Meanwhile, in the monster-infested forest in the Skyte region, where the Western Empire was closing in...
“Mmm... Nngh...”
The king, the most important person in the kingdom, had gone mad from an encounter with one of the Skyte region’s usual monster denizens and had been knocked out by Kongming’s powerful paw pad, then been stripped of his belongings by Emma. He’d finally regained consciousness.
“Your Majesty!”
“E-Emma?” The first thing that popped into the king’s vision was a smiling, frail, young noblewoman. She was the daughter of a count and known to all. She never should have set foot in such a dangerous forest. “Wh-Why are you here?!”
“Oh, I’m so glad! You’ve regained your sanity again!” Emma giggled with a perfect smile that absolutely did not belong in a forest like this. She peered at the king’s face with a hand on his chest.
“You kinda went a little... Er, a bit... Okay, look, you lost your mind because of the monsters here.” The king could see Leonard’s relieved face behind Emma. His blood had run cold when the Hunting Techniques instructor rushed to find him. When Leonard regrouped with the others, he’d been absolutely gobsmacked to see Kongming, Emma, and their fellow noblewoman friends. William explained the whole situation, and naturally, it was enough to make the poor man’s head spin. He’d tried to get Emma to back away because, if the king woke up still in his berserk state, she would have been in danger, but Emma stubbornly refused to leave his side. The king waking up with his wits about him gave some much needed relief to Leonard’s stretched-thin nerves.
“Your Majesty, I apologize for asking you this after you’ve just awoken, but I have some questions I need to ask you for prudence’s sake,” Arven asked from a little distance away. It was his own little secret that he’d been gripping his bow tightly, ready to strike the king down if anything could possibly bring harm to Emma. (It turned out the king’s life was in danger whether the Western Empire arrived or not.)
“Huh? Oh, uh... Nothing really hurts in particular.” The king was still unaware of what exactly had happened to him, but he answered Arven’s questions in earnest.
“Lady Emma truly is an angel... Did you see how devoted she was to nursing the king back to health?”
“No matter how Count Leonard tried to convince her she’d be in danger, she wouldn’t leave his side for a second...”
“She just stayed there, stroking his body while he was still unconscious...”
As the king was undergoing Arven’s interrogation, the Skyte hunters and the knights accompanying the king were all praising Emma’s actions. If he’d gone mad again, it really would have been dangerous. Yet even after seeing his rampage with her own eyes, Emma had shown no fear. Rather, she’d had a smile on her face the whole time as she’d treated him...or so it seemed to them.
“Are we sure Lady Emma isn’t a true saint?”
Going against the church’s teachings came with the risk of being branded a heretic, yet everyone there had to agree.
Well, except two people. George and William happened to be listening in on it too.
“We never could get sis away from those muscles, huh? Er, I mean the king.”
“Y’know, for all her insisting that she didn’t want to consummate anything... I’m pretty sure the only reason she misheard any of that was because she was self-conscious about wanting to.”
The two brothers’ troubles really never ended. Both of them could only sit there with indescribably bitter expressions.