“Are you alright…?”

Even as I clearly saw Cassandra’s condition, which was not at all alright, the words that came out of my mouth were nothing more than asking if she was okay.

“I’m fine…. It’s nothing….”

Cassandra forced a smile, and clumps of blood flowed out with a dry cough.

“You’ve done well… Airy and Popo will get you out.”

But even as she let out a painful groan, Cassandra shook her head.

“Cough. You’ve gone through unnecessary trouble. Quickly… go. I’m not going.”

“You’re being stubborn in this state. There’s no time. Don’t be difficult and let’s go home.”

“Home…?”

“Yes. Home. Our home.”

Home……

Cassandra’s torn lips slowly recited the word ‘home’.

“I see. I… also had a home.”

In Cassandra’s eyes, bloodshot from the torture, tears like blood welled up.

“Your Highness gave me a home. I also… had a place to return to. Cough.”

“Cassandra….”

“I will… take Flama, freed from black magic, home with me.”

A faint smile hung on Cassandra’s dry and cracked lips.

“Don’t be foolish. You’ll die first at this rate.”

“Have you forgotten who I am? I am Cassandra Cabesa, the Youstera Empire’s greatest black mage. If I put my mind to it, how could I not get out of this crude prison anytime? Cough. Cough.”

“Look at yourself now and then say that. You look like you’ll drop dead even if left alone, and yet you boast…! Let’s go home.”

“They can’t kill me yet. Cough. They haven’t gotten anything out of me. And they’ll still need my skills.”

“Cassandra. Listen to me.”

“Your Highness should do as I say… Cough. Quickly go. The interrogators who went to question Carina will return soon.”

Interrogators my foot. They’re torturers. How could they have beaten a person black and blue to this state?

“How did you end up getting caught together with Carina in the first place? The empire’s greatest black mage and the unparalleled holy maiden candidate joined forces. I don’t understand how you got discovered. And even if discovered, you should have naturally been able to escape, no?”

“That… I don’t quite understand it myself. I can’t remember what happened then at all.”

“What? You can’t remember?”

“Yes.”

Cassandra glanced nervously towards the door.

“If the magic tool the Magic Tower Master implanted in me was intact, it would have recorded what happened then… When I came to my senses, it was already destroyed.”

“Who on earth…?”

Cassandra weakly shook her head.

“But I… Cough. Used a bit of my skill, so it should be of some help.”

Cassandra quietly closed her bloodshot eyes and began chanting a black magic spell under her breath.

Soon, the thick iron bars between her and me began to waver. Looking closely, the bars were densely covered with black mayflies.

Seeing that she could do this even with magic restraints on her neck and wrists, her reputation as the empire’s best was not hollow after all.

In tune with Cassandra’s chant, the mayflies flew up, forming a spiral-shaped wave. They congealed into a round bead and slid onto my hand.

Just then, the sound of the interrogators’ footsteps climbing the stairs came from beyond the heavy iron door.

“Cassandra….”

As I hesitated, unable to abandon her, Cassandra spoke urgently.

“I will somehow restore Flama to its original state. But if it proves utterly impossible, is it alright to render it completely unusable?”

I could not answer right away.

The pain of the crimson firebird, who waited only for its master to free it from the corrupt magic, wringing out every last drop of strength to endure, was too painful…

“The judgment… I’ll leave it to you. If you really think there’s no other way… Yes. Help the child so Flama cannot be used by evil ones and will instead be completely destroyed. That’s probably… what Flama wants too.”

Clank.

The sound of the heavy iron door opening, the interrogators shoving Carina inside, and locking the door again was heard.

Carina’s condition, which I had glimpsed while leaving Dome Tower, was as terrible as Cassandra’s. Her once pristine priestess robes were soaked with dried blood and fresh scarlet blood.

[Not bad, Black Mage. Even though His Highness came to take you, you didn’t go with him and kept your loyalty to me.]

