ACT 2
Chirp chirp! Chirp chirp!
“Nn... Mmhh...”
The chirping of sparrows on the power lines outside, and the soft light of the sun coming in through the window, slowly woke Yuuto from his slumber.
“Huaaagh... morning, huh.”
He stretched and yawned, then sat up in bed. With eyes still half-asleep and blurry, he slowly looked around the room.
On the wall in front of him was a calendar with a picture of vividly-colored fireworks against the night sky, and hanging next to it was a middle school uniform in a plastic bag from the dry cleaner’s.
To his left was a wooden bookshelf lined mostly with manga, and a wooden study desk in the same color and texture. Both of those had been bought for him around the same time, when he’d entered elementary school.
It was familiar, all too familiar. He’d dived straight into bed in the dark last night without even turning on a light to check, but this was definitely the bedroom he’d always known.
“I... really have come back home,” Yuuto whispered, unsure how many times he’d done this now.
Three years was a long time, after all. He’d always dreamed of coming back home to Japan, but now that it had actually happened, he had trouble feeling like it was real.
It was like he couldn’t shake the doubt that maybe this was just a dream he was seeing because of how much he wanted to go home, and his body was still in Yggdrasil.
But when Yuuto pulled his own cheek, the pain told him that this was definitely reality. “Ow!”
As that sank in, he abruptly became worried for his comrades, the family he’d left back in Yggdrasil.
“I wonder if they’re doing okay...”
Yesterday, Felicia must have explained to the major generals that he had been sent back to 21st century Japan.
That would definitely cause a lot of confusion for everyone.
They had been right in the middle of a war, on the battlefield, and now their commander had suddenly vanished, after all.
“I can only hope they figure out some way to deal with it...” Yuuto murmured.
The Wolf Clan army had his adjutant Felicia, whom Yuuto trusted completely, Sigrún the Mánagarmr, the clan’s greatest warrior, and Olof, a reliable general with exceptional skill at decision-making and directing troop movements. Those were just a few of the slew of strong and talented officers under his banner.
Yuuto wanted to believe that with them working together, they should definitely be able to do something. But on the other hand, the Battle-Hungry Tiger Steinþórr and the Masked Lord Hveðrungr had joined forces against them. Knowing that, Yuuto couldn’t just shake the feelings of worry.
What concerned him especially was the behavior of the Panther Clan; they knew about Yuuto’s disappearance, after all. It wouldn’t be odd at all if they’d attacked immediately last night.
“Dammit! This is frustrating,” Yuuto said, punching the pillow on his bed.
He wanted some sort of information on what was going on over there. And, if possible, some way to give his army instructions.
For right now, there was no way to contact them, though.
“I wonder if this is how it felt for Mitsuki, every time I left for battle...” he murmured.
It was frightening, so frightening that he could hardly stand it. It felt like his heart was being crushed by anxiety and worry.
Suddenly his stomach growled loudly. Grlrlrlrl.
My own stomach sure doesn’t know how to be considerate of my feelings, he grumbled to himself, but the truth was that, despite everything that had happened yesterday, he hadn’t had anything to eat except a bit of bread that morning.
He was only human, so of course his stomach was going to be empty and growling at this point.
“I guess I should get something to eat, for now...” he sighed.
An empty stomach would only put his mind on edge. Plus, considering travel time, it would be at least three to four days before someone in Yggdrasil would be able to make contact with him. He couldn’t very well just wait around that long without having a meal.
In fact, it was exactly at times like this that he should prioritize getting some food in his stomach, so that he could recharge his body and mind in preparation for when he’d need to use them.
“Still... what am I gonna do?” Yuuto scratched the back of his head, troubled.
He still felt utterly averse to even sleeping in this house, and he couldn’t stand the idea of being dependent on his father any more than this.
However, a bit of cash was a necessity in order to do anything in modern-day Japan.
“Oh! That’s right!” Yuuto rushed over to his study desk and opened the second drawer from the top. Taking out the object he’d just remembered, he held it up to check its contents, and exhaled in relief.
It was the bankbook he kept for a savings account in his name, and the most recent balance was about 70,000 yen. Growing up, whenever Yuuto had received allowances and gift money from holidays, his late mother had always half-forced him to put a portion of it into savings.
Back then, he’d been unsatisfied with that, thinking, Let me use it however I want, but now he was sincerely grateful for how thoughtful she had been.
“No sense wasting time! I’ve just gotta go withdraw it, and...”
He took out the personalized bank stamp used as an ID and was about to leave his room, when he suddenly realized how he was dressed.
He was still wearing his outfit from Yggdrasil. It might not be an issue out alone on the road at night, but of course in town in the middle of the day, these clothes would definitely draw all sorts of attention.
If he were in a big city like Tokyo, the passersby might assume it was some sort of cosplay and ignore him, but this was a small town out in the countryside.
