CHAPTER 4
The Witch Who Gave Up Being an Imperial Soldier, and the Imperial Soldier Who Became a Witch
1
“This way!”
Omen, first laboratory.
He was now deep underground in the emergency shelter. With the many researchers in front of him, Iska pointed beyond a wall.
“If you climb up this tunnel, you’ll get to the surface. You’ll arrive at an Imperial forces tent!”
Kissing had created the hole in the wall.
Beyond that was a tunnel that Rin had created using her astral powers.
“Iska Big Bro!” Nene’s head popped out from deeper in the tunnel. “The first five arrived at the tent. Rin is showing them the way partway through the tunnel!”
“Got it… This is going even better than planned.”
It was going frighteningly smoothly.
Just as Iska had been about to say that, he had to swallow his words.
There were twenty-three researchers in the shelter. None of them had been injured and they had encountered no Hydra guards.
……We expected Mizerhyby’s troops to be waiting for us here.
……Or even Mizerhyby herself.
But when they had actually arrived, the researchers had been almost anticlimactically unharmed, and they hadn’t even found anyone watching over them.
“Ms. Mei! How’s everything there?!”
“Boring.”
Mei, who had been watching the corridor, kicked open the melted door and came back in looking unsatisfied.
“Nobody’s out there. I didn’t see anyone on the underground floor. I was kinda excited about Mizerhyby’s legion, though.”
“Um, Ms. Mei…!” a female medical officer in a suit carefully called out. “Just as I reported before, Princess Mizerhyby and her people all left at the same time. They took Chief Newton and went to find Kelvina’s research materials…”
“I know, Micky. You said it was the second building, northern area.” Mei held a comm in her hand. “We already sent over the bombs we had on reserve over there. So, how’s it look?”
“…………”
“C’mon, answer, Thorn Witch.”
“We are engaged in battle.” Kissing’s voice was faint.
Was it Iska’s imagination that her normally carefree tone sounded a little more rushed?
“Mizerhyby is in front of us. I see Chief Newton, a man with a beard as well.”
“Good. Then hurry up and capture them and come back.”
“That will take some time.”
Mei’s eyes narrowed into slits.
“Ms. Mei.”
“I know, Isk.”
Mei’s mouth slowly grew into a bold smile.
“So, even the Thorn Witch is having trouble with this enemy. Ah, well. Doesn’t matter what happens to the witches, but we can’t have Newt dying. Guess I’ll go check things out.”
“You think I’ll let you go?”
“Huh!”
Mei stopped in her tracks.
A heat wave grazed the tip of her nose. Violet flames scorched the ceiling, making it drip down onto them from above as several tons of rubble also fell over them.
The heat and the rubble closed off the corridor before their eyes.
“Are you trying to barricade us in? Ha! Are you that desperate to stop us?”
“Barricade? Oh no, this is a cage.”
From within the flames, they saw a strange shape.
It was a monstrous girl Iska knew well.
“Vichyssoise!”
“Heeey, Iska, the Black Steel’s Successor. You always seem to survive. Oh, isn’t there a little birdie named an Iska, too?”
The witch waved her hand as though she was greeting a friend she hadn’t seen in a long time.
“So you’re birds in a cage.”
She spread her arms wide.
Behind her, the violet flames grew until they howled and roared loudly.
“I can’t let you go forward. The interim head of the Hydra has reached the moment when she’ll see if she can become the true head of the house. You guys can twitter about over here in the meantime.”
The star, moon, and sun.
These represented the founders of the three houses and progeny of Alicerose, younger sister of Nebulis.
Though the three families supported each other in overthrowing the Empire, under the surface, they were vying fiercely in the conclave to claim the throne.
Their greatest enemies were not from the abominable Empire but rather their own flesh and blood.
“Isn’t it laughable, Aliceliese, Kissing?!”
Omen laboratory, storage facility.
There, Mizerhyby’s scornful laugh echoed throughout the space.
“The final stage where the three houses face off is in the Empire of all places! And in this gloomy, dusty warehouse! None of this is beautiful or refined! Now, my beloved legion!”
The Hydra princess took a step back.
As though to take her place, soldiers in gas masks and protective gear advanced forward.
They were her bodyguards, the legion of Dawn.
“Glory.”
Her mark glittered.
The astral crest on Mizerhyby’s forehead glowed and lit the foreheads of her soldiers like halos.
“Shriek, scream.”
That was Mizerhyby’s command.
Like a gigantic gong had reverberated, a shock wave traveled through the space, swelling like a storm surge.
This was bad.
The moment she saw it, Alice placed a hand on the ground.
“Ice, cover and block!”
A towering wall of ice formed.
The ice that formed in front of Alice covered her in all directions, forming a dome-shaped barrier.
Creak…
It began to make its own sounds under the pressure of the gargantuan sound wave that hit it.
“Uh? That wasn’t a decision made in the moment, was it? You must have done your research, Aliceliese!”
“I have a reliable source of information!”
She yelled through her ice barrier.
This sound astral power was called the Shriek. It far surpassed even the Imperial forces’ sonic weapons in destructive force.
