Ciara gaped at him. “B-But... I am a Lorsted maid...”
She sank to her knees.
But Marquess Donquis was no longer paying her any attention.
“Butler! I am not going to let Nina slip through my fingers!”
“V-Very good, my lord.” The butler raised a hand, and a wall of knights and mercenaries took form in front of Nina and her friends, blocking their escape.
At this point, Emily resigned herself to the facts. This was just how nobles did things.
“It doesn’t look like he’s going to honor his promise, Astrid,” she said. “I assume you’ve got a backup plan, right?”
She and Tien checked behind them. There were the unnatural depressions in the ground, and beyond those, the towering walls that surrounded the estate.
“I absolutely, definitely...do not! I never considered that he’d break his word so easily.” Astrid laughed apologetically.
“Astrid?!”
“I’m sorry,” Nina said. “This is all my fault.”
“No, it is not,” Tien told her. “This is because, in the end, nobles are all scum.”
“Hey!” Donquis shouted, pointing at Tien. “I heard that!”
“Chi is not ashamed. You are lolicon scum!”
Donquis, turning scarlet with fury, made a noise like a kettle boiling.
“Um, Tien...” Emily said. “Do you know what that means?”
“No, but you said it, so Chi knows it must be very insulting.”
I’m gonna get you back for that, Emily thought. But now wasn’t the time.
“Anyway...” Astrid said. “Care to kick things off, Emily?” The look she gave Emily said everything it needed to.
Emily sighed. “I didn’t want to make a scene, but here we are.”
“I guess we’re officially fugitives now.”
“What?!” Nina, picking up on the alarming direction of Astrid and Emily’s conversation, couldn’t help but speak up. “N-No! You mustn’t! I’ll agree to work for the marquess—that’ll resolve everything, won’t it?!”
“If that’s what you really want, I won’t stop you,” Emily said. “But we’re not done with our journey yet, are we? Aren’t there more places you want to see?”
“I...” Nina was lost for words.
“You haven’t seen a single one of the seven great views of the world yet,” Astrid added. “Or visited any of the six ancient capitals!”
“B-But...”
“Are you not going to help find Chi’s mother and father?”
“Gaaah...”
Tien’s words felt like a bit of a low blow, but they did the trick of shaking Nina’s resolve.
“I do...want to keep traveling with all of you...” she admitted.
“Heck yeah! There’s the answer I wanted to hear!”
“Thank you for telling the truth, Nina. I’m proud of you.”
Tien nodded in approval.
With that, Astrid put a protective arm around Nina. Tien placed herself between them and the knights, while Emily turned to face the walls.
There was no one there—in other words, she could cast magic and no one would get hurt.
“Hey, is she a mage?” said a knight.
“Don’t let her finish an incantation!”
They charged forward with a roar, but they were still a way off, and Emily knew tacit casting. She had plenty of time.
But just as she was about to cast her spell, a booming voice rang out.
“My lord marquess! So this is where you were hiding!”
Despite her distance from the speaker, Emily felt like she’d had an electric shock. The voice was so loud that it rooted everyone to the spot.
Striding heavily toward them was a giant of a man. He had to be at least two meters tall—even the broad-chested manservant from earlier looked like a child next to him. His close-cropped hair was a deep green, and his face was well tanned, bearing a number of scars.
He was clad in a knight’s raiment embroidered in glittering gold thread, and at his waist was a blade that looked far too slender and delicate for a man of his bulk, although it was actually longer and broader than any of the swords the other knights and soldiers carried. An array of medals hung at his chest.
“C-Count Grinch?!” Donquis spluttered. “What are you doing here? This is my house!”
“Yes, your men tried to stop me, but I didn’t want to wait so I made them let me in!” The count roared with laughter.
Now that he mentioned it, there were three soldiers clinging to his waist that he must have dragged with him from the gate. He didn’t seem to notice them.
“Well, I’m currently occupied, so if you don’t mind, I’ll ask you to leave,” Donquis said. “I don’t care if you’re the knight commander, you hear?”
“Loud and clear, Marquess! I’ll go as soon as I’ve settled my business.”
“What business?”
“I’ll just take that maid and be on my way.”
Count Grinch, the knight commander—in other words, the most important knight in the empire—pointed straight at Nina.
“M-Me?” Nina gaped. The last thing she’d expected was for her name to come up.
“That’s right, Donquis here isn’t the only one with his eye on you!” The count roared with laughter again.
“I won’t stand for this, Grinch! I don’t know who’s giving you your orders, but I got her first!”
“Ah, Marquess,” the count said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid you’re not going to get your way on this one.”
“Forget it! I don’t take orders from the knight commander! I am head of the eminent house of Donquis—a marquess of the Yupiter Empire!”
“Alas,” the count said, “it is that empire that now summons Nina.”
“Eh? D-Don’t tell me...”
All through their conversation thus far, the marquess had seemed sure of getting his way. He wasn’t remotely cowed by the knight commander. But now, he began to sweat.
Count Grinch casually drew a seal from his pocket that bore a crest of a sun and moon connected by a sword from which concentric circles radiated out. There was no mistaking it—that was the crest of the Yupiter Empire. And there was only one family who could use that seal.
The count then, in the tones of an official proclamation, made his orders known to all.
“Her Imperial Majesty, our empire’s sun and moon, commands that the maid Nina be brought before her!”