“I don’t think there’s anything I can really change into, either,” Yuuto said with a sigh as he opened his dresser.
He went ahead and picked out something at random, but when he held it up to check, it was clearly too small for him.
He’d even gotten these clothes a bit large way back when, anticipating that he’d grow, but of course three whole years was too long for that to be enough.
“Sigh... Guess I’ll call Mitsuki.”
Whether it was in Yggdrasil, or back in modern Japan, Yuuto found himself consistently relying on his childhood friend.
“Sorry. I really do always end up making you do stuff like this for me. Thanks.” With that, Yuuto put down the phone’s receiver.
He no longer had his trusty smartphone with him, so he was using the wired telephone in his house’s living room.
It was something that had been part of this home since before Yuuto was born, and, to his relief, it still worked without any issues. It was completely covered in dust, and when he first saw it, he’d been seriously concerned about whether it would work at all.
“Still, I can’t really invite Mitsuki into the house with it like this.” Turning away from the phone, Yuuto took in the scene and sighed deeply, at a loss.
At least a third of the space on the dining table was covered in empty bottles of liquor, and the ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts.
The garbage can was so full that the lid wasn’t able to close all the way, and there was something poking out that looked like an empty box for a convenience store bento.
The biggest problem of all was that the place didn’t look like it had been vacuumed, dusted, or wiped down in the last three years, and the whole room was covered with dust.
The TV and miniature alcohol fridge sitting nearby were turned completely white from the dust, and one could see particles of it floating in the air with the naked eye.
This was immediately recognizable as the typical kind of room one would expect of a widower.
“Guess I’ll tidy up a bit,” Yuuto muttered.
He had been having trouble accepting the idea of staying in this house for free anyway, so this would work out. He could pay for borrowing a room to sleep in by doing a bit of manual labor in exchange. That should make things even enough.
Plus, moving his body and doing physical work would help keep his thoughts from dwelling on things that he couldn’t do anything about.
“First things first...” Yuuto headed to the kitchen sink and got out the box of cleaning supplies and a fresh cloth from underneath it, as well as a bucket.
Three years may have gone by, but this was still his home, and he knew it well.
He filled the bucket with water and headed to the front entrance hallway.
“Heh,” he chuckled. “Ephy or Rún might faint if they saw me doing something like this.”
The patriarch of the Wolf Clan, lord of a domain counting more than 100,000 citizens (if one included the subsidiary clans), was doing the type of menial cleaning work that back in Yggdrasil would be delegated to servants.
Even Yuuto was a bit amazed at how much his status had changed overnight.
“All right, then! Let’s do this!” Yuuto got into position at the end of the hallway. “Readyyyy, go!”
Taking off from a crouching start, he pushed the cloth across the floor from one end of the hallway to the other. With just that one pass, the white cloth was stained completely black.
He flipped the cloth over and did it again. The other side ended up fully blackened, too.
He threw it into the bucket and wrung it out a few times, causing the water to noticeably darken.
“This looks like it’s gonna be quite a bit of work...”
Muttering this to himself, Yuuto found that even now, he couldn’t help but reflect on how much appreciation his late mother deserved for always taking care of all of the housework and cleaning. She had kept this big house sparkling clean all by herself.
“I really should have helped her out a bit more.”
He couldn’t help thinking of the old saying, By the time a child wants to pay back his parents, they’re already gone, and of how true it was.
“Ah, that’s right, I forgot the most important thing.” Yuuto grimaced at his mistake, and looked over at the entrance to the room on his left, which had a traditional paper sliding door.
He tossed the cloth onto the rim of the bucket and headed into that room. The unpleasant smell that permeated the rest of the first floor was not present here, and instead, there was the faint scent of burned incense in the air.
He stood in front of the household’s Buddhist altar in the back of the room, and opened the thick, stately dark brown doors on its front to reveal the well-polished golden statue within.
Next to the statue was a picture stand holding the black-and-white picture of a smiling, refined-looking lady.
“Hi, Mom. I’m home.”
It felt a bit strange for Yuuto, but after saying those words aloud, he sat down quietly on his legs in the formal seiza position, facing the picture.
It was strangely moving to see his mother’s face again this way. After all, Yuuto didn’t have any pictures of her stored in his smartphone.
“Thank you for looking out for me all this time. Thanks to you, I came back home in one piece.”
With a small, slightly bittersweet smile, Yuuto reached out and rang the family altar’s bell twice, then put his hands together in prayer.
In his heart, he recounted to his mother everything that had happened.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but soon the doorbell rang.
“Oh, crap.” Yuuto grimaced. He still hadn’t gotten any cleaning done. He’d planned to clean at least the path from the front entrance to his room.
“Excuse me!” called a familiar voice. Then came the sound of the front door being opened.
