Her blade was still sheathed, but the fact that she was able to point a weapon at the knight was a show of her resolve. Yusurika gave a gentle sigh, internally asking Carlos if this woman was truly worthy of being a future wife candidate to Lofus—she seemed a bit too brash and short-tempered.
“Are you sure about this?” Yusurika warned as she readied her wand. “You could get injured, or even worse, if you dare raise your weapon at a knight.”
“Then move,” Fol begged.
“I fear that you don’t understand my words. If you agree to leave right now without doing anything funny, I shall turn the other way for your conduct.”
Fol responded by swinging her cutlass down. Yusurika parried the attack, and this clash was all she needed to know that Fol could use mana as well. Realizing that this sort of battle was pointless, Yusurika swung her wand to deflect the blade.
Fol gasped, shocked to see that her cutlass was so easily pushed aside, but she didn’t give up and swung her blade again. Try as she might, she simply couldn’t land a blow on the knight and was easily tossed aside. The overwhelming difference in strength and skill was clear. Though Fol had experience fighting against monsters, she’d never really dueled against a person. Yusurika, on the other hand, was a Dark Knight who specialized in fighting other people. Fol didn’t stand a chance.
“You’re way too strong...” Fol grunted. “I thought you were just a healer.”
“I am a member of the Dark Knights, you know,” Yusurika replied. “If need be, I can crush a horde of orcs with a single wand, though I wouldn’t wish to do that again.”
She managed to easily parry the cutlass through her banter. The blade flew through the air and rolled onto the ground. Yusurika then pointed her wand at Fol.
“If you choose to run, I won’t give chase,” the knight said coldly.
Fol refused to give up. “I’m not running, that’s for sure.”
“I’m not particularly fond of knocking a lady out in a place like this, but I suppose I’ve got no choice,” Yusurika said, cruelly raising her wand in the air. “I promise to not hurt you if I can help it.”
A hint of kindness was laced in her tone as she swung her weapon down. Fol could do nothing but squeeze her eyes shut and brace for impact. Yet, the blow never came. When she cracked her eyes open, she spotted a wall of water protecting her, blocking the wand.
“What the...” Fol muttered, wide-eyed.
Yusurika stood there, surrounded by a cage of water—this was a high-level sorcery spell that couldn’t be easily cast.
“What’s going on?!” Yusurika shouted with surprise.
The knight glanced around frantically, fearing that she was under attack by another party, but no one else could be spotted. Fol looked up and spotted a seahorse floating above her head. The creature emitted a pale blue glow—Lunamaar, a high-ranking water spirit of the sea. In the tale, this seahorse had traveled alongside Fol.
“Why...are you here?” Fol murmured.
She’d met Lunamaar once before in the Devil’s Sea; the spirit had guided her to a nearby island and cave to take cover, but vanished before she could thank it. Lunamaar hadn’t appeared since, making Fol wonder if that had been all just a dream, but the spirit had once more revealed itself in front of her.
“Did you...do this?” she asked, pointing to the cage of water surrounding Yusurika.
Lunamaar looked bored. It turned away while it unfurled its curled tail and pointed it at the carriage where Lofus was, signaling Fol to go on ahead.
“Thanks!” Fol shouted. “I owe you one!”
She wasn’t sure why this seahorse was so helpful to her, having appeared twice now to help her out of a tight spot. But that was the least of her concerns right now. She took the helping hand offered to her and rushed past Yusurika, trapped within the cage of water, and stood in front of the carriage.
“Ugh... Wait!” Yusurika shouted.
Fol paid that warning no heed and grabbed the handle of the carriage door. With a deep breath, she opened the vehicle and leaped inside.
✶✶✶
Yusurika clicked her tongue with annoyance as she watched Fol board the carriage while she was trapped within the cage. The knight slammed her wand against the cage again and again, hoping to break the spell, but such advanced magic absorbed the impact of her blows and refused to budge. She angrily glared at the seahorse spirit, Lunamaar, who had undoubtedly created this trap.
“Spirit...” she muttered.
Even she could tell just how much power this seahorse had, but at least the spirit didn’t seem to have any intention of killing her, since the cage wasn’t filled with water and she could breathe in it.
Why is a spirit of its caliber helping Fol? Yusurika wondered. Spirits are known to be temperamental and capricious, helping or harming people as they please... Yet this seahorse was clearly on Fol’s team, going out of its way to help her. This was rather unusual for playful spirits. Perhaps this was simply what the spirit felt like doing for now, but it was also odd for a water spirit to be out of the water. The ocean was nearby, but spirits like its kind usually stayed by the sea and refused to leave it. Had Lunamaar also traveled so far to help Fol simply on a whim?
“No... Is she possessed?” Yusurika surmised.
