EPILOGUE
Concluding the School Trip and the Start of Mayhem
Finally…after such a long time coming…following days that felt like they bordered on eternity…the school trip was over.
It was the morning of our departure.
There were no casualties in the last incident. Though a handful of civilians had been injured, they were all fully healed now. I made it my personal responsibility to patch up the crumbled buildings. There was nothing left for us to do.
“I thought school trips were supposed to give us a break,” I sulked.
“I’m exhausted…,” Ireena admitted.
“I can’t wait to rest when we’re back…,” added Ginny.
“I thought it was fun! …Well, I can’t say I’d wanna do it again,” Sylphy corrected herself.
My friends chatted as they boarded the carriage. I was about to step inside.
“Heeeey! Arrrrrrrd!”
…I picked up on a voice that I desperately wished I wasn’t hearing. I accidentally clicked my tongue in irritation, turning around.
…There was a face I didn’t want to see for a while.
“Hff. Hah. I’m beat! But I made it in time!”
Verda Al-Hazard.
Her existence had been snuffed out because she reconfigured her spirit, but…she stood before us as if that never happened.
Not that I was surprised. She wasn’t the type to just die. If she was weak, she wouldn’t have become a Heavenly King in the first place. In fact, she was more persistent than even the most stubborn parasite.
“…Thank you for coming to see us off personally.”
“Gweh-heh-heh! You don’t look thankful!” Verda clutched her stomach as she laughed.
It didn’t take her long to straighten her back.
“Hey, Ard. Do you believe in fate?”
“…Not sure. But I accept the idea of strange coincidences.”
“I see. Well, I believe in them. That’s why…I don’t think it’ll take much time before we meet again. Can’t say I know what our next reunion will look like, though.”
She broke into an hair-raising grin, drawing close to me and standing on her tiptoes.
“It was fun playing with you for the first time in forever.”
Then she whispered into my ear.
“See you around, Var.”
With these parting words, she padded off.
…I was busted, huh. Now I had another problem to add to my list.
…Well, I guessed this was my lot in life. Not that I wanted to accept it.
I had gained a friend from all this, though, so I figured I’d come out even.
I climbed into the carriage, thinking over Verda’s fixation on fate…
A week after we returned to the royal capital, things were back to being calm. We had eased away our exhaustion from the trip.
Well, calm, I guess, in air quotes.
“WHERE ARE YOU, SYLPHY?!”
“EEEEEEEEP?!”
The fools were back at it again.
“I don’t think Sylphy will be able to go back to the dorms anytime soon,” Ireena noted.
“Why don’t you wait for Miss Sylphy? You’re basically her big sister,” Ginny suggested.
“I would, but I’m busy keeping an eye on a homewrecker,” Ireena snapped back.
They fumed. Nothing had changed between them.
Classes were over for the day. We had left school as the sun set, returning to the dorms on campus.
“Excuse me. Are you Ard Meteor? And are you Baroness Ireena?”
He stood out like a sore thumb on the school grounds, covered from head to toe in armor. The crest of the royal family was engraved on the chest plate.
“…Are you one of the knights who serves under the direct orders of the queen?”
“Indeed. She has summoned both of you. Please come to the palace immediately.”
Ireena and I looked at each other.
“I gotta say, there hasn’t been a dull moment since we got here,” she said.
“Yes. I long to have too much time on my hands,” I replied.
We shrugged our shoulders.
“We’ll visit posthaste. Will you guide us?” I asked.
“Of course. Let us go.”
We braced ourselves to get mixed up in more chaos…
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