If you like Zero no Itan-sha then please look at my other fic Zero and Stray: s/8917898/1/Zero-and-Stray
Chapter 6: Fouquet
In Tristain, there was a mage thief by the name of "The Crumbling Dirt," who had every noble in the country cowering in fear. This one's full name was Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt.
When Fouquet heard that a noble in the North had a jeweled crown, he would go all the way there to steal it. When Fouquet heard that a noble in the South had a staff bestowed by the king as a family treasure, he broke through walls to steal it. In the East, none of the best pearl rings by the artisans of the White Islands remained in any mansion. Fouquet also eagerly took possession of a priceless bottle of well-aged wine from a winery in the West. The thief was everywhere.
Fouquet's tactics range from stealthy infiltration to outright breaking in. The national bank had been attacked in broad daylight, and houses were silently frequented in the depth of night. In any case, Fouquet's tactics simply left the royal mage guards in the dust.
Fouquet was identified only by the use of alchemy to enter targeted rooms, turning doors and walls to dirt and sand, then walking through the gaping holes. The nobles were not stupid, of course, they had tried to magically "solidify" everything around their treasure in an attempt to stop the alchemy, but Fouquet's magic was simply too strong, nullifying everything, fortified or not, into dirt.
If Fouquet decided on breaking the way in, a 30-mail tall dirt golem was used. Tossing aside mage guards and shattering castle walls, it let him boldly take prizes in broad daylight.
No one had ever seen Fouquet's appearance up close. Nobody even knew for sure whether he was a man or a woman. All they knew is that Fouquet was an earth mage of at least Triangle class, that he left insulting notes, such as "I got your treasure. –-Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt" at every robbery scene, and that he preferred treasures and artifacts of great magical power.
*scene break*
It was this same Fouquet that was currently standing in her underwear before a full-length mirror, fussing as she tried to get her long, green hair to cooperate as she went through several sets of outfits that straddled the line between indecent and provocative.
"Why is finding a good outfit so hard?!" The woman screamed in frustration.
*scene break*
The day after Ramza's attempted seduction by Kirche he had gone to class with Louise and was surprised by the sheer number of stares he received, the words "wandless", "noble", and "elf", being overheard constantly.
"Louise, why is everyone mentioning elves, and what the hell are they?" Ramza whispered to the girl confusedly.
Louise looked at Ramza as though he was an idiot, unable to believe what he had asked for a moment.
"Everyone is mentioning elves because you cast that fire spell without a wand yesterday, only elven Firstborn magic can do that, and to answer your other question, elves are long-eared demonspawn that chased our ancestors out of the founder's Holy Land." Louise explained while maintaining the same disbelieving look, had her familiar truly come from another world after all?
At this point a teacher came in and tried to make the class settle down so he could teach. The class was a basic explanation of wind magic and the teacher called up several students to demonstrate.
*scene break*
After class Ramza headed out towards the courtyard, Derflinger strapped to his back so he could practice his sword forms, when he heard someone call for him.
"Master Beoulve, wait!" A male voice shouted from the stairs.
'Master Beoulve?' Ramza thought incredulously, turning around to spot Guiche running towards him.
"M-master Beoulve, in light of your effortless victory over myself I was wondering if you would be willing to teach my unworthy self in the arts of war. For your skill on the battlefield clearly outshines even my own and your fire magic was absolutely amazing!" The boy gushed before he began to wax poetics about Ramza's victory over himself, feeling a headache coming on Ramza just sighed and clasped a hand over Guiche's mouth.
"Yes, I will teach you," Ramza agreed, "but I must warn you that my methods can very easily kill you, I have never lost someone during a training mission but it is in your own best interest to get a healer ready." Ramza warned the boy before removing his hand.
"Understood Master Beoulve, where would you like to rendezvous?" The foppish boy asked excitedly.
"Same place as before. Vestri Courtyard." Ramza replied as he walked outside, ignoring Sylphid and Flame as they followed him once he was out the door.
When Ramza entered the courtyard he drew Derflinger with a slight smile, holding the blade in his right hand and spinning the blade in a clockwise motion with both hands to help familiarize himself with it a bit more before he suddenly hefts the sword in his right hand.
"Ha!" He shouts loudly, swinging the sword down as the whoosh of air being rent fills the small courtyard.
"Nice swing partner." Derflinger comments as Ramza begins to execute a series of basic strikes, slowly tuning out the world around him as he begins executing more and more complex combinations until Derflinger was an invisible streak carving up the air around him with the sound of a lion's roar.
"Amazing sword skills Master Beoulve!" Ramza heard Guiche praise as he sighed, putting away the sentient sword but leaving the blade slightly drawn so it could comment on the match.
