Nebulis Sovereignty, Star Spire.
Most of the royal family members and retainers were asleep that night. In the dead quiet hallway, Schwartz’s loud voice echoed.
“My lady?! What happened to you?!”
“I’m back.”
Mira held unsheathed knives in her hands. Her battle garments were covered with still-wet bloodstains.
“My lady! Wh-where did you go?! Even Her Majesty was worried…”
“I’m going to bed.”
She yawned widely, then passed her knives off to her attendant.
“Please wash these for me.”
They were covered in blood. Schwartz took them in both hands and gulped.
“What kind of blood is this…?”
“It’s just paint.”
“No jokes, my lady!”
“It’s human.”
She spoke as though she was presenting the weather for the day.
Schwartz stared timidly at the knives after hearing Mira’s blunt tone.
“May I ask whose blood this is?”
“Schwartz.”
The princess turned around, running her bloodstained fingers right through her messy golden hair.
“I’m going to be absent from my official duties starting tomorrow.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
Had he not been on the princess’s floor of the spire, Schwartz’s shout might have woken all the sleeping attendants and soldiers.
She wanted to be excused from all her official duties.
But Schwartz wasn’t shocked because she was skipping out on her duties. She always did that, after all.
Normally, however, she didn’t ask for permission to do so.
“What has caused you such a change of heart? Why would you report that you are going to be absent ahead of time…?”
This was no trivial matter.
Her declaration had been unusual, but then again, it wasn’t normal of her to come home in the middle of the night covered in blood, either.
“Please tell me,” Schwartz urged her.
“…”
“My lady?”
The bloodstained princess refused to answer.
She paid him no mind and refused to stop looking up at the palace ceiling.
The transcendental sorcerer, Salinger.
He had sensed the clear difference in abilities between them, but he had still cackled despite that. He wasn’t like the Imperial soldiers, who retreated the moment they saw her face.
Her eyes shone like those of a thirsty stray dog.
“Is he going to show up again, I wonder…?”
She knew—he would steal countless astral powers, then appear again once he had perfected his countermeasures against her Ballistic astral power.
“…”
And she was ever so looking forward to it.
Mira didn’t realize that she was smiling just slightly.
Her eyes were filled with self-confidence, a belligerence for battle.
Just recalling their encounter warmed her.
He hadn’t broken down after a single blow, and he had come back stronger for the next one.
“Drop by soon…”
The strongest princess in history had found a clear enemy who would push her to evolve even further.
✦ ✦ ✦
“My wounds have healed…”
Salinger was in the small cabin, where he was hiding out.
Illuminated by the morning light coming through the gap in the curtains, Salinger flexed his right arm.
It didn’t bleed.
But it had only healed to the point that a scab had formed over the laceration. His arm was red and angry from the elbow down, and his abdomen—where he had been stabbed by the knife—hurt horribly every time he breathed.
“But this is good enough…”
He got off the bed.
That shocking night had only occurred four days ago. Even as he groaned in pain from his wounds, Salinger had been playing out simulations in his mind of fighting Princess Mirabella for nearly one hundred hours.
One hundred eighteen defeats and ninety-nine victories.
Though there was a slight difference, the odds were about fifty-fifty.
If only he could figure out the commonality that tied those ninety-nine victories together…
“Playtime is over, girl.”
The curtain on the second stage was opening.
After that humiliating night, their positions had reversed.
“I’ll take your astral power.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The Nebulis palace, market in front of the gates.
The skies were clear and the weather pleasant. Normally, the cafés and restaurants would be bustling with people on an afternoon like this, but at that moment, the main road was unbelievably quiet.
Few passed through the streets, and everyone walked quickly, speaking only in hushed whispers.
The civilians were frightened.
Word had gotten around that the sorcerer Salinger had finally appeared in the central state.
“Thank you for accompanying us, Princess Mirabella.”
Four people traveled down the main thoroughfare. A girl wearing a coat and hood to hide her face was at their center. Ahead of her were three security police.
