Chapter 272
Chapter 272. Latent Heat (9)
"The Dragoons of Victoria? What do you mean......?"
The girl tilted her head, puzzled.
Watching the two of them from the side, Enoch found himself sharing her question entirely.
What on earth was going on? The Dragoons — that was none other than the elite army of the Victoria Domain that Alicia currently belonged to.
Which would mean the Dragoons' roots had endured from the era when old Victoria reigned as a nation, before the Empire, all the way into the modern Magic Empire.
"You know of them too, don't you, young lady?"
The red-haired knight tilted her head as if to say of course you do, and smiled faintly.
"The Dragoons are Victoria's order of knights sworn solely to the royal house. The ones also called the Royal Knights. They're quite trustworthy."
The red-haired knight fanned the paper lightly and held it out to the girl.
On the document, alongside a written oath stamped with the official seal pledging the alliance, were attached illustrations of the standard equipment of the Victoria knights promised for dispatch.
The girl took the document, and her eyes widened slightly.
"So these are the knights of Victoria......"
Depicted there were knights clad in heavy armor that looked far weightier and sturdier than that of the Guardian Knights of Rhodes, who mainly favored sleek, agile designs.
Knights gripping massive conical lances easily exceeding two meters, gazing forward through the sharp slits of their helmets.
"Well, they're capable enough in their own right. Though armor that big and heavy isn't to my taste."
"I, see."
"If you wore something like that, young lady, wouldn't you just topple straight over and lie there unable to budge? Heh heh."
While the girl was absorbed in the illustration for a while, the red-haired knight spun around.
Then she walked with clicking steps toward the tea set and tea caddy arranged on a table at one side of the office, giving a slight shrug of her slender shoulders.
"Unlike us, who specialize in defending the island, they're a mighty army whose mainstay is the powerful 'lance charge.' Ah! Incidentally, they also gifted me some fine tea brought in from the frozen lands. Care for a cup?"
The girl shook her head at the Instructor's idle chatter, then lowered her gaze, lost in thought.
"A lance charge — you mean couching a lance on horseback and charging at the enemy?"
"That's right. Mounted knights holding those long, conical cavalry lances, galloping in unison and ramming the enemy. Have you never seen one, young lady?"
The knight spooned a measure of tea leaves from the caddy into a porcelain teapot, then lifted the elegant kettle that had been heating before the fireplace.
With her gauntleted hand, she gracefully tilted the kettle's spout over the teapot and poured, steeping the tea.
As the fragrant aroma of tea bloomed through the office and brushed the tip of the girl's nose, she turned her head and averted her gaze.
"It's not that. It's just that I never received lance training in the Rhodes knight order."
"The Rhodes order centers on infantry combat, given the nature of defending an island fortress city, so it's hardly our mainstay. Though depending on the branch, we do teach it. Well, you don't meet the strength requirement anyway, young lady."
"......Don't meet the strength requirement...... I see."
The girl's expression deflated instantly. The Instructor glanced at her, paused mid-pour, and with a sly grin began patting the girl's shoulder.
"Heh heh, do you know how adorable it is, watching such a hard worker droop like that? Makes me wonder if I have tastes I never knew about."
"Instructor, what is that supposed to......"
"Fine, fine. It's a joke, young lady."
The Instructor waved her hand indifferently.
"But separate from that — and I say this so you don't get your hopes too high — alliance or not, don't put your full faith and expectations in the Dragoons' support."
"What?"
"It takes a long time for the Dragoons to travel from Victoria to Rhodes. There are political procedures involved, too — there's no telling when they'll arrive."
"You're saying the alliance might as well not exist?"
"I'm saying there's no guarantee they'll be there as fighting strength when we truly need them. Timing is the problem."
The knight said that with her arms crossed, then glanced at the girl and changed the subject.
"At any rate — you followed me to my office for the report, fine. But I don't know what you're standing around so blankly for, hm?"
When the girl flinched with a momentarily flustered expression, the red-haired knight drew the sword at her waist and grinned.
"Draw your sword. Now. With your skills, you want a rest?"
"But, this is your office......"
"The place doesn't matter. Honestly, a patch of floor one hand-span wide is all I need to train you, young lady. I'll keep you company while the tea steeps."
"......Then, understood."
The girl closed her eyes once, opened them, and drew her longsword. Noise once again blanketed the two beautiful women aiming their swords at one another.
Then, with a faint glow, they gradually faded away.
"......"
Watching that scene in silence, Enoch lowered his gaze, touched his lips, and sank into thought.
So Victoria's Dragoons had some connection to the Sword Saint of the Waves after all this?
Even while being eroded inside the Inner World, it was a strange feeling — the past and present connecting anew.
He turned his head; the lake still stretched on without end. Enoch took a small, deep breath.
The inheritance was not yet over.
Since this was information transmitted directly through the mental landscape, covering his ears and shutting his eyes would not let him evade the inheritance.
Then there was only one thing to do.
Enoch slowly raised his head and steeled his resolve.
Coming to know all of these events was itself the act of inheriting the Sword Saint of the Waves.
If there was no way to halt the inheritance now, he would face the past memories of the girl before him — and simply find the way to wield the Sword Saint's power to its fullest.
Submerged in water steeped with starlight, Enoch stepped forward without hesitation.
