Chapter 474: 472
Eddelrittuo was still young, but she had been granted the great honor of serving as Princess Asseylum's personal maid.
It was the proudest achievement of her life.
At the moment, however, her thoughts were in complete disarray.
After reaching the surface, the princess had entered Earth's embassy for a short rest. Later, she was supposed to join the Terran welcoming delegation and travel in a ceremonial motorcade to the formal reception venue.
Yet something completely unexpected had happened.
Only Eddelrittuo and the princess were supposed to be inside the room. But after briefly stepping away to fetch something for Her Highness, she returned to find an unfamiliar man there.
The sight nearly scared her to death.
A strange man had appeared inside the princess's room without warning. How could she not suspect that he was plotting something sinister?
Just as Eddelrittuo was about to scream, the man calmly turned his gaze on her. Every ounce of strength instantly drained from her body, and she collapsed onto the floor.
She felt like a helpless rabbit that had suddenly caught the eye of the king of beasts. Her entire body went limp with terror.
Worse, she felt an embarrassing warmth spreading below her stomach.
Despite her fear, Eddelrittuo desperately tried to crawl toward the princess. She had to protect Her Highness.
The situation, however, did not appear to be what she had imagined. The princess was neither being threatened nor held hostage.
With a somewhat helpless expression, Asseylum walked over and helped her up. She then explained that the young man was a highly valued guest whom she had personally invited.
A highly valued guest?
Next, two figures, one tall and one small, somehow appeared inside the room. One looked exactly like Eddelrittuo, while the other was identical to the princess.
Only after Asseylum calmed her down and explained everything did Eddelrittuo learn that they were androids modeled after the two of them.
The androids would leave the embassy and join the motorcade as their doubles.
It was certainly a much safer arrangement.
The ceremonial convoy had already prepared body doubles for them, but those substitutes were living human beings.
An hour later, Eddelrittuo stared blankly at the coastline before her.
The motorcade had not even departed, yet the princess had already slipped out of the embassy. No matter how she looked at it, this was incredibly dangerous.
Eddelrittuo had tried to stop her, but Asseylum insisted that something extremely important had to be done, something that concerned the coming war between Earth and Mars.
According to the princess, this peace mission was actually part of a conspiracy by the Orbital Knights to launch an invasion of Earth.
To put it simply, the ceremonial motorcade would be attacked shortly after it departed.
The Orbital Knights stationed in Earth's orbit would then claim that the princess had been attacked and immediately launch a war in the name of avenging her.
Eddelrittuo naturally found the story difficult to believe, but she did not dare reveal it to anyone.
If the princess was telling the truth, then they had no way of knowing which Orbital Knights could still be trusted. Reporting the matter might be no different from revealing the real princess's location to the conspirators.
The key to stopping the war was supposedly the mysterious young man who had somehow infiltrated the princess's room and frightened Eddelrittuo so badly that her legs gave out.
After they secretly left the embassy, the man walked to the very edge of the coastline. Eddelrittuo had no idea what he was doing there.
Huh?
She noticed an unusual disturbance beneath the water.
"Princess, is the sea level rising?"
Eddelrittuo spoke in alarm.
This was her first time on Earth, her first time seeing an ocean, and her first time witnessing waves and tides.
Even so, this was clearly not an ordinary tide. Something beneath the surface was rising and pushing the seawater upward.
Part of the ocean began to swell amid obvious vibrations, sending waves rippling outward.
The flowing water, combined with the strange rumbling vibrations, faintly outlined the shape of something enormous beneath the surface.
Something invisible was rising from the seafloor.
Whatever it was, it now appeared to be moving away from them, heading farther from the coast toward an unknown destination.
"There's no need to be nervous, Eddelrittuo."
How could she possibly not be nervous?
Eddelrittuo's lips moved, but she ultimately gritted her teeth and suppressed her questions.
She had to trust the princess and refrain from prying into matters she did not understand.
