EPILOGUE 1
Recite the Nebulis Song, Losing Princess
1
The car ride from the family villa to the palace took around two hours.
Those two hours trapped in a car had never felt so long to Alice.
“Any word from the Queen, Lady Alice?!”
“No. Her device hasn’t run out of power, but it doesn’t seem like she’s in a state where she can talk.”
Alice couldn’t get in direct contact with the queen. Her mother must have had her hands so full that she didn’t have any time to call her own daughter.
“Hurry, Rin. Go three hundred miles per hour.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Pushing forty is all I can manage in the dark!”
Lights beaming ahead, Cadillac One screeched down the road.
Alarms blared. It was past one o’clock in the morning, and the shrill sirens shrieking in the inner city had to be coming from the military-police headquarters.
…I’ve prepared myself.
…These sirens tell me that we’re in a dreadful state of affairs.
It wasn’t the same as warning bells ringing in Alcatroz or Liesbaden.
This was the inner city of the central state.
They had the highest security in place, and the palace had a separate force of select mages with a twenty-four-hour patrolling system. Alice couldn’t remember a time when the alarms had gone off in this place.
“There aren’t any police officers on the roads,” Alice observed.
“I imagine they’re heading to the palace. Civilians won’t step foot outside when the alarms are going off. It’ll be more important to protect the palace than patrol the urban areas.”
“…Rin.”
How many times had they repeated this conversation? It must have already been four or five times in these last two hours.
“If the Imperial forces have invaded, how much damage do you think there will be?”
“Not much,” the attendant asserted as she gripped the steering wheel.
Rin wasn’t putting on a brave face for Alice’s sake. Her tone made it clear that she meant what she said.
“I imagine there is little damage to civilian homes and buildings outside the palace. More like the troops won’t be able to cause major harm.”
“…”
“After all, they must be operating in a team of a few dozen men. If the Imperial forces disguised themselves as normal people and tried to cross the border with a surplus of firearms, they would be caught in the baggage inspection at the border. They might be able to manage pistols and disassembled assault rifles. Neither of those can cause major casualties.”
“…You’re right.”
They wouldn’t be bringing in weapons of mass destruction, like missiles used to suppress the battlefield. That was impossible.
Simple weaponry would prove no match for the astral corps. Even if the Imperial troops launched a surprise attack, the mages would curb the damage to the bare minimum.
“But that doesn’t apply to Imperial soldiers who don’t use guns,” Rin clarified.
“…You mean like Iska?”
“No, I don’t mean swords. Some of them have silent killing techniques that make use of knives and a person’s bare hands. I believe that is the favorite method of a certain assassin—Saint Disciple Nameless.”
“There is no uncertainty in my mind that he’s there. He would never pass up on an invasion.”
Nameless was an enemy. Alice couldn’t say they hadn’t crossed paths before.
If he was able to take them by surprise, even a descendant of the Founder would not come out unscathed.
“But I don’t think there are many masters of his techniques,” Alice said, hopeful.
“One is enough. After all, the enemy will be after the queen.”
There was something bitter in Rin’s tone.
“There might not be much damage done to the Sovereignty as a whole, but the royal family is a separate matter. Even if no citizens are injured, the entire country would collapse if the queen were to fall,” Rin explained.
“…You’re right.”
With this Imperial raid, the people’s faith in the Lou would drop. If the queen fell now, the royal family would have a near impossible time recovering from the upset.
“Lady Alice, we’re leaving the city.”
They were passing through the urban area, which was densely packed with houses for the affluent and commercial buildings. Their field of vision opened suddenly, and the roadway doubled in size. They were on public land now. They could see the military-police headquarters on the sprawling grounds.
“From here on, I’ll go sixty miles per hour. Lady Alice, please fasten your seat belt.”
“You can go double that as far as I’m concerned. Hurry, Rin.”
On the horizon ahead, the four spires seemed to pierce the heavens, standing stark against the crimson skies.
A sunset this late at night? Alice wondered to herself, taking in the red color saturating the Nebulis palace.
“No!” Rin was the one who let out a hoarse breath. “It can’t be! This is impossible. How many weapons did the Imperial forces manage to sneak in?!”
“…You’re kidding…”
Fire. Alice pressed a hand on the window of Cadillac One. She forgot to even blink, eyes boring into the devastation before her.
The palace was engulfed in flames.
Scarlet embers fanned through the air. Moon Diadem, the midair corridor that connected the Queen’s Shrine with the Moon Spire, came crashing down with a deafening groan.
“? ”
Words couldn’t come to her.