“Oh, hell, Dad! At least remember to lock the stupid door!” Yuuto got up and hurried toward the front entrance.
As soon as Mitsuki caught sight of Yuuto, she broke into a wide smile, like a flower blossoming before his eyes, and for a second, Yuuto was transfixed. “Oh... Good morning, Yuu-kun!”
He’d seen her smiling plenty of times in the pictures she’d sent him, whether it was selfies she’d taken trying to look pretty or pictures of her having fun with friends. But, it really had been a long while since he’d seen this bashful, truly happy smile of hers.
He’d also always talked with her at night, so he got a little bit of extra delight out of just being able to exchange a morning greeting with her like this. Especially since it was her real, live, voice — not her voice over a phone line.
Until three years ago, this had been just one more normal part of his everyday life. But now, this sort of casual, ordinary thing made him incredibly happy.
“Wh-what’s wrong, Yuu-kun?!” Mitsuki exclaimed, looking worried.
That brought Yuuto back to his senses. “Hm? Oh, uh, nothing. G-good morning.”
Mitsuki responded with an even wider, giggling grin. “Hee hee! It’s been three years since we’ve been able to exchange greetings in the morning like this, huh? It feels kind of nostalgic, but also kind of new.”
“...I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I see. Even though it shouldn’t seem like a big deal, it really makes me happy.”
“I was thinking that, too.”
“Oh. Ahaha, um, I guess we think alike.”
“Y-yeah, it seems that way.”
Mitsuki’s face was turning red as an apple, and she was looking down. Yuuto found himself acting more awkwardly, as well.
He’d only thought of it as admitting to feeling happy at first, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that by describing their happiness, they’d basically made passing reference to their feelings for each other.
Yuuto suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed.
“S-sorry, you know, about calling you over here first thing in the morning.” He tried to change the subject, unable to deal with this sort of atmosphere.
“No, it’s fine. It’s spring break, after all. Well, Dad did glare at me pretty hard on the way out.”
“Oh, ha ha.” Yuuto found himself laughing dryly at that.
A normal father of a girl Mitsuki’s age would, of course, have a problem with any unwanted pests, i.e. boys, getting too attached to her. That was particularly true of someone like Yuuto. He’d gone missing in his second year of middle school, and was pretty much a dropout from society at this point. From her father’s position, it wouldn’t be strange to want to stop her from even being friends with him.
“Huh?” Mitsuki said. “Hey, Yuu-kun, take a look at that down at your feet!”
“Hm?” Yuuto looked down to see that there was a thick vertical envelope that looked to have been tossed carelessly onto the entrance mat.
On the center of the envelope was “to Yuuto” written in penmanship that he recognized.
This was from his father.
He stared at it wordlessly.
At last, frowning slightly, Yuuto silently picked up the envelope and checked its contents.
It contained a stack of 10,000 yen bills.
Next to him, Mitsuki shouted in surprise. “Whoa, wow! That has to be at least two hundred thousand, right?”
But Yuuto continued to stare coldly at the contents of the envelope.
He opened up the folded piece of paper which had been included with the money. Written in the same penmanship, it read, “Use it however you like,” nothing more.
“Ahh, this means today you can treat me to sushi, and... that’s not happening, I guess.” Mitsuki’s excited voice fell quickly after she saw the expression on Yuuto’s face.
“No, I’d like you to let me treat you. You’ve done so much to take care of me all this time. But I’m not planning to use one yen of this money.” Yuuto pushed the money back into the envelope, his tone indicating that his decision was final.
He would have preferred to throw the money back in his father’s face directly, but a look at the space for shoes in the entrance told him that the man had already gone out to work at his atelier.
Mitsuki looked at Yuuto sadly for a moment, then said, “You still haven’t forgiven your father, huh, Yuu-kun?”
“No, I guess not.” Yuuto replied as if he were talking about somebody else, but his hand gripped the envelope of money tightly.
It was the kind of situation where some might say his father had understood Yuuto’s circumstances and tried in his clumsy way to show kindness... but he couldn’t see it that way. It made him so sick to his stomach that he couldn’t stand it.
There was the dissatisfaction of feeling like his father could see through him, and the anger with himself for being powerless right now; those two feelings were swirling within Yuuto, but the thing he couldn’t forgive most of all was the way his father seemed detached and unwilling to face his own son directly.
Dammit, it’s like I’m a stupid kid throwing a fit!
Yuuto could tell that part of him wanted his father to leave him alone completely. But then when he was left alone, he felt furious at the man for not living up to his role as a father.
If he had been the Yuuto of three years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to face the fact that those feelings within himself were contradictory. He wouldn’t have been able to face them at all, and that would have just turned it all into bottled-up rage that he’d have directed towards his father.
But he was different now.
“What, then...?” he muttered. “Just what do I want from Dad, then, I wonder?”
