CHAPTER XXXVI.

Noelle was getting better.

Being away from Alzer helped, but not like seeing Loic's corpse being cremated and his ashes being carried by the wind into the sky.

She cried that day, they were tears of happiness.

Intellectually she knew that he was dead, she saw Emile shooting him back in Alzer, but a part of her refused to accept her tormentor was really gone until she saw him receive his last rites.

After everything that has happened to her she finally found a small measure of peace in the place she was least expecting.

Not back in the Republic, that place holds only bad memories for her.

Not in a fancy airship.

Not in the Capital of this Third World Country.

She found peace in the kitchen in the estate of a newly ascended Viscount.

And things were busy right now too!

Turns out the maid that first interviewed Leila and she was telling the truth, she is the older sister of Lord Bartfort and she is about to get married tomorrow!

"Noelle!"

Noelle turned to the person calling her name, she is a matron about forty years old, her name is Lady Octavia, or just Octavia as she prefers to be called is still a beautiful woman but more importantly, she is Lady Olivia's mother!

"Where is your sister!?" she inquired.

"We ran out of carrots and she went for… more…" she tried to excuse her twin… but the excuse she had prepared was no good when the older woman pointed to a big pile of carrots two tables to the left of her work station!

"Is she watching the men training again?" Octavia asked rhetorically.

Of course she was!

They were here for less than a week and Leila has already escaped her duties to watch Lord Bartfort train his men twice!

Noelle sighed, "She wasn't like that back in the republic…" She tried to excuse her sister, and that was the truth, but since they arrived here she has spent a lot of time trying to get closer to Lord Leon, She even joked about getting to him by teaming up with her!

"Ma-o! Ma-o, Ma-o!"

Octavia immediately forgot about Leila's absence when she heard Gil calling her. "Gil!" The baby wasn't her grandson but she acted like he was, everyday Lady Finley or Lady Jenna would bring him to the kitchen so he could have a treat.

"The cake monster is here for another sacrifice!" Finley was escorting him today, and the baby was all smiles when Octavia gave him a slice of cake.

She watched as the baby made short work of the sweet and then asked to be held by the older woman by extending his arms towards her.

He enjoyed being pampered a little before he saw her and surprisingly extended his little arms towards her.

"Hmm! Gil, not every pretty blond girl is here to pamper you, you know" Fienley says with a fake pout.

Octavia passed the baby to her and she cooed at him and he put his head on her shoulder.

"Is that what he likes about me?" she asked, it was an honest question, from what she knows the baby refers to Lady Angelica and Lady Olivia and Octavia Ma, meaning mother…

"I think so" FInley said nonchalantly "I mean, he clearly inherited his taste in women from my brother" she joked.

Noelle smiled at the joke, it was not hard to see that Lord Bartfort liked certain qualities in her women.

0x0x0x0

Olivia sighed as she watched the young men of the territory swing their swords doing their best to imitate Leon's movements.

She looked down at the little carriage in which Odalis was sleeping, the sun was good for her and this way she could heal anyone clumsy enough to hurt themselves in these basic drills.

But being honest with herself, she wasn't here to heal anybody…

Watching how her man's hard earned muscles moved with strength, speed and precision was mesmerizing!

It was a shame that news about the battles between the principality and the Crown are probably happening right now and that had spurred some last minute training sessions in preparation for when their turn came.

That had limited her intimate time with Leon and Angie to nights only…

Looking around she found Leila hiding behind a tree while watching the men train, this was the second time she caught her.

It was rather obvious that she had a thing for her husband, and she had a horrible suspicion she had something to do with it.

It took some effort but she remembered the girl from that time she was in shock after witnessing the duel between Leon and that pirate.

She helped her but she didn't have the purest of mind when she did it, she just watched her man defeat a strong opponent while handicapped, it was to be expected.

And now the girl was lusting after her husband…

She hoped she was wrong, she didn't want such a scary power.

