Aftermath
As it turned out, the feybeast hadn’t exploded at all. Instead, it had grown more than ten times its size in an instant, going from being knee-high to towering above us. It was so large, in fact, that I was beneath its head even while flying through the air. It fully eclipsed the moon, casting a shadow over us all.
“A goltze?!” Eckhart, who had been racing toward the feybeast to retrieve the ruelle, immediately jumped back and got on his highbeast. Damuel and Brigitte did the same, looking up at the feybeast with awe.
“What’s a goltze?” I asked.
“A higher evolution of a zantze, but this is my first time actually seeing that evolution happen,” Justus said.
The cat-like feybeasts that had attacked us were apparently called zantzes, and by absorbing mana, it had evolved through multiple forms until eventually becoming a goltze. A zantze would normally get bigger by eating ruelles and other feybeasts, but they would at most evolve into a fetze, which was the next evolutionary stage. It wasn’t scientific Darwinism, but the terminology made sense nonetheless.
“This must have happened because it absorbed your mana, milady. But this degree of evolution would normally be unthinkable.”
The two-story-tall goltze began to sluggishly move. It opened its enormous mouth wide, then began eating all the smaller feybeasts around it. These smaller feybeasts were thrown into a panic from the sudden appearance of an overwhelmingly strong goltze. Some immediately fled, while others tried devouring those around them for even a fraction of extra strength, which quickly descended into chaos.
“Ordonnanz,” Justus said, creating an ordonnanz to send Ferdinand an urgent request for help. “Lord Ferdinand, a zantze has eaten the ruelle filled with Lady Rozemyne’s mana and evolved into a goltze. It needs to be exterminated post haste. I request immediate assistance from the Knight’s Order.”
Listening to Justus’s report with gritted teeth, Eckhart turned his schtappe into a sizable dual-handed claymore. Justus looked between him and the blade, then narrowed his eyes.
“Eckhart, can you handle it?”
“I can’t say for sure until I try. Due to how sudden the evolution was, the goltze won’t have a proper grasp on its mana and size. If I’m going to attack, it has to be now while it’s still slow to move.”
Eckhart glared at the goltze, not taking his eyes off it for even a second as he poured mana into his claymore. The creature was licking up the smaller feybeasts with its massive tongue, wrapping them up and bringing them into its mouth. Eckhart flew his highbeast over its head, looking down all the while, then swung his blade.
“HYAAAH!”
A dazzling beam of light shot from his blade toward the goltze. It looked like the exact same attack that Karstedt had used back when we were ambushed during Spring Prayer, especially since Eckhart and Karstedt looked so alike. Though Eckhart’s attack did seem weaker.
Noticing the dazzling light quickly closing in on it, the goltze looked up, just in time for the slash to strike it across the face. It roared in pain and anger, revealing that the attack was in fact enough to damage it. But there was no longer any question that Eckhart wouldn’t be able to defeat it alone.
Still, encouraged by having done some damage, Eckhart swung his claymore once more. The smaller feybeasts retreated into the bushes, either afraid of the light or of getting wrapped up in the battle.
In the midst of all that, Justus began grabbing ruelle after ruelle, firing out instructions as he did so. “Brigitte, Damuel! Take Lady Rozemyne and flee at once! Stand by at the farming town!”
With Brigitte taking the lead, I soared away on my highbeast. We passed over the forest and returned to the deserted farming town, where we stopped and turned around. Even from there, we could tell that the goltze was still rampaging thanks to the unnatural shaking of the trees.
...Well, what do we do now?
Beating small zantzes was a piece of cake since they posed so little threat, but a goltze was too much even for an archnoble knight like Eckhart to kill. The problem here was obviously my mana—I only ever used it when I was too mad to think or when I was giving blessings, so I’d never had any opportunity to observe its size from an objective standpoint.
Ferdinand had talked a lot about how I needed to learn to control my mana—that I needed to keep myself protected from it since there was so much, and that he needed to make sure I didn’t pose a threat to the duchy. But I had never actually understood what he meant. I hadn’t been able to truly gauge how considerable my mana really was until now.