Did he want the man to apologize, or to be ruined? Did he want him to show an interest in him as a father, or leave him alone?
Looking up at the ceiling with those thoughts in his head, it all seemed so complex that anything could be the right answer, but everything also seemed wrong.
He didn’t think he could come up with an answer as he was right now.
After breakfast, Yuuto and Mitsuki went shopping at a department store.
In preparation for their trip, Yuuto had Mitsuki borrow some of her father’s clothes for him to wear. It made him feel bad to ask that of her, but he wasn’t in any mood to borrow his own father’s clothes.
That being said, there was no way he could keep doing this, so the first thing they did at the store was go to check out some clothes.
Mitsuki was quite enthusiastic. “Hey, Yuu-kun, Yuu-kun! I think this would look good on you!”
“Hmm... sure, that does look good, but... gah! That’s expensive!”
Yuuto’s eyes went wide as soon as he saw the price tag. It was just shy of five digits.
“I’m really fine with something cheaper, okay?” he said hastily. “Something I can just grab a bunch of.”
“How can the great patriarch of the Wolf Clan say something like that?” Mitsuki scolded. “If you do that, your lessers won’t have any respect for you, you know.”
“Shut up! In this world, I’m nothing more than a guy who’s poor and jobless!”
With that parting shot at Mitsuki, who was still laughing, Yuuto walked over towards a sales corner with a sign that read “On Sale, 2000 Yen.”
Before coming here, he’d stopped by a bank and withdrawn his savings, so he could buy something expensive if he wanted to, but he knew there’d be more expenses to come. He wanted to make sure he avoided wasting money here as much as possible.
“Hm, here we go. I’ll just take this and this, and...”
“Ugh, of course you go for all black.” Mitsuki immediately shot down his choices. “Come on, pick out some brighter colors—!”
“Geez, why don’t you go pick out your own clothes?”
“I can’t. I’m broke.”
“Well, then I’ll buy you some while we’re at it. It’s fine if it’s a bit pricey, too.”
“Wha?!” Mitsuki let out a startled cry. She must not have expected this; her gaze darted to and fro. “B-but that wouldn’t feel right. You don’t have that much money, right? You don’t have to.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’ve been relying on you for all sorts of help for three years now. Let me pay you back a bit.”
“...Is it really okay?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. In fact, you’re the number one priority on this little shopping trip.”
“Oh, I see... I’m number one, huh? ...Thank you.” Mitsuki put both hands on her cheeks as her expression melted into a bashful, giggling smile.
Just seeing her that happy made Yuuto feel rewarded enough for offering to buy her something.
“I wonder what I should get,” Mitsuki chattered, quickly lost in thought. “There was that one thing I wanted. Oh, but then there was that other thing...”
Watching her like this, seeing her expressions change so quickly, really brought home how much different this was from a mere phone call or pictures. He could never get tired of looking at her.
Eventually, she seemed to hit on something, and held up a finger. “Okay, so then, how about this!”
She ran over to Yuuto with bouncing steps, like a puppy, and leaned in close to look up towards his face with upturned eyes.
That move was enough to set Yuuto’s heart racing. “Wh-what, did you pick something already?”
“No, I want you to pick it out, Yuu-kun!”
“Excuse me?!” Yuuto let out a startled cry.
If a boy and girl going out together like this was what defined a “date,” then this sort of development was pretty normal for a date.
However, though Yuuto may have brought gritless bread and worked glass and many more wonders into the world of Yggdrasil, he had no inkling of what constituted trends or fashion in modern Japan.
In the 21st century, what was “in” changed radically in less than a year. He didn’t even have a guess as to how much styles had changed in the three years he’d been gone.
“I-if you let me choose, I’ll just end up picking out something ridiculous,” he stumbled.
“That’s fine. I don’t care if you pick out a bald wig for a costume party, I’ll still treasure it.”
“Seriously?! You’d seriously still be satisfied with something like that?!”
“I’ll make it my family heirloom. A gift bequeathed directly to me from the great lord patriarch of the Wolf Clan! Oh, I’ll need to put it on the family altar.”
“Cut. That. Out. But seriously, if I’m gonna buy you a present, I want it to be something you’ll actually use, so I’d rather you pick out something you like.”
“Whaaaat? ...Fine, then I’ll take the bald wig.”
“Did you actually want that?!”
“Heh heh, if you let me pick, then that’s what it’s going to be, all right? Is that okay? You really okay with that?”
“What the heck kind of threat is that?!”
“So, in other words, if you don’t like that, then pick me something out.”
Yuuto sighed heavily. “Fine... fine, I get it. I just have to pick, right?”
He shook his head in resignation with a wry grin, as Mitsuki giggled mischievously.
When it came to war, Yuuto was known as undefeated on the battlefield, but he didn’t think he stood a chance against his childhood friend.
