2
Iska, Alice, Rin, and Kissing arrived at the Lord’s chambers to find that everyone else was already there. Meaning Unit 907 and Sisbell. Behind them stood Risya and Mei, the latter of whom looked quite peeved and was crossing her arms.
“Hey, witch girl. You’ve sure got some guts just breaking yourself out like that. “
“…”
“Did you just ignore me?!”
“Are you the Lord?” Kissing walked past Mei, who was glaring at her, and gazed up at the person behind the bamboo blinds.
The beastperson looked down on her in delight.
“Nebulis princess, what lovely eyes you have.”
The silver-furred beastperson put their elbow on their armrest.
“You can decide for yourself whether I’m the Lord or not. All I’ll do is talk. You came here for that, didn’t you?”
“This is about Elletear?”
“Yes, she’s the ex-first princess of the Nebulis, isn’t she? Something caused her to transform into that monster. I’ll start there.”
Lord Yunmelngen pulled out a model of the planet from behind them. The blue orb showed the oceans and the continents. The Lord pointed at the center of it.
“Take a look at the planet’s core.”
The globe split in two. It was broken up into layers: the brown crust, light green mantle, and bright blue core.
“The deepest part of the planet, what was originally the core, was where the astral powers once lived. Deep in the past, an irregularity found its way into the core. That’s the calamity that the Astrals fear, which they call the Planet’s Demise.”
The Lord pointed at the core.
“It also goes by another name: the World Enemy. Now, you may wonder why it’s a calamity. You can see the answer right in front of you. Just look at the state I’m in and you’ll understand. “
The silver-furred beastperson pointed at themselves. They were an abomination.
“This calamity transforms humans and astral powers into grotesque forms. I’m an example of that, as is Elletear and the eidos.”
The calamity remade living beings.
The Lord had turned into a silver-furred beastperson.
The princess had become a witch whose form was a shadowy mass.
Kelvina had grown gigantic tumorous wings and become a fallen angel.
It had turned astral power into eidoses of the earth.
And it had turned other astral power into eidoses of the sea.
“Wait!” Alice’s lips were pale. “Were the eidos monsters we fought originally astral powers?!”
“Do you understand the danger we’re in now? Yes. The astral powers were afraid of the calamity and fled the planet’s core. Ignorant of this, the Sovereignty believed the flight of the astral powers to be the blessing of the planet and took to calling them vortexes.”
“The Sovereignty…? Ignorant…?” Alice murmured.
A vortex was an eruption of astral energy. Deep in the core, far from where the Empire and Sovereignty were fighting over the astral energy, the astral powers had been trying to flee from the calamity.
“I see… Please keep going. Though I don’t want to believe it.” Alice looked up at the Lord. “So my sister was transformed by that power.”
“Elletear is an exception. She wasn’t transformed. She wanted to be changed, didn’t she? She was looking to become that way. I don’t know her motive, either. I think you might know more as her sister, Princess Aliceliese. “
“Well…” Alice wasn’t sure what to say.
Kissing took a step forward in the silence. “Please just tell me.”
“Tell you what, Zoa Princess?”
“I want revenge. At first it was only against Elletear, but it seems that someone also gave her the powers?”
“That’s right. And this isn’t a revenge mission. We’re looking to save the planet. You should be proud of yourselves for the undertaking.”
The Lord nodded.
“Until we reverse the calamity, every human being and astral power in the world will be corrupted. They’ll end up like me.”
“Your Excellency… When will this happen?”
“It already has.”
The Lord was quick to reply to Rin’s question.
“If you would like to see for yourself, then just go ahead and check. The Planet’s Demise has already made a visit to one place earlier than the rest. Look at the state of the polluted land of Katalisk.”
“Where?”
“You don’t know of it, despite being a citizen of the Sovereignty? It’s to the far northwest of the Empire. The land is so thoroughly petrified that it cannot support even vegetation or insects. In a sense, neither the Empire nor the Sovereignty have anything to do with it. It’s more barren than a burnt plain.”
The Lord spun the planetary globe. They pointed at a narrow region on the northwestern side of the continent.
“Katalisk is the most warped area on the continent. You’ll need a guide to cross it. They should be here soon.”
“Yeek!” Commander Mismis suddenly shrieked. “Wh-who did that?! Someone touched my butt… Nene?!”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Then Miss Sisbell?!”
“I’m on your right side, Captain. There isn’t anyone behind you.”
“…What?” Mismis turned around. Everyone looked behind her, too, but no one was there, just like Sisbell had said.
“Hmm? Oh, so you were there all along. Come here.”
The Lord beckoned to someone.
They heard a faint rustling, no louder than the flutter of an insect’s wings.
“I-is someone here?!”
“Hey, who is it? Who’s there?”
Iska and Mei turned and stared right in front of the bamboo blinds that the Lord was sitting behind. The air shimmered with heat haze, and a small person wearing tattered clothes appeared. They would come up to the average adult’s waist, at most.
“Wh-what is that creature?!” Commander Mismis leaped back. “Is that what touched my butt?”
“They’re an Astral.”
The Lord patted the Astral’s hooded head. They acted as though they were interacting with an actual child.
