1

The choice of a road was made clear. The extended lunch break came to a close, the crew was rested and ready to go again. Yet, the command to resume the march stalled. As her majesty had declared, there was a certain important matter to be settled first, before they could ride a mile more. A matter both personal and political, and a lot easier said than done.

“I absolutely refuse,” the Grand Marshal told the Empress outright, hoping to make clear with her freezing tone that the answer was final.

“Likewise,” the Prince of Luctretz concurred, crossing his arms with defiance, and refrained from looking in Miragrave’s general direction.

“This is not optional!” Yuliana told the two. “You two will shake hands and make peace. How are we to carry out such a volatile quest for peace, if we are not in harmony among ourselves? You two will leave the past behind here, in this place, at this hour. Forgive and forget.”

The three stood at the highway fork, a distance away from the rest, so that the attention of the others wouldn’t further complicate the already complicated situation.

Not that this eased the difficulty level by much.

“Excuse me!” Miragrave exclaimed, as if the idea itself were entirely absurd. “What this man did is not something you forgive nor forget, Yuliana! He is an enemy of the Empire, and therefore my enemy—and yours! I will not shake hands with a known criminal and act like he’s thereby pardoned! I may turn a blind eye to his sins for the duration of this quest—for the greater good—but that is as far as my affinity with him goes.”

“I’ve done no crimes, nor am I the enemy of your people—Yuliana’s least of all!” the Prince angrily retorted. “But verily, I shall ever be an enemy of soulless monsters such as yourself! Tyrants who abuse power and burn human lives without thinking twice! No, even if it is you asking, Yuliana, I cannot forgive the atrocities this person has committed against my country and all the free people out there in the world; in the name of Law, yet in mockery of all notions of fairness! I refuse to.”

“You are being childish and stubborn!” the Empress reprimanded them. “Both of you believed you were acting for the good of those dear to you and made grave mistakes in the effort. Humans are humans, regardless of flags or borders or principles; all we have in this unforgiving world is each other—why can’t you recognize that! Neither of you is free of blame in what transpired, but it is also thanks to both that it didn’t get much, much worse. Can’t you see that you are cut from the same cloth, in spite of your standing? Now if ever is the time to break the cycle of hatred! For us to succeed in this mission, we must be able to trust one another with our lives. This is not such an easy undertaking that we could do with anything less than mutual understanding.”

“I struggle to see how the cooperation of us two is so vital, in specific!” the Prince replied and turned haughtily away. “I am mature enough to put the cause of peace over personal misgivings, and that much should be enough! The less I need to deal with this devil in the guise of a woman, and she with me, the better!”

“My thoughts exactly!” Miragrave said with a mirrored gesture. “I am in charge of this operation, and so long as this reprobate understands to not get in my way, he will have surpassed my lowest expectations of him. Quietly suffering his presence is quite about the best I can do. Ask not an ounce more of me.”

“What if the thing you find most unlikely does come true?” Yuliana argued. “What if there comes a situation, where the two of you working together is necessary for our survival? A situation, where a moment’s confusion might cost our lands dearly? And then all shall be lost, for a personal grudge you cannot let go? For ego and pride? Certainly, none of us can predict the future, but your refusal to even acknowledge the possibility makes this a glaring weakness on our side. If you truly want to triumph, then you mustn’t ignore problems that may still be treated! This is a lesson I learned from you two! How can you not see the same yourselves now?”

“Yuliana,” the Marshal dryly replied. “I may also be woefully unprepared for a comet falling on us out of the sky, but that doesn’t mean it is a scenario worth considering in real life. And I see the need for this man’s aid an event little more believable.”

“Yuliana,” the Prince said. “The day when I must depend on a vixen like her for our survival is the day I make peace with my maker, resigned, and admit there never was any hope.”

“Oh, good heavens!” her majesty cried and threw her arms up in frustration. “You are both equally intolerable! You will shake hands right now, or I will never speak a word to either of you again! Ever!”

“……..”

“…….”

This ultimatum proved more effective than any logical arguments.

Miragrave and the Prince begrudgingly exchanged scowling looks. Like dealing with something toxic and deeply unpleasant, they faced one another, grinding teeth.

“That’s the spirit,” Yuliana cheered them on from the side. “Go on! I believe in you!”

