“Anyone who dares to hurt my sister and try to steal her body is downright evil! We can kill the witch a hundred times and it still won’t be enough!” Fiene said, readying her bracers with a nod.
“That’s the spirit, you two! I doubt there’s any way for us to lose, but stay on your toes. Beat that witch down with everything you’ve got!”
Fiene and I nodded along with the goddess’s command. Ironically, the target of Lady Kobayashee’s blessing began angrily shouting at us.
“Sieg! Fiene! W-Would you please not spout such embarrassing lines in a moment as important as this?! To begin with, our opponent is the Witch of Yore. This battle isn’t about me, it ought to be about the good of our nation!”
“Don’t mistake me,” I said. “The kingdom is important. But as the crown prince, I should be holed up, away from the front lines. I’m here tonight as your future husband, ready for war because someone dared to hurt my beloved Liese.”
“I...um! I-I understand. If that is your will, Your Highness, then I swear on my post as your fiancée and on my pride as a Riefenstahl to protect you!”
Liese twirled her spear and steeled herself with renewed resolve. Something I said had lit a fire in her heart.
“There’s nothing stronger than a lovestruck maiden! Give it your all, Liese-tan!”
“Come forth, accursed witch! I shall strike you down so quickly that you won’t even have a chance to plague His Highness’s eyes!”
Lady Kobayashee and Liese’s voices echoed through the courtyard in harmony. What answered was a black fog that oozed out of the ground in the precise spot the gods had predicted.
“That’s the blight that surrounds the witch!” Lord Endoh cried. “Be careful, you’ll get weaker if you touch it!”
“Have Fiene and Art purify it!” Lady Kobayashee said.
“Art, purification magic!” I relayed the message to Art. He was one step behind Fiene, as she’d reacted to the initial divine order, but the two of them quickly bathed the area in holy light.
“And Fabby-boo should—oh, he already started casting! Nice! Everyone else is standing by until she appears, just like we planned! Oh, and Professor Leon’s fine on his own, since he’s resistant to the blight. In fact, his spells are really messed up, so don’t let anyone get in his way!” Lady Kobayashee ran through our strategy at lightning speed.
As she said, Fabian had already begun morphing his mana into a massive spell on the back line. On the other hand, Professor Leon AKA Karlchen had been standing right beside the witch’s spawning point. He alone had been immediately engulfed by the miasma as a result, but he was smiling without a care in the world. As a matter of fact, he was merrily humming as he prepared to counterattack.
“Nobody stand in front of Mr. Karlchen!”
I did my duty and notified the others, but no one had planned to step forward in the first place. Just looking at the black mist was enough to tighten up my chest, so none dared to join our masked friend. The fact that he was still breathing was unbelievable.
Fiene and Art used their holy powers to envelop us in a protective light. Slowly but surely, they pushed back all of the blight to the source. As they did, the air around us grew lighter and I could finally catch my breath.
But then, the miasma moved. The final remnants of the insidious fog balled up as if it were a living being, and flew straight at Liese.
“Liese!” I screamed.
“Lieselotte!” Fiene tried to reroute her purifying glow toward her sister, but it wouldn’t make it in time.
“Don’t toy with—what?!” Liese sliced through the ball of mist with her spear. The evil fog scattered, but a small bit managed to cling to her head.
“Liese!” I sprinted to her side.
“There isn’t any need to...huh?”
Liese tried to wave away the remaining blight and tell me not to worry. Instantaneously, her neatly tied ponytail burst to let her hair flow freely; the lirene that had been nestled within fell to earth.
“Ah... No, no... This...can’t be...”
Liese weakly shook her head and reached out to the fallen flower. Her spear fell to the ground with a loud clang, but she hadn’t even noticed.
I was no better. My eyes were fixed on the same thing hers were: the brilliant white of the lirene—of what had been a lirene—was now a hideous, withered black.
“Why? The lirene is...” Lady Kobayashee trailed off in shock.
“Is that flower important?” Lord Endoh asked.
“That’s the flower of Lirenna, the goddess who created their entire world. It can purify stuff and it’s Sieg’s seal—anyway, it’s a really important flower! It’s supposed to be a key item that you can use to restore a tiny piece of Liese-tan’s sanity after she turns... Oh no, what do we do?!”
This was the first time I had ever heard Lady Kobayashee sound so helpless. Every word was uttered through trembling lips.
