I hurried along behind the guard.
"Facial attacking? What on earth for?"
At my question the guard stopped and stared at my face.
Ah, right. I'm here in the capacity of an attendant.
The guard's familiar face had made me speak up without thinking.
I quickly turned to look at Aizel.
Only then did Aizel come to his senses and hastily patch things over.
"His capacity is attendant, but he's no different from a friend of mine. So why has Facial attacked? Ah, talk while we walk."
We resumed, half-running along the mansion's garden.
"Strictly speaking, rather than attacked......."
"Rather than?"
"They're making threats."
"Threats?"
"A mage called Chloe Facial is demanding we hand over her brother, and saying that otherwise she'll burn the whole garden down......."
"Ah!"
Aizel and I both stopped in our tracks.
"S-si......."
CLAMP!
I hurriedly covered Aizel's mouth.
Any way you looked at it, he was about to say sis, or sister.
Chloe Facial. Truly remarkable.
No, 'remarkable' doesn't cover this.
Before the regression, Chloe Facial was the Mad Mage of the age, the one who laid hands on Chimera research to save her brother.
And I was the sacrifice.
It still makes me shake with rage to think of it.
Thanks to that I did end up learning the Sovereign Body Art.
But that doesn't mean I can think well of the person who tormented me to death's door.
What do I do when I meet her?
It was a problem I'd been wrestling with alone ever since the regression.
As long as I had to live as a person of House Facial, she was someone I'd keep running into.
And I hadn't even decided yet....
SMACK!
What pulled me out of my brief reverie was Aizel.
He'd knocked away the hand covering his mouth.
Only then did I notice the guard watching us with a strange look.
"Hoo!"
I caught my breath briefly and whispered to Aizel.
"Don't act on emotion when you meet your crazy sister. You are Aizel Renhardt. Chloe Facial is my sis....... my sister."
Wow, was the word 'sister' always this hard?
Aizel looked at me like a sibling whose mother I'd stolen.
Well, what of it?
"Let's go, Young Master."
I hurriedly led Aizel toward the mansion's main gate.
The guard watched us with that odd look the whole way.
But what could be done?
***
Alden Brez, captain of the guard at the Renhardt mansion, was wrestling with the greatest dilemma of his life.
It hadn't been a dilemma from the start.
It wasn't a dilemma but pure puzzlement.
'Is this some new method of suicide?'
That was exactly what he thought.
However much the Eastern Expedition had lowered the domain's overall strength, this was still one of the continent's Three Great Houses.
Even at half strength it matched the military power of a decent kingdom.
In the continental order of an empire and kingdoms bound by investiture and tribute, they were literally outside the standard.
Such was the position of the Three Great Houses.
And someone was approaching the mansion where such a House's direct bloodline lived, leading troops.
That meant a fight.
In other words, it meant wanting to die.
So he could only be puzzled.
But a moment later that thought changed.
When the woman mage at the front performed Double Casting, and the ten knights behind her drew their swords.
'Ah, this is going to be a bit of a nuisance, isn't it?'
Even then he felt no sense of crisis.
He simply thought it would be somewhat troublesome to deal with.
A high-caliber enemy, so his side would take some losses.
But right after that, the woman mage spoke.
"I am Chloe Facial of House Facial."
'Hah, life is hard.'
That was his first thought.
He didn't agonize much over whether it was true.
No swindler, however bold, would come to House Renhardt and impersonate House Facial.
And there was the woman mage's Double Casting.
The rumor that one of the Facial Patriarch's children was a genius combat mage was already all over the continent.
'In pure potential she was said to match our Young Master Aizel.'
Whatever her Circle, Double Casting was purely a matter of talent.
So there was a strong chance this woman really was Chloe Facial.
The knights escorting her were no joke either.
Especially the knight right beside her.
'Fifth Circle at minimum.'
How many women mages on the continent could perform Double Casting and keep a knight like that as an escort?
Hence the hardship.
How could dealing with people like that be easy?
'I'm aging. Aging.'
So he sent a guard into the mansion.
To face that caliber, someone from the House's direct bloodline had to come out.
'And of all times, with the Matriarch away on a domain inspection.......'
When the Patriarch left the House for the Eastern Expedition, his wife, the Matriarch, acted in his role.
And with a military action like the Eastern Expedition underway, the acting Matriarch didn't simply sit in her seat.
She went out on inspection to assess the state of the domain when power, administration, and military strength were all left with gaps.
Which is why he had summoned Aizel Renhardt, the only direct-line member left in the House.
And separately from that, a guard captain had to do his duty.
"I am Alden Brez, captain of the guard of House Renhardt. You have entered House Renhardt's domain without authorization at the head of armed forces, and you are currently preparing an act of attack. I hereby give notice that this constitutes an unambiguous act of war. I further give notice that if hostilities are not halted, House Renhardt will have no choice but to use force!"
SHING!
As Alden drew his sword, the twenty guard knights and soldiers arrayed behind him drew theirs as well.
Chloe spoke.
"I have no intention of attacking House Renhardt. I wish only to take custody of my brother, Kalian Facial, who is being detained here."
"Eh?"
A stupid noise escaped Alden's mouth.
'What?'
That was the first thing his head produced.