“...I didn’t know my mana could do that to a feybeast. This is all my fault, isn’t it?”
“No, Lady Rozemyne, it is our fault for failing to protect you,” Brigitte said flatly, causing Damuel to clutch his stomach out of stress as he gazed into the forest.
“What should we do now?” I asked. “We can’t just leave the goltze here.”
“Lady Rozemyne, leave this matter to the Knight’s Order. This is why it exists,” Brigitte declared proudly, puffing out her chest ever so slightly. But judging by how ineffective Eckhart’s attack had been, I wasn’t so optimistic.
“Look, Lady Rozemyne—Lord Eckhart is returning. Everything should be okay now,” she said. And indeed, two highbeasts maneuvered out of the trees and came flying toward us. It was Justus and Eckhart.
Just as they reached us, an ordonnanz arrived. It landed on Justus’s arm, then spoke in Ferdinand’s voice. “I am heading there at once. Raise a rott. We need to deal with the goltze before it causes any collateral damage. First, Eckhart should attack the beast. Should that not be enough to kill it, Rozemyne will need to make a reverse shield of Wind, forming a cage that the feybeast cannot escape from. Rozemyne, out of all those present, only you are capable of containing a feybeast that has consumed your mana.”
The ordonnanz repeated Ferdinand’s message three times, then reverted to its feystone form. Damuel immediately took out his schtappe and said “rott,” sending a beam of red light shooting up into the sky.
“Make a cage out of Wind...? Is such a thing even possible?” Eckhart murmured.
“He told me how to do it—I just need to reverse how a Wind shield normally works,” I said. “I guess this is my mess, so I need to clean up the aftermath myself.”
There was a chance that this situation could happen again during future gathering missions if we encountered another feybeast swarm, or if a feystone filled with my mana ended up getting taken, so I needed to learn how to deal with this kind of problem sooner rather than later. And in all honesty, I wasn’t feeling too nervous about it, since Ferdinand had advised me on what to do. This was a problem caused by my mana, and I felt better helping to fix it than just waiting for someone else to do everything for me.
“Easier said than done, Rozemyne. Just how much mana do you think that small body of yours contains? You blessed multiple knights and poured so much into a ruelle. How could you ever have enough left to pray to the gods for a shield of Wind? It’s reckless,” Eckhart said, dismissively shaking his head.
I had more than enough mana in me to make a shield of Wind, but for most people, that was apparently reckless to the point of danger. In other words, not many people had been informed of just how much mana I really had. Everyone knew that I had a lot thanks to the blessings I gave during the baptism ceremonies, but they didn’t know exactly how much.
That said, I had never compared my mana with anybody else’s, so I didn’t really have a clear reference point, either. While I thought about how to respond, Justus crossed his arms and looked at Eckhart.
“Eckhart, out of everyone here, Lord Ferdinand knows better than anyone how strong that feybeast is now that it’s consumed Lady Rozemyne’s mana. And we all just heard him say that only she’s capable of dealing with it, yeah? What you need to do here is follow Lord Ferdinand’s orders and help Lady Rozemyne get that goltze in a Wind cage.”
Eckhart shot me a worried look, but quickly shook it off and gave a nod. “You’re right. I’ll do everything I can to help. Rozemyne, put away your feybeast to save your mana for the Wind shield. Ride with Brigitte. Everyone else, we’ll follow on our highbeasts and fight off any of the smaller feybeasts that try to attack her. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
I turned Lessy back into a feystone and got onto Brigitte’s highbeast, before returning to the forest where the goltze was continuing its rampage. It was moving faster than before, likely because it was getting more used to the surplus of mana or how large it was.
As soon as we got close, its head snapped in our direction. Two vertically elongated pupils locked onto me, before opening wider in a clear show that the goltze had identified me as prey. The carnivorous look in its eyes sent a shudder down my spine.
