CHAPTER 1
Out of the Paradise of Witches
1
The central state.
A hotel room in the heart of the metropolis. Close to the Nebulis palace.
“Huh? That’s weird. Where did I put it again?” Nene asked. The Imperial Unit 907 member looked down at her wide-open suitcase and tilted her head quizzically.
Nene Alkastone. Her red hair, done up in a voluminous ponytail, and her large eyes left quite the impression. She wore a cheerful, friendly smile on her face. Though she was still only fifteen, her long, slender limbs gave her an air of maturity, like a model.
“No matter how many times I count them, I keep coming up one short…,” she muttered.
“What’s wrong, Nene? What have you been looking for?”
The female commander who approached her was Mismis. In contrast to Nene, an early bloomer, Mismis still looked like a teenager at twenty-two on account of her baby face.
“We have to leave soon,” Mismis said. “We need to meet Miss Rin in the hotel lobby.”
“Wait, Commander! Just give me a teensy-tiny bit longer to look for it!”
“What are you missing?”
“My towel.” Nene’s answer was a surprisingly homely item. “I can’t find one of the towels I brought from the Empire.”
“…Oh. Just that? You had me worried it was something important.” Mismis broke out into a strained grin. “I was convinced you’d lost your underwear. Just like I have.”
“Commander?! Wait, what did you just say?!”
“Oh, nothing. You shouldn’t worry too much about it, Nene. What’s so bad about leaving a towel at the hotel?”
“Hmm…,” she hummed.
“Was it special?”
“Not really, but I made it myself. And I did a really good job on it, too, so it was one of my favorites.” Nene folded her arms, looking uncomfortable. “I guess it’s fine. I can just make a new one. I do wonder how much it’ll burn, though.”
“…How much it’ll burn?” Mismis repeated.
“Yeah. With a blaze about this big.” Nene pulled out a lighter, which produced a demure flame when she lit it. “If I do that, the towel should create a giant explosion. I brought it with me from the Empire ’cause it has enough force to blow the whole hotel lobby to smithereens. You know—for self-defense.”
“That sounds more destructive than defensive, Nene!” Mismis exclaimed.
“I hope no one picked it up…”
“We need to find this thing now! It’s an emergency!”
“But that’s exactly what I haven’t been able to do,” Nene lamented.
Ding-dong. The doorbell of their suite rang.
“Hey, boss, Nene, we’ve gotta get to the lobby soon,” said Jhin, the silver-haired sniper, as he appeared from the hallway. He carried a travel bag on his left shoulder and a golf bag concealing his sniper rifle on his right.
Jhin produced a towel.
“Also, we found this thing on the floor in Iska and my room. Is it yours, boss?”
“Uhhh!” Nene pointed to the item and cried out. “That’s it! That’s it! That’s mine! Oh, when we had the meeting earlier, I must have—”
“What? It’s yours? Looked kinda weird and beat-up, so I thought it was the boss’s.”
Jhin started to pass the towel to Nene…
…but instead headed over to the hallway.
“It’s dirty, so I’m gonna toss it. This thing can go in the combustibles bin, right?”
“You can’t burn iiiiiit!”
“Put it with the nonflammables!”
Nene and Mismis both scrambled to stop him.
First floor of the hotel. Front entrance.
A section of the lobby full of tourists and businessmen.
“…Sistia?”
Iska opened an eye and glanced over when he heard the soft footfalls behind him.
There, in a nook by a pillar that held the ceiling aloft…stood a brunette. Sistia, an astral mage with the astral power of Echo and servant to the House of Lou. She blinked, her eyes wide with surprise.
“…How did you know it was me? Weren’t you turned away from me?”
“Your footsteps clued me in,” Iska explained.
“Well. I was expecting you to say that, but I’m not the only servant from the House of Lou who might approach you, whether you could hear me or not. Why didn’t you think it was Nami, Yumilecia, Ashe, or Noel?”
“Sure, but…” Iska simply gave a nonchalant shrug in response to her question, which anyone in her position would have asked. “We’ve been together at this hotel for nearly a week. I was bound to memorize your footsteps sooner or later, whether I wanted to or not.”
“You mean you’ve committed the sound of all five of our strides to memory?”
“Not the sound so much as the rhythm. I wouldn’t be able to tell if you started picking up the pace, though.”
“Weirdo.”
“…A little more positivity would be appreciated.”
“As a servant of the House of Lou, I cannot go about praising an Imperial soldier.”
She was truly unrelenting. Then again, this was probably how their relationship should be, since it was unheard of, nay, unprecedented for Imperial soldiers like them to be here in the Nebulis Sovereignty, the Paradise of Witches.
“So just to be clear, can you really afford to say ‘Imperial soldier’ out in the open?”
“I’m muffling our voices using my astral power, of course. Anyone more than two inches away from us wouldn’t be able to hear a thing.”
Her Echo astral power could draw in sounds. She had acted as their detector at the Hydra’s astral power research institute, Snow and Sun, when they’d been searching for Sisbell.
“We have received a message from Lady Rin. Though preparations took some time, it seems that you will soon depart. The airplane has also been arranged, as anticipated.”
“What about you?”
“We servants will go back to the safe house once you have left the hotel. It will take some time until the villa’s reconstruction is complete.”
“Got it.”
“Please be more concerned for Lady Sisbell’s safety than ours.”
Next to Iska, the brunette quietly leaned against the giant pillar.
“Lady Sisbell was taken to Imperial territory. You are certain about that, correct?”
“That’s all we can assume. It’s our one and only clue.”
According to Princess Mizerhyby, the Hydra had kidnapped Sisbell. That had been their goal from the start.
“Isn’t this what the sorcerer seeks?
“Get it out of him, will you? And ask him how he knows of the Gregorian Descant.”
Mizerhyby Hydra Nebulis IX, the next in line for head of household. Iska had successfully stolen one of her earrings.
…The Gregorian Descant, huh.
…I’ve never heard of it, and it seemed like Rin and Alice hadn’t, either.
It was probably a Hydra code word. Though it most likely referred to a plot to overthrow the nation, their top priority at the moment was finding Sisbell.
“Please make sure you bring her back.” Sistia lifted her head and stared, her intense gaze practically boring into him. “You told me this once: ‘If I can’t do it, you can take my life yourself.’”
“I’m not repeating myself,” he replied.
“That won’t be necessary. I only came here to confirm you did say it.”
The brown-haired girl stood up, then heaved a long sigh, as though letting something off her chest.
“And please take care of Lady Rin.”
“I don’t think any of us have to worry about her.”
“True enough. She’s strong.” Sistia forced out a laugh. “Lady Rin is more than just a royal attendant; she holds multitudes. All I can ever accomplish are chores, but she’s a member of the Astral Guard. She is one of the elite, further up than I could ever aspire to, and selected by Her Majesty herself. I should not have had any worries at all.”
Sistia turned. She merged into the crowd of tourists walking down the hallway, her retreating back disappearing before long.
Iska was left alone.
“…Wonder if Commander Mismis and the others are done yet.”
He shouldered the golf bag hiding his astral swords as he looked around.
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