Side Story:
The Trials of Leatoria
“HAS OUR GUEST gone home, Father?”
“At long last, yes. He doesn’t seem to have given up, however. Being a marquis, he seems to believe it his right to take you as a bride.”
Make no mistake. It wasn’t the son of a marquis who had shown up. An actual marquis had taken the time to grace the House of Aura, a low-ranked noble family.
He was there to give them the full-court press.
Although he had used the word “bride,” it was important to note that the man didn’t intend to take Leatoria as his second wife. He wanted to take her as his son’s wife, thus setting her up to marry his heir.
The third daughter of an insignificant house of barons would be marrying into a marquisate. There could be no greater example of a Cinderella story.
Given her status, Leatoria couldn’t hope to marry into the royal family or a house of dukes. Thus, a son of a marquis was the crème de la crème of her prospects. Any higher-ranking husband might create legal difficulties. It wasn’t just the boy’s rank but also his place in the family that was notable. Under ordinary circumstances, someone of Leatoria’s stature would be wed to the third son or younger. The eldest son, the heir, or the second son, the spare who would inherit the title should anything happen to the former, would never marry such a low-ranking noble.
In light of all this, why was the marquis so insistent in asking for Leatoria’s hand? The answer lay with the nanomachines.
During the all-out defensive battle against the otherworldly invaders in the Albarn Empire, the nanomachines had focused on Mile’s most photogenic acquaintances and projected their images across the skies of the entire continent. This had included the Crimson Vow, the Wonder Trio, Mariette, Princess Morena…and the Servants of the Goddess.
And this had propelled Leatoria, a member of said Servants of the Goddess, to continent-wide fame.
Unfortunately for her.
She was cute, prim, and proper, as well as being a noblewoman of marriageable age. Despite her frail looks, she had the courage to fight on the front lines to defend the world. With a swing of her giant metal club, she could knock monsters out of her path like it was nothing. She even possessed powerful combat magic that she could fire continuously in all directions. By all accounts, she was a Goddess of Victory.
Plus, she came from a long line of aristocrats. Even if she was the mere daughter of a baron, there was a world of difference between her and some commoner who had gained a bit of fame on the battlefield. Every noble or royal on the continent sought to bring her into their own country, their own domain, and their own bloodline.
Oh, yes—it wasn’t just the nobility. Even the royalty had begun hatching schemes to get their hands on the third daughter of a baron. The issue of status could be resolved by having her adopted by a count or marquis prior to the engagement…or so went their thinking.
Meanwhile, the king had also promoted Baron Aura to the rank of viscount. If the opportunity came around to grant him another promotion, he would become a count, thus saving the time and effort of arranging an adoption by a high-ranking noble before pairing Leatoria off with a prince. This would also eliminate the inconvenience of some irrelevant nobleman meddling in his capacity as the girl’s adoptive father.
So it happened that Leatoria was inundated with marriage proposals and adoption inquiries from home and abroad, appointment requests, and invitations to tea parties and soirees. She couldn’t possibly respond to all of them, yet if she picked and chose, those few she replied to might jump to the conclusion that she had assented to their wishes. As such, she had uniformly rejected all the inquiries she received. That didn’t stop the flow of visitors from coming by at all hours, and without warning, just like the marquis had that particular day.
Initially, whenever a much higher-ranking noble came to visit, Leatoria would do her part in receiving the guest. However, this soon proved a foolish endeavor, and she learned to hide in the attic until the visitor went home.
“What a quandary… I can’t set foot outside my manor, let alone return to my work as a hunter.”
Whenever she was enjoying a meal with the Servants of the Goddess or walking around town, she would end up swarmed by nobles pressuring her to get engaged. They even bothered her when she was inside the Hunters’ Guild or in the middle of carrying out a job. The situation certainly wasn’t conducive to keeping up with work. Rather than continue causing trouble for her party, she had chosen to take a temporary leave of absence from the Servants of the Goddess and hole up at home.
Baron Aura didn’t exactly mind that his daughter had been pushed out of the dangerous business of being a hunter. Still, as a doting dad who wasn’t ready to see his daughter engaged, let alone married, he also didn’t have it in him to celebrate this turn of events. It made no difference to him that these were ideal suitors from the upper nobility.
“You will never marry into another kingdom as long as I have anything to say about it, Leatoria! Not that our royal family would allow it in the first place…”
The royal family would never hand over their national treasure, the Goddess of Victory, to another kingdom, lest she fill that country with descendants who carried her eminent blood.
“Why not content yourself with an engagement to one of our princes? It would force all your other suitors to withdraw, and you could lead a peaceful life in our manor until your official ceremony. I have no desire to marry you off, but if it must happen sooner or later, we may as well take the option that allows us to live together in peace until the time comes.”
Oh no! This isn’t good! Leatoria felt panic rising in her chest.
If she got engaged to a royal, she would never work as a hunter again.