As it rushed forward, having identified me as a clump of mana, Eckhart knocked it back with a slash and yelled. “Rozemyne, pray to the gods!”
“O Goddess of Wind Schutzaria, protector of all. O twelve goddesses who serve by her side...” I prayed, pouring mana into my ring as I always did.
For a split second, it felt as though the goddess herself was right next to me. I reflexively looked up at the purple moon, goosebumps raising on my arms. I couldn’t tell whether it was due to the moon or if something really was nearby, but the flow of mana felt a little different somehow.
“...Please hear my prayer and lend me your divine strength. Grant me your shield of Wind, so that I might blow away those who mean ill will,” I continued, picturing a flipped umbrella as I made the Wind shield to contain the goltze. And, just as I had envisioned, a translucent amber shield appeared in the air. It even had the same design on the inside.
Now contained within a giant dome, the goltze charged at the shield, only to be knocked back. Everyone let out a sigh of relief, but I clasped my chest; I had felt a chunk of my mana get sucked out upon the impact. For a second, I thought it was just me imagining things, but no—my mana was being drained each time the goltze rampaged around and hit the shield of Wind.
“Rozemyne, you don’t look so good. Is your mana holding up okay?”
“...I’m still fine. It’s just... this is a lot different from what I’m used to. I’ve made a few Wind shields before, but my mana’s never been sucked out each time it was attacked.”
“That’s because the goltze is attacking with mana that your shield cancels out. I would guess that everyone you’ve faced before now simply didn’t have that much mana,” Eckhart replied.
I nodded. He was right. The first time I had used it was during Spring Prayer when I was fighting farmers, and when I used it to protect everyone at the temple, I hadn’t been hit with Ferdinand’s mana head-on; my shield simply blocked the stray sparks of mana directed at the toad count.
Never had I thought that it would require so much mana to maintain a shield of Wind against a strong foe. I gritted my teeth and glared at the goltze as it repeatedly slammed into the shield, trying to break through. If it continued draining my mana at this rate, I had no idea whether I could maintain the shield long enough for Ferdinand to get here.
...Come as soon as you can, Ferdinand.
“Rozemyne, you look sick. Are you not out of mana yet?” Eckhart asked.
“I still have mana,” I replied.
It definitely took a lot to maintain the shield amid all the attacks, but the bigger problem for me right now was my concentration. In the past, all I needed to do was make the shield and that was that, but now I had to stay focused and keep my mana flowing to stop the shield from breaking apart.
“...But I am fighting an even greater foe than the goltze right now.”
“An even greater foe?! What could that be?!” Eckhart exclaimed.
“Sleep itself.”
Exhaustion and the passage of time had coalesced into one of humanity’s greatest foes: sleepiness. Although I had napped earlier that evening, we hadn’t left the city until long after seventh bell. It was already late in the night when the ruelles had started to grow and I could harvest one, and there had been non-stop conflict ever since. My young body was reaching its limit.
On top of that, I was riding with Brigitte. She had one arm wrapped around me, and thanks to her softening her breastplate to avoid hurting my head, I had the most incredible boob pillow enticing me to drift away to sleep.
...Nnngh. I just wanna sleep!
“Get a grip, Rozemyne! Nobody else here is capable of making and maintaining such a large shield!”
“I know that! Which is why I’m offering a deal. Someone, anyone—tell me some hilarious, fascinating stories to drive away all of my sleepiness!” I wrenched my drooping eyelids open to keep glaring at the goltze, asking for the knights to not just knock down the smaller feybeasts that occasionally leapt toward us, but to keep me awake as well.
“That’s a tall order. Justus is probably the man for that job, what with all the information he has. Take it away, friend.”
“Hold it. I’m good at gathering info, not retelling it. Not to mention, I don’t know Lady Rozemyne well enough to pick a good story for her. Damuel’s served her for a long time, so surely he’s the man for this job.”
The two archnobles looked toward Damuel, who paled and shook his head hard. “Lady Rozemyne is interested in books and libraries. I don’t know any stories that could satisfy her!” he cried.