Put in more extreme terms, perhaps it is just that a man is a creature who cannot hope to win against a woman...
“Okay, so at least tell me what kind of thing you’d like,” he said. “Otherwise, I don’t have a clue where to start.”
“Oh, well, then I’d like a hair accessory.” In an undertone he couldn’t quite catch, she whispered, “That way, I can always have it on me.”
“So in the end it’s not even clothes?” he asked in exasperation. “Well, whatever. Then let’s look at some after I add these up.”
“Wait, you’re still going to go with those black clothes?!” Mitsuki stared wide-eyed in disbelief at Yuuto.
“What’s wrong with these? Look, as long as they fit, I’m fine with whatever.”
“No, that’s not okay! Honestly! Yuu-kun, you’re good-looking, but you don’t put any thought into your appearance!”
Mitsuki puffed out her cheeks in irritation.
“Here, start with this, and this. You can go try them on over there.”
She handed him the clothes she’d been holding and pointed sharply in the direction of the fitting rooms.
Judging by her expression, he wasn’t going to accomplish anything by talking back to her except waste time.
Well, I guess there’s no harm in going along with her for a little bit, he thought, and headed towards the fitting rooms.
It goes without saying that afterwards, Yuuto was Mitsuki’s dress-up mannequin for quite a while.
“Ughh, so tired. Somehow, I feel dead tired.” Yuuto sat down on the long bench on the side of the department store walkway, leaning back with a long sigh.
He felt fully exhausted in both body and mind.
His outfit was completely new. The boy who’d been wearing plain clothes, making him seem uninteresting, now sported a casual look that made him look downright fashionable.
Of course, his current drooped posture and expression put all of that to waste.
“What are you saying?” Mitsuki asked. “You’re acting so lazy; all we did was pick out some clothes for a little while.”
“It wasn’t a ‘little’ while at all. That was at least an hour, just looking at clothes.”
“Huh? Isn’t that normal, though? Actually, I’d say we got that done pretty quickly.” Mitsuki looked back at him with a puzzled expression.
That sent a shudder up Yuuto’s back. “That was... ‘quickly’...?!”
“Mm-hm. When I come here with Mom or my friends, we take two or three hours, easily.”
“Ughhhh...” Yuuto had heard stories to the effect that girls took a long time shopping, but he hadn’t expected that his childhood friend would be no exception to that.
Thinking back, though, he couldn’t remember having actually gone on a shopping trip together with Mitsuki before. In that case, it was perhaps only natural that he didn’t know about this, but... realizing that now made him realize anew how much he’d missed in these past three years, and it filled him with regret.
And hunger. Perhaps due to his frustration, his stomach felt even emptier than before.
“Man, I’m starved. Sushi! I wanna eat sushi!”
“Hey now, we haven’t even bought my present yet,” Mitsuki complained. “I thought I was supposed to be number one?”
“Quiet, you. Let me eat some rice already. Bring on the rice. Give me rice!”
“Whoa, you sound like some kind of rice addict!”
“Keep any Japanese person from eating rice for three years, and that’s what happens. Seriously.”
The rice ball that Mitsuki had brought him for breakfast that morning had been so, so delicious that it had ‘hit him emotionally’.
In all seriousness, it had moved him almost to tears.
If Mitsuki hadn’t been right there in front of him, he might have broken down crying on the spot.
Sushi was Yuuto’s favorite dish, so he couldn’t help but wonder just how delicious that was going to be. He was already drooling uncontrollably.
“All right, then! Let’s hurry and grab that hair accessory and then go eat,” he declared. “Which way?”
“Oh, uh. It’s that way. Ughh, now the mood is all ruined...”
“That way, right? Got it.”
Without even listening to Mitsuki’s complaint, Yuuto grabbed the shopping bags with clothes and stood up.
As he started walking in the direction Mitsuki had pointed, his path was suddenly blocked.
What stood in front of him was a man in a dark blue uniform. At first, he looked like he might be a security guard.
“I think you know what this means,” the uniformed man said, holding out a small ID badge with a telltale sakura police insignia on it. “You’re Suoh Yuuto, right?”
It looked like Yuuto’s long-awaited reunion with sushi was going to have to wait for another day.
Glaðsheimr.
This city was the capital of the Holy Ásgarðr Empire, and the largest city in all of Yggdrasil. It was known far and wide as the birthplace of many artistic and cultural trends.
“So, I have finally arrived...” Rífa let out a depressed sigh, her body swaying slightly along with the rocking of her horse-drawn carriage.
Around the same time as Yuuto returning home, Divine Empress Sigrdrífa of the Holy Ásgarðr Empire had completed the journey back to the land of her birth, as well.
Her arrival signified the end of her freedom, so it could hardly be helped that it sent her into a melancholy mood. However, that wasn’t the only cause.
