Pomette, who’d been close to Celestia, rediscovered a particular kind of pain. That of someone who’d always been there for pointless chatter, for warmth, for normality, vanishing without warning.
She’d loved watching Cress and Celestia together, their easy closeness and playful back-and-forth. After Celestia disappeared, Executive Third Rank Cress’s face never truly brightened again.
Then, half a year ago, Celestia was sighted in Jade, a far-northern city.
Giather Cormode had attempted to communicate with her through his summoned beast, the Frost Giant Frimslus, but Celestia hadn’t so much as acknowledged him. Every attempt failed, brushed aside as if it meant nothing. The church’s upper ranks reached a grim conclusion: she’d been brainwashed by some unknown method.
To have a former comrade turned into an enemy’s puppet was an insult too bitter to swallow.
And for it to happen to Celestia, an earnest sister who embodied the orthodox conscience, made it unbearable.
In the end, they’d found no further trace of her after that sighting six months prior. The Aros Temple Cult’s movements had also gone eerily still, and the days that followed became a slow grind, the kind that wore down the heart.
Still, in the middle of that attrition, Pomette and a few others had something they secretly clung to.
Watching Marietta grow.
To Pomette, the girl who had survived the Metasim and Daskel tragedies felt like something that could fill the hollow Celestia had left behind, even if only a little.
Marietta Vallières was still only fifteen. And yet her shoulders carried tragedies far too heavy: the deaths of family and friends, the annihilation of her hometown.
Maybe because of that, maybe because she refused to let her grief be the end of her story, Marietta volunteered to become a soldier of the Kenneth Orthodoxy. Her results were so exceptional that Pomette herself took her on, giving her special training personally.
Pomette glanced at her as they walked. “Earlier… I’m sorry. I cut into your time with them.”
“It’s fine. I can’t afford to take even a single day off from training.”
Pomette’s golden ponytail swayed as she drew her sword. Marietta straightened, drew as well, and called out clearly, “Please spar with me!”
Lady Knight Pomette held authority over the Kenneth Orthodoxy’s regular forces, meaning she was, quite literally, the flower of the order: the female knight-commander.
The blonde, blue-eyed knight proceeded to beat Marietta senseless.
And when the girl finally collapsed, unable to move, Pomette cast healing magic on her, then promptly sat down on her backside like it was a perfectly reasonable place to rest.
“Gweh…” Marietta wheezed. “You’re way too ruthless…”
“This is me holding back,” Pomette said flatly. “If I went all-out, Marietta wouldn’t be standing for even a second.”
Pomette narrowed her cool, clear eyes and smiled almost teasingly. Her magic converted sheer force of will into energy, then released it as a blade.
The trick lay in the way she could alter her sword’s length at will. In theory, her reach was limitless.
Meaning… even the stars hanging in the sky were within range, if she truly wanted them.
That was the dimension in which Pomette’s “serious” existed. As someone, somewhere, had learned the hard way, ordinary people didn’t stand a chance. Not even if they tried to fight upside down, screaming.
Even so, it seemed Marietta couldn’t stand the fact that she couldn’t so much as scratch Pomette during training, even with the executive’s monstrous strength deliberately restrained. Pinned down in the most literal sense, Pomette seated squarely on her, Marietta puffed out her cheeks, pouting as if it might ease the sting of humiliation.
“Pomette-sama, you’re heavy.”
“Hea—” Pomette choked. “No. I’m not heavy. It’s the armor.”
“You’re not wearing armor right now,” Marietta said, deadpan. “You can’t dodge it.”
Pomette’s composed profile stiffened. When Marietta tipped her gaze up at her, she caught sight of Pomette’s exposed ear, bright red, like it had been boiled.
“Did I gain weight?” Pomette muttered.
“Huh? No! Don’t actually get devastated! I was kidding!”
“You were lying, then.”
“Yes.”
“Be honest. I’m a little heavy, aren’t I?”
Marietta grimaced, trapped between honesty and survival.
“I mean… compared to the average woman, maybe. But that’s because you train, Pomette. It’s proof you’re strong.”
“That’s complicated.”
Pomette planted the practice sword between her legs like a cane, grunted out a “heave-ho,” and stood. Then, with one hand, she hauled Marietta upright as if she weighed nothing at all.
“Anyway,” Pomette said. “You’ve got good instincts. If you keep producing results, you’ll rise to squad-leader level without much trouble.”
“Really?” Marietta’s eyes lit up. “I mean, I got absolutely destroyed, so my feelings are complicated… but I’m happy!” The brown-haired girl beamed like sunlight breaking through clouds.
And at the sight of that unguarded, carefree smile, Pomette found herself relaxing, relieved in a way she hadn’t even realized she needed.
After being the sole survivor of Metasim and then barely escaping the calamity at Daskel, Marietta had been badly unmoored. Between the deaths of her family and friends, and then the news that Celestia, the woman who’d saved her life, had vanished, she’d folded in on herself until it became frightening.
She’d despaired of living. For a time, she’d even stopped eating, shutting herself inside her room like she meant to disappear.
“Pomette-sama,” Marietta asked suddenly. “Do you remember that day?”
That day. The day Pomette couldn’t bear watching her crumble any longer. The day she’d stood outside Marietta’s door and knocked.
Pomette was not a graceful person. She knew how to swing a sword and little else. Words didn’t come easily, and she’d never been good at encouraging someone the way kind people did.
Whenever she tried to be close to someone who’d been broken, she ended up communicating in the only way she understood—straightforward, clumsy, honest action.
What saved Marietta at rock bottom was nothing poetic at all. Pomette had simply wrapped her arms around the girl and held her with everything she had.
Now, as if mirroring that moment, Marietta slipped behind Pomette and hugged her from the back, arms tightening around her waist.
“When it hurts, we should hold each other,” Marietta said softly. “You’re the one who taught me that, remember? That day.”
Pomette’s body was trained to react to killing intent, to threats, to malice, to the twitch of an enemy’s muscles.
But this wasn’t that.
And it was the first time since becoming an executive that she’d failed to read the “attack” at all.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do at times like this,” Pomette admitted.
“I didn’t know back then either,” Marietta said.
“I see.”
Being supported by Marietta made it feel as though their positions had reversed since that day. The emotion was tangled: embarrassing, warm, strange, and quietly precious.
Pomette took a breath, then patted Marietta’s back lightly.
Truly, she was glad Marietta was alive. The simple fact of another person’s existence hit her with sudden weight, as if she’d been taking it for granted until now.
But a knight-commander couldn’t show weakness.
Pomette’s expression snapped back into place. She cleared her throat a little too loudly.
“Training’s over. Let’s head back to the base.”
“Yeah!”
On the walk back, their conversation drifted into small talk.
Marietta began telling the story again, the one about being saved by her benefactor in Daskel. She’d told it a few times before, but there was always something in it that snagged at Pomette’s thoughts.
“Haaah…” Marietta sighed. “I wonder what Oakley’s doing now, where he is. The one who saved me…”
“Well… he’s probably still alive.”