“Is she fine?” Lady Valiria asked me as I laid Lady Illia’s body in one of the few empty beds of the palace’s infirmary. “To think we would…”

  “Sorry for the bluntness, Your Highness, but there is more to worry about now than what you did or did not.” I answered the princess who was yet to have her own wounds fully treated although she got here much earlier than I did. She was clearly shaken, enough that a half-panicking girl with a concussion managed to wrestle control over the situation from her, and that was understandable. Even my limited knowledge on the situation was enough to know it was very bad.

  “Yes… You’re right, Evelin. Sorry about the shameful display.” She pulled herself together and hurried to fix her posture and look sharper. “We have to start getting ready. I’m not sure what happened there, but we’re in a dangerous situation.”

  “I agree. Could you tell me where Lady Eleonora is, please?”

  It was sure that she already got the healers and came back, but I couldn’t see either her or any said healers. The hero himself also wasn’t anywhere I could see him, but his smell was in the room, so he likely passed by. RIght now, there were only the palace’s doctors, two members of the hero’s party and then three other people I never met.

  “She went with the priests to assess the situation since I’m wounded and Sir Hayato had to be relocated.” Lady Valiria answered me with what was likely the worst possible outcome. “His situation is… bad. We thought the expedition was a success and lowered our guards after destroying the portal, so we got ambushed.”

  “Ambushed, Your Highness?” I asked, almost failing to keep my manners at the thought of demons ambushing someone. “Do you mean that demons managed to…”

  “I’m… I’m not sure what those things were, but they could use some unknown curse, one that spread to the priests trying to fight it. Best case, they were demons and it was just some sort of miasma, but… I don’t know.”

  “I see…” I nodded at the two wounded people I didn’t know and then took a look at my subordinate, a red-haired maid with talent for life magic but an utter lack of manners. “Did it affect Dorothea too?”

  “Only a little. Not sure how she avoided it, but she’s mostly fine.”

  She is well-trained, enough to be one of the strongest members of the maid corps, so seeing her wounded and drained like this was worrying. To think something managed to defeat a party composed of most of the strongest people in the capital, worrying was an understatement. In fact, other than me and Lady Eleonora, who was likely individually stronger than all but the hero, few could even compare.

  A princess skilled in both sword and magic who trained for this role her whole life; A prodigy mage who, while 18 years old, managed to master both ice and fire magic, and then write a paper on fast chanting; The second best battle maid in the castle and the best healer under direct control of the royal family; A mysterious member of the Forest Folk who had more mana than anyone ever recorded; And the hero himself in all his glory.

  Something, or someone, who could defeat them all and use unknown curses was too much of a threat.

  “Understood. I’ll go check on Lady Eleonora if you allow it, Your Highness.”

  “Do so. I’ll try to recover so we can work on this situation…”

  I bowed at the armored who went back to her bed and then headed towards Lady Eleonora’s smell. It was half-hidden by a thick smell of blood and corrupted mana, but I knew her enough to ignore those. And eventually, I reached the inner sanctum of the palace’s chapel and saw the preparations for a large-scale healing spell.

  “We’re in trouble, Eve.” Lady Eleonora spoke up the moment I got close enough to her. “This guy won’t wake up anytime soon. Hells, I’m not even sure if he’ll wake up.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “That seems to be the case, Your Highness.”

  “We’ll need to rush that crazy girl’s plan and hit everyone with force. We can’t have those guys turning on us or running away when they hear about this.” She continued in a tone that was much more serious than anything I usually saw. “No time for complicated plans or justice, I’ll get Dad’s permission and we’ll deal with them directly.”

  “Are you sure about that, Your Highness? We’ll probably…”

  “We’ll probably have to deal with their whole families? Yeah, sure. Is doable if we hit fast enough. Won’t be pretty and we’ll need the knights to clear any troublesome peasants, but the other countries will come and we don’t have time for internal strife. We just lost an army and whatever hit it was using a knife.”

  “I see…” I nodded, understanding what my master wanted to say, and by how she was saying it, I could also infer that we should take care. There shouldn’t be too much risk right now, but it was easy to understand why she wanted to be cautious. Although, it brought some questions to my head.

  “Sigh… And we were so close to clearing them up without causing collateral damage…” Lady Eleonora sighed before turning away from the unconscious hero and the charging magical circle. “Just a few more days and they would be all down while everyone would believe we have a second hero in reserve.”

  I followed as she left the room, but we both stopped to stare at the small forester who was at the door. Green hair, golden eyes and long ears, all clear signs of a Forest Person, but what mattered about this one was the glare towards the fallen hero. A mix of shame and disappointment if my guess was right.

  It was hard to guess if this small girl wanted revenge or was throwing a tantrum, though. Or at least that would be the case if you didn’t know that foresters lived for a few hundred years without changing in appearance.

  “Hey.” Lady Eleonora eventually called, drawing the short girl’s attention almost right away. “Don’t stay too close, you won’t be helping by getting yourself in danger.”

  I couldn’t guess if she was ignoring the glare from earlier or simply didn’t notice what was behind the stare, but master’s words made the forester girl calm down. She seemed to want to say something in answer, though, but said answer never came. Instead, she stared at Lady Eleonora for a while and made some signs with her hands, looking beaten when all Your Highness could do was stare in confusion.

  And then she instead bowed at her and left the area.

  “This place is full of weirdos, eh?”

  “That’s a way to see it, Your Highness.” I ignored the many uncouth answers that this question could have and decided for a neutral one, turning to more important matters right away. “What would you like to do now?”

  “We check on Illia, and after she’s fine, we see what to do.” She instantly declared, already heading back to the infirmary. “Our current job is still keeping her well and safe, so that’s what we’ll do, even if only until I can get someone else for the role.”

  “If I may, what about using her instead? It should be possible to buy some time just like how she tricked the nobles.”

  It wasn’t something I wanted to say, but it had to be said. Lady Illia is useless in a fight, at least in her current situation, but her worth out of it is way greater than expected. More than that, although odd and eccentric, she is a very fun person to be around, especially for my usually stressed master. Even if just by curiosity and by forcing her to act weird, Lady Eleonora’s complexion was better in the last few days. Much closer to her antics before she became infamous as a law enforcer, at least.

  If possible, keeping that odd girl away from any sort of fight would be the right thing to do.

  “That…” Lady Eleonora stopped in place as if she was fighting against something, which wasn’t that far from true. “That’s an option. Not sure if one I like, but likes don’t matter if we don’t have another option…”

  Lady Eleonora’s expression made it clear that she disliked the idea, but it also made clear she would use it if necessary. I honestly would also prefer to not have to bring this option up, but ignoring it would be unwise. Being honorable and avoiding sacrifices isn’t worth failing at your goals, and Lady Eleonora was the one who taught us that.

  She didn’t say much after that, though, only turning away from the chapel and heading towards the infirmary in silence. Sadly, I had no way of helping with the obvious troubled expression Lady Eleonora was making. My role and position would never allow such, so I just stood behind her and hoped nothing too bad would happen.

  And then, we both arrived at Lady Illia’s bed where she was already sitting up and glaring at a small hand mirror for some unknown reason. Another event that made me unsure of how such a person could have so much of Your Highness’ attention…