EPILOGUE 1
What Are You Saying Happened?
Dawn broke.
The glimmer of the astral powers that had taken to the skies twinkled as they returned to their home.
As that ethereal sight continued…
“Phew. We somehow won! Did you see that, Iska?!”
She wiped the sweat from her glistening brow.
“I suppose that was the eidos of the sun? Ours had a moon mark on it, so I think it was an eidos of the moon. It created illusions that multiplied when hit, so we couldn’t simply shoot or attack them with guns and astral power. It was a fairly difficult opponent. I was surrounded by an infinite number of illusions. It even left me in quite the predicament, but then I turned the tables, of course! I realized that the illusions were similar to Sisbell’s Illumination. That meant their weakness had to be— Wait, are you listening, Iska?! This is important!”
“……Huh?”
He turned around.
“What’s wrong, Alice?”
“Nothing’s wrong, but I was in the middle of telling you all about my courageous fight!” Alice dramatically folded her arms.
While Iska had been fighting his duel to the death, Alice had been waging a pitched battle of her own in the Astrals’ homeland, which had also been attacked by an eidos.
“Now, this is where the real fight starts. So, how do you think I pulled through against the eidos of the moon? Through some reverse psychology, hard work, friendship, and some crying!”
“Uh, sorry, but I need to report to Commander Mismis and Ms. Risya.
“Then we can resume this right after you’re done.”
“You really want to tell me that badly?!”
“…”
That single statement made Alice stare intently at Iska. She seemed very, very displeased.
“Wh-what?”
“It’s fine. It’s nothing, in fact.”
She turned her face away from him. In her heart of hearts, she had really been hoping for at least a “Great job, Alice!”…
“Sister!”
“Hngh?!”
Someone clamped their hands on either side of her face and gave cheeks a good squeeze. That was her sister, who had attacked her from behind.
“Wh-what are you doing, Sisbell?!”
“I should be asking you that! I was the one who noticed that the eidos’ weakness was similar to Illumination’s!” Sisbell placed a hand on her hip and held her chest high. “This is the age of the little sisters! I’ve definitely surpassed my older sisters!”
“Lady Sisbell.” Behind Sisbell, Rin let out a resigned sigh. “You tripped as you were trying to flee and were immediately captured by the eidos. You had a deplorable time. Who helped you then?”
“W-well…”
“Lady Alice did. Had she not been there, you would have been trampled.”
“Th-the details matter not! I contributed a great deal, and that is a fact…Isn’t that right, Jhin?! Right?!”
“Huh?” The silver-haired sniper made a show of reluctantly turning around. “What do you want?”
“I contributed greatly to our efforts, did I not?!”
“…”
“Why aren’t you saying anything?!”
As that conversion continued in the sidelines, Alice sneakily produced a small comm that was connected to the Sovereignty. Katalisk was an undeveloped land. The signal there was exceedingly weak, so calls were nearly impossible to make.
“Her Majesty?”
The screen showed a call from her mother—several of them, in fact. Because of the poor signal, the comm had updated all at once the moment it happened to regain a signal.
There were thirteen missed calls in total.
They had all come within the last few hours. Based on the number of them and on how closely they had been made, the issue was likely of great urgency.
……Did something terrible happen at the palace?
……What could be so important that Mother needed to call that many times?
What in the world could have happened?
“Rin.”
“Yes? What do you require?”
“As soon as we get out of Katalisk, we will call Her Majesty. Remind me.”
Once she told her attendant that, Alice gripped her comm.
Just what was her mother so urgently trying to tell her?
A half a day later, upon hearing what her mother had to say, Alice doubted her ears.
The Zoa and the Hydra had both sent troops toward the Empire.
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