Ild shaded his eyes with his hand and looked up at the sky.
“Wow, a blue one this time?” he asked gleefully.
“It’s rather elegant,” said Clara.
“That’s our Margilus!”
Outside the circle of Filsand army soldiers surrounding Geo and the other combatants, the Getaeus delegation watched from a spot by the castle wall. They were completely relaxed looking up at the blue dragon. Before entering the Stalwart Castle, Geo had spent a frankly irritating amount of time casting spells, so they knew he was prepared. They weren’t worried about him in the slightest.
“A-amazing…” The only person in this group who’d never seen a dragon before was the dumbstruck Elisabel. “There’s no way Lord Margilus would point that dragon at my father, is there…?” She was already imagining the worst.
“There is no way he would do that.” Clara patted the pale-faced young girl on her head. “That man always does everything in his power to win without harming a single person.”
“I-Is that so? Er…”
Clara gazed at Geo, her hand still on Elisabel’s head. He was maneuvering a giant dragon while deflecting sorcery. Her blue eyes looked at him with deep admiration and pride. Elisabel had noticed one more thing: As Clara stared up at Geo, she gripped her staff so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.
Elisabel couldn’t figure out if the emotion that tightened her grip was pain, anger, or pity.
“Clara, you—”
“This is why he needs me to do my job. Like this!”
“Agh?!”
Clara suddenly tackled Elisabel, bringing her to the ground. A single arrow whizzed by, passing the exact space where Elisabel’s chest had been just a moment earlier.
✦ ✦ ✦
The court sorcerer, Nathan, was trembling with fear.
He’d expected the wizard named Geo Margilus to have extraordinary powers. He knew, because he was unable to brush away the many, many reports from the spies he’d dispatched throughout the realm. They spoke of a wizard who dropped meteors like it was nothing or casually summoned giants. It was too much to attribute simply to trickery and illusion. That’s why he guessed that the reason was something like possession of an unknown high-level materia or a massive amount of maleithrilin.
But I didn’t imagine this… I don’t sense any mana at all… I don’t see any sign of enchanted items or maleithrilin…
Geo had stopped Filsand’s two strongest warriors with something invisible, blocked his own sorcery with some sort of unclear means, flown into the air and made a dragon appear…out of thin air. If he had materia or maleithrilin, Nathan would have sensed their mana. But he sensed nothing at all.
“It doesn’t make sense… It’s impossible…” It wasn’t only the court sorcerer who was staring dumbfounded at the dragon, which stared back down with utmost calm.
The most important people in Filsand stared as well. They watching the duel between fiancé and suitors from the terrace in front of the keep’s main gate, mouths agape.
“I-It can’t be… There’s no mana…no mana at all…”
“Eh heh…eh heh heh heh…”
As a sorceress herself, Alaine, first wife of the duke, was in shock. She sat on the floor, clutching her son, Agveil. The white-haired prime minister couldn’t do anything but gasp, a look of deathly fear on his face. He was clutching his chest with one hand so hard it looked like he was desperately trying to make sure his heart didn’t stop beating.
“Dragons don’t just appear out of nowhere…! This is neither sorcery nor conjuring… It must be inherited from the ancient kingdom of the gods, or a new technology from Shrendal…right?”
Although he was shaking, Agveil remained relatively calm. He was desperately trying to stand strong after seeing his normally ice-cold, high-handed mother in this vulnerable state.
And then there was the duke of Filsand.
“This…this man…! Is this really the power that I’ve been searching for…? If it is, then…then…!”
Only the duke showed no fear toward the dragon. He gazed upon both the beast and Geo with wonder and amazement, taking it all in. He grinned from ear to ear, ablaze with fiery ambition.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Garrgh?! Greee!”
“Damn it, this isn’t what I signed up for… I don’t have a chance against this!” Probably experiencing the most fear out of anyone on the Filsand side were the battle slave and captain of the duke’s guard. Both stood directly below the blue dragon. The slave, who’d worked himself into a feral, animalistic frenzy, now curled up in a ball and screamed. Beside him, the captain froze, paralyzed with fright. It took everything he had to just keep his eyes on the dragon.
