Volume 2: The Temucha Region—Aunt in Flames
Chapter 31.5: Special Chapter: An Exhaustive Investigative Documentary 2! The Terror of the Principality’s Strongest Weapon!
This is a story from roughly a hundred years before Brendan enrolled at Magias.
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Dragon King Calendar, March 1921.
A message arrived for our battlefield reporting team.
“I’m searching for the person who saved my life on the battlefield the other day. They look like a small animal and are a very talkative stuffed toy with a large tail.”
When we asked the sender for more details, the existence of the mysterious Princess Anastasia, who had recently been appearing on battlefields, and her pet, the unidentified creature Lou, came to light.
After somehow tracking down their whereabouts and attempting to make contact, we succeeded in receiving special permission to accompany them for an in-depth report.
As our investigation continued, the realities of the battlefield, the principality’s conspiracy, and the young Anastasia’s objective all came to light. When every one of those threads connected, the truth of the war between the two nations emerged.
This is the record of the eight hundred days our reporting team spent accompanying them.
It is also the conclusion of the unidentified creature Lou’s mixer.
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When we arrived at the meeting place, what appeared before us was, just as rumored, a stuffed toy modeled after a small animal.
“I’m Lou.”
“Thank you for agreeing to let us accompany you today.”
“Don’t mind at all,” Sir Lou said with a gentle smile.
Sir Lou couldn’t hide his delight at our offer to invite him to a dinner gathering attended by numerous attractive women. It appeared our proposal had pleased him.
Q. What do you usually do, Sir Lou?
“Hm? Mixers.”
Surprisingly, even as Sir Lou traveled from place to place in the midst of this war, he apparently continued arranging opportunities to meet people.
“Mother and I are traveling to appeal to influential people in every region so we can stop this war.”
The one who offered that comment was a girl who, despite still being in her mid-teens, carried herself with a noble air.
By the time we decided to report on them, the pair had already become the subject of curious rumors.
According to our reporting team’s investigation, her name was Anastasia Luze Dravenia.
She claimed to be the surviving child of the princely house, believed to have died alongside Her Highness Princess Consort Melanna, and to possess the legitimate right of succession to the position of Grand Duke.
The tiara serving as her proof was found through atomic analysis to be composed entirely of Dragon King Stone. Her age was also consistent, making it extremely likely that she was a genuine member of the princely family.
The Temucha government, however, categorically denied her existence and declared her an impostor. The reality was that few influential figures on the Temucha side believed her at present.
She traveled to various fronts and proposed peace negotiations, and was said to have achieved several local ceasefires.
Even granting that this might be possible only for someone with noble blood in her veins, it was still a life-risking endeavor no ordinary person could imitate.
Naturally, she couldn’t easily settle every conflict.
Whenever negotiations became difficult, it was Sir Lou who supported her.
And on that very day, she had secured an appointment with the Temucha commander in order to stop the fighting along the border. Sir Lou was in charge this time.
Q. You’re laying the groundwork for a ceasefire. What’s the trick to negotiating?
“It’s the same as wooing a girl. The important thing is not embarrassing the other person.”
Sir Lou boasted as he said so.
Back home, his companions had apparently called him the Magician of Mixers.
Sir Lou then headed toward the principality army’s encampment alone.
“Good luck, Mother!”
“Heh heh heh. Just stand there and watch.”
Five minutes later, Sir Lou returned after being beaten to a pulp.
Q. How did it go?
“How do you think?”
Sir Lou’s expression was grim.
The negotiations appeared to have ended in failure.
“Well, I didn’t expect it to work from the start.”
The one who shrugged was Lady Lorelei (provisional name), a contracted mage employed by Lady Anastasia.
Though still in her teens, she was renowned as a genius mage and had apparently come to assist Anastasia’s party through a curious turn of events.
“Then we’ll use Plan B.”
“I’ve always wondered, Lou. What does the ‘B’ stand for?”
“Whatever it stands for, we’re gonna make those bald bastards regret this!”
We sought clarification from Lady Lorelei, who served as their strategist.
Q. What is Plan B?
“Oh, it basically means destroying their facilities so they can’t keep fighting…”
Q. Is it always like that?
“More or less.”
Anastasia’s party subdued both camps without bloodshed before the end of that day.
They all but forced the commanders of both sides to sit down at the negotiating table and established a local ceasefire throughout the region.
In hindsight, this gave nearby residents time to prepare to evacuate somewhere safer, and Anastasia’s party reportedly received the gratitude of many civilians.
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One year after we began our coverage.
There was no longer anyone on the front lines who didn’t know the name Princess Anastasia.
She had secured more than ten ceasefires.
Moved by Lady Anastasia’s sincerity, more and more people were agreeing to negotiate without forcing her to resort to violence. Activity along the battle lines had unmistakably slowed.
Powerful figures who sympathized with her ideals, including the wandering swordswoman Hinoe and the martial artist Nanakuma, joined her forces as well. Her group had grown into one that could be called a neutral power in both name and reality.
When the White Princess comes, the fighting ends.
At some point, those words began passing between the soldiers like a prayer.
Q. Do you feel your support spreading?
“I merely appeal to people. It is always those on the ground who find the courage to lay down their spears.”