“I see the city’s unpleasant atmosphere has not changed,” she muttered.
Tents were set up lining the city’s large main street, packed full of various and sundry products from all across Yggdrasil.
Just a minute before, back at the walled city’s gate, there had been a great line of people such as traveling merchants waiting their turn to request permission to enter the city proper.
This was all indicative of a bustling city culture full of life; however, Rífa of all people knew most of all that was only on the surface.
For sure, there were more than a few beautifully dressed customers happily perusing the wares. However, that was only a very small fraction of people.
The majority of the people who could be seen walking up and down these crowded streets, who had been born in this city and now made their living here, wore clothes with no extravagance or color. Their faces carried dark expressions thick with weariness and lacking vitality.
If one peered more carefully into the city’s edges and corners, there were also a large number of beggars in tattered clothes and rags, crouched and pleading for the grace of passersby.
The unsightly truth became clear to the observant: A select few were enriching themselves while siphoning away the wealth of much of the citizenry.
“Well, it’s not as if I have any right to speak on the matter,” Rífa muttered.
She herself sat at the pinnacle of that exploitative system. She wore clothes more beautiful than anyone else’s, ate the most delicious foods, and lived in a palace more clean and luxurious than any other person’s home.
If she were asked whether she did any work that make her deserving of that lifestyle, she would honestly have to answer, “None at all.”
That was all the more true after she’d seen how vigorously that black-haired young man applied himself to politics. Even during her short stay with him, he had introduced policies and inventions one after the other in order to enrich his citizens as a whole.
She felt a powerful envy towards him in that regard. Was there no way for her, too, to do something in service to her land and people?
Those thoughts were especially strong in Rífa’s mind as she looked out at the city.
“Whew. Truly, the long-winded speeches of old men are something I cannot bear.” Rífa sighed with utter exhaustion.
The higher-ups in the imperial administration had finally finished lecturing her at length.
Of course, Rífa was completely at fault for this whole incident, so she had quietly listened to them go on and on with their little speeches. But over four hours of that had really worn down her mind, already tired from the long journey.
Now, all that was left was to return to her room and sleep.
With weary, unsteady steps, she began to make her way there...
“Oh, Your Majesty! You are safe! Thank goodness!” A figure ran up to her, shouting, then kneeled at her side.
As he ran towards her, she had instantly recognized him by his long, golden hair, tied in back and swaying like a horse’s tail.
Rífa’s face broke into a nostalgic smile as she looked upon her faithful vassal for the first time in almost four months. “Ahh, Fagrahvél! It has been quite a while, hasn’t it?”
Still on one knee, Fagrahvél raised his head to look at her. “Yes. Your Majesty has been dearly missed. Are you in good health?”
She could see tears trickling down his handsome face, communicating his heartfelt concern for her and relief at their reunion.
Rífa could not help but feel a warmth kindle within her own chest, as well. “Hee hee! You are the only one who would ever consider worrying about my health.”
“Your Majesty, that is not...”
“No, it is the truth,” Rífa said in a cynical tone, her shoulders slumping.
The high state officials had reprimanded her for causing problems to so many people by being absent from her public duties, and scolded her for her lack of self-awareness of her position as the þjóðann. These topics had passed their lips many times, like an ever-differently-worded refrain. But she had heard not one word spoken showing concern for her.
All that they had use for was the dignity and authority of the þjóðann, and the vessel for that authority, not Rífa herself.
That was something she’d always understood, but the experience still left her with a sharp pain in her chest.
Suddenly, a raspy voice called from behind Rífa. “Welcome home, Your Majesty.”
It was a voice that inspired dread in her. Her face twisted bitterly, as if she’d swallowed a bug.
She managed to muster her remaining mental strength and put on a social face, turning around. The man standing there was exactly whom she’d expected: A withered, skinny old man with white hair, leaning on a cane.
“Were you able to enjoy your time living with the Wolf Clan, then?” he asked.
“Hmph! So you already know all about where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing, then.”
“Why, yes, of course I have. You are my future bride, after all.” The old man, Hárbarth, let out an amused snicker.
Rífa, on the other hand, only scowled in further displeasure. The word “bride” upset her.
Rífa glared directly at the old man again, looking him up and down.
His long hair and long beard were both just as white as her own hair. She’d heard he was already well over sixty.
His face was creased with multiple layers of wrinkles, and the hands peeking out from the sleeves of his robes were nothing but skin and bones.
The thought that this was going to be her future husband was enough to make her feel sick.
Even so, she could do nothing to avoid this marriage. Rífa had a duty as the þjóðann to pass on and preserve her royal bloodline.
And so, this repulsive old man was the only option left to her; all others had been eliminated.
