My Beloved Princess ~The Boy Called Incompetent Rises with Only a Sword and the Princess's Devotion~ - Chapter 100: Journey to Argant

The wyverns beat their wings powerfully.

Pulled by all eight of them, the airship lifted off. It first rose straight upward, then, after reaching sufficient altitude, shifted onto a horizontal course.

In an instant, the plains stretching to the horizon spread out beneath them. The bow thrust forward as if cutting through the wind, and the angular hull flashed in the sunlight. Clouds streamed past at tremendous speed. Buffeted by fierce air currents, the ship shuddered irregularly, and every so often the hull let out a groan. If someone closed their eyes and listened only to the sounds, they could have believed they were aboard a ship at sea without feeling any contradiction at all.

The guest room prepared inside the ship was not especially large. It was a cozy space, with a single bed, a little extra room besides, and one round window.

Resting his chin on one hand against the window frame, Kishō looked out at the scenery spread below him.

The Princess was seated beside him on the bed, waiting quietly—but for some reason, the distance between them was absurdly small. As if carried by momentum alone, she leaned closer and closer against him.

“Hey, Kuroyō. Aren’t you a little too close?”

“No.”

“No about what!?”

“I am replenishing my Kishō deficiency.”

Her beautiful face, as always, said it with a voice tinged with a pout.

Then, like a child, she pressed her forehead against his chest. A sweet scent drifted from her glossy black hair, and Kishō’s reason shook. Surely she was not marking him with her scent. Blushing at even thinking that, he stiffened further when she started sniffing at him, and his back arched from sheer embarrassment.

“Even if we were apart, it was only a few weeks, right?”

“For me, it was unbearable pain.”

They said rabbits died of loneliness. Was the Princess the same?

The way she spoiled herself against the master she had finally reunited with was almost like a dog wagging its tail.

“That’s right. You-chan was veeery lonely, you know.”

While stuffing her cheeks with rice balls for lunch, Ōka said it in a completely carefree tone.

“Night after night, she was playing Sho-kun’s love confession and using it to ease the loneliness, after all.”

“Wait a second. What do you mean by playing it?”

“The sly You-chan made sure to record the confession properly.”

“—Hah?”

A love confession… did she mean that time?

A bad premonition striking him, Kishō grabbed both shoulders of the Princess, who was still sniffing at him, and stared straight into her jet-black eyes.

She averted them.

“Oi, hold on, Kuroyō. I have heard absolutely nothing about this.”

“It is a permanent preservation edition.”

A blush rose to the Princess’s serious face.

Ōka was trying—and failing—to suppress laughter beside them, but Kishō ignored her for the moment. As a practical matter, the fact that such a recording existed was mortifying enough on its own.

“Destroy it.”

“No. It is my treasure.”

The Princess puffed out her cheeks stubbornly, refusing to yield, and it was infuriatingly adorable.

“More importantly, why does Ōka know about it?”

“Because we held an appreciation party.”

“Don’t spread that around with total confidence!?”

“I intended to show it only to provisional Consorts.”

“That’s already more than embarrassing enough! And don’t start handing out provisional titles without asking!”

Could it be that the Princess intended to share even his confession of love?

It was unclear exactly whom she was recognizing as Consorts, but whoever they were, it definitely could not lead anywhere decent. Especially the one person he least wanted to know—

“You-chan listens to it every night before bed. Lucky you. You’re loved, Sho-kun.”

“That it’s already been leaked to exactly the person I least wanted knowing.”

At Kishō’s deflated grumble, Ōka laughed cheerfully.

To change the subject, Kishō stood up and looked back out the round window. White clouds flowed rapidly past. Judging by that speed alone, the airship was moving extremely fast.

“This is amazing speed. At this rate, won’t we get there in no time?”

“Perhaps twenty hours.”

Apparently dissatisfied that Kishō had pulled away from her, the Princess pouted.

The journey from the academy to Argant would have taken eight days by carriage. If the airship could cover that in twenty hours, then it had to be traveling at several hundred kilometers an hour.