But according to Miss Joan, one of the less known abilities of the Saintess is precisely the power to influence other people…

Which is a nice way to say the saintess can mind control people!

The ability is rare, in fact it is just as rare as a true saintess…

0x0x0x0

Hertrude was ready.

She was on the bridge of her ship, surrounded by her advisers and a fair number of guards.

The scouts that returned yesterday delivered information about the next move from the kingdom, they will be confronting them today, and it wasn't just anyone, according to the intel she has the flag ship is the royal House's ship, a powerful Lost Item that allowed them to gain such massive territory. And the one in charge was no one other than the Crown Prince himself.

They have arrived at a lake whose name she never learned waiting for the forces of their oppressive enemies.

For far too long the Holfort Dynasty and their lackeys have harassed her lands and her people, but no more!

In the name of every innocent they murdered and in honor of every Soldier that gave their life to stop them she will be destroying them!

It wasn't long until they were face to face with the enemy fleet, it was even bigger than the one Framptom put together, their Flagship was a sight to see, but it will be sunk today!

Garrett wasted no time in deploying their knight armors, and among them the disciples of the late Lord Vandel, they have been waiting impatiently to defeat the royal family,

And as expected, their enemies had among their ranks members of the founding Houses, and if the Price was here, she could bet the Heirs of those Houses were here as well, their elite Knight Armors would be appropriate opponents for her own finest, all the while she summons a horde of cute monsters to maintain their forces at bay.

The death of those brats should be enough to destroy the good will among the most powerful forces within the kingdom, that would leave her forces free to go after the Duke next without any of them interfering!

That was the ideal plan her tacticians came up with, and she will trust them, they have been successful so far and she could do no better herself, she was merely the back up if something goes terribly wrong.

The magic devices in the bridge allowed her to see how the enemy knights launched to face her own, first some standard units, cannon fodder in case they could strike from this far… something only that damned Viscount's ship is capable of doing as far as she knows.

After a while she could distinguish the customized armors of high nobles joining the ranks of the enemy.

Those knight armors are the only thing that can overwhelm her own knights.

Of course she has her own knights with high performance armors as well, and once those nobles are neutralized the superiority of her forces mass production armors would guarantee her victory, and that is before she called on her pets.

After some tense moments the battle is engaged.

As predicted the enemy has the initial advantage with their elite units, they push her own forces back as their ships advance slowly providing cover.

"Your Highness if you would?" She hears one of her officials speaking to her, that is her signal, from her seat she extends her hand and waits for the servant in charge to give her the Flute that will be Horlfort's kingdom demise.

Once she has it she wastes no time in summoning her pets and they immediately engage with the enemy.

The enemy retreats as soon as she does, that was not in the plan, but no matter, as her tacticians told her, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Besides, some of those knights were shot down as they disengaged.

Her own elite knights are out there now and they will defeat the enemy.

The monsters are hot on their tails, soon enough they will start attacking, was this a mistake on her enemy's plan?

Suddenly the image of a child in a regal blue dress is projected into the skies, one of Roland's daughters?

She was expecting Julius or Roland himself to lead the attack, not this little girl.

"I'm Saintess Marie Fou Lafan and I won't allow the Principality to sully this battlefield with your unholy creatures!" Hertrude saw a light emanating from the kingdom's flagship, the light vanquished her monsters merely by touching them!

She greeted her teeth, this was the Saintess, no doubt!

Why!?

Why was such a holy being born in this wretched kingdom and not her own land?!

The gods care not for the righteous of the land, she concluded, otherwise no saint would ever be born in Holfort!

This was not something they could have anticipated, many others claimed the title of Saintess in the past, but most of them were daughters of nobles who bought the title for them to gain power and prestige and the girls themselves could only use Holy magic to a certain degree. How else would the church afford to have a fleet of warships always ready?

This childlike girl probably has more power than any three fake Saintess combined!

The effects of the Saintess spell were immediate, some of her weakest knights couldn't avoid looking backwards and were immediately attacked!

