“Hmph.”
Seeing Luther’s blade come down, Lion El’Jonson casually raised her longsword, parried the strike, and knocked it aside.
She moved so quickly that only an afterimage remained.
Although Luther was the Grand Master of the largest knightly order on Caliban and one of the finest warriors among the Calibanites, he was still no match for Lion El’Jonson—a Primarch and master duelist.
“You need to calm down, Luther.”
“Calm down?
After you stole my knightly order from me?!”
At that moment, Luther wanted nothing more than to tear her apart.
“Lion!
I was the one who saved you from the forest and brought you back to human civilization!
Is this how you repay me?”
“You damned beast!
If someone refuses to cooperate, you simply take what you want by force!
You claim you want to unite us to exterminate the Great Beasts of Caliban, yet in the end you’re attacking human cities alongside those very beasts!”
“You—”
“Grand Master?”
Luther’s furious accusations were interrupted by a familiar voice.
His deputy, whom he had left behind to defend Aldurukh, was standing among the knights behind Lion El’Jonson and looking at him awkwardly.
“You!
Why are you standing with her?
Don’t tell me even you…”
“Standing with her?”
The deputy looked confused.
“Grand Master, if Commander Lion hadn’t arrived when she did, Aldurukh would have fallen to the Great Beasts.”
“Huh?”
Luther froze.
“She came to help?”
“What happened?!”
“Yes.”
The deputy stepped forward.
“Grand Master, not long after you left, Aldurukh was attacked by a group of smaller Great Beasts.”
“At first, we thought it was merely another scattered hunting pack, so we didn’t pay much attention to it.
But more and more Great Beasts began gathering outside the fortress, and eventually human knights appeared among their ranks.”
“Once we realized something was wrong, we launched a sortie to prevent the beasts from gathering in even greater numbers.
But these Great Beasts were different.
With human knights directing them, they countered our attack almost perfectly, and we suffered heavy losses.”
As he spoke, the deputy handed Luther an emblem that had been pried from a dead knight’s armor.
“This is…”
Luther stared at it.
“The Order of the Crimson Grail…”
“Under the combined assault of the Great Beasts and human knights, Aldurukh was on the verge of falling.
Fortunately, Commander Lion arrived at the critical moment and killed the commander of the Order of the Crimson Grail.”
“Once the Great Beasts lost their human commander, their formation collapsed into chaos.
We were able to organize a counterattack and finally drive them back.”
This…
Luther’s sword slowly lowered.
So…
It had all been a misunderstanding.
Haha…
What a misunderstanding.
A complete misunderstanding.
Haha…
“No need to say anything else.”
Seeing Luther’s embarrassed expression, Lion El’Jonson spoke calmly.
“From the moment you saw me, you decided I was the attacker and tried to cut me down without asking a single question.”
“What else is there to discuss?”
“This…
I…”
Now it was Luther’s turn to break out in a cold sweat.
“No, no…
This was entirely because I acted too rashly…”
“Ah, yes.
Your famous calm judgment.”
Lion El’Jonson’s voice remained perfectly even.
“You’re the calm and rational Grand Master, after all.”
“And me?”
“Who was it just now who called me an ungrateful beast?”
“All right, all right.”
Seeing where this was going, Merlin hurried forward to rescue Luther from the situation.
“Grand Master Luther, Lion doesn’t really mean that.
What she’s trying to say is that, now that some knights have begun colluding with the Great Beasts, we should strengthen communication between the knightly orders and—mmph—”
“Shut up.”
A small hand firmly covered Merlin’s mouth.
It was obvious that Lion El’Jonson had accumulated quite a bit of resentment over the past few days.
She was the knight who hunted the Great Beasts and protected the people of Caliban.
Yet for some reason, rumors kept spreading that she would one day become Caliban’s destroyer, and enough people believed them that the other knightly orders constantly treated her with suspicion.
The envy of lesser people…
Utterly foolish.
Lion El’Jonson didn’t care much about baseless accusations.
But that didn’t mean she was generous enough to simply forget them.
Seeing Luther’s situation, Merlin closed his eyes in sympathy.
Luther was in serious trouble.
Lion held grudges.
Offend her, and she would remember it.