She thought fast. “Were I to become engaged to a prince, I would be summoned to the palace within the day to begin my princess training. After that, I would only be able to see you a few times a year at most. And it would always be in a formal capacity, in the presence of a large crowd…”
“Well, that settles it! No marrying any princes!”
The baron was an easy mark.
“But what options does that leave us?”
“Let’s see… Oh, I know!” Leatoria was struck with a bright idea. “I’m heading out on a little trip, Father!”
“You whaaaaaaat?!”
***
“So, you’re requesting our escort services for the duration of your trip?”
“Yes, exactly!”
At first, the Servants of the Goddess thought Leatoria had finally come back to them. However, there was a catch: She was approaching them not as a fellow party member but as a client looking to hire a team of hunters. Despite the initial confusion, Leatoria’s explanation made sense. Individual members couldn’t make these sorts of demands of their own parties, so instead she had submitted a formal escort request as the daughter of Baron Aura.
It was actually quite logical. There was nothing strange about it.
“The plan is for us to be a shield to fend off your suitors, huh? Okay, I’m in! Might as well get a share of that protection for ourselves, too!”
“Yeah!” the rest of the party crowed.
“Um, what?”
***
“And that’s our story. We’ve come such a long way to see you, Miss Mile! Please make us your servants!”
“Huh?!”
Despite showing up without an appointment, the Servants of the Goddess had quickly been granted an audience with Mile-001. Was it because the staff recognized their faces from the infamous aerial broadcast? Or was it because of something they said?
They had announced themselves and their intentions quite clearly, telling the attending priest, “We’re the Servants of the Goddess, and we’ve come to see Miss Mile.”
Generally speaking, only personal acquaintances of Mile’s used her actual name instead of calling her “the divine messenger”—which had perhaps made the priest aware that these were not just any visitors. He might also have been under the mistaken assumption that the Servants of the Goddess was a literal description of who they were, rather than their party name.
Whatever the case, they were ushered in to see Mile-001 immediately.
The sudden arrival of the Servants of the Goddess and their ensuing request had Mile-001 flustered. Still, it could have been worse. At least no one had come at her screaming, “You impostor!” or “What did you do with Mile?!” and attempted to strike her down. Indeed, her face showed mostly relief—because the nanomachines inside her had actively gone to the trouble of arranging her facial muscles in exactly that expression.
Mile-001 was wary after her past encounter with the Wonder Trio and Mariette, who had seen through her in quick succession. However, Leatoria and the other Servants had not spent anywhere near as much time with the real Mile, so they were more easily duped.
“Hmm… Your pesky suitors are getting in the way of your daily lives, so you want the excuse that you’re carrying out a mission from the divine messenger, huh?”
“Right. Since you can’t leave your shrine, we will report back to you on the state of the outside world as we broaden our horizons and engage in our normal hunter work,” Leatoria explained. “Were the divine messenger to entrust us with such a vital task, no one would dare stand in our way by trying to pressure us into a marriage. That would constitute a defiance of the Goddess’s will and might result in one being branded an enemy of the divine.”
“Good point,” said Mile-001. “Mariette had a similar idea. Great minds think alike, I guess.”
In truth, Mile-001 didn’t need any convincing. It had long been established that the nanomachines were not supposed to harm or otherwise disadvantage native life-forms, except in situations that involved the use of magic or a direct order from a superior. Here, it was the nanomachines’ fault that the Servants of the Goddess were in such a difficult position. And so, it only made sense that Mile-001 should help the Servants of the Goddess out.
She agreed to their plan readily.
Meanwhile, her priests would go along with anything that kept the divine messenger happy. Now that all of her former party members had absconded, they dreaded the day that she would decide to follow suit. If working with the Servants of the Goddess would get them on her good side, the priests were all too ready to assist.
At Mile-001’s instruction, they wrote up an official request form under the head priest’s name and even paid the Servants a commission, though it wasn’t a particularly large sum.
It didn’t hurt that the girls went by the name “Servants of the Goddess.” That had made a very good impression on the priests, leading them to believe the girls had always been devout believers.
***
“We did it! We got an assignment letter from Miss Mile and an official request form from the head priest! Now we can finally swat away all those pesky bugs who have been buzzing around!”
Despite the official form, the request had been made without the involvement of the Hunters’ Guild. This was not an independent request of the kind that hunters received directly from a client, cutting the guild out of the process. In fact, they had not received this request in their capacity as hunters at all; instead, it had been granted to them as devout servants of the Goddess. Theirs was a formal mission the shrine had given them at the behest of the divine messenger, in accordance with her blessed oracle.
To prove that they weren’t a bunch of fools spouting nonsense, they had a letter from the divine messenger herself and an official request form from the head priest.
Now that they had a sacred cause to guide them, they were invincible.
“All right, Servants of the Goddess! We’re back in action—full speed ahead!”
“Yeaaaaaah!!”
And that was how Leatoria shook off her suitors and resumed her work as a hunter.
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