"Guiche, I am going to insist that you just refer to me as Ramza during our practice, understood?" Ramza asked as he looked to see that Guiche had brought a blond-haired girl with him.
"Yes sir, Ramza, this is the beautiful Montmorency the Fragrance, Montmorency, this is the noble Ramza Beoulve." Guiche explained introducing the two as he eyed Ramza.
"Um, Sir Ramza, what type of training do you have in mind?" Guiche asked, suddenly feeling as though his instructor was about to pull out a satanic practice sword named after a tiger.
"Just a light spar, Guiche, can you use magick to make two broadswords?" Ramza asked with a well-concealed but still feral smile, "my specialty is fire you see so I can not do it."
"O-of course Sir Ramza." Guiche exclaimed, waving his rose wand with a flourish and creating two three-foot long broadswords.
'Impressive make on the blades, they're practically the real thing.' Ramza observed as he took one of the swords and gave it a test swing. "You come from a military family don't you?"
"Yes, the Gramont family has had an illustrious military career for generations, why my own father is a general in Tristain's army."
Hearing this Ramza could only blink as he remembered his own family's history, a soft smile coming to his lips that vanished as he held the broadsword in his right hand, watching Guiche and hoping the boy wouldn't let him down.
"We're starting now."
"Yes, let us do battle with the swords in our- "
*WHACK!*
*scene break*
By the time Ramza was done drilling basic defensive posture into Guiche's limbs he found out to his surprise that not only had night fallen but that they had an audience. As Ramza looked around he was surprised to see Louise watching from a bench with Kirche, who had a blush on her face and was fiddling with her uniform in a manner that made Ramza very uncomfortable, a blue-haired girl that Ramza recognized as Sylphid's master reading a book between them.
"Enjoying the show?" Ramza asked with a good-natured grin as he watched the practice swords vanish under Guiche's magical orders.
"Yes." Kirche, Louise, and Montmorency all replied together as Montmorency healed the battered and broken lump that was once called Guiche.
"S-sir Ramza, did you need to be so brutal?" Guiche asked once he was recovered enough to speak.
"Yes, I did, I wanted to show you what it was like to be completely overwhelmed by your enemy, unable to even think of fighting back, before drilling you properly." Ramza explained, suddenly yelping as Sylphid picked him up with a happy purr then hugged him mercilessly.
"Sylphid, stop it." Tabitha ordered without even once glancing up from her book and the dragon complied with a sad look in its eyes as Ramza spotted something unusual near a tower.
"Everyone, is it normal to see massive golems getting ready to punch holes in a tower here?"
"What? No." Louise said as everyone present briefly wondered if Ramza was sane.
"Then please look behind you." Ramza ordered as he drew Derflinger, running towards aforementioned golem.
"KYAAAAAAAAAA!" Kirche screamed as she spotted the giant construct and Ramza drew Derflinger, blinking in surprise as he body suddenly felt lighter, allowing him to move at speeds he hadn't thought possible without magic, it was light wielding Excalibur again.
"This could help." Ramza said with a grin as he purposefully left the children behind, pulling on his most negative emotions and the darkness of the night around him for his attack as Derflinger hummed with the evil power.
"H-hey partner, what is this?" Derflinger asked nervously as the massive earth golem punched a hole in the tower, a dark figure running into the now-exposed room, stealing a six-foot bundle that sparked randomly.
"Abyssal Blade!" Ramza ordered as he aimed the sword tip at the massive Golem, a cone of dark power rushing out and blasting a hole in the construct's midsection.
"What the hell?!" the mage atop the golem shrieked as they retrieved their target, leaving behind a note and running away, the golem and summoner vanishing into the night.
*scene break*
The next morning…
At the Tristain Academy of Magic, there was much commotion from last night's events, just as though a wasp's nest had been stirred.
Why? Because the Spear of the Gods had been stolen.
And it was brazenly stolen by using an Earth Golem to break through the wall of the vault.
The teachers of the Academy of Magic gathered inside the vault were speechless when they saw the gaping hole in the wall.
The inscription on the wall etched by Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt said it all:
[I have the Spear of the Gods. – Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt.]
At this point in time, all the teachers at the academy could do was gripe and whine
"It's that thief who had looted the nobles clean, Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt! How daring of him to target the academy!"
"What were the guards doing?"
"Even if the guards are around, they're useless! They're only commoners! Speaking of which, which noble was supposed to be on duty last night?"
Mrs. Chevreuse felt anxious. She was supposed to be on duty last night. "But who would steal from the academy?" she thought while sleeping soundly in her own room instead of being next to the vault door like all nobles on watch duty must do.