If there was going to be no other way around the agony, they could only get it done and over with as quickly as reasonably possible—or, so the two appeared to think. Making their mutual loathing apparent on their faces, the Marshal and the Prince quickly extended their hands and smacked their palms together, locked in a firm grip.

However, it wouldn’t end with that. Unwilling to be the first to retreat, the unbalanced pair continued to squeeze hands, while preserving the link of glares.

“You call that a handshake?” the Prince then said with a leer. “I hardly feel a thing!”

“Grr…” Miragrave could only admit his strength was greater. Then, a wicked smile spread across her lips, and soon smoke began to rise from between their crossed fingers.

“M-magic…!?” the man grimaced. “Hey, let go. You’ll burn your own hand too. That is really rather childish of you! Hey! I said, let go…!”

“Oh, are you in a hurry somewhere, your highness?” she asked, still with no intention of being the first to let go. “Why don’t we let the horses rest a while longer?”

“Why, if you’re fine with it, then so am I!” he replied, gripping firmer. “I am confident I can take more pain than you do!”

“How daring of you to speak of pain in my presence! They might believe such boasts on your fisher raft, but forget not that we stand on solid land now.”

“And be glad we do! For were we on my ship, you would need my hand just to keep on your feet.”

“That I can believe, with your highness’s steering!”

“Too quick for you, was it? I’ll be sure to leave the studs on next time!”

“And I’ll aim lower next time!”

If it had been difficult to make them shake hands, it was twice as hard to get them to stop. Yuliana could only sigh in resignation at their incessant bickering.

“What evil did I do in my past life to deserve this?”

2

After unreasonable trouble, the journey towards the Kingdom was finally able to resume. The addition of the Luctretzian allies to the force served to boost everyone’s sense of purpose after the uneventful weeks on the highway, and they carried on with renewed vigor through the coming few days.

Other wayfarers were rare. It was not the season for traveling, but neither did the entourage run into any noteworthy setbacks. The weather, while cool and windy, favored progress. Compared to the motor ride across the frozen fields of Amalkan, it was a gentle trip indeed. The cold earth lay firm to canter on and there was no rain.

Before problems related to transit, there were problems of the personal sort.

Arnwhal had not given up on making Izumi his mentor and she was running low on strategies to refuse him. She couldn’t exactly kill the man to get rid of the problem. A fighting lesson would’ve fulfilled his request, after all, and meant only more trouble for her. So she chose the most desperate of tactics—and went into hiding.

“Ah, why didn’t I think this sooner?” Izumi reflected aboard Carmelia’s carriage. “It may be against my solo player image, but riding on wheels is still a thousand times comfier than rocking on horseback. I had to have been stupid to wait this long to try it.”

Izumi had passed Toyotomi to the knights in charge of spare horses, and sneaked aboard the mages’ ride after breakfast. There was no way Arnwahl could bother her there. Swordsmen were not allowed in. Technically, Izumi wasn’t invited either, but she took full advantage of her friendship with the carriage owner. Thankfully, the sorceress wouldn’t throw her out.

Unlike the Empress’s carriage, or that of the army, there weren’t many seats on Carmelia’s vehicle, even though there was easily enough room for a full platoon. The lady was picky with her company, it seemed, and favored open space over crowds. Perhaps it could be considered unexpected that she had accepted any humans aboard at all.

The interior looked more like a luxurious hotel room without beds than a mere transport. Nothing about it had changed since Izumi’s previous stay. One long bench of shiny black leather went along the front wall and over the left hand corner in an L-shape, with an extension in the middle of the floor that could be raised or set down, depending on need. In the back were drawers, shelves, and work desks holding the sorceress’s equipment and supplies and other things of foreign origin, which no mortal would to dare to approach or even look at too long. The windows were like in a limousine, framed with silver, black outside, but easy to see through from inside. If the daylight got too intense, the owner of the transport could adjust the glass opacity at will. The soundproofing was excellent as well, and hardly any of the noise from outside reached in.

There was no need for a driver. As before, the horses knew where to go and how to proceed without active guidance, to the endless amazement of the other riders.

Could there be a more pleasant way to travel in another world?

However, not all the other passengers approved the hitchhiker.

“What are you doing here?” Margitte protested with a scowl. “I told you not to get close to me! Hurry up and jump off!”

Izumi unscrupulously took a seat on the front side bench between Carmelia and the youngest Court Wizard. They weren’t very tight-packed, but being anywhere in the same room was apparently not okay.