✦ ✦ ✦
“She’s here!”
“G-got it!”
“Miss Elisabel!”
“Yeah! Let’s do it!”
Ted and the new recruits quickly put up their shields, building a wall around Elisabel and Clara. Ild also hid behind them, while the dwarves stood facing out, crossbows loaded.
“There! Falbolza!”
Clara swiftly picked out where the shooter was. From her position atop Elisabel, she aimed her staff at a window in the castle wall.
There was a row of several such windows. Behind them, archers seemed to be lurking.
“Wha?!”
Clara’s fire arrow soared, striking an archer holding a mounted crossbow right in the head. She’d probably adjusted the strength of the arrow, because they could see the still-living archer, hair aflame, running away desperately.
“Yah! Shoot! Get ’em!”
The dwarf warriors aimed their special Axeholm crossbows. They followed up Clara’s flaming arrow with arrows made of steel. The thick bolts loaded in their crossbows were far more powerful than those made for humans, and while some struck the archers, those that missed embedded in the castle walls, a testament to their strength.
There was a lot of commotion as the remaining archers fled. They probably realized that it wasn’t possible to assassinate Elisabel through the wall of shields. Still, it was impressive that they even tried to execute an assassination while there was a massive dragon floating in the air above them.
“Hah! And don’t come back now!” Clara, on her knees in order to shield Elisabel, lifted the corners of her lips in a competitive smile. Elisabel was mesmerized by her beauty for a moment, but soon snapped back to reality.
“Miss Clara! Everyone! Are you all right?!”
One of the dwarves brushed himself off. “Heh. This ain’t nothin’!”
“We wouldn’t be able to face Margilus if we let something happen to you.”
Ted, the recruits, and Ild offered smiles of relief. Needless to say, the dwarves were also unscathed.
Clara helped Elisabel up. “We figured that the aristocratic faction would try to eliminate you at some point. There are savages everywhere.”
“The aristocratic faction… That means my stepmother and half-brother Agveil. It’s true… With me out of the picture, Agveil will be the only potential successor.”
“Well, that fool’s plot ends here.”
“I wonder,” Elisabel frowned. She didn’t think it would be so easy to suppress the desires of those seeking the power and wealth of Filsand and the Stalwart Castle.
Clara looked up at Geo again. The defense against the assassin hadn’t even taken a minute. The dragon was slowly flapping its wings up and down, at the end of some aerial maneuver.
“Yes… It’s neither elegant nor perfect, but he’s right. When the times call for it, this is the true role of a wizard: to cast aside the common sense and reason of the mortal world.”
The blue dragon roared. A blinding bolt of lightning shot from its mouth. Clara looked like she was thoroughly enjoying watching the dragon mow down the suitors and soldiers on the ground, as well as watching the middle-aged man who controlled that dragon.
✦ ✦ ✦
At first, I looked down on the panic of the Filsand camp with a bit of regret.
But when I saw that Clara and the others were being attacked at the edge of the courtyard, my blood froze. Although I was thoroughly relieved to see the way they handily counterattacked and drove off the assassins, unfortunately, my impression of Filsand worsened.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to make sure that you can never do that again.”
It seemed that all three suitors and the soldiers had lost their willingness to fight. While most were petrified, frozen in place, some even ran away.
The leaders of the duchy of Filsand on the terrace were reacting in the same way as the soldiers. Among them, only the duke himself looked confident.
“Now, blue dragon! Stun Lightning!”
There was a lot going on, but I needed to rise to the occasion. I gave the order with high spirits.
KRA-KOOM!
Above my head, the blue dragon spread its jaws and spewed blue lightning bolts. It moved its head left and right, sweeping over the suitors and the soldiers along the way. There was a thunderous roaring sound and a flash. I heard the screams of the warriors and soldiers. The violence of the lightning, like a raging tornado that connected the earth to the heavens, continued until about half of the soldiers were on the ground. The advantage of this attack was that it simply stunned any targets who failed to resist the lightning attack, all without causing any damage. It was really convenient for disabling enemies in large numbers.