At a glance, Valaskjálf Palace was a gorgeous place. That was true, and that was exactly why an enormous budget was necessary to maintain that level of splendor. The standards of living had grown too high, and it would not be an easy task to reduce them again.
At this point, the central empire’s finances were so desperate that it could no longer make ends meet without the support of Hárbarth and his Spear Clan.
Indeed, things were so desperate that everyone knew how wrong and mismatched this wedding was, and yet nobody could raise a voice to say so.
In blunt terms, for the sake of sustaining the empire, Rífa had been sold off to that despicable old man, as a vessel.
She was going to bear a new þjóðann carrying his blood.
And the dreaded day of that wedding ceremony had already drawn quite close.
“Ugh...!” Sigrún grunted. “Felicia, be a little more gentle with that. ...Ngh!”
“I am being gentle,” Felicia said, her brow furrowed. “Really, you were so reckless fighting with your hand like this!” She carefully continued to apply her homemade medical ointment to the back of Sigrún’s hand.
They were in a room in Fort Gashina, a fortress on the border of Wolf Clan and Lightning Clan territory.
During the previous nighttime battle, the Wolf Clan army had suffered a major defeat, only barely managing to survive by fleeing into this nearby fortress.
A look out the window showed a scene filled with the wounded. No one had survived uninjured. All of their faces were exhausted and clouded with worry.
It was safe to say the Wolf Clan army was in tatters.
Still, the fact was that this many of them had made it here alive, very likely thanks to one person.
“There was nothing I could do about that. I had no choice,” Sigrún replied coolly. “The duty of the Mánagarmr is to always fight at the front line, protecting the other soldiers.”
Sigrún had taken on the role of leading the rearguard, fighting tooth and nail with incredible valor as the army retreated. Without her efforts, only half, or perhaps even a third as many, people would have survived to reach the fortress.
But the price she’d paid for it was high.
“Even still, you did not have to... look, do not blame me if this hand doesn’t work properly anymore,” Felicia said.
“That would be a real issue. There’s still a lot of work left for this hand to do. ...Urgh.” As Sigrún tried to clench her right hand into a fist, she let out a grunt and grimaced.
This girl was known for being stone-faced in most situations, and yet her expression twisted with pain. It went to show how intense the pain had to be.
That stood to reason, for even after suffering the wound to her right hand by Hveðrungr during their duel, she had continued to use and abuse that hand regardless. The wound and swelling had worsened horribly; Sigrún’s battered right hand was now swollen to almost twice its normal size.
“What are you even saying, in your condition?” Felicia replied as if chiding a stubborn child. “You just rest and heal for a while.”
It actually looked like that hand would have difficulty even lightly grasping anything. Heading out into battle with one’s main weapon hand in this condition would be nothing short of suicidal.
It was thus perfectly natural to stop her in this situation, but...
“You can’t expect me to sit around at this critical moment when our lives are on the line,” Sigrún shot back.
“But now that Big Brother has been sent back to his world, if the Wolf Clan troops were to lose you, too, then...!”
“That’s exactly why. If I disappear from my place on the battlefield, morale won’t hold.” Sigrún stood up in a way that said the conversation was over, and she donned the fur mantle that had been hanging on the wall nearby. It was the item that signified the Mánagarmr, passed down from one bearer of the title to the next.
Apparently, she had a deep awareness of the responsibility and weight that came with it. That was exactly why she was so resolute in her intention not to retreat from the fight.
Felicia gave a small sigh, realizing the futility of any further persuasion. “Ohhh, you really do only listen to Big Brother and no one else, don’t you?”
Still, even as she said that, she recognized the validity of Sigrún’s point. She had no choice but to acknowledge that.
Their army’s precious defensive tactic, the “wagon wall,” had been easily defeated, and the Wolf Clan army had suffered their first major military defeat in recent years.
And as for Fort Gashina, it had only just recently been attacked and captured by the Lightning Clan, sustaining severe damage at the time, and so its ability to function as a defensive stronghold was greatly reduced.
If the Panther Clan joined with the Lightning Clan and attacked together, the fortress likely wouldn’t hold.
And despite this crisis, Yuuto, the commander-in-chief whom the soldiers all revered, was not appearing before them. The pretext given was that Yuuto was recovering from his own injuries.
It would be a tall order to ask the soldiers to ignore their anxiety at this point.
And so if Sigrún the Mánagarmr were to disappear from the front lines due to injury, the men would see no hope of victory for the Wolf Clan. Falling into despair, they would begin to break down and flee, or surrender to the enemy; that outcome was as clear as day.
In the Wolf Clan army’s current state, a small trigger would be like a crack in a layer of thin ice, and lead to total collapse.
“That reminds me, Felicia.” Sigrún turned to her with a very serious look. “There’s something I have to tell you about, and this is a good chance.”
“What is it? Is it something good, or something bad?”