“Now, now, So-chan,” Izumi told the girl. “Traveling like this has its perks too. If you happen to feel sleepy, you can lean on my shoulder without any shame and take a nap. Accidentally falling on my boobs is a-okay too! I won’t mind any little girl spit on me, so don’t worry ‘bout a thing!”

“Don’t say such things when people are listening!” the girl roared, flustered. “I’m not touching any part of you with a 30-foot pole, that’s for sure! Although, I admit the temptation to spit on you is real!”

“How cruel!” Izumi cried and turned over to Carmelia instead. “But you understand me, Lia! That’s right, people can’t run on a sense of duty alone! They need love and healthy skinship too, from time to time. Of course, you’re also welcome to lean on me, whenever you get sleepy, even though you’re kind of big and heavy. I think being squished under you might not be that bad! That’s just how buddy-buddy we are!”

“Do not come close,” the Court Wizard replied, immersed in reading a book. “You smell of horse.”

“Geez. This ride isn’t half as fun as I imagined…” Izumi mumbled, sliding lower on the seat.

The three ladies weren’t the only ones present. On the side seats to the left traveled Court Wizard Laukan, and a female thaumaturgist of the Magic Battalion, Farlene, who served as Laukan’s attendant. However, that was all of them. Margitte had an assigned assistant too—two of them, in fact—but they were both older than her and she was not used to helpers. She had told them to stay with the other troops, until called. They weren’t too sorry with their lot, for previously related reasons. For regular natives, the witch’s ride was a tad too weird for comfort.

“What’s that you’re reading?” Izumi asked Carmelia, pointing at the green hardcover in the cirelo’s hands. “Something about the mysteries of the universe?”

“No,” the sorceress replied. “It is a contemporary novel published in the eastern Empire.”

“You bought a human novel for a souvenir?”

“You could say that.”

Izumi leaned forward to get a look at the cover. The title of the book was written in thin, golden letters. Velvet Nights. Was it a work of fiction? Moreover, it sounded like romance?

“Color me surprised,” Izumi remarked. “I didn’t think you’d care about local literature. Doesn’t it seem only super amateurish to you, with your experience? Like something written by a toddler would to us?”

The sorceress made a diplomatic response,

“Regardless of literary merits, I’d like to think of it as an opportunity to understand your species better. Besides, there are very few books available outside the human realm that I haven’t already read.”

“All the cursed, ancient sorcery tomes too?”

“The kind of magic manuals you’re thinking of do not exist, alas, or are of questionable quality.”

“Really?” Izumi raised a brow. “Why’s that?”

—“You don’t even know that?” Margitte interjected with an exaggerated sigh.

How could someone bother a old master magician with such boorish questions? Did the woman have no self-awareness at all? To spare Carmelia the effort, the girl gave the answer herself,

“Every magician’s potential and affinity are unique! You could liken the power to a spiritual fingerprint. The rites of an advanced adept are nigh impossible for anyone else to imitate the exact same way. Only certain universal principles can be shared, but not any of the personal specializations. Because of this, it would be a waste of effort to write down instructions for any high level rites. They would be useless to anyone but the person who wrote them! Books and schools can only give novices the general guidelines, the cognitive tools, by which they may begin to explore the potential within themselves. The rest is up to you.”

“Really?” Izumi asked, tilting her head. “Then why have magic schools at all? If they can’t actually teach you how to do anything useful? Is it a tuition fraud?”

“What are you, an idiot?” Margitte made another exaggerated sigh at the comment. “It goes without saying, doesn’t it? Academies exist, above all, to provide a safe environment where the gifted may conduct their seeking, free of the distractions and inconveniences of the outside world! They also serve as centers of research, to enable the varied talents of different adepts to support each other in lines of research that would be difficult to pursue alone.”

“Is that how it works?” Izumi asked Carmelia.

“Such is the human way, yes,” Carmelia replied without removing her gaze from the pages.

“Then it’s different for your people?”

“For emiri, there existed no distinction between general schools and arcane. All studies from physics to chemistry and mathematics to geography also included an overview of their esoteric aspects. As a matter of fact, my people didn’t consider ‘mage’ an occupation at all. A healer is a healer, whether he uses spells or surgery to perform his tasks. A mathematician might test his formulae with magic, but he would still be considered primarily a scientist, not a wizard. Learning magic for magic’s own sake seemed irrational to us. Fruitless.”