……Being hit with it means losing consciousness immediately.
……Iska said he had the most trouble with this astral power. I’m glad I heard about it ahead of time.
In practice, dealing with this left her in a cold sweat.
Sound was a multidirectional attack that would bounce off the walls of the warehouse.
Even if Alice had used an ice wall to block it, the sonic waves would have spread in all directions, ricocheting off the walls and showering her with a sonic wave that would have made her collapse.
……It must be convenient to be in a warehouse.
……They don’t need to do much to get the sound to rebound.
“No.”
The sound of Mizerhyby’s voice conveyed her charming smile just faintly.
“They’ve always said ice and fire are in direct opposition. You thought I didn’t have fire in my legion?”
Roar!
At the same time Alice heard the sound of a loud combustion rip through the air, she saw the space in front of her barrier of ice turn crimson.
It was a chain reaction of explosions.
Hundreds and thousands of flames burst as they rammed into Alice’s protective dome.
The intense flames spread and violently exploded.
Crack.
When Alice saw a fissure break open in her ice, she doubted her eyes.
“You’re not too bad!”
“Aliceliese, please release the ice.”
“Guh.”
“We trade places.”
The ice barrier suddenly disappeared.
Alice was left unprotected as dozens of gigantic flames fell over her head.
“Erase.”
The flames disappeared one after another as the thousands of thorns Kissing had unleashed did just as she had asked them to.
“Tsk!”
Mizerhyby and her soldiers on either side of her showed their confusion on their faces.
“How infuriating. Since when have the Lou and the Zoa become so close?”
“What about you Hydra?”
Alice’s hair stood on end as she coldly beckoned Mizerhyby over.
“Leave the hostages unharmed, hand over the ampoules, and tell us where Lord Talisman is. If you fulfill those three conditions, we may reduce your sentence.”
“Hah! You speak like a queen even though you’re nothing more than a princess!”
“I’ll ask the queen.”
“Shut up!”
Mizerhyby smiled fiercely.
She pointed at Chief Newton, who was restrained by her people.
“What an adorable bluff. I am the one with a hostage. I have the ampoules of the calamity’s power. What do you have?”
“…”
“You don’t want to hurt the hostage. You also don’t want to damage the facilities. Of course. Any damage a Nebulis Sovereignty princess causes the Empire would be a great ordeal. It might even become the cause of an all-out war. So you’re thinking of buying time. You’re waiting for the Imperial forces to arrive.”
“I’m surprised…” As Alice faced off against Mizerhyby, she rubbed soot off her face. “You look like you’re angry, but is that an act? You seem so cool and collected as you observe us.”
“I am livid. But I enjoy being cold when I’m angry.”
Even Alice thought that Mizerhyby had analyzed everything perfectly.
She was so sharp, Alice found it vexing.
She and Kissing couldn’t use the entire extent of their abilities. If they did as they wanted, the facility would be destroyed without leaving a trace.
……And how would that look to the Imperial forces?
……I can see them deciding that witches are terrifying, then.
She wanted to avoid that.
She couldn’t spread more misconstrued information between the Sovereignty and Empire.
“But you’ve misunderstood. What Kissing and I are waiting for isn’t the Imperial forces.”
“Oh?”
“What we’re waiting for is—”
“You to lose power.”
Kissing’s eyes glowed.
She had been born with a very rare trait. Her astral crest was in her eyes, so Kissing had the gift of seeing the flow of astral energy.
“Mizerhyby, you have a great amount of astral energy that is large like the sun. However, when you give some of it to your subordinates, you consume your energy, which I can see.”
“…”
“This is a war of attrition. Aliceliese and I simply need to wait until you run out of power.”
“I’ll never run out!”
As she screamed, the warehouse quivered.
Along with her cry, Mizerhyby’s whole body surged with the light of Glory.
“You! Will! Disappear now! I’ll put a stop to this trifling battle between the royal families. Because I’ll be the one to win!”
In that moment, the hate Alice felt for the Hydra flickered out. The passion in her had been stifled as though it had been doused in water, and she felt her feelings subside.
Instead, another emotion replaced it.
“Mizerhyby, I was upset once to the point I didn’t know what to do with myself, too. I screamed and did some things I truly am not proud of.”
“Huh? Why are you suddenly talking about this?!”
Mizerhyby spread her arms out.
Alice allowed Mizerhyby to glare at her as she quietly faced the other princess.
She had remembered.
She had been angry and shouting. Back then, she had believed that the Imperial forces were fully to blame for the attack on the Queen’s Palace.
“Iska, this is what will end our battle.”
“We can only feel regret for the fate that forced us to settle things in a way we never sought!”
Yes, of course…
Back then, perhaps when she had viewed Iska with rage, she had felt the same emotions Mizerhyby did now.
But at this moment, she only felt she must reject continuing her crusade for such a meaningless reason.
“Come to me, Mizerhyby!”
That was why she yelled as loudly to the Hydra princess as she could.
“I’ll agree with you on one thing. I think this fight between the royal families is as asinine as it gets!”
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