A possessed person was one who was favored by a spirit and was thus enchanted by it. But Yusurika hadn’t noticed the presence of a spirit nearby when she’d spotted Fol in Roguebert, which further confused her. Was this spirit not always possessing the girl?
“I just don’t understand,” Yusurika muttered.
She stopped pondering over this question and instead imbued her wand with mana. The knight gave it her all for this one blow, one that was capable of shattering even the tough scale of dragons. The spell shook, unable to completely absorb the impact, but the cage remained intact.
“Even this won’t work, huh...”
Her strongest blow couldn’t crack the cage, and so she gazed up at the sky wearily. With a reluctant sigh, she took out another wand that hung from her waist and steadied both of her hands, imbuing both weapons with her mana.
“Frankly, I don’t like to wear myself out so much,” she said. “That being said, it seems I’ve got no other choice here. From the looks of it, a thousand of my blows should be enough to banish this cage.”
For the first time, Lunamaar turned to Yusurika, its bulging eyes fixated right on her. Moments later, the sound of countless blows began to ring out without ceasing.
✶✶✶
“Lofus?” Fol murmured.
The first thing she saw when she opened the carriage door was Lofus sitting on a chair, snoozing away. She extended a hand, intending to touch his shoulder to shake him awake, but she reconsidered and stopped herself. She thought back and realized that Lofus had likely not slept through the night, having returned to the village only moments ago. Once he delivered Fol to her house after the banquet the night prior, he’d gone straight to Stelia to rescue Norn. The thought of him pulling an all-nighter to save another person dissuaded Fol from waking the boy.
She took a seat across from him and rested her face on her hand as she stared at the slumbering noble.
“Why...” she whispered.
She trailed off, unable to finish. She had too many things to say, too many questions to ask. A single sentence couldn’t possibly convey it all. Why did you do so much for Roguebert? Fol wondered. Why did you sacrifice your left arm to save me? Why did you go out of your way to save Norn? Why did you try to leave without a word of farewell to us? Why? Why? Her heart was filled with the desire to speak with him.
The carriage violently shook.
“Huh?” Fol gasped.
She leaned out of the carriage window and looked back. Luckily, Yusurika was still trapped in that cage, but the impact of her blows was astonishing. That knight must’ve landed a powerful strike that shook the carriage... Ugh... She’s terrifying. Fol shuddered with fear when she realized that she could no longer hear Lofus’s steady breathing.
“Oh...”
He wore an inexplicable expression while he glared right at her. The shaking must have awoken him.
“M-Morning,” Fol stammered.
Lofus sighed. “Why are you here? Where’s Yusurika?”
“Um, some stuff happened. She’s outside.”
She glanced outside, and Lofus followed her gaze. He soon spotted his knight tirelessly swinging her wand at a cage of water with a glowing seahorse floating above her. He put two and two together, sensed what had occurred, and emitted another sigh.
“Lunamaar... I see now,” he muttered, his tone pitying Yusurika.
Fol tilted her head to one side. “Do you know what that thing is?”
“You mean you don’t? That’s more surprising.”
“Huh? Why would I know a seahorse like that?”
She frowned as Lofus stared at her wearily, but despite how upset she looked, she was secretly delighted to have this sort of mundane conversation with him. No matter how banal and dull a task was, it was fun, so long as she got to do it with the noble. A faint smile stretched across her lips, but Lofus immediately destroyed any sort of tender atmosphere that surrounded them.
“And? Why are you here?” he demanded.
“Why?” Fol parroted. “Why did you try to leave without telling us anything?”
“So what? Did you come all the way here to nag?”
“Shut up and answer the damn question.”
Lofus was silent for a few moments before he parted his lips and spoke slowly, carefully choosing his words. “Because I didn’t feel the need to meet you.”
The rejection in his tone was clear, and Fol gritted her teeth against the thorny remark. She suppressed the tears that welled up and glared at him.
“Do you...not like me?” she asked gingerly.
“I don’t like you. In fact, I despise you,” Lofus replied indifferently.
His flat tone and bluntly cruel words made Fol impulsively grab his collar and draw him close. She glared at his face as a single tear rolled down her cheek. As though to hide her weeping, she headbutted his chest before weakly burying her face in his body.
“But I like you, you know,” she said, her voice so faint that it could easily be blown away by a little puff of wind. “I love you, Lofus.”
Lofus hadn’t expected a confession out of the blue. He averted his gaze and muttered, “How foolish. We’ve only known each other for two days.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m only twelve.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m a noble and you’re a commoner.”
“I don’t care.”
“We live in completely different worlds.”
“And I! Don’t! Care!”
She gazed up at him, her eyes puffy from tears. She reached out and gently enveloped his face with her hands.
“If I reach out, I can touch you,” she said. “See? We’re in the same world right now, aren’t we? We’re not all that apart.”