Hiss…
For some reason, Merlin suddenly felt a sharp pain on top of his foot.
It was almost as though someone had quietly stepped on it.
…
The negotiations continued throughout the night.
The revelation that the Order of the Crimson Grail had allied itself with the Great Beasts and attacked human settlements came as a shock to every knight present.
After this battle, The Order could no longer deny how serious the situation had become.
There was no staying out of this anymore.
As the largest knightly order on Caliban, if The Order failed to unite with the others and defeat these enemies of humanity, then sooner or later they would all be destroyed.
Knowing that he had been in the wrong, Luther voluntarily proposed that Lion El’Jonson become the leader of the united knightly orders and command their combined forces in the campaign to exterminate the Great Beasts.
Everything was developing exactly as Merlin had hoped.
“Congratulations, Your Majesty Lion El’Jonson, great leader of Caliban’s knightly orders.”
Merlin teased her as the two rode back toward New Spring Town on the same warhorse.
“You’re one step closer to becoming Warmaster of the entire known human world.”
“That’s only what I deserve.”
Lion El’Jonson sounded rather pleased with herself.
“Still…”
She paused.
“Your plan was useful.”
Merlin smiled.
“So?
Did it feel good?”
Of course it did!
Just remembering Luther’s defeated, speechless expression made the frustration that had been building inside Lion El’Jonson disappear almost completely.
Thanks to Merlin’s suggestion that she not reveal her intentions immediately, she had gained an overwhelming advantage in the negotiations.
“Merlin!
You clever, loyal man!”
“I want to…
I want to reward you!”
She was clearly in an excellent mood.
“However…”
Lion El’Jonson suddenly became serious and looked around from atop the Calibanite warhorse.
“No one.”
There really was no one nearby.
Morning light filtered down onto the forest road, and not another person could be seen.
Since there was nobody around…
“?”
“Don’t move.”
Just a hug.
This was another little secret she had recently discovered.
She had first noticed it while the two of them were riding together toward Aldurukh.
Being close to Merlin like this seemed to calm her excited heart and ease the effects of that strange, evil “sorcery” troubling her.
“This…
is also a secret!”
Lion El’Jonson once again tried to display the majesty expected of the Lion of Caliban.
Unfortunately, Merlin saw something entirely different.
So cute.
“What are you laughing at?!”
Lion El’Jonson immediately glared at him.
“No…
You should be smiling, but you’re not allowed to smile that much!”
…
Their relationship really was getting better and better.
Thinking about that, Merlin couldn’t help glancing at the small golden ring on his right hand.
But…
Would a good relationship really lead to a good ending?
The nightmare of Lion’s rebellion remained constantly in the back of Merlin’s mind.
What if becoming too close to her created a weakness the Chaos Gods could exploit?
Wouldn’t that only make things worse?
Merlin really didn’t want everything to end with Lion attacking Holy Terra while muttering something like—
“Ring of Sagittarius…
thirty years on Caliban…”
That would be one hell of a finale.
But…
Merlin didn’t have the courage to push Lion away right now.
He certainly wasn’t willing to gamble on whether she might send his head flying with a punch.
Forget it.
There was no point worrying about this yet.
He still had more than twenty years left.
And for now…
Merlin felt the faint warmth pressed against him.
He might as well enjoy it.
…
“What is this?”
On the outskirts of Aldurukh, Luther was inspecting the bodies left behind on the battlefield when something caught his attention.
Resting on the armor of one of the dead human knights was a thick, ancient blue book.
Its cover appeared to have been made from the hide of a Great Beast of Caliban.
The armor beneath it was riddled with bullet holes and scratches.
Yet the book itself was completely untouched.
It looked almost as though it had simply appeared there.
Luther didn’t believe that a book could remain perfectly intact in the middle of a battlefield.
And yet…
There it was.
Where had it come from?
He cautiously picked it up.
Could there be something wrong with it?
Luther hesitated for only a moment before relaxing.
He had been far too suspicious lately.
His paranoia had already caused him to mistake Lion El’Jonson for an invader and attack her without thinking.
Perhaps it was time to calm down.
Read something.
Rest for a while.
Without giving it any further thought, Luther slipped the book into his armor.
It really helps the fic grow!