“Hmm,” Izumi made a thoughtful sound. “So you weren’t a sorceress at home? What was your job-job then? Representing as a princess?”

Carmelia took a brief pause before replying.

“...It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “I am no longer an emiri. I gave up who I was when I chose to seek magic for the sake of war. Which is why, to my people, I am now evil itself. As you have seen.”

“Even though you’re doing it for a good reason? To liberate your homeland?”

“Does the end justify the means?” Carmelia answered and turned a page. “Is doing something everyone knows is impossible a ‘good’ thing, even if the goal is noble? Most would call it only ‘madness’, I believe.”

“But nothing’s impossible. Isn’t that right?”

“Certainly, ’nothing’ makes for a rather broad category. Until the number of possible attempts in a matter has been decisively exhausted, it’s too soon to label things one way or the other, I suppose.”

Izumi sat quietly for a moment, thinking. The sorceress’s words always took a while to digest, saying only half of what she was actually thinking, if even that. Then she looked up and noticed Master Laukan smiling at them.

“I believe this is the first time I have heard her grace speak openly of her people,” he said. “It is a most fascinating topic—and quite humbling. From your point of view, human magicians must seem foolish indeed.”

“No,” Carmelia denied. “I find human magicians dreadful.”

The listeners raised brows at the comment. “Dreadful?”

“The term ‘wizard’ is used among your people to distinguish the adepts from the general population; at the same time, beside scholars they serve as gatekeepers who actively deny others entry to aspects of the world that ought to be common knowledge. Despite being only a small minority, your wizards have established themselves as an elite group with power over much of the society. Even though variations in potential among your kind are negligible, the gap between learned adepts and non-magicians has grown so wide, they might as well be considered a different race altogether. That will to power, that single-minded ambition, for no obvious objective but to revel in it—is what I find dreadful.”

At her words, the human mages around turned to silent reflection.

“But not everyone’s the same, right?” Izumi said. “Sure, there are evil mages and there are nice mages, just like there are bandits and knights. Isn’t that normal?”

“I can only consider such division itself as odd,” Carmelia replied. “Each of you views themselves as an entity entirely disconnected from the rest. Rather, many of you do not acknowledge other humans as equal, living beings at all, but prioritize yourself in any situation. This type of behavior is strange to my kind. For emiri, it goes without saying that the collective’s good takes precedence, as it will indirectly benefit every individual part of the whole. None would think twice to sacrifice themselves, if they could be certain it is to the advantage of the majority, more so than any other available action. Moral choices aren’t based only on the number of lives lost or protected, but on how the action serves society as a whole, its internal integrity, and consistency of values. Or, so it used to be.”

“In other words,” Farlene hesitantly spoke while the others kept quiet, “even mass murder could go unpunished, if it developed the collective better as a whole, than preventing it would…?”

“I know how it seems to you,” Carmelia said, turning a page, “but you must keep in mind that my kind can live for a very long time. One’s impression of life as a rare and priceless phenomenon tends to degrade somewhat over millennia.”

Then, more quietly, she added, “But now that it’s become rare once more, many of the old values should be challenged.”

They all sat quietly for a time, rendered somber by the heavy topic.

“There sure are a lot of hopes riding on that magic tower,” Izumi then jokingly said. “It had better be worth it. If we get there after everything and it turns out the real miracle was the friends we made along the way, it’ll make for one heck of an ending to this fairy tale.”

Carmelia saw no humor in the matter.

“The fact that we remain here after thirty-two cycles should be more than enough proof of the power of the Covenant,” she answered in earnest. “What is fiction and fable to us today was common knowledge once, well before even my time. The tower we seek used to be only one of multiple possible sites for the Ritual. Similar megastructures existed on each continent, to ensure they would be used. Far in Oferion, I discovered the ruins of another tower similar to the one in Amarno, buried deep underground. There was once the Heaven’s Pillar of Noertia. That terminal is now broken, its power source lost on us, but the arts used to make it left no doubt in me regarding the authenticity of it. We seek not only a myth, but science; science at the end of science. By that power, this world can be changed—has been changed. Races have been erased from existence, lands altered, cultures revised. Who can say, maybe time itself is but clay to be molded for the conqueror of the system.”

Margitte looked uneasy and shuddered. Laukan made a wry smile and sat without comment, his eyes closed, his assistant shrinking on the seat next to him.