Until Alice had seen it with her own eyes, there had been a hint of hope in her heart.
The palace had the best astral mages in wait, and in its vicinity were the descendants of the Founder, including the queen and the Houses of the Zoa and Hydra.
She didn’t need to fear that the palace would be invaded.
But that had been…a wish that would go ungranted, Alice realized.
2
Nebulis Sovereignty. Star Spire.
Screams and shouted arguments flooded the Lou grounds.
Detonations were going off everywhere. The Imperial units in hiding launched surprise attacks on the corps members who were here to extinguish the fires that raged near the palace.
Small fights were breaking out among them.
The whole time, blistering flames ate away the courtyard lawn.
“I knew the fuel tanks in isolated storage would be their initial target. Even the palace’s best mages would have a hard time extinguishing large fires… I’m just happy that everything went to plan and they successfully mounted the attack.”
“Lady Elletear! Lady Elletear!”
“They don’t have to be violent. They just have to protect the flames from the firefighting crews. With time, the flames will spread and become a bigger threat than the Imperial forces themselves.”
“Lady Elletear! Please open the door! The Imperial forces have launched a surprise attack on us. You must take refuge—”
Elletear leaned against the window of her room. She smiled faintly as she watched the tumult below her.
“And then there is Lord Talisman. I wonder if he has captured Sisbell.”
“Lady Elletear! The Imperial forces have gotten their hands on fuel. The flames are coming from the parking area on the grounds!”
Someone shouted at her from beyond the door.
Banging on the door was a retainer getting more desperate by the minute. Someone who was a close associate even among the aides. Someone who had served the family for a long time and trusted the current queen.
“Minister Wols.”
“L-Lady Elletear! Hurry! This way!”
“You need not worry.”
“…What?”
“You should take refuge ahead of me. The enemy is after the Queen’s Palace, so don’t go near it. We don’t need civilians to get hurt.”
“…And you, L-Lady Elletear…?”
“I’ll go later.”
After she saw the raid for herself.
How would the minister have reacted if Elletear had said that?
“I wonder if the Saint Disciples have reached the Queen’s Palace yet. I would hate for too many people to get hurt. That’s not my style. But it would make me happy if they could finish off the queen quickly.”
Elletear stroked her finger on her chin, thinking.
“I need to get ready soon.”
She knew no one would understand her true intentions…that this was her way of “purifying” the Sovereignty.
“Lady Alice’s astral powers are already so great. She is certainly fit for the next queen!”
“Lady Sisbell has the omniscient power to see through all. We need wisdom, not military power. She is queen material.”
“Shh. The eldest princess is coming. We can’t let her overhear this conversation.”
“…Alice. Sisbell. Mother.”
Elletear planted her hand on the window frame and looked over the domain, thinking about her beloved family. She cared about them. Even now, her love for them was genuine.
That said, she had always been the black sheep.
“All the retainers fawned after you for your natural-born astral powers. You could never understand my feelings, as I watched you all from behind.”
Elletear had observed her sisters as they were celebrated for their astral powers.
She had endured the humiliation.
When she’d hear the retainers gossiping about her, she’d scramble into her room, holding back tears. She would dive into her bed, where she would weep, inconsolable.
Why?
Why had she been the only one born with such a pathetic astral power?
Even her own mother could never empathize with her.
The queen was like the others. Those blessed with potent powers could never understand what it felt like to be born a loser.
“Did you think you had no supporters in the palace, Sisbell? You were wrong. I really had no one in here.”
She had no promise of becoming the queen and no one who followed her with all their heart. Elletear had always been alone. It was she who had been branded a loser at birth.
She had worked harder than anyone else—in etiquette, education, and intellect. She was desperate to achieve anything possible through effort. Even that didn’t change her fate. She could never become queen.
Her astral power was too useless.
And that single factor made Elletear a failure.
“Alice, Sisbell, Mother… You must have thought this country would never collapse under your rule. But you were gravely mistaken.”
Oh, overconfident bloodline of the Founder…
Behind the shadows of their constant glorification of the Sovereignty as the paradise for all astral mages, there were losers like the eldest princess, pushed aside by the royal family.
Think of the anguish. The grief. All the bitter tears.
They would come to see the strength of a true witch who overcame total despair.
“Your misfortunes were your potent powers. Those won’t change anything or bring forth a new era.”
There was no paradise for astral mages in the Nebulis Sovereignty.
It was a dream within a dream.
An ephemeral fantasy of what utopia looked like.
“Tonight, the palace will go under in flames. I’m fine being the witch who lights these fires…if it’s necessary for heading toward true paradise.”
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