Her tacticians told her that no plan survives contact with the enemy, but this was ridiculous!

The Holfort knights fought back once again and this time she heard her own tacticians give orders of retreat, they were much too close to the enemy ships!

Count Garrett approached her with a fake smile on his face, she could see the battlefield, she was no expert, but they are losing, many of her knights farther too slow to catch up were hit by barrage artillery from the Holfort fleet that was floating above the rest of the combatants.

She knew what Garret will ask of her, and she knew that things were bad enough for her to see it herself.

She needed to summon the Guardian of the Sky.

That was the only way for them to win, the Saintess presence and power had demoralized her troops, Summoning her most powerful monster was the only way to change the tide of battle!

Even before the count could give her the order she began playing the Guardian's song!

0x0x0

Gawain was living a nightmare!

He has lost half of his platoon, his own wingmen included and he was sure that at least one of his fellow disciples is dead too.

And the worst part was that he had yet to engage with the elite enemy units, they were fine in the beginning but the Saintess killing all of the Princess' monsters dealt his men a crushing blow!

The despair of seeing their tactic fail so totally made some turn tail and flee, and only a few did it successfully, the vast majority were shot down by the enemy ships.

A squad of red tinted armors had caught up to his group with all the elegance of a wild horse!

Once again he was surrounded by pure unadulterated chaos, after avoiding the first strike he climbed up to try to regain his bearings, it worked.

That breathing time allowed him to identify the enemy's lead armor.

It is red with golden highlights, in its head there is a golden great and spikes on its shoulders.

Wasting no time he charges at it while the knight is busy killing one of his compatriots.

A couple of enemies notice his intent and try to get in his way but he swiftly destroys them, however their intervention alerts their commander and with the surprise factor lost Gawain fails to swiftly defeat his chosen opponent.

The counter-attack is swift and energetic… But it lacks finesse and precision.

Gawain has no problem avoiding the red machine's spear and it isn't long until he is in a position to finish the novice commander.

Dodging a strike that he barely saw coming he retaliates with his own blade targeting the chest of the sneaky bastard's armor, it was an instant death!

He looks around trying to find new attackers coming for him but most other enemies are busy engaging his men.

He doesn't let the newcomers distract him for long though, because soon they are busy with his own allies.

Once again the knight attacks him with a barrage of spear attacks, but this time he redirects one of his strikes to the side with a subtle movement of his sword, this maneuver puts him right inside his opponent guard, and this time no one stops him from claiming victory.

Other than the paint job there was nothing special about that man, but he really hopes it was someone important, although he is convinced it was just a decoy.

No way that was the real Serberg Heir, the armor was just beneath what he expected from the founding families of the kingdom.

But his men assume that was the real deal and cheer him on and fight on harder!

Choosing the closest enemy as his next opponent, he strikes from the side impaling him with his sword to free one of his men to assist someone else.

The Holfort knights are still trapped in a fanatical frenzy, they have the Saintess backing them up and that lit a fire within his enemies that now strike with no fear whatsoever, and not even the death of their commander can bring them out of it!

He kept calm and tried to do his best to put in practice his uncle training, he was the one supposed to turn this battle around, at least until the princess decided to summon the Giant monster.

He was pushed forward, a sword left a deep gash on his knight armor's back, turning around he saw his attacker was just some knight in a mass production armor.

With no hesitation he cut deep into his armor, killing the man instantly, there are even more of them now!

This time he was saved by the quality of his armor!

He cannot allow himself to be striked that easily, right now his armor has the colors of his uncle, the black and gold are synonymous with Vandel Him Zenden, Gawain knows he has big shoes to fill.

Gawain does his best to focus on the battle, right now he is alive only because the kingdom was too cheap to give properly sharpened swords to all their soldiers!

His uncle Vandel would have been so disappointed with him!

He needed to step up and inspire his men until they got the signal to retreat.

CLANK!

His opportunity to raise the morale of his men just arrived!