One of the teachers immediately pointed out and said, "Mrs. Chevreuse! You were supposed to be on duty last night! Am I right?"
Mrs. Chevreuse broke into tears, "I'm very sorry… Very sorry…"
"Even if you cried your heart out, would it come back? Or are you going to pay for it?"
"But… but I just finished paying for my house." Mrs. Chevreuse knelt down on the floor and wept.
Just then, Old Osman arrived. "Erm… This is not the best time to be hard on the ladies, right?"
The fellow teacher who reprimanded Mrs. Chevreuse retorted, "But Osman, Mrs. Chevreuse failed in her duty! She was sleeping soundly in her bed when she was supposed to be on watch!"
Old Osman gently stroke his long beard while looking at the very shaken and stirred teacher.
"Erm… What's your name again?"
"It's Gimli! Have you forgotten?"
"Oh, right! Gimli! Well, Mr. Gimli, don't get angry. Honestly speaking, how many of you here can say that you're always vigilant throughout your tour of duty?" Old Osman replied.
The teachers looked at each other and hung their heads in shame. There was silence.
"Well, that's the situation that we're in now. Talking about responsibility, I think all of us, including myself, have to be held accountable for this incident. Why did we think that a thief could never infiltrate the academy? Is it because of the number of mages we have in the academy here that gives us the assurance that we won't be attacked? This type of thinking is wrong from the beginning."
Old Osman gazed at the hole in the wall and continued, "It's our complacency that has gave Fouquet the courage to trespass, and steal the Spear of the Gods. We're all at fault."
Mrs. Chevreuse looked upon Old Osman with gratitude and said, "Oh! Osman, Mr. Osman! Thank you for your benevolence. From now on I'll look upon you as though you're my father."
"Well, that… Hehe… Miss…" Old Osman started to stroke Mrs. Chevreuse's bottom.
"If that's okay with you… It's up to the headmaster then."
Old Osman, not wanting to put the blame on anybody, decided that was the best way to loosen the uptight atmosphere. After that he proceeded to clear his throat, with everybody remaining solemn waiting for him to speak.
"Well then, who were the ones who witnessed the theft?" Osman asked.
"It was these six." said Mr. Colbert while pointing to the group behind him.
It was Louise, Kirche, Guiche, Montmorency, Ramza, and Tabitha.
"Why do I not feel surprised?" Old Osman wondered aloud.
"Please tell us about the event in depth."
Louise stepped forward and described what she saw. "Mm… A great clay golem appeared and broke the wall. The hooded magician standing on its shoulder went in and took something… I think it most probably was the Spear of the Gods... After that the hooded mage rode on the golem and escaped beyond the school walls… The golem became a big mound of earth in the end."
"After that, what happened?"
"Later, all we saw was a mound of earth, with no sign of the hooded mage."
"So… that is what happened…" Osman said while stroking his beard.
"Even though we wanted to carry on the chase, but without any leads we couldn't. So…"
At this point in time Old Osman suddenly remembered a question to ask Mr. Colbert, "Ah, Where is Miss Longueville?"
"I'm not sure, I haven't seen her since morning."
"Where could she have gone to during these trying times?"
"That's right, where could she be?"
In the midst of those mutterings, Miss Longueville finally appeared.
"Miss Longueville! Where have you been? Something terrible has happened!" said Mr. Colbert anxiously.
Miss Longueville spoke to Old Osman in a very cool and calm manner. "I'm extremely sorry to be late! I was doing some investigations. So…"
"Investigations?"
"Yes. When I woke up this morning there was already a lot of commotion happening, so then I went to the vault and saw the inscription on the wall made by Fouquet. I knew that the thief infamous throughout the land had struck again. Therefore, I immediately started investigations."
"You're really very efficient, Miss Longueville." Mr. Colbert then asked again in an urgent manner, "But in the end, did you find out anything?"
"Yes, I have gotten hold of the whereabouts of Fouquet."
"What!?" Mr. Colbert spoke with amazement. "Where did you get this information from Miss Longueville?"
"According to the commoners around the area, they saw what seemed to be like a person wearing a black hooded cloak entering an abandoned house in the nearby forest. I think that the person is most probably Fouquet and that abandoned house is most probably his hideout."
Louise upon hearing that exclaimed, "A black hooded cloak? Unmistakable, that must be Fouquet!"
Old Osman too got psyched up and asked Miss Longueville, "How far is it from here?"
"By foot it takes half a day, by horse it should only take four hours."
"We must report this to the Imperial Court right away! We must seek reinforcements from the imperial army!" Mr. Colbert shouted yet again.