Behind the surface he advanced through, circular ripples rose with every step Enoch took.
They spread wide and long, like the time the Sword Saint of the Waves had lived through, forming beautiful, tranquil waveforms of water that rippled out behind him.
And so, at last, winter comes to Rhodes.
Once more, a form of light rose before his eyes, and Enoch slowly walked toward it.
The place where the dazzling forms of light he had seen before were constructed upon the water's surface like holograms.
Upon it: the water-haired girl, kneeling on the ground with her sword as a prop, exhausted from grueling training. And beside her, the red-haired knight, reclining diagonally across the training ground's spectator seats with a glass bottle in hand.
The place where the two women stood appeared to be the Rhodes training ground, paved wide with white marble.
Enoch walked on in silence, approaching the point where the circular stage of light floated upon the lake.
Then, once again, the frozen three-dimensional forms regained their original vivid color and began to play before his eyes.
"—The seasons turn, and still no progress at all."
In the memory of the distant past, the first to speak as the playback began was the red-haired knight, sipping from a wine glass.
She lay reclined, cheek propped on one arm, watching the worn-out girl with languid eyes.
The girl glanced at the Instructor and chided her.
"Drinking in broad daylight again, Instructor?"
"Then entertain me so I don't have to. Honestly, watching your training, young lady, I need a drink just to keep my spirits up. Even to me — the one training you — your regimen looks downright painful these days."
"......"
"Rest and listen. Let me ask you one thing, young lady. What do you fear most?"
The girl tilted her head at the abrupt question. Then, lowering her gaze to the ground, she answered carefully.
"As I said before...... it might be the lake of Rhodes. I lost everything there. And I nearly died there myself."
"But thanks to it, you also lived. Anyway, I'm not trying to start some pointless debate. Here's the point."
The knight swirled the wine glass in her hand once. Gazing absently at the wine lapping like the lake's surface, she added.
"When you meet a wall you cannot overcome, if you keep going without breaking, a path may eventually show itself. But to do that, you first need to overcome the thing you fear."
"Overcome it — what a strange thing to say."
The girl placed a hand over the breastplate of her armor and lowered her gaze slightly.
"Instructor, my greatest problem — my innate weakness — doesn't stem from fear."
"Exactly. Which is precisely why you need this kind of method."
"What do you mean?"
The Instructor set her glass down with a clack from her reclining position, then sat all the way up, lifted the wine bottle, and drank straight from it.
The girl simply stared as a thin stream of red wine trickled down the Instructor's glossy red lips.
Before long, with a refreshed "Kyaaah~!" the Instructor banged the bottle down on the floor. Then, languidly wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she said.
"Mm. Honestly speaking, young lady — expecting physical strength from you is hopeless. In that case, face the thing you fear head-on. Stand before that fear, and find a way to make that fear your own power."
"Make fear my power......?"
"That's right. Because I've started to think — maybe for you, wielding a sword needs to follow a different way than it does for other knights."
"Instructor. You really are drunk, aren't you?"
"Heh heh, spare a thought for me too, you know — the one forced to push you through training that goes nowhere. Anyway, it's a bad joke~."
The knight sloshed the wine bottle back and forth.
"And another thing. Watching you while drunk like this, a thought keeps coming to me."
"A thought?"
"Well — that you're a walking contradiction, young lady."
"A contradiction?"
"That's right. Rhodes — the very thing you want to protect — exists upon a lake. And yet you, who claim you want to protect Rhodes, still haven't overcome the lake, have you?"
The Instructor swept her hair, fallen over her shoulder, up across her flushed cheek and whispered.
"So — if the lake has become your fear, you must overcome it and move forward."
"Your logic is a mess."
"Aah. That's the drink. The drink, I tell you. Heh heh~."
"The Vice-Commander, pleasantly drunk on day wine and rambling — what's to become of the Guardian Knights' discipline......!"
Before the girl — gasping with exhaustion yet still managing to scold — could even finish, a sound suddenly came from outside the training ground.
And then someone came running toward the two of them.
"Report from the scout unit! As projected, Suleiman's 0th Unit is marching on Rhodes!"
At those words, every trace of drunkenness from moments ago vanished. The red-haired knight calmly set down the bottle and sat up straight.
"I'll hear it. Estimated time of arrival?"
"Estimated at one month! Here — the enemy deployment chart we confirmed!"
The knight of Rhodes handed the chart to the red-haired knight. She examined it, and as she read its contents, her brow furrowed with a grave expression.
"Understood. Report to the Commander at once."
"Yes! If you'll excuse me!"
Paying no mind to the knight's salute and departure, the knight — every trace of her languid tipsiness blown away — stroked her chin with a hardened expression and muttered.
"Ha. I'd heard it from the scouts, but seeing it myself — what a sight. To think they'd invade on this scale."
The red-haired knight clenched her teeth hard and gripped the hilt of the longsword at her waist. Then, scowling, she crumpled the report in her hand.
"The raid on Rhodes last time was carried out by the 0th Unit's scout teams alone. Not this time."
"What, do you mean?"
"The enemy deployment in this report makes it plain."
Grinding her teeth lightly, the knight held the document in her hand out toward the girl.
"In this invasion, the enemy's main strength — the entire 0th Unit of Suleiman — is descending upon Rhodes."