It seemed Carina had sensed my presence.

[Crabs are comforted by other crabs, and a black mage is but a lowly being who entrusts everything to the holy maiden candidate.]

Leaving behind the voice of the black mage growing fainter, I went back down to the break room with Airy and Popo’s help.

My heart felt heavy returning to the ducal castle.

I couldn’t save Cassandra, and Flama was still in the emperor’s clutches.

I had only confirmed that Lady Figueira was a fragment of god tainted by darkness. I didn’t know how they planned to use Flama. I didn’t know what I had to do to stop them in time…

Returning without any substantial gains, my chest felt tight with frustration.

The evening glow visible outside the carriage window was as crimson as a firebird spreading its wings, making my heart sink even deeper.

Thud.

Suddenly, the carriage screeched to a halt and my body was thrown forward.

Airy, who had popped out of my handbag at some point, created an air cushion to protect me.

It wasn’t from the carriage wheel hitting a rock.

Twang. Twang. Twang.

Arrows flew in through the open window, grazing my shoulder and dress sleeve before sinking deep into the carriage wall.

I pulled out an arrow stuck in the wall and touched the arrowhead to the magic knife the emperor had gifted me. The silver blade tip vibrated and immediately began detoxifying it.

[Poison arrows! Is it the Empress Dowager? This is the Empress Dowager’s doing, right?]

The furious Airy spun around above my head, greatly puffing up her chubby head.

[I was already feeling uneasy returning empty-handed. I’ll send that Empress Dowager flying to the netherworld!] [Airy. You are too small and weak, you may get hurt. That ugly witch will be personally buried deep in the Jenis Mountains by the great Sir Gaius.] [Popo, you wanna keep looking down on me? I said I’m strong enough on my own!]

“Airy. Calm down. You’re my secret weapon. You can’t reveal your existence yet.”

[Secret weapon?]

“Yes. Secret weapon.”

[The coolest role, hidden flawlessly without the enemy knowing, leading to the final victory?]

“That’s right. But if the emperor or empress dowager finds out about you, they’ll come up with countermeasures. You’ll miss the chance to make a cool surprise entrance at the end.”

[Got it! The secret weapon will behave until we get home. The protagonist always has to make a cool showing at the end, after all.]

As Airy readily agreed and went back into my handbag, Popo clicked his tongue as if it was pathetic.

[Airy. The protagonist who needs to make a cool showing at the end is not you, but your master Yuriella. And if your master dies, no matter how much you shine, it will be in vain.] [Why would Yuriella die when I’m here!]

As Airy poked her small face out of the handbag and shouted at Popo-

Twang. Twang. Twang.

Poison arrows poured into the carriage again, grazing right in front of Airy’s nose and sticking into the carriage seat. One of them shattered my hair ornament embedded with a red diamond before striking the wall.

I immediately drew upon healing energy to treat the poison that had lightly grazed my neck.

[Those jerks, seriously!]

Airy popped out of the handbag.

“Get back in, Airy.”

[No!]

“I am your master. And you have a duty to obey my orders. Get in.”

[But Yuriella is in danger!]

“Airy. Do you want to end our contract already?”

[That’s too much! Is the word ‘end’ that easy for you, Yuriella?]

Airy returned to the handbag. The mention of ending the contract must have been scary.

“Popo, you get in too.”

[Yuriella. This is an emergency situation right now-.]

“If you get discovered, an emergency situation will befall your master. Are you fine with the Magic Tower getting caught up in a fight with the imperial family?”

[….]

Popo, whose love for his master was immense, let out a deep sigh as he watched the poison arrows continuing to fly in with twangs.

“I have it all planned out. So both of you absolutely must not come out until I tell you to. This is an order. Got it?”

After Popo also went into the handbag, I looked out the window.

The situation outside was worrisome enough for Popo and Airy.

There were ten elite Angelus knights who had accompanied me as an escort. But the enemies seemed to easily number more than twice that, even at a rough count.