Hearing something so absurd had temporarily stopped his brain.
The direct bloodline of House Facial, one of the continent's Three Great Houses of all things, was being detained in the Renhardt mansion?
What kind of trashy novel plot was this?
Truly absurd.
But there was one problem.
The one voicing that absurdity was a 'Facial'.
Someone bearing the Facial name wouldn't throw a tantrum without grounds.
'What is this? Is there something I don't know?'
After searching his memory hard, Alden answered.
"As far as I, the captain of this mansion's guard, am aware, there is no one detained here."
Alden said what he knew to be true.
And Chloe's eyebrows twitched.
"You dare lie!"
Chloe was headlong enough to leap into a burning fire for the brother she loved.
But she wasn't reckless.
She hadn't blindly trusted the information obtained through House Ballonz.
She'd moved separately and verified it.
So she knew.
That not long ago her brother had been carried in here unconscious.
FWOOSH!
Huge pillars of fire surged up on Chloe's left and right.
"Do you intend to hold a proper conversation only after blood is spilled?!"
HMMMMMM!
A fierce halo of light gathered on Hans's longsword.
Sword Force.
The knights behind him drew up Sword Aura as well and lowered their stances, ready to spring.
Like a spring compressed tight, poised to launch at any instant.
A hair-trigger tension honed the air of the whole area to a sharp edge.
But that was when it happened.
THOOM!
Hans suddenly turned and looked behind him.
"What......."
Startled by the sudden movement, Chloe turned as well.
Hans's expression was rigid with tension.
A danger signal flashed instinctively through Chloe's mind.
In the instant she prepared to hurl the fire pillars from both hands.
PFFFFT!
Chloe's eyes went wide and she stared at her own hands.
The pillars of fire she had cast up moments before had suddenly vanished.
That wasn't all.
"Kgh!"
A groan leaked from her mouth, and the strength drained out of her body.
And then.
"Kgggggh!"
Someone's thick groan.
GRRRIT!
The sound of grinding teeth struck Chloe's ears.
"Hans?"
The source of the sound was Hans.
He had clenched his teeth so hard that red blood ran down between his lips.
"What is this!"
Startled, Chloe looked frantically around.
But the astonishment didn't end there.
CRRRUNCH!
A noise like something being crushed rang out.
And then.
BOOM!
A heavy sound.
"Gyaaah!"
Wrung-out screams wound through the area.
Chloe and every one of the Facial people were slammed into the ground at once.
No. They were crushed down.
"Kyaaah!"
A scream close to a death cry burst from Chloe's mouth.
It was an immense pressure.
A pressure that pressed and wrung as if to flatten her whole body.
"Gk, ggkk!"
Under the strengthening pressure Chloe couldn't even scream and could only be pinned flat to the ground.
If she resisted, her neck or her shoulder would snap.
She looked like a lump of clay squashed flat against the floor.
In that state she could only leak strange groans from her mouth.
'W-what kind of monster.......'
In the instant Chloe wondered about the being who had made this happen.
THUD, FLOP!
A body was hurled down right before the prone Chloe's eyes.
Chloe's eyes widened until they might tear.
"T-Tea......."
'Teacher!'
The cry never became sound and only circled inside her mouth.
Because of the constricting pressure.
It was Jane.
The one sprawled before Chloe, ruined like a crumpled ball of paper, was her teacher Jane Lind.
Jane had been waiting at a distance in case of emergency.
Because her strength was long-range precision magic.
And she had been dragged in looking like that.
It meant their situation had been read completely.
And then.
STEP!
Amid it all, a single footstep settling heavily.
In the fallen Chloe's vision, a pair of feet approached.
Two feet adding footsteps slowly, but with endless weight.
"Kk, kggggk!"
The nearer those feet came, the more violent the groan-like screams from Chloe's party became.
At last the two feet came to a stop in the middle of the Facial people.
And a heavy, low voice fell over them.
"Speak."
The instant the word landed.
"Khk, khhk, khuh!"
Chloe's sealed airway suddenly opened.
"W-who are you?"
And at the same moment.
THOOM THOOM!
"Kyaaah!"
Once more the immense pressure crushed down on Chloe.
"I asked the question."
THUD, THUD THUD!
Another set of footsteps rang out.
And a figure moved to block the way before Chloe.
The one who walked through that terrible pressure and stood in front of her as if to shield her.
It was Hans Bantein.
"H-Hans Bantein, knight of House Facial! Master of Renhardt, I beg you, withdraw this power....... Khk, cough!"
Hans never finished; he vomited a bowlful of blood and collapsed on the spot.
It was a desperate struggle to fulfill his duty as Chloe's guard even before the power of an absolute superior.
But the voice that fell over him was without emotion.
"I did not ask you."
And the voice turned back to Chloe.
"Speak."
By now Chloe knew who this man was.
She had already suspected.
Few possessed monstrous power on this scale.
And Hans's words had confirmed it.
A swordsman who had reached the Seventh Circle, the highest level a martial artist can attain.
One of only seven Sword Masters on the entire continent.
And one of only two Sword Masters reckoned to have a chance of going beyond the Seventh Circle and breaking the wall of the Eighth, a level said to be unreachable by humans.
The current Patriarch of House Renhardt.
Neik Renhardt.