“You fiend!” I changed my target to Salas and fired Magic Ray once more.
“Whoops. Not so fast.” But Lilly, now done with all the Royal Guards, canceled it out in just the nick of time.
In that case… “Rae! You get Salas! Rapid fire!”
“Got it!” Rae understood my intent right away, conjuring an impressive twenty ice arrows and surrounding Salas with them.
“Whoa. You’ve done this before, huh?” Lilly clicked her tongue. She had to stay by Salas’s side to nullify the ice arrows, preventing her from making any moves. We continued to rain magic down on them while Lilly defended. We were at a stalemate. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
“Give up, Cardinal Lilly!” I said.
“Why?”
“At this rate, you’ll run out of magic before we do,” Rae said. Lilly was on her own, while Rae and I were working together. We were only using basic magic arrows too. I didn’t know how much magic time manipulation consumed, but it had to be more than magic arrows did.
“Miss Lilly, please, let’s put an end to this,” Rae pleaded.
“Heh. It’s not like I’m doing this because I want to, y’know.”
“Then why?!”
“Because…” She gave us a self-deprecating smile and pulled out a potion. “He may be a bastard, but he’s still my father.”
“No—is that cantarella?!” Rae practically shrieked at the sight of the potion. I recalled our fight against Louie in Euclid. He was only an ordinary adventurer, but drinking cantarella had made him absurdly powerful. I hadn’t the slightest clue how we could possibly fight Lilly if she became undead, when our magic already didn’t work on her.
“What? Of course not. It’s a superior magic restoration potion,” Lilly answered. I found myself relieved.
“Sounds valuable. I doubt you have many,” Rae pointed out.
“Maybe not, but I’ve got a little trick up my sleeve.” Lilly downed the potion, then stared hard at the empty bottle, which refilled before our eyes. She’d rewound time on the bottle. “Voilà—just gotta think outside the box.”
I gritted my teeth. Her magic should be nearly fully restored after drinking the potion. If she could repeat the process as many times as she wanted, then the ones who would run out of magic first would be us.
“Sorry, but this fight’s gonna be a long one,” she taunted.
I racked my brain, trying to think of a way out of our predicament. Then suddenly, the earth began to violently shake.
While I was left bewildered by the sudden shaking, somebody suddenly pushed me down. Not even a moment later, the window glass in the audience chamber shattered.
“What in the world…?” I began to say, before realizing it was Rae who’d pushed me down. She’d lain down on top of me as if to protect me, so for the time being, I remained still.
“…It should be safe now,” she said, rising to her feet and then helping me up as well.
I looked around the audience chamber in confusion and astonishment. The beautiful room was in tatters. Furnishings lay broken, and stones were scattered on the red carpet.
“Your Majesty!” a royal guard cried.
I looked around to see somebody run over to the throne. I felt myself go pale. King l’Ausseil lay collapsed there, bleeding profusely from a wound to the head.
“Rae, heal him!” I cried. Before I could even finish my words, she ran over to him and tried her healing magic, but…
“…It’s no use. He’s gone.”
“That can’t be…”
Bauer had lost its wise King l’Ausseil. This was a crisis unlike anything the country had ever faced.
“Wait, where are Salas and Cardinal Lilly?!” I looked around but could not see the two. They must have escaped during the chaos.
I fought to calm myself and assess the situation. I could only speculate at this point, but it was likely Mt. Sassal had erupted. There were historical accounts of such an event taking place before. But if that were the case, then what followed the eruption was what we truly had to fear. Dark times awaited Bauer. As for what I could do at this moment…
While in thought, I noticed Rae had fallen to her knees with a distant look in her eyes. I couldn’t blame her, given the situation. But we needed her strength right now. “Rae… Rae! Get it together.”
Rae’s eyes slowly regained focus. Her mind still seemed elsewhere, however.
“Forget about Salas and Cardinal Lilly for a minute,” I said. “Right now, there are much more pressing matters we must attend to.”
“Miss Claire…”
“The last time Mt. Sassal erupted, it caused a massive famine and water shortage.” Volcanic rock and ash would have a significant effect on crops. If we just stood by and did nothing, many in the kingdom would starve. We had to take action to prevent such a thing. “The kingdom will soon be in crisis, and King l’Ausseil isn’t here to see us through it.”
Our wise king was now gone. We had to choose a new king, and fast.
“Guards, contact the head of the House of Lords. Call an emergency meeting, then ensure the safety of Master Rod and Master Thane.”
I temporarily ignored Rae, who was still in a daze, and issued orders to the Royal Guards who could still move. This would be a race against time. The Royal Guards seemed bewildered as well, but they held themselves together and obeyed my orders, their training keeping them sharp.
Rae was still out of it. I didn’t want to have to go this far, but she left me no choice. I slapped her cheek and said, “Get it together! You said you would support me—was that a lie?!”
I was practically pleading for her to come back to her senses. I needed her. I could not stand up alone against the coming trials. I needed Rae by my side.
She rubbed her cheek, still in a slight daze. Gradually, however, light returned to her eyes. “I apologize. I’m fine now.”
“Good.” I briefly hugged her, as though to make certain she was truly here with me. “We shall overcome this.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The two of us wasted no time getting to work. While we’d responded with acceptable promptness, a certain piece of bad news arrived to stop us in our tracks: Rod could not be found.