“I can’t say. That’s not something I can decide. It’s about that masked man, the one who’s probably the patriarch of the Panther Clan... Umm, just, try to stay calm when you hear this, all right?”
For someone who normally got straight to the point and never minced words, Sigrún was speaking in a strange, very hesitant way.
That was enough for Felicia to infer what Sigrún was trying to tell her.
“You are talking about my brother, right?” she said, with a bit of a smirk.
“Wha... You knew?!”
“Yes, though Big Brother decided I should keep silent about it. I apologize.”
If word spread in public that the Panther Clan patriarch Hveðrungr was actually Loptr, the former Wolf Clan second-in-command, the Wolf Clan would be forced to do everything possible in order to kill him.
That man had killed his sworn father, the most unforgivable crime. If the Wolf Clan were to let a kinslayer go unpunished, it would besmirch the clan’s honor, and weaken its authority both domestically and abroad.
Upon discovering that fact, Yuuto had felt he had no choice but to keep it secret because he hated war and wished to find a way to forge peaceful relations with the Panther Clan.
Even after the two clans had gone to war, he had chosen to keep the secret known to only a few select people, in order to preserve the possibility of a peaceful end to the conflict, and to keep from being forced into sustaining a continuous war.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Sigrún said, shaking her head slightly. “If that’s what Father decided, then there was nothing you could do.”
She seemed to accept that explanation as a matter of course, without any further personal feelings on that matter.
She wasn’t wasting a single thought on any foolish worries like whether she hadn’t been told because she wasn’t trusted.
That candid and detached aspect of Sigrún was a little dazzling to someone like Felicia, who focused quite a lot on worries and details.
Of course, it was that aspect of Felicia’s personality, that consideration to details, that allowed her to support Yuuto as well as she did, and indeed Sigrún was envious of her for it.
“Still,” Sigrún said, “although I don’t like putting it this way in front of you, that man is a terrible problem as an enemy...”
She looked down at the injured hand Felicia was now wrapping in bandages, her face vexed and bitter.
It might well be said that a soldier always lived with both victory and defeat, but for the woman with the heavy title of Mánagarmr, the Wolf Clan’s strongest warrior, it had to be incredibly frustrating.
“I’d thought that the man’s power was his ability to steal techniques from his enemies and make them his own, but that was completely wrong.” Sigrún spit out the words bitterly. “His real, most terrifying power is that in the midst of a fight, he can read his opponents completely, identify their tendencies and quirks, and see their weaknesses.”
Felicia was Hveðrungr’s — Loptr’s — younger sister by birth, and she knew the truth of Sigrún’s words well.
To use and master a technique stolen from an opponent meant also fully understanding how that technique can be overcome.
And that principle also carried through to his strategic abilities as a commander.
“Indeed, for him to be able to think up not one, but several methods to break through the wagon wall defense... with no flattery as his sister, I find his talent terrifying.”
“And he’s got that monster Steinþórr waiting at his back, the Battle-Hungry Tiger Dólgþrasir,” Sigrún said bitterly. “I have to say this is a pretty terrible situation to be in without Father here.”
“If we can hold out for a little while, we should be able to receive directions from Big Brother, though.”
Last night, the Claw Clan twins had been sent off riding for Iárnviðr with Yuuto’s smartphone in their possession. Those two would surely be able to make it safely back to the city without being captured by the enemy.
And Ingrid had been taught how to use the device by Yuuto, so she should be able to contact him.
“I see. That’s reassuring to hear, but... frankly, it’s questionable whether we can hold out that long.” Sigrún’s expression was still grim.
Even with the twins’ great speed, it would still take at least two days to reach Iárnviðr from Fort Gashina. Communication had to take place at night as well, so it would be five days in total.
Against a normal enemy, barricading themselves in the fortress would easily buy them at least that much time, but...
“The enemy has that, what was it called, tu, t-ture, torebset? The thing that launches rocks?”
“The trebuchet, yes.”
“Ahh, that’s it. Against that, this fortress won’t hold up at all.” With a deep sigh, Sigrún shook her head in resignation.
That machine could launch large rocks, bigger in size than two full-grown men, with incredible speed and force. Its destructive power was something Sigrún knew well, for she had seen it used against the fortresses of the Claw and Horn Clans in the past.
It was a reliable weapon to have on their side, but terrible and vexing once it was being used against them.
At present, they had no way to defend against it.
Sigrún breathed deeply, then gave a long exhale. “Hahhhhh... Looks like I’m just going to have to steel myself.” She spoke with meaningful resolve in her voice.
That determined look in her eyes gave Felicia a terrible feeling.
As it turned out, she was right to feel that way.
“I wanted to at least hear Father’s voice one more time before the end, but there’s no helping it. Please tell Father this on my behalf. Tell him that Sigrún fought valiantly, to the end.”
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