The princess’s rise also gradually began dividing opinion on the principality’s side, and it was said that she had recently attracted even the King of Griefia’s attention.
Lady Anastasia’s way with words melted people’s hearts.
There could no longer be any doubt that it was an art only one with the makings of a sovereign could perform.
The end of the long war.
What had once been nothing more than a fantasy was gradually becoming reality.
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Then came the Dragon King Calendar year 1923.
Lady Anastasia was seventeen that spring.
The local ceasefires she had accumulated finally numbered in the dozens, and the moderates of both countries agreed to sign a formal armistice in the neutral zone along the border.
It went without saying that Lady Anastasia would attend.
On the evening before the signing ceremony, Anastasia’s camp felt like the eve of a festival.
No one knew who started it, but people brought alcohol and food, gathered around the fire, and reminisced about the journey that had brought them there.
Two years had passed since we began our coverage.
It was an emotional sight for us as well.
“When I think about it, I only started helping because I got swept along by circumstances.”
Lady Lorelei spoke reflectively as the firelight played across her face.
Q. What will you do after the war ends, Lady Lorelei?
“I’m going to become a teacher. I want to create a place where anyone can learn, regardless of where they were born or what bloodline they belong to.”
Q. And you, Sir Nanakuma?
“My name’s gotten around, so maybe I’ll start a school of my own in earnest. What do you think, Lady Hinoe?”
Q. Lady Hinoe?
“……”
As usual, Lady Hinoe said nothing. But on that day of all days, she smiled as she accepted a cup from one of her companions.
Q. Lady Anastasia?
“I intend to ascend the throne as Grand Duke of Temucha. Assuming everything continues to go well.”
Lady Anastasia smiled as she stroked Sir Lou in her lap.
“If I lose the political struggle, I’ll open an orphanage with Mother instead. Whatever happens, I want to restore what everyone lost in this war.”
Q. Sir Lou?
“A national mixer.”
A national mixer?
“The name of a mixer changes with the scale. Once the war’s over, I’m planning a mixer for the whole country.”
“In that case, Mother, let’s ask the King of Griefia and Uncle.”
“Kyah-hah-hah! Nice idea! It’s sure to be fun!”
“It’s a promise, then.”
The campfire never went out.
Everyone spoke only of tomorrow.
That is the final footage remaining in our magical recording device.
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No physical records survive from the days that followed, as the equipment was destroyed.
Accordingly, the record below was reconstructed from survivor testimony.
A large-scale terrorist attack occurred during the armistice signing ceremony.
The venue was engulfed in explosive flames, killing seventeen people, primarily members of the royal and princely families who had attended the signing.
Among them were His Majesty the King of Griefia and the current Grand Duke, who was also Lady Anastasia’s uncle.
The perpetrators were senior officers of the Temucha principality army.
The attack was the work of extremists who had kept themselves hidden until then.
Members of Anastasia’s faction were blamed on the spot and nearly detained by the kingdom army, but Sir Lou’s quick thinking allowed them to escape the crisis.
However, all the work toward peace they had built over two years was reduced to nothing.
And amid the chaos, Lady Anastasia was abducted by the extremists.
The following day, a magical weapon of mass destruction was observed in a coastal city of Griefia.
The entire surrounding area vanished without a trace overnight.
At the same time, a declaration was transmitted across the whole Kingdom of Griefia by means of an unknown communications technology.
“The pretender has fallen.
We of the principality will end this war in victory.
Through the power of the ancient Fire Arrow.”
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“…It’s a folktale passed down in Temucha since ancient times.”
Lady Lorelei addressed everyone with a face worn down by exhaustion.
“They say that deep beneath the principality sleeps an ‘incarnation of fire’ from the age of creation. According to the legend, the key to awakening the incarnation is the blood of the grand-ducal house—or, more precisely, the dragon vein inherited only by that family.”
That was why the extremists had “recovered” Lady Anastasia.
Even as they declared the princess an impostor, they intended to exploit her blood as genuine.
“…It’s hard to believe, but our spies report that the thing is fueled by the life force of Temucha’s citizens. They’ve sealed off the princely capital, Dravena, and are draining them indiscriminately through the great dragon vein.”
Several people had apparently already died of unexplained debilitation.
In other words, at this rate, the people of Griefia would burn and perish.
And the people of Temucha would be drained dry and perish.
Only the extremists calling themselves the true kings would survive.
“But you have no intention of giving up, do you?”
“Of course not. We won’t let everything Anastasia has done go to waste.”
Lady Lorelei responded firmly to Sir Nanakuma’s question.
Beside her, Sir Lou laughed and shrugged.
“Good grief. She’s a handful right to the bitter end.”
“Then shall we use that one again, after all this time?”
Q. That one?
“Plan B begins! We’re bringing Anastasia back right now and putting an end to all of this!”
The operation to neutralize the principality’s ultimate weapon.
Operation name: “B.”
An elite force led by Lady Hinoe and Sir Nanakuma would halt the incarnation’s advance. In that opening, Lady Lorelei’s Holy Formation Barrier would cut off its magical-power supply.
Every mage gathered from across the border would become a foundation stone for the barrier.
The final battle that would decide the continent’s fate had now begun.