“If they had something this convenient, they should have used an airship for the Summer Special Practice too.”

“That would have been impossible. Wyverns are extremely rare monsters, and a single one is worth enough to buy an entire small town. With eight of them, there is no way they would be allowed to be used casually for an academy event. Even Mother, who leads her own flock, cannot use them freely.”

Kishō felt a strong sense of unreality at the idea that one wyvern cost enough to buy a whole small town, but he deliberately chose not to touch that point and instead asked about something else.

“Then what about this trip home? This is completely personal use, isn’t it…?”

“I received Father’s permission properly. There is no problem.”

The Princess looked completely dignified and composed, utterly confident, and showed not the slightest sign of lying.

Had she somehow talked His Majesty the Dragon Emperor into it with her usual eloquence? Even if that had been the case, the fact that His Majesty seemed to be taking a positive stance toward the two of them getting married still made Kishō honestly happy.

Unfortunately, though, there were others who clearly were not.

“Getting there early is nice and all, but bringing even the Headmaster along? There’s no way she isn’t scheming something.”

“That is also no problem. It should be possible to resolve everything through discussion, without mishap.”

“I wonder about that…”

Remembering Seiran’s attitude, which could not be called favorable in any sense, Kishō’s face darkened.

“I guess it just means I still haven’t been recognized yet.”

“No, you did more than enough. Seiran-dono is simply being stubborn.”

“Even so… I really do wonder what I’m supposed to do in this situation. Unran was a pretty serious opponent. If it becomes someone beyond even that, I honestly don’t feel like I can win.”

As if following after Kishō, the Princess rose from the bed.

“As for that matter, I have a plan. Leave it to me.”

“Oh? What kind of plan?”

“Fufu. That is a secret. I am sure even you will be surprised.”

The Princess raised one finger and smiled like a child who had thought up a prank.

◇◇◇◇◇

The grandfather clock marking the passage of time rang once.

The dull sound vibrated through the stagnant air of the room.

Looking up at the blue sky through the large window, Sōgetsu pushed up his silver-rimmed glasses.

“It should be about time they departed, shouldn’t it?”

“Yes. Since departure was set for noon, I imagine they are already in the sky by now.”

This was the private room reserved for the top student in the Upper School main building.

Bathed in sunlight that was already beginning to slant westward, Princess Suiren answered in a perfectly composed voice.

“You know, I still can’t quite believe it. To think he really defeated Unran.”

The fireplace was lit, and the room was as warm as spring. And yet, in that warm room, Sōgetsu trembled as if from cold. Lightly hugging his own shoulders, he murmured,

“Is this fear? Excitement? Or perhaps joy?”

Within the amber eyes behind his narrowed lids, the image of storm-like [Sword Aura] colliding was vividly reflected.

“I keep wondering, you see. What would have happened if I had fought Kishō-kun myself?”

“Of course, Sōgetsu-sama would have won.”

Modest and reserved as always, Princess Suiren stated it with complete certainty.

It was an expression of loyalty toward her master.

At that unwavering trust, Sōgetsu comfortably closed his eyes.

“It really was fortunate that he is the type who values righteousness more than profit.”

“Yes. If he had abandoned Tsukino in that situation, there would have been no point in forming an alliance with him. It is precisely because he discards profit in favor of righteousness that he is someone worthy of entrusting one’s back to.”

Taking up the bouquet that had been prepared on the desk, Sōgetsu left the room.

Without a word, Princess Suiren followed behind him.

Their two sets of footsteps echoed through the cold, gorgeously decorated corridor.

“That was far beyond the level of a student.”

“Yes. Exactly as you say.”

“He is probably above even the Princes attending the other academies.”

“I have no objection.”

“The ability of a dragonkin depends heavily on pedigree. In that case, what kind of pedigree could produce someone superior even to Princes who carry the blood of His Majesty the Dragon Emperor?”

There was a faint sign that Princess Suiren had tilted her head behind him, but she said nothing.