Izumi fell likewise silent. She already knew better than to doubt. She had seen the beacon in Eylia and the elder warning carved on the wall, and she had spoken with the echo of the God of Darkness.

The towers weren’t raised for the innocent purpose of preserving the planet and the life on it, even if that was the coincidental by-product of their use. Their role had been, from the start, to counteract the scourge of the gods and keep sealed the evil they’d left in the world. The evil, which traveled alongside them, even now, in the white carriage up ahead.

Izumi glanced at Carmelia. Should she tell the magicians about the Lord of Light, after all? But through the linkage between them, Aiwesh knew everything Izumi did, saw what she saw, and heard what she spoke.

How would the spirit react to being exposed?

Maybe she didn’t care at all?

No, even now, wasn’t Aiwesh keeping her presence hidden from everyone around her, lurking within Yuliana’s form. Why the secrecy? Of course, because there was still a chance that her plans could go wrong before their fulfillment.

In Bhastifal, the three Divine protectors of the city had meddled too deeply in human affairs, lost their powers as a consequence, and were destroyed. By her own words, Aiwesh sought to free the world from the Gods’ system, the endless chain of revisions, and shape all of existence anew. But, for the time being, she remained still a component of that system, a slave like the others.

The spirit’s hope had to be the same as theirs. The tower made to revise reality.

Did the Divine expect them to bring her there, employing Yuliana as her Trojan horse? If the others learned what she was and what she meant to do, they were bound to try to stop her, at perhaps heavy costs.

Then why did the Divine allow Yuliana to travel to Langoria, where war and mortal peril perhaps awaited? Because her control over her vessel was not perfect and there was nothing she could do about it without exposing herself?

Or perhaps this too was meant to happen, another necessary step towards the Heaven’s Pillar at the edge of the world?

What was the right thing to do?

Maybe it was better not to think about it here and now. There was a risk of her mind being read, after all, and then the choice would be made for her. Izumi glanced at Carmelia, but the cirelo kept reading quietly, turning the pages without much of an expression.

Yawning wide, Izumi stretched her arms and turned to the young Court Wizard next to her.

“Say, So-chan, do you know what shiritori is?”

“No, and I don’t want to know. If you won’t get out, then at least be quiet!”

3

Saying it was bad for the public morale, Yuliana had forced the Prince of Luctretz to dress like a prince and travel as one aboard the lead carriage. The Grand Marshal declared in reaction that she wouldn’t leave the two of them within four walls unsupervised, and this made the mood in the transport fairly wintry to everyone else. To the point that outside air began to seem mild by comparison.

Millanueve claimed she was beginning to feel motion sick after so long without seeing the sky, asked for a horse, and thus escaped the pressure cooker on wheels.

Towards the back part of the long line of riders, she noticed the trio unusual riders and now came discreetly over to inquire why they had become a duo.

“Where’s Izumi?”

“It appears the lady got tired of our company and boarded Master Carmelia’s carriage in the morning,” Arnwahl courteously answered her.

“She got tired of you!” Waramoti corrected. “I’m innocent!”

“I see…” Millanueve mumbled. She rode on alongside the two and stared off in silence.

“For the record, how many times have they declared war by now?” the bard asked her, leafing through his notebook.

“They’re not that bad,” she answered. “Actually, nobody’s saying anything, they only sit imitating statues as if someone died, and it’s so much worse!”

“Oh dear. Not that this comes as a terrible surprise to me, knowing the parties involved. Her majesty’s expectations for other people are sometimes a tad unreasonable.”

“Why?” Millanueve sighed in lament. “Why can’t people just live in peace? It’s almost as if they love to fight, misunderstand, and hurt each other.”

“Because conflict is the essence of life,” Arnwahl spoke up unexpectedly in the bard’s place.

“What?”

“We humans are driven to fight by our inborn instincts, therein to find the answer to our own being. Any excuse will suffice to achieve that. The more we love existence, the keener we feel life in us, the greater also our hunger for conflict. For it is only in the face of adversity that we may experience ourselves as we were meant to. Who shies away from confrontation denies his own nature, and can hardly be considered a living being at all.”

“Why do you say such a thing?” Millanueve asked him with a furrowed brow. “People were born just to fight each other? That would make our whole mission only a waste of time—no, unnatural, even!”