“Four days ago, Janess of the Hydra Astral Guard was attacked by Salinger. He’s probably hiding out in this area. The general public is so frightened out of their wits, they won’t even come out during midday.”
“We also do our patrols every day…”
“We haven’t been able to catch his trail. According to our intel, some of his stolen astral powers are useful for hiding.”
She looked up at the three burly men, who were twice as large as she was.
Useless.
Mira murmured to herself in her head.
The security police were rugged and had impressive astral powers.
But they were utterly dense.
They lacked attention to detail. The weak had the ability to sense danger, much like a child could sense when their parent was in a bad mood from the look on their face. However, these men lacked that ability.
For instance, they hadn’t noticed that Salinger had already started tailing them.
“Well, it’s fine, as long as I’ve noticed.”
She wouldn’t tell the security police. If she did, they would show it on their faces or begin looking around in a panic.
……But why hasn’t Salinger attacked yet?
……Because it’s the afternoon? Because there are civilians around, even if there aren’t many?
She felt Salinger’s gaze.
The fact he hadn’t attacked them yet was throwing Mira off. The transcendental sorcerer wasn’t quite the man she imagined.
“Let’s wrap it up now,” she said.
“Y-Your Highness?”
“I’m famished. This is as far as I plan to walk.” Mira looked up at the three men, not slowing in the slightest as she asked them, “May we return to the palace?”
✦ ✦ ✦
Night wore on.
✦ ✦ ✦
Central state, city outskirts.
The curtain of night had lowered, and the lights of the shopping district flickered out one by one. The people had gone to sleep, and the quiet of night was disturbed only by the calls of insects in the countryside.
Salinger stood on a path bordering the farm fields.
He felt something.
In the near-lightless night, he saw a delicate silhouette of a person approaching him and heard the sound of their footsteps.
“A proper stage demands good lighting.”
There was a roar.
Salinger threw a fireball into the air and threw out both his arms.
“I’m impressed a princess like you can find a way out of the palace at night.”
“I try to act like a good royal on occasion.”
“Oh?”
“I happened to overhear the minister in the hallways, and do you know how they described you? ‘Garbage that needs to be cleaned up.’ That’s how the Sovereignty sees you.”
Illuminated by the vivid orange flames, Princess Mirabella pulled off the raincoat she wore and tossed it aside.
Under it was her old and disheveled battle uniform.
Though the garment was ill-befitting of a princess, as it exposed her thighs and shoulders, Salinger could feel in his bones that she had chosen the garment to have maximum mobility.
“But I was slightly surprised.”
Her arms hung loosely at her sides, and she cocked her head.
“Do you actually have morals?”
“What are you talking about?”
“This afternoon. If you had attacked me on the road, I might have hesitated slightly to use my astral powers because there were people around.”
“Ha! Of all the things you could have said!” Salinger held a hand to his forehead as he snorted. “The people are the audience for my performance. An actor who cannot respect their audience is second-rate!”
“I see.”
The girl reached around her back.
She looked dead serious as she unsheathed two knives attached to her belt.
“I’ll make sure to have that engraved on your tombstone. That the savage had some morals.”
Then she disappeared.
Or rather, she ran in a straight line so quickly, it appeared as though she had vanished into thin air.
……She’s staying so close to the ground, she’s practically kissing it!
……So this is why I couldn’t track her movements last time!
But he could follow her now.
That was because the fireball he had thrown into the air illuminated the entire area.
“This won’t be an encore of last time,” he told her.
“‘An encore’? No, this is the finale.”
A cloud of dust rose.
Princess Mirabella jumped, lit by the fireball that acted like a tiny sun.
“Ha! You’re incompetent if you think you can try the same trick as last time!”
In response to the girl hurtling toward him, Salinger raised an arm to the heavens.
His Water Mirror crest glowed blue.
“Ice blade!”
Crack.
A column of frost erupted from Salinger’s feet and covered the surrounding fields. Ice spears burst from the newly formed frost and trained on the aerial princess.
“Fire!”
“Turn.”
As the sorcerer bellowed, the witch whispered.
Though they were enemies and polar opposites…