pools. It was because there were lords such as those of Clutchfield and Edgerton—and men like the Caradines.

“I thought Saintess-sama would be more graceful and gentle. She was kind of different from what I imagined—rather arrogant, actually. I’m a little disappointed…”

As they traveled back toward the territorial capital after the Saintess and her party, the white-robed magician Eliana glanced toward her elder brother Alets, who had punched her on the head earlier, seeking agreement. Instead, his response was completely different from what she expected.

“What would you think if we were ordered to deploy every time a single Horn Wolf appeared?”

“Huh? If they called us out for every little thing like that, we’d need several bodies just to keep up! They should deal with something that minor themselves—oh…”

“Exactly. If Saintess-sama simply agreed to everything people asked of her, even she would not last. And before long, people would start pushing even simple tasks they could handle themselves onto her. In the worst case, some might begin making absurd demands like, ‘Hurry up’ or ‘Have it finished by this date,’ and eventually some might even criticize her for being ‘too slow.’ You’ve actually been through something similar yourself before, haven’t you? How did that make you feel?”

His words brought back unpleasant memories of Eliana’s former fiancé.

Two years earlier, when mana pools had begun appearing all across the kingdom, Eliana had worked without rest as a magician capable of purification, responding to dispatch requests arriving from every corner of the country. One of the territories she was eventually sent to happened to be where her fiancé lived, but she had never forgotten what happened there, nor had she ever forgiven it.

When her fiancé spotted her among the dispatched magicians, he suddenly grabbed hold of her.

Then he hurled abuse at her.

“Why did you make us wait this long?” he demanded. “If you’re my fiancée, you should have come here first and purified the place.”

Eliana explained that dispatches had to be handled according to priority and the severity of the damage, so there had been nothing she could do. Her fiancé had spat back, “Then you should have quit your job and come here! Why do you think I got engaged to you in the first place, you useless woman!”

Their engagement had already been largely political, so it was dissolved soon afterward. Even so, that incident remained lodged in her memory as something deeply unpleasant.

“Yeah… I remember thinking, why should I be blamed when it wasn’t as though we were sitting around doing nothing? And that people should at least do whatever they can themselves.”

Her fiancé and his parents had apparently believed that both exterminating magical beasts and purifying mana pools were entirely the responsibility of the extermination and purification units. They themselves had done nothing, simply remaining hidden away in a safe location the entire time. Eliana remembered it well because they had gone on endlessly about how miserable and difficult that had supposedly been for them.

“I remember thinking they could at least have done whatever was within their ability… You’re right. I was being thoughtless. But she still could’ve been a little friendlier…”

“That’s another expectation you’re forcing onto her. Wanting Saintess-sama to smile sweetly and act friendly is nothing more than your personal preference. Have you forgotten how every time your former fiancé told you, ‘You’re a woman, so wear dresses and behave more modestly,’ you complained, ‘I am who I am, so leave me alone’?”

Put that way, Eliana had no response. She normally despised being told things like “because you’re a woman” or “even though you’re a woman,” yet now she realized that she herself had been saying that “because she is a Saintess, she should behave like this.”

“Ahhh… This just keeps getting more embarrassing. I really can’t complain about being treated like a child…”

She muttered while vigorously scratching her head, trying to sort through her feelings.

(Come to think of it, I was irritated. First, I didn’t like hearing Saintess-sama address not only my respected superiors and master, but even Her Majesty the Queen, without honorifics. And second… I was jealous that after I’d spent two years desperately working to eliminate mana pools without ever noticing the curse behind them, a Saintess from another world recognized it almost immediately…)

Eliana had always thought emotions such as jealousy and envy had nothing to do with her. In her mind, those were excuses used by people who lacked confidence or who did not work hard enough. She believed herself exempt because she set goals and steadily worked toward them. Yet the moment she was confronted with an overwhelming difference in ability, those feelings had suddenly revealed themselves.

“I’m going to apologize!”

She tried to urge her horse forward as she said it, only for her brother to immediately block her path. The abrupt stop knocked back the hood of her robe, causing the long silver hair tied behind her head to sway.

“Where exactly are you planning to go? Saintess-sama is probably speaking with the lord right now.”

Her brother asked whether she intended to interrupt them and just how much more foolish she planned to make herself look, causing Eliana to sink even further into despair. She had always considered herself reasonably intelligent, which made today’s repeated blunders sting all the more.

She was the third child of a viscount’s family, and although her magical reserves were only moderate, her ability to perform purification had caused her talents to be recognized from an early age. Ever since childhood, she had also enjoyed devising new tools and methods, several of which had actually been adopted or successfully developed.

The purification method they had used earlier—focusing exclusively on the cursed pot—had also been her idea. Unfortunately, she had a tendency to act before thinking things through. Her master had repeatedly warned her to be more careful about that, yet despite those warnings, she had still behaved as she had today.

(My master’s lecture is definitely unavoidable now.)

Thinking that, she looked toward her brother riding slowly alongside her, his own silver hair similarly tied back, and asked him a question.

“Hey, Brother. What do you think of Saintess-sama?”

“Terrifying. And reassuring.”

“What kind of answer is that…?”

“Judging from those Sacred Beasts, she must possess tremendous power. That makes her terrifying. But at present, she is on our side. That makes her reassuring.”

Listening to her brother, Eliana once again became disgusted with how shallow her own thinking had been—she had never even considered the possibility that the Saintess might someday become their enemy.

(I need to become more thoughtful, or I’ll never be fit to serve as Henry-sama’s assistant. But before that… I have to apologize.)