“I’m not sure if they’re the result of fusing with astral power a long time ago or if this was their form from the beginning. They’re not sure, either, and it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the Astrals have lived alongside the astral powers longer than anyone.”
“ ” The Astral clung to the Lord’s leg.
The Astral removed their hood; the easiest way to describe their face was that it resembled a fairy straight from a tale of fantasy. They had gigantic eyes, and their hair was every color of the rainbow.
“How adorable!” Sisbell shouted with delight. She stared at the Astral, who was still clinging to the Lord, with sparkles in her eyes. “It’s so fantastical and cute! Um…may I hug it? Or even take it to my room?!”
“ !” The Astral leaped up, shrieking like a bird and hiding behind the Lord’s seat.
“Ah… If you huff and puff and approach them like a predator, this is what happens…”
“I’m a predator?!”
“The Astrals are a fearful bunch. They live in a sacred land protected by the astral powers and typically never stray from there. Moving out to an area where humans live must have felt like a great and perilous journey to this one here.”
The Lord gave a wan smile. Then they gazed at Iska meaningfully.
“Though they’re cowardly and slight, the Astrals know more about astral power than anyone. They also crafted the astral swords.”
“They did?!” Iska cried, looking beyond the blinds at the Astral who was peeking at him from behind the Lord.
“That’s right, Successor. They are the ones who forged the swords that have saved you on countless occasions. But this isn’t just about the swords. What we’re talking about affects every human being and astral power on the planet.”
The Lord’s voice carried to the Saint Disciples Risya and Mei, as well as to the girls from the Sovereignty and Unit 907.
The Lord posed a question to everyone.
“The answer to the question of what will happen to the planet once the calamity awakens lies at Katalisk. So I ask you this: Who would like to go? Raise your hands.”
A tense silence followed the Lord’s inquiry. Everyone was nervous now that the Lord had asked them to raise their hands and demonstrate their willingness to go.
“…”
“Oh? That was quick, Zoa Princess.”
The Lord looked down at the girl who had raised her hand first and smiled.
“Ah, yes, if I recall correctly, you’re able to see astral energy, yes? Then this role seems most suitable to you.”
“This is relevant to how I’ll get my revenge, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Katalisk was destroyed because of the calamity. It won’t hurt to see it.”
The corners of the beastperson’s mouth raised in a smirk.
“Any other volunteers? What’s wrong, Princess Alice?”
“I believe there is no need for me to raise my hand…” Alice let out a dramatic sigh. Rather than raise her hand, she crossed her arms. “And I assume the same goes for Rin. Are you staying here, Sisbell?”
“I-I’ll go!” Unlike her sister, Sisbell raised her hand with gusto. “So please protect me, everyone!”
“More babysitting…”
“Hey, Jhin! Who are you calling a kid?!”
“The squirt right in front of me, duh. Oh, but I have a question, Your Excellency,” Jhin said, being uncharacteristically deferential as he addressed the Lord. As he posed his question, he kept Sisbell from grabbing him by pushing on her forehead. “Our captain is still unstable. What would you like us to do for her?”
“She’s unstable? Oh, I see.”
The Lord’s eyes widened slightly. It seemed they had just noticed that Mismis was clutching her left shoulder.
“So you’re the captain who fell into a vortex. It seems it’s taking quite a while for you to familiarize yourself with your astral power. Please let me take a look at your crest.”
“What? Oh, y-yes!” Mismis pulled off her outer layer. She exposed her left shoulder and tore off the self-adhesive covering her astral crest.
The mark glowed a bright blue-green. It was soft and round and was shaped like a twisty heart.
“Hmm?”
The Lord slowly started to move, sticking out their neck and shifting so far forward that they could no longer lie against their armrest.
“Hmm… Hmm? Oh. I see…”
“Wh-what is it? Is there something wrong with my mark?!” Mismis asked.
The Lord said nothing. They continued to stare at her crest with a sparkle in their eyes. They were silent, almost as though they hadn’t heard Mismis.
“Um… Your Excellency?”
“Eve would have been surprised to see this if she were here.”
“What?”
Eve was the name of the Founder. When the Lord mumbled that to themself, Commander Mismis’s eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open.
“Um, what do you mean?”
“The color, position, and shape are all exactly the same… Is that you, astral power? Or rather Alicerose? I suppose instead of choosing her descendants, she picked an Imperial in the same situation as her.”
The beastperson squinted as though remembering something from the past.
“Commander Mismis Klass of Unit 907.”
“Y-yes?!”
“That astral crest is nothing bad. You don’t even need rest right now, so you should go with them.”
“Oh… O-okay.”
Mismis bowed but still looked unconvinced.
The Lord had muttered such cryptic things. She’d been convinced that the astral crest was dangerous, so it almost felt like a letdown to know there was nothing wrong with it.
“Um… Your Excellency, do you know what my astral crest is?”
“I recognize it. The distant past.”
“What?!”
“Good. It looks like everyone here will be going, then.”
Instead of revealing the nature of Mismis’s crest, Lord Yunmelngen nodded to themself in satisfaction, keeping its workings a secret.
“Go forth and bear witness to the forbidden land where the Planet’s Demise paid its visit.”
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