He could see the elite unit of one of the Heirs of Holfort's founding Houses, the blue shimmer of his armor spoke of vanity, someone who, honestly speaking, has never seen real combat today shouldn't be flaunting this much!

The Arclight Heir is inside that knight armor, and he has three knights guarding him as he attacks his men, at the very least he is not a complete fool.

Gawain wastes no time engaging with the vaunted prodigy with determination while telling himself that this was not the man who defeated his uncle in a one on one duel, He can do this!

One of his target's bodyguards notices him and reacts fast enough to take the hit for his master, the cut he made with his blade was enough to take the knight out of the fight but not enough to kill him!

If he had his uncle's blade he would have cut him in half and use the fear that sight put into his enemies to finish off the heir!

It is frustrating to have to fend off the three enemies left alone, but his own support fell to the enemy's artillery.

Flying backwards he managed to avoid being surrounded by his targets and even take the arm of one of his opponents in the same maneuver.

They aren't that great, he can do this!

One of his allies managed to shut down one of his opponents with a ranged attack!

Luck is on his side!

He will be rewarding whoever shot that one with a promotion and maybe even a nobility title if the princess allows it!

The last of the Heir's bodyguards is on him in an instant, spinning around he manages to evade his sword and deliver his own strike!

Good! Now only the Heir is the only one left.

And he is right there…

Inside his guard, and already trusting his sword to stab him in the chest.

He won't be able to block it and his momentum will not allow him to dodge the strike either…

He moves his armor's leg by instinct and is able to deflect the would be killer move!

Now it's only the two of them and he can win.

With all a mighty swing he manages to cut off the left arm below the elbow joint!

The brat is nothing special!

The next strike will finish him off for sure, and keeping his momentum going he will kill his off balance victim.

Gawain felt a series of impacts on his armor, one of them even managed to pierce his armor and sever his right leg!

The spears like objects are also keeping him in place, he could see to his right a purple armor with an arm stretched… The Field Heir is supposed to be talented with Magic…

Percival was supposed to deal with him dammit!

Unable to move he couldn't dodge the next strike.

One of the spear-like objects managed to stop the blade before it could finish him off.

He would die in a matter of minutes instead of instantly!

The blue armor approaches him and lifts his incapacitated armor above his headband…

"THE BLACK KNIGHT IS DEAD!"

The Heir in the blue armor shouts through his external speakers. What a farce!

He was not his uncle and this brat could never put a scratch on the real Black Knight!

In this position he can only watch the sky above him and pray for death to come quickly!

The last thing he saw was the Guardian of the sky appear, the monstrosity seemed to be made of eyeballs and more importantly it was ready to vanquis Fanoss enemies!

At least he managed to buy enough time for the Princess.

0x0x0

Marie wanted to run!

That thing looked completely different in reality than it did in the art concepts in the game, and the scale was completely different too!

That thing was the size of a mountain!

And so Ugly!

Maybe she should have thought this better, in the cutscene the protagonist only prayed and the thing disappeared, there was nothing useful strategy wise to defeat that giant-eye-thing!

She doubted the barrier thing she did to destroy the little monsters would work on that giant…

Julius holds hand and tightens his hold for a second, she watches at her hand, so small compared to his, in this life she is such a midget, if she had her first life body she would have been able to win him over with just her beauty and natural charisma.

Instead she was forced to imitate that calculative girl from the Otome game.

The kingdom's knights charge at the giant without care for their safety and they are killed by the gigantic hand!

Marie caused that, they are sure that they are fighting with the Saintess guarding their backs from things like that monster!

But what can she do?

She looks at the hand Jilius is holding then at his handsome face, maybe seeing his handsome face will inspire her?

Instead she can feel the Magic of the saintess items try to enter her body, the things are so aggressive sometimes, if she didn't know better she would say the things are cursed!

She pushes the magic from her Saintess regalia back using her own magic.

She will not be overpowered by some fancy religious paraphernalia!