“S-Sieg!” Liese’s scream brought me back to reality. “Please, return to the ballroom at once!”
Unable to understand what she was saying, I cocked my head to one side. Liese’s pleas grew more and more desperate.
“I’m begging you, run! If I fail to fend off the witch, the world will be safe so long as I die! But you? I can’t... I can’t let you...”
Liese’s hysteria was proof that something was terribly wrong. Her face was white as a sheet and she was violently trembling.
“Calm down, Liese. It’ll be all right.” I ran my hand across her back, but her jitters didn’t stop.
“I-I can hear her voice... She’s been speaking to me ever since I touched the miasma. ‘I won’t ever be loved,’ she says. ‘Sieg is going to leave my side forever!’”
Liese cradled the sullen petals in pain. It was true that lirenes symbolized me, and the one in her hand was horribly decayed; I couldn’t blame her for worrying. But even so...
“That will never happen.” My assertiveness caught Liese off guard, and she stared at me blankly. I looked straight into her eyes and continued. “Liese, you’re adorable beyond belief. Everyone here loves you more than you know.”
“Th-That’s right!” Lady Kobayashee stammered. “Liese-tan, you’re so cute that you charmed us across dimensions!”
“Why do you think everyone is here to fight?” Lord Endoh said calmly. “No one is leaving your side, let alone Sieg.”
They were exactly right. The dependable gods put a smile on my face.
“Let’s hold hands after all.” I sheathed my blade and squeezed her hand, but Liese still looked lost as she looked around us. “We can entrust all this sword and spear business to our friends.”
“Rest easy, Lieselotte.” The first to speak was Bruno Riefenstahl. “With my beloved firstborn and the king I will one day serve at my back, this blade will cut down any foe!”
The towering general rallied his men; I doubted that there was anyone else in all the land who could inspire as much confidence as he did now.
Baldur marched to his side and Fiene followed on his wing to take their places in front of Liese and I.
“If the main house is the sword, then we branch Riefenstahls are sure to be your shield. They raised me as your brother, and I swear that you’ll be safe so long as I’m still standing. Feel free to take a moment to sip some tea and relax.”
“Don’t worry, Lieselotte! I’ll make sure to power up this living shield of yours and repair him if he ever breaks! He might chip or crack, but I’ll fix him up like new! You just enjoy that tea of yours, sister dearest.”
The two of them exchanged their jokes with dauntless smiles. They looked at one another with fearless eyes.
“Fiene, go ahead and use all your mana on supportive magic,” Art said, waving his wand. He enveloped Liese in a tender light and added, “Healing is my specialty. I once cured a thousand wounds with a single spell—let me show off my skills!”
Art’s smile was as carefree as ever. There was recorded evidence of him healing a thousand injured after a natural disaster; the legend went that he’d cast a spell larger than our entire academy. I knew he wouldn’t let anyone here suffer so much as a scratch. The spell he’d just cast was already improving Liese’s complexion.
“Don’t worry, Miss Liese! Once His Excellency cuts the bad witch up, I’ll burn her to cinders!” Fabian’s adorable smile and voice were in stark contrast to the hellfire he was manipulating overhead. Even from afar, I could tell his fireball was made of ludicrously dense mana. He truly would burn all Liese’s foes to ashes.
“And at the end of it all, allow me to put an end to the witch’s soul. We wouldn’t want her coming back, now would we?” Professor Leon Karlchen’s subdued grin was similarly antithetical to the bone-chilling statements he was making.
“Liese-tan was so lonely in her memoir, and now...” I could hear a tear of what I could only presume to be joy welling up in Lady Kobayashee’s quiet voice. Slowly, she finally began regaining her usual strength. “Liese-tan! We’re rooting for you too! With all these wonderful friends and a prince who loves you, I know you’re going to be okay!”
“Liese, look at how much we all love you. The lirene may have wilted, but I’m still here. And I still love you as I always do. If that isn’t enough to best your worries, then all I ask is that you don’t let go.”
Whether from fear or weather, Liese’s hands had been cold. Yet as our fingers intertwined, they slowly took on heat.
You’re alive. You’re here, beside me. These were the emotions her warmth provided me, and I could only pray that she would feel the same.
“...My sincerest apologies. I appear to have lost sight of myself.”
Liese spoke with a steady voice as she squeezed my hand back. She straightened herself and rose to her feet with strength.