Torn Asunder by War, A Sword Saint for Tomorrow X The Knight Wizards!! – Chapter 135

Chapter 135: No Formality Between Close Friends?
  Even though the battle itself had come to a temporary halt, there were still matters to attend to. The remains of the Aberrations that had encroached upon the fortress city’s outskirts needed to be incinerated to prevent the spread of disease. And the bodies of fallen comrades who had fought alongside them needed to be cremated and mourned.
  
  While the relatively undamaged giant knights dealt with the larger Aberrations and the regular soldiers in protective gear handled the smaller ones, the three Zigrand knights, with expressions far from friendly, approached the marquis’s heir and his older sister as they descended to the ground via wire pedals from their magical knights in a stationary posture.
  
  “Well, well, quite the flashy entrance, Almaine knights.”
  “If you have that many new model Clawsolas, don’t be stingy.”
  “How about sparing one? My mount’s broken, you see.”
  
  “…How should I put it? You’re rather rude, despite this being our first meeting.”
  
  The elven lady with loosely tied pale green hair retorted, slightly pushing up her monocle.
  
  The uncouth soldiers fell silent, partly due to Phillis’s well-proportioned beauty. Vier, standing beside her, let out a soft, wry smile and glanced at the mages resting a short distance away, along with their dedicated knights kneeling beside them.
  
  “A high-mobility, modified Begalta equipped with Burst Mechanisms on its back and legs, huh? I’ve heard rumors of you three, the Three Stars. Some of your Clawsolas seem to have sustained moderate damage, but I’m glad you’re all safe.”
  
  “Yeah, thanks for your concern. But if the Imperial Faction had sent a permanent garrison like Margrave Zephyrus from the start, we could have lost fewer soldiers on the front lines.”
  
  Mine, the officer with a vertical scar over his left eyelid, expressed his gratitude for the sudden rescue but couldn’t readily accept it, his words laced with resentment. His two comrades nodded in agreement.
  
  “Are you suggesting we should have let our own soldiers die instead?” Vier thought, exasperated. He held back his subordinates who were about to retort to the provocation and pondered how to reason with them. Just then, the Count arrived, accompanied by his aides.
  
  “Kaia, Ort, silence him. He is Lord Hazen’s heir and the next Marquis of Almaine. Do you want to start a pointless fight and embarrass me?”
  
  “Ugh, the son of an Imperial noble!?”
  “I apologize, Count.”
  “I tried to stop him, but Mine just went off on his own…”
  
  The officer with the scarred eyelid, who had slyly shifted the blame, was furious and began to grapple with his old acquaintances. Reaching his limit, the next head of the marquis house let out a chuckle and spoke playfully.
  
  “No, I apologize… You all are truly close, aren’t you? It seems Count Ailos has fine knights under his command. I’m quite envious.”
  
  “Don’t be fooled. They’re a bunch of jokers who’ll seize any opportunity for mischief, but they’re still the main force of the Zigrand territory’s army. More importantly, is your crimson knight Lady Nina’s new creation?”
  
  The Count, who himself piloted the lord’s knight Celtis, asked with an intrigued gaze directed at Griddavol. Phillis, refraining from unnecessary comments as a lady’s virtue, twitched her pointed ears.
  
  Like the twins who were close to the young Knight King, as an engineer who inherited the ancient elves’ wisdom, she might have a weakness for such conversations.
  
  “Excuse me for interjecting, your Excellency. As you pointed out, the knight frame and outer shell were assembled here, following Lady White Fox’s blueprints and under the guidance of the instructor…”
  
  She then uttered a line she had heard somewhere, stating that the interior was completely different since the installation of the Balance Core replica. It had partially acquired the self-repair and optimization functions of the “Mechanical Magi.”
  
  If the young lady who developed it were to hear this, she would surely be indignant, wondering what the forest people thought of other people’s meticulously crafted works.
  
  The method of engraving magic formulas onto the armor, devised after much hardship, had lost out to the auxiliary magic core in terms of versatility because it deepened the dependence between the mage and the Clawsolas. However, it could be said to be a very novel and groundbreaking approach.
  
  Phillis understood its brilliance, so Nina Valer, who was highly praised with a tinge of jealousy, was… once again, troubled by the frustrating reality.
  
  
  “Let me ask you again, Aynst. You’re certain your soldiers weren’t involved in the incident?”
  “Yes, taking drastic action at this point would be unpredictable…”
  
  Nina held her head in her hands at the Knight Captain’s implication that he wouldn’t hesitate to act if it was for the sake of Zephyrus Domain, and by extension, the citizens of the Empire. She then turned her gaze to the other officer present, questioning him with upturned eyes.
  
  Leonardo sighed, subjected to a gaze filled with suspicion, and shook his head. Then, his mage partner, who was clinging to him, interjected smugly.
  
  “Even if he was ordered to, that coward Leo couldn’t pull off something as bold as a kidnapping.”
  “I feel slightly insulted, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
  
  “Hmm, the Knight Kingdom too… Given Claude’s thoughtful nature, it’s unlikely.”
  
  The topic of conversation was the incident where Cedric Ballenstein, who had left the second largest city in his territory for the formal peace talks that even the Duke Prime Minister was attending, was attacked by a small, elite group of bandits and abducted despite his resistance.
  
  Considering that almost all of their forces had been mobilized for the invasion of Zephyrus, even if the carriage escort consisted of only a company-sized light infantry unit, the bandits who captured the nobleman with a cavalry charge while firing were as skilled as dragoons.
  
  Furthermore, the cavalry guards who chased after them to rescue their lord were ambushed by snipers and had their horses’ legs injured. The suspicion that another faction was behind it couldn’t be dismissed, and the negotiation, lacking key players, was temporarily postponed.