She can do this! pushing an obscene amount of her magic through the Saintess regalia, the results are quite flashy if she says so herself, a gigantic beam of magic expands from her ship towards the Giant.

She waits without breathing for the result of her efforts, the thing advances so fast that he is in range of every ship , and once again the ships attack the Monster, this time they manage to destroy some of it's left arm and sever the right arm from below the elbow.

Once again knights charge at the giant, but this time some manage to evade the mangled or shortened limbs of the giant, at least at the beginning.

Little by little the kingdom's army destroys the colossal monster, her beam of magic is preventing it from moving freely, and if she remembers correctly that thing had an overpowered healing power.

The fact that it was not regenerating is probably her doing.

Hurry up!

Destroy that thing already!

This is so tiring!

The energy fluctuates so wildly, it's like it has a mind of its own!

Marie doesn't dare to cut off the spell, whatever it is, it's working and she doesn't know if she can replicate it.

If not for the Royal ship, she would not have lasted this long, but she can see the giant monster turning into dust like any other monster would do.

It's only after every spec of dust is gone that she dares to let go of the spell.

She leans on Julius to support herself, she doesn't have much energy left, right now all she wants is to sleep for a couple of days.

"Marie, that was amazing! Julius tells her with total devotion in his voice.

Her legs failed her but Julius was there to catch her, she smiled at him, they did it!

0x0x0

This was madness!

The Guardian Deity was supposed to be an unstoppable, unrelenting force with the only purpose of destroying the Kingdom.

But now it's gone…

The Saintess managed to take away its regeneration and the enemy fleet managed to destroy it, not without casualties, but the Guardian of the Sky is not coming back, her ultimate weapon has just failed her.

Vandel's disciples had failed her.

Count Garrett tried to betray her, ordering her men to apprehend her, the look of surprise on his face when one of the men shot him was, perhaps, the one thing to lift her mood today.

Garrett thought too much of himself, the men had the choice of staying loyal to a woman who tried to sacrifice her life for the country or obeying a two faced man that would probably sell them to save himself.

The choice was easy,

This still was a shitty day though.

Even if she orders the retreat the kingdom will just pursue her, and the stern of her ship is vulnerable.

No, if this is to be her last day she should fight to the bitter end!

"If we fall today, It'll be fighting!" she ordered, she knew this wasn't something awe inspiring, but it was what her men needed.

She already sacrificed her life once today, or at least she tried to, If the Principality's soldiers weren't capable of doing the same, what kind of men are they?

0x0x0

Stop!

Please…

Even in the gentle world of an otome game war is still hell.

The knights of the principality were wiped out without a single one of them trying to escape, a couple of their ships had somehow managed to ram themselves into her allies' ships!

They were willing to use kamikaze attacks to cause as much damage as possible.

Why!?

They couldn't hate the kingdom that much, it should be physically impossible to hate something that much!

Marie activated her projection again, her image filled the sky as she tried to stop this one sided carnage.

"It is over but not all of you have to die, please stop!" all of this waste of life was making her feel exhausted, the world lost its color and its focus momentarily, there is only death everywhere and she just wants it to stop.

Intellectually she knew that this was one of the possible endings of this battle but she had focused so much on the perfect ending where the protagonist manages to speak directly into the hearts of everyone on the battlefield and stops the conflict with just her words.

Marie tried it already but she doesn't have that power!

The Saintess' gear is sending its magic into her body again, but she barely pays it any mind, she just wants this massacre here and now.

"Just stop… Please!"

The world blurs and she finds herself in the bridge of the royal airship, she would be alone if not for the shadow with the vague shape of a well endowed woman.

The shadow was such a menacing presence, it felt as if she lost sight of it, it would try to devour her.

"That was the last one" Julius' voice brought her back to reality.

right in front of them the enemy's flag ship was falling after the monster that carried it turned to dust.

Looking around she noticed that there were indeed no more enemy ships around.

So this is war?

"We couldn't capture the princess." Julius said in a somber manner.