He nodded. “That is precisely what it is. A waste of time. Even if the leaders of all the involved countries could somehow agree on peace, it would be forgotten in a generation. History is bound to repeat itself. Then, indeed, why bother at all? The fiercer you deny nature, the stronger you are rejected by it. Not that I think they’ll be able to come to terms. Langoria’s old king knows life better than his daughter, it seems. And our disadvantage is thereby cemented.”

“Then why did you come with us?” she asked. “If you didn’t think we had a chance?”

“That is precisely why,” Arnwahl replied with a smile, eyeing the southern horizon. “Only one thing is for certain on this crusade and it’s that a great conflict lies ahead of us. Warriors live only for such moments in time, where to thoroughly test themselves. ‘What am I?’, ‘Why am I here?’—it is only by staking everything, body and soul, that the answer comes clear. I would not miss such an opportunity for any reason.”

Millanueve stared at the champion with displeasure. “Then why do people still have goodness in them? Why do they work so hard to stop fighting and seek peace, if that’s not what they truly want or need?”

“It is a test,” he proposed.

“A test?”

“That’s right. Perhaps the final and greatest of tests in life. What we call ‘good’ and the desire for good, the entire duality of being, is merely a restraint a warrior must break to unlock his true potential. It is a hurdle most of us never manage to overcome. Those who are trapped by the vulnerability called compassion in them and surrender to it wish to render everyone else the same, out of the fear of being mistaken and abandoned. As simple as that.”

“That can’t be right!”

“No? Then, Lady Millanueve, why is it that you yourself bear a sword?”

“It is to protect the good,” she readily answered. “The very people you disparage!”

“Then who is good? From the perspective of your enemies, they are the good ones, and you are evil for the sin of opposing them. No. You are merely employing the ‘good’ as an excuse, the same as the rest of them. Your sword is there to protect only yourself, your control over reality, your power over fate, so that you may triumph over those who deny you. Were the so-called good on your mind when you donned that coat and trained your blade hand? Not, right? Your thoughts were entirely on the imagined enemy, that which you dreamed of overcoming to prove your worth. If you truly sought peace from the bottom of your heart, you would never have left your home. The weapon you carry is a proof that you, too, are a soul drawn to conflict for conflict’s sake.”

The girl looked down with a bitter face.

“...Is that what Izumi believes too? Is that why she bears her sword?”

“She must,” Arnwahl said. “What other reason could there be, for a warrior? What other reason is needed?”

“And you?” she asked the bard.

“Uh, I am purely an outsider in this matter,” Waramoti hurried to say. “I seek only to be a humble witness, not an ounce of warrior in me. Yet, even at the risk of needlessly meddling, if you wish to know our champion’s reasons, why don’t you ask the lady herself? I doubt any of us is qualified to speak on her behalf.”

“I couldn’t do that!” Millanueve exclaimed, turning flustered.

“Why? You’re on speaking terms aren’t you?”

“Because…” she mumbled with a downcast expression. “...Whenever Izumi looks at me, there’s this pain in her eyes. My presence must remind her of what happened. My brother, and poor Naliya...Oh, I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have come. I only wanted her to live happy—help her if there was anything troubling her. Yet, all I bring her is more torment. What was I thinking…?”

“There is no need to waver,” Arnwahl told her. “If your presence brings her pain, then there is no greater service you could do for her. Being faced with her own weakness will hone her yet sharper as a warrior. Or else destroy her. Either way, she has plenty of reasons to be thankful.”

Millanueve answered him with a deeply reproachful look. “I am beginning to see why she left your company.”

“Hm? And that is?”

“Because you’re a bad person!”

Having had enough of the conversation, Millanueve urged her horse forward and rode past the line towards the front.

“What about me?” Waramoti bemoaned, left behind again. “Oh well, I shall find escape from worldly pain in the wonderful dimension of music.”

He put away his notebook and traded it for his lute instead. Arnwahl abstained from musical commentary. The knight quietly followed the maiden knight with his narrowed gaze, until she had gone out of view.

“I see,” he quietly remarked under his breath. “So that girl is someone of importance to Lady Izumi...?”

The bard stopped his hands and turned an alarmed look in the champion’s way.

“I hope you’re not thinking about anything disturbing now?”

“Oh, how could I?” Arnwahl replied with a smile. “At the end of the day, I am still a knight. One sworn to stand for law and fairness. I wouldn’t go out of my way to endanger our mission of peace for personal reasons.”

But his assurances did little to dispel the bard’s mounting doubts.

“But you didn’t believe in the mission to begin with…?”