“Get your dirty hands off of Tuuli and get out of my sight or else she won’t be the one dying here—you will.” The world around me slowed, and as the man began to convulse and foam at the mouth, I gradually strengthened the force of the mana hitting him more and more.
“Ngh... Ah!” His mouth moved, and a second later something sharp whistled through the air and stabbed through the man’s arm.
“What?” I blinked in surprise, coming back to my senses just as Dad leapt at the man, dagger in hand. Unable to dodge due to the Crushing’s lingering influence, the kidnapper took the blade head on.
“Gah!” He screamed as blood spurted from his wound. Dad then pushed him down, and Tuuli went tumbling down to the ground as they fought.
“Tuuli!”
“Are you okay?!”
Gil and Lutz immediately ran over to Tuuli, wiping the man’s splattered blood off of her cheeks.
“...I-I was so scared,” Tuuli said, sitting on the ground in shock.
I started to run over too, but just as I took my first step I saw something flash in the corner of my eye. I spun around and saw that the other man—the one my dad had been fighting with, and probably the one who had tried kidnapping me—was raising his hand. There was a ring on his finger, and its feystone was glowing. I instantly understood that he was pouring mana into it and did the first thing I could think of. I turned to Dad, who was finishing off the other man, and yelled.
“Dad! Look out!”
Dad spun around too, and Damuel roared “Gunther! Get back!” as he leapt toward him to push him away.
“Ngh?!”
Once he had pushed Dad away, a shield-like thing appeared over Damuel’s left hand which he used to block the beam of mana that had shot toward him. The man must not have considered that his attack might be blocked as he looked at Damuel and stepped back, shaken.
“Gunther, this guy has mana. I’ll take care of him! You all get back to the temple and alert Lord Ferdinand!”
“Understood! Otto, get Myne!” Dad yelled before picking up Tuuli, whose legs were too shaky for her to stand, and sprinting toward the main street. Having snapped back to their senses, Lutz and Gil ran after him. Otto picked me up and followed too, heading back to the temple.
“Myne, you’re bleeding...” Otto grimaced in sympathetic pain as he ran. I followed his eyes to my knees, where blood was flowing all the way to my shins.
“That must have happened when I was dropped.” It hadn’t hurt at all thanks to the adrenaline, but the second I saw the wound, a sudden sharp pang of pain hit me. My own blood reminded me of the blood that had sprayed from the other man.
“...Otto, this is a bad situation where, um, we need help really bad, right?” I asked, watching Dad, Lutz, and Gil weaving through the flood of people on the main street. Otto basically shrieked in response.
“What else does it look like?!”
“I just wanted to make sure nobody would get mad if I called for help.”
I pressed my thumb against the bloody wound on my knee, then pulled out the necklace I had made sure to wear at all times so that I could stamp my blood against its black, onyx-like stone.
For an instant, it shone with yellow light, but nothing else happened; the only change was the yellow flame that now wavered inside the black stone. It had probably sent word to Sylvester, or was just a magic tool to broadcast my location. I had no way of knowing despite having stamped my blood on it.
“What’s that thing?”
“A charm. Apparently it’ll help me when I’m in danger.” I slid the magic necklace back under my clothes, still not knowing what it had done. And that was when we passed by the Gilberta Company.
“Tuuli and Lutz, you go inside with Otto and stay at his place,” Dad instructed while setting Tuuli down in front of the door. Lutz looked up at him, gasping for air.
“Mr. Gunther, I can—”
“You’ll get in the way.” Dad shot Lutz down before he could ask to come with us.
“But Gil is going!”
“Gil lives in the temple. You’re different. We don’t need people who can’t fight,” Dad said, slicing Lutz’s hopes to shreds before turning to Otto and giving him a hard look as I was set down. “Otto, I’m entrusting Tuuli to you. I’m taking Myne to the temple.”
“Captain, Myne—be careful out there, okay?” Otto clenched a fist and bent his elbow. Dad did the same, tapping his fist against Otto’s.
“It’ll be fine; the Knight’s Order is out.” His expression still hard, Dad pointed his fist upward. We could see several feystone highbeasts racing through the sky, probably heading to where Damuel was. If so, they would reach him in no time.
“Let’s go, Myne.” Dad picked me up and started sprinting to the temple.
The Noble from Another Duchy
Dad reached the temple with me in his arms, and for some reason Fran was already waiting at the gate. Why was he there when we hadn’t had the time to tell him we were coming back?
“Fran? What brings you to the gate? Did something happen?”
“I saw the call for the Knight’s Order pierce the sky, and considered it possible that you would be returning soon. To think I would be right...” Fran said, looking us over. He could guess that something serious had happened by the fact that Lutz and Tuuli weren’t with me, and Dad was here in Damuel’s place.
“Fran, we need to talk to the High Priest.”
“He is not here.”
“What...?”
“We can talk in your chambers. Gil, my apologies, but please wait here for Sir Damuel. I ask that you instruct him to go not to the High Priest’s room, but to Sister