Suddenly, Eddelrittuo's small body went rigid.
The mysterious young man, the one Her Highness always treated with such courtesy, had abruptly turned his eyes toward her.
W-What did he want?
No, wait!
Eddelrittuo realized that he was not looking at her. The princess's expression had also stiffened slightly as she looked behind Eddelrittuo.
She turned around and discovered a black-haired woman approaching them with a handgun aimed in their direction.
"Who are you? What are you doing here? And what was that just now?"
The stern questions came from Yuki Kaizuka. Her handgun remained firmly trained on a single person: the young man who was completely ignoring her.
Even with a weapon pointed at him, he did not obediently remain where he was. He casually walked away from the edge of the coast, looking utterly indifferent to whether she pulled the trigger.
It did not seem as though he thought she was bluffing.
Rather, he simply believed the gun posed no threat to him.
What concerned Yuki most, however, was the enormous object that had just surfaced. Judging by the disturbance it created, it had been more than two hundred meters long.
The fact that she could not see it brought one possibility to mind: optical camouflage.
Earth did not possess technology like that.
That left only one possible faction.
Mars.
Today also happened to be the day the Martian princess was scheduled to visit Earth. Yuki could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
That was why she had gone to observe the area around the embassy, though she had initially found nothing unusual.
On her way back, however, she happened to spot several suspicious figures through her binoculars. They had been heading toward a deserted section of the coast.
Following them had allowed her to witness this strange phenomenon.
Another disturbance appeared on the surface.
More objects were rising from below.
That meant there was more than one of them.
"Don't move, or else..."
Yuki was about to threaten them with a warning shot when an invisible force suddenly pressed down on her, pinning her in place.
Before her eyes, a brown-haired girl who appeared to be around sixteen abruptly changed appearance. In an instant, she transformed into a blonde young woman wearing a white ceremonial dress.
Was that another form of optical camouflage?
"Princess Asseylum?"
Yuki murmured in stunned disbelief.
Wasn't the princess supposed to be inside the embassy? What was she doing here?
Had she come all this way just to see the ocean?
Was this princess truly so reckless that she did not understand what would happen if anything happened to her?
No, that could not be it.
She clearly had not come here merely to admire the ocean. The massive object that had surfaced moments earlier had most likely been a warship.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Yuki Kaizuka."
The princess greeted her politely, leaving Yuki momentarily stunned.
This had to be the real princess. Her natural bearing alone made it obvious that she was royalty.
As for how Asseylum had recognized her at a glance, Yuki only needed a moment to realize how she had given herself away.
Her identification badge had somehow slipped out from beneath her clothes. The princess must have read the name printed on it.
"Your arrival is quite fortunate. I need you to report something immediately and have Earth prepare itself. The Orbital Knights stationed above Earth are about to launch a full-scale invasion."
Asseylum issued the warning with an extremely serious expression.
They might not be able to intercept every Landing Castle. If even one successfully crashed into the surface, the resulting casualties would be even more horrific than those caused by a nuclear explosion.
The Orbital Knights forcing their way down already intended to invade Earth, which meant they would choose landing sites with the greatest strategic value.
Under normal circumstances, those targets would probably be military bases.
However, Mr. Kain had told Asseylum that the Orbital Knights would most likely choose the most prosperous cities instead. They were supremely confident that they could defeat any military force Earth deployed against them.
Asseylum therefore wanted Yuki to use Earth's communication channels to relay the warning, allowing the Terrans to begin preparing in secret.
Asseylum could not contact them herself. The Orbital Knights could not be allowed to discover the "visitors from another world," the interdimensional fleet that would intercept their Landing Castles.
If they discovered the fleet in advance, stopping the descent of the Landing Castles would become far more difficult.
Mr. Kain had also told Asseylum that Yuki Kaizuka was a character who appeared in the work depicting this world.
That meant she should be trustworthy.
It was precisely for that reason that Asseylum had revealed her true identity.
(End of Chapter)
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