A wise choice. Sōgetsu nodded and continued.

“In any case, for the Winter Special Practice, it would be best to prepare our strategy around Kishō-kun.”

“So the time has finally come to wipe away that humiliation, hasn’t it?”

In one corner of the Upper School grounds, there was a small graveyard.

It stood quietly, almost forgotten—the resting place of students who had died while enrolled here. Even in daylight, the neglected place was dim, and the branches of the trees swaying overhead rustled softly.

Sōgetsu lowered his gaze to the names carved into the gravestones and laid the flowers down before them.

“If Kishō-kun helps us, then this time we may be able to defeat it.”

“To serve one’s master is the honor of a Dragonkin woman. I think they too would have their long-cherished wish fulfilled.”

“I understand your feelings as well. But protecting the flock is the duty of a Dragonkin man. I cannot let it end here.”

Offering a silent prayer, Sōgetsu adjusted the hair the wind had disordered.

“I will come again when everything is over.”

◇◇◇◇◇

A single highway stretched all the way to the horizon.

Scattered settlements could be seen dotting the flat land.

Stone houses. Crude dwellings built from warped planks. Or even mobile homes like tents, called yurts. These mismatched homes, with no sense of uniformity between them, were the handiwork of young dragonkin who had gone out into the wilderness and painstakingly built the foundations of their lives with their own hands.

The airship roared overhead, passing across the sky above them.

A gust of wind blew across the ground, shaking the plants below. Dragonkin working in the fields looked up at the sky, watched the airship vanish into the distance with puzzled expressions, then went right back to their work to fulfill their own duties.

Seiran, who had been watching the colorful settlements spread beneath her from the bridge, confirmed that the ship had stabilized in flight and was just about to withdraw to her own room when a subordinate came rushing in, visibly pale, and reported between gasps,

“Seiran-sama. A black pigeon message.”

“A black pigeon? Then this is urgent?”

“Yes. In the west, an End-Tenpa class monster has been confirmed. It is said that Dragon King Tengen-sama engaged it and, though suffering heavy losses, succeeded in driving it back.”

“Oh my? If he drove it back, then why was a black pigeon necessary?”

“That is…”

The young subordinate, still not yet an adult, hesitated before forcing the rest out.

“It was not fully subjugated, and it is said to have escaped across the border, toward the Argant region.”

“What did you say!?”

The fact that even a Dragon King had failed to kill it made the implication obvious enough: an End-Tenpa class monster possessed terrifying power. Since Argant was nothing more than a single city, the likelihood that they could not fully handle it was high. In her alarm, Seiran’s voice rose sharply.

“This is bad. If we arrive only to find our destination turned into scorched earth, then this is no time for a home visit.”

“Yes, but there is also the possibility that it changes course along the way.”

Biting her thumbnail when impatient was one of Seiran’s bad habits.

Without noticing that the habit she had supposedly already broken had resurfaced, Seiran turned her gaze toward the world map laid out on the bridge.

Directly west lay Argant.

If the course turned south, there was Espada, the city of swordsmen.

If it veered north, there was Marnica, one of the world’s foremost magic cities.

Espada was ruled by a man known as the Sword Saint, while Marnica was governed by one of the Three Great Mages.

“Since both are hero-class powerhouses comparable to us dragonkin, it is entirely possible that they could handle an End-Tenpa class monster.”

However, there was no information indicating that any comparably powerful figure on the human side was stationed in Argant.

There might be one or two skilled adventurers there, but an End-Tenpa class monster was far too much for that level. It was the sort of calamity that should be dealt with by a whole nation, under the leadership of a hero-class figure.

So if it did not change course away from Argant, everything would be over.

And at that moment, an unpleasant memory flashed through Seiran’s mind.

Pressing a hand to her aching head, she staggered, and a subordinate rushed forward to support her. Somehow regaining her balance, Seiran shook her head.

“No, I’m fine. I merely felt a little dizzy.”

But her face was pale, as though she had just seen a ghost.