Their appearance, wrapped head to toe in black cloth, looked like mercenaries mobilized by an assassination guild. But they didn’t seem to be fighting with their own innate strength.

“What are those things?”

The black energy on the blades swung by pot-lid-like hands was clearly the result of corrupt black magic spells.

Seeing them not spill a single drop of blood even when messily sliced by the knights’ swords, they no longer seemed to be living people.

“This is tricky.”

The one fortunate thing was that there were no bystanders to get caught up and be injured or killed since it was the outskirts away from the city center.

Conversely, it meant that even if the ducal princess’s carriage was attacked by assassins, there were no nearby guards to help, and not a single witness to testify.

Twang. Twang.

Arrows were now piercing through the thick carriage door as well.

I couldn’t just buy time like this.

The loyal Angelus knights would not hesitate to lay down their lives to protect their mistress.

I stuffed the handbag into my dress pocket and forcefully kicked open the carriage door.

A poison arrow and one of the mercenaries flew towards me at the same time. I twisted the mercenary’s arm to the side and used him to block the arrow.

The mercenary served as a quite excellent shield on the way to the coachman’s seat while hanging onto the moving carriage, except for the rotten corpse stench that made my nose rot.

I leaped onto the coachman’s seat and cracked the whip. “Hiya!”

There was a saying in Eastern continent military tactics – when nothing works, running away is the best strategy.

For now, there seemed to be no choice but to put some distance between our knights and those nonsensical monsters before taking care of them.

“Hiya! Hiya!”

As I had thought, the horde of corpses wearing mercenary shells abandoned the Angelus knights and began pursuing me on horseback.

Those chasing me seemed to be beings that lacked reason and only followed given orders.

If they were familiar with the terrain here and had thinking heads, they would have realized the direction I was driving the carriage was towards a sheer cliff.

Knowing nothing, they just madly surrounded and pursued the carriage like that.

[Yuriella. What in the world are you trying to do?]

As expected. Popo, the spirit of the holy sword Gaius, seemed to have easily recognized what kind of terrain the hill the carriage was madly rushing on was, being an earth spirit.

[There is a cliff right ahead. If you jump off the cliff, even you will not escape unscathed! Stop at once!] [Really? Yuriella! Stop right now!]

“I know the terrain here well. Both of you, don’t move an inch. I won’t tolerate disobedience.”

[You’ll get hurt! You could even die again!]

“If hurt, I can be healed, and if dead, I can live again. Because I am the master of the great holy sword Airy. Just as I believe in you, believe in me too, Airy.”

The carriage flew into the sky.

[Yuriella!]

The horde of mercenaries chasing me also flailed their limbs in the air and fell down the cliff.

I tightly shut my eyes, anticipating the impact that would soon strike.

If it went as I calculated, the carriage would crash into a protruding rock area midway down the cliff, softening the fall’s impact. If lucky, it might even stop where the vines were below that.

Still, I would get quite injured, but what’s the big deal about a few broken bones as long as my neck was attached?

Bang! Bam! Bang!

The corpse mercenaries that fell to the base of the cliff exploded in dark blue smoke. It deafened the ears like magic bombs going off.

And the impact that would tear my body apart…

was absent.

Although his ice-cold blue eyes seemed sharp enough to cut me-

“Your Grace…!”

His Grace was holding my body with one arm and supporting us by deeply stabbing the holy sword Ielo into the cliff with the other.

“Uh… This may have been a bit of a dangerous situation depending on how you look at it. But I also know the terrain here and calculated…”

However, I could not continue explaining my plan that had seemed quite plausible to me.

His Grace’s arm, as strong as if carved from stone, was trembling.

As were his lips, buried in the nape of my neck.

“You were determined to kill me… How can you make a person’s blood run dry like this… If I had been even a little late…”

Blood seeped from His Grace’s lips as he bit down, as if he couldn’t bear to put it into words.