Justus immediately raised an eyebrow. “Libraries? Then shall I regale you with tales of the Royal Academy’s library?”
“Yes! Please do! Tell me how many books it has, what those books are about... Anything!”
My sleepiness was blown away in an instant. The Royal Academy was a school for noble children that I would be attending when I turned ten, and it had a full-on school library. I wanted to use this opportunity to learn as much as I could about it.
Justus laughed. “I never thought that I would meet someone so interested in this trivia.”
From there, Justus began telling me all about the Royal Academy’s library. It might have been meaningless trivia to most people, but to me, it was valuable, fascinating information. The year it was built, the number of books it housed, what those books were about, who had donated the most to it, the names and ages of the librarians working within, and finally, the forbidden bookcase—every single detail sent my heart dancing.
“Apologies for the wait!”
Just as my desire to head to the Royal Academy was bursting at the seams, Ferdinand arrived. His white lion soared over to where we were, before flapping its wings to stop in place.
“...So that’s the goltze, then. You have done well to keep it trapped there, Rozemyne. It must have taken much concentration and mana. Very well done,” Ferdinand said, praising me as he looked at my shield and the goltze rampaging within it.
“I was able to focus thanks to Justus telling me so many fascinating things.”
“I see. Judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, I will refrain from asking for details. Eckhart, let us destroy the goltze at once.”
“Yes, sir!”
Ferdinand promptly looked from me to Eckhart, then whipped his schtappe out and turned it into a claymore as well. He then flew up into the air, pouring more mana than I had ever seen before into his blade. Eckhart shot Ferdinand a tense look, then stood protectively in front of us and slowly raised his own claymore, similarly pouring mana into it.
Once Ferdinand was above the goltze’s head, his claymore began to shine with a rainbow of colors. “We are going all out!” he roared. “Ready your blade!”
At that, he lifted his sword above his head and plummeted toward the creature as if planning to crash into it. During his descent, it seemed as though the shining rainbow engulfing his sword was getting steadily brighter.
“Rozemyne, remove the shield!”
I hurriedly got rid of my shield, and in an instant, both Ferdinand and Eckhart swung their swords. An immense slash of light descended upon the goltze’s head, quickly followed by an ear-splitting explosion, and a shockwave so powerful that it made me reel. Trees were ripped from the ground and collapsed as dirt and rocks flew through the air.
“HYAAAH!” I crossed my arms in front of my face just as Brigitte swept her cape around us for protection. I heard the sounds of debris hitting the cape, but it seemed that Eckhart’s slash had protected the area behind him from most of the carnage.
Ferdinand’s singular swing had eradicated the goltze, causing it to melt into complete nothingness. All that remained was a large feystone, which he picked up and looked over before shaking his head. “As expected. It’s unusable.”
The feystone that we had earned by killing the goltze was, of course, a goltze feystone, not a ruelle. The stone contained the mana of a bunch of feybeasts on top of my own, meaning it would be unusable for the potion.
“Eckhart, share this among yourselves later,” Ferdinand said as he tossed the feystone toward him. Eckhart caught it, then carefully placed it inside one of his leather pouches.
As I looked over the fallen trees, I saw that the ruelle tree from before was still standing. There wasn’t a single ruelle left, however—they had all either been gathered by Justus or eaten by the feybeasts.
“...I failed,” I murmured.
Despite having come this far with everyone and managing to fill a ruelle with mana, a zantze had taken it from us. We had been forced to summon Ferdinand over when it subsequently turned into a goltze, leaving him to clean up the mess, and what did we have to show for it? Nothing at all.
I felt a large hand rest upon my head. “You are not to blame here; we simply lacked enough information about the Night of Schutzaria. Next year, we will be fully prepared for this situation. So... do not cry,” Ferdinand said.
“I-I’m not crying. I was just yawning because I’m so tired,” I said, hurriedly rubbing my eyes and looking up at Ferdinand, who let out a short, haughty laugh.
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