Episode 64: The Two From the Kingdom of Lyon
The first to step down to the ground was a man with purple hair streaming in the wind and grey eyes.
It wasn’t only his well-formed features that made him look like a stage actor, waiting for someone to mistake him for one.
It was that he was dressed as flamboyantly as one too.
His absurdly gaudy clothing, studded with jewels, reflected the sunlight with blinding brilliance.
Even so, his face was more than a match for the flashy outfit.
Meanwhile, climbing down from the carriage as if hiding behind him was an enormous man, nearly two metres tall.
And yet he had an extreme stoop, and on top of that, his hood was pulled down so deep his face couldn’t be seen at all.
(T-this is, this is definitely going to be a pain…!!)
Glancing beside her, Fiine saw Burkhardt wearing an equally weary expression.
“I-it’s not just Yuria’s imagination, is it…?”
“Face reality, Fiine. That carriage has the Jeanmer name written across it in huge letters.”
“B-but…”
While they were having this exchange, the two men came walking straight toward Fiine and the others.
“Oi, are you the investigators from the Kingdom of Roselia?”
Naturally, it was the flamboyantly dressed man who spoke.
Seen up close, he had a mole beneath his right eye.
“…Yes, that’s right.”
Burkhardt answered.
His choice not to use polite speech was surely a deliberate signal that they stood as equals.
“I’m Burkhardt von Achenbach, Major General of the Roselia Magic Corps. This here is Fiine Fellner. She doesn’t belong to the Magic Corps, but she’s one of the strongest in our country.”
That’s far too generous a description! she would normally have corrected, but she couldn’t manage it.
Overwhelmed by the two men’s sheer presence, all Fiine could do was hide behind Yuria’s back.
“I’m Yuria von Cornelius. I’m not an investigator. I’m here accompanying the two of them, in a caretaking capacity.”
The moment Yuria spoke, the hooded man’s head suddenly snapped up.
“…A-amazing. I figured she looked human, but this magical implement actually talks?”
At the man’s words, the air around Fiine and the others froze solid.
He, however, seemed not to notice at all, and rattled on at a rapid clip.
“From what I can see, she’s moving autonomously, right? And it’s pointless, but she’s keeping her body temperature at roughly human level using fire-attribute magic, yeah? Is the selling point that she’s not just a magical implement for housework, but one that looks like an actual person? But to keep her running all the time, a magic stone alone wouldn’t be enough. I’d guess the user needs to keep channelling magic nearby continuously, which means a constantly huge magical cost, and for something like that to become mainstream it’s just too—ugh!”
The man fell silent because the other man had clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Sorry about that. Noel’s always like this when it comes to magical implements. Oi, Noel. Introductions come first, don’t they.”
“Ngh, eek… i-introductions are fine… just, introduce me by proxy instead…”
Letting out a shriek, the man fled behind Edgar’s back as if for cover.
“This one’s Noel Louis. A magical-implement researcher. He’s like this, but he’s good in a fight using magical implements. His search abilities are high too, so he’s well suited to this particular mission.”
Introduced like this, Noel let out an unsettlingly creepy laugh. Ahaha…
(This person might have even worse communication skills than me… no, wait, more importantly…)
What was astonishing was his sheer observational skill, spotting at a single glance that Yuria was a magical implement.
Until now, no one outside those who knew of Yuria’s death had ever seen through her as a doll.
“And I’m the great Edgar Jeanmer. Heir to the Jeanmer marquisate, and captain of the Magic Knights’ Second Regiment.”
Edgar puffed out his chest proudly. The two of them really were quite the contrast.
“You can rest easy. Once I’m on the job, I’ll scatter those monsters in spectacular fashion.”
He declared this with total confidence, though Fiine was fairly sure the instructions for this mission had called for keeping things as quiet as possible.
Glancing over at Burkhardt to gauge his reaction, she found him letting out an exhausted sigh.