Old Osman shook his head and stared at Colbert and with a vigor unfitting for an old man and shouted, "You fool! By the time we report this to the imperial court, Fouquet would have gotten away Scott free! Besides, if we can't even handle such a small problem on our own, we're not fit to be called nobles! Since the Spear was stolen from the academy, then it's the academy's responsibility to get back the Spear ourselves!"
Miss Longueville smiled, as though she was waiting for this answer all along.
Old Osman coughed for a while, and then started recruiting volunteers. "Now, we're going to organize a search team to find Fouquet. Those willing to join, please rise up your wands."
All of the nobles looked at each other awkwardly, not one raised a wand.
"No one? That's peculiar. No one wants to be known as the hero who caught Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt?"
Louise was among those who lowered their heads but she decided to raise her wand.
"Miss Vallière!" Mrs. Chevreuse exclaimed in surprise. "You mustn't do this! You're still a student! Please leave this to the teachers!"
"But none of you are willing to help…" Louise muttered.
Ramza smiled and stood rigidly behind Louise like an honor guard for royalty, something he had been at one point in the past.
Seeing that Louise had raised her wand, Kirche too raised her wand, with a little reluctance though.
Mr. Colbert even more surprised, exclaimed; "Miss Zerbst! Aren't you a student too?"
Kirche replied nonchalantly, "Well, I simply cannot lose to the Vallière family."
Seeing Kirche raising her wand, Tabitha did the same.
"Tabitha! You need not do this! This does not concern you at all!" Kirche said.
Tabitha just answered, "I'm worried."
Feeling touched, Kirche looked at Tabitha with gratitude.
Louise at the same time also muttered, "Thank you… Tabitha."
At this point Guiche raised his rose wand silently, causing everyone to gape as Montmorency did the same, determined to make sure her boyfriend was kept away from flirting with the women present.
"Well then I guess these children are going." Old Osman said with a slight laugh.
"Sir! Headmaster Osman! I strongly object! We must not put the life of a student in danger!"
"Well, would you then go in their stead, Mrs. Chevreuse?"
"Ah... Erm… Well… I'm not feeling very well recently, so…"
"They have seen Fouquet before plus, even though Miss Tabitha here is very young, I have heard that she has already been conferred the title of chevalier, am I right?"
Tabitha did not answer and just stood quietly.
All the teachers looked at Tabitha in astonishment.
"Is that true, Tabitha?" asked Kirche in similar astonishment.
Even though chevalier is the lowest title that the Imperial family can confer to a person, Kirche was still amazed that Tabitha could attain it at such a young age. If it's a title of "Baron" or even "Marquis", the titles could be obtained by purchasing large amounts of land. However for a person to be called a chevalier, the only way is to render great service for the country. It's a title that can only be conferred by merit.
Once again, there was great commotion inside the vault.
Old Osman went on and looked on Kirche and said, "Miss Zerbst from Germania comes from a family of distinguished war heroes, and she herself has a very strong background in fire magic."
Kirche flicked her hair with confidence.
At this point Old Osman looked at Guiche and Montmorency as he continued, "As well as this, Mr. Gramont comes from the distinguished Gramont military family, while Miss Montmorency is a skilled water mage in her own right."
"Ahem!" Clearing his throat, Osman veered his sight clear of Louise and said; "That... Miss Vallière comes from the prestigious Vallière Family, a family renowned for their mages. And… She'll be a promising one in the future… and as for her familiar…"
Old Osman looked at Ramza with a slightly fond grin. "Young Master Beoulve here has informed me his own family has a military history as old as their kingdom and is a square-class Fire mage."
At this information the entire assembly stood, shocked while Ramza looked away, avoiding eye contact.
"It is not something worth making a scene over…" Ramza protested softly.
Then Headmaster Osman in a solemn tone spoke, "If anyone thinks that they're more capable than the mentioned six, please step forward."
No one stepped forward.
Therefore Old Osman turned to the group of four and said, "The academy awaits the capture of Fouquet then!"
Louise, Kirche, Guiche, Montmorency, and Tabitha stood to attention and said, "We swear upon our wands to capture Fouquet!"
"Well then, ready the carriage and set off right away. You must conserve your energy before you reach your destination."
"Miss Longueville, could you go with them, too?"
"Yes, Headmaster Old Osman. I had wanted to go with them as well," said Miss Longueville.
I rather liked this chapter, it was fun to write, and yes. Guiche is learning swordsmanship from Ramza; I had that planned out from day one. Y'know, has anyone else noticed that with a little tinkering Guiche could easily become Ramza 2.0? I mean, both are the children of famous military families and are both sword-mages of sorts.