Chapter 213

 Sigh, judging from the way the two of them didn’t seem to be in very good moods, Sheffy no longer expected them to give any opinion about Timani’s new outfit.

 Their silence was already the best praise they could offer.

 As for the rest, she could just leave it to Livra sitting opposite. Livra was a little sunshine who always knew how to compliment others.

 “Wow…! Miss Timani! This outfit really suited you!”

 “Ah…? Oh… thanks. After all, the clothes look expensive at first glance. I guess whoever wore them wouldn’t look bad.”

 “That’s not true at all! Miss Timani has her own unique charm~ bring out more confidence!”

 “The Fire Dragon Clan didn’t need meaningless things like that… fine, I understand, thank you, Princess Livra.”

 “Hehe, it’s fine~ and Teacher Shaya’s taste in clothes was also exceptional. Next time, please help me pick something too, okay?”

 “You?” Sheffy sized up Livra sitting across the carriage—her princess dress with a pure-white base was stunningly elegant. “Come on, your wardrobe probably has more clothes than the amount of rice I’ve eaten in my life. And with your natural looks, even if you wore nothing at all you probably still wouldn’t look bad.”

 “Uuu, Teacher Shaya wants to strip my clothes.”

 “I didn’t say that?!”

 “Pffhaha…! I was just joking!”

 Still laughing?

 What the hell were you laughing at!

 Couldn’t she read the atmosphere? Didn’t she feel how, right after she said that one sentence, the air around Sheffy stiffened even more?

 Every movement Timani made showed how carefully she cherished her new outfit.

 Then she folded her dragon wings to the front, and her expression suddenly turned grave.

 “By the way, Sheffy… I strongly suspect that you’re being haunted by an evil spirit.”

 “Huh?” Sheffy froze. She felt as if she had just heard something rather presumptuous.

 “You can’t speak carelessly like that.” Belith also lowered her voice to warn against such a statement. “Royal Sister is kind and powerful. Even if evil spirits truly existed in the world, they absolutely wouldn’t dare bother Royal Sister. Where did that come from?”

 “No, I wasn’t making things up out of nowhere!”

 Perhaps because Timani’s parents had left her early, there was a lingering childlike fear rooted in her nature. It had nothing to do with strength—it came purely from a lack of inner security.

 Her face turned pale as she spoke, and she even gave what seemed like sound reasoning.

 “It was back when I stayed at Hero Xiarette’s residence. I lived there for a while, and sometimes at night I’d hear noises like ghostly wails—mumbling, whimpering, really scary… it didn’t sound like anything a person could make. And the important part is…! Just now when I was sleeping in the corridor, I actually heard that sound again! If it only happened at the residence, I could understand it as some strange creature near the Kingdom of Aurus’s estate making that noise, but how do you explain it this time?! There’s no way the same creature exists in the Demon Domain, right?! No matter how I think about it… that sound was too weird, and there was even the sound of flowing water… hissing loudly—no, I’ve heard ghost stories like that. Maybe it wasn’t water. Maybe it was blood!”

 “？”

 Timani’s description was far too abstract.

 Unless someone had been there themselves, how could they possibly understand what she was talking about?

 Belith didn’t understand much, but at least she was brave. She only thought Timani was inventing nonsense and throwing a fit again.

—But that really gave Livra a fright!

 Her Highness the Princess curled up into a ball in the corner of the carriage. With the vehicle jolting forward, the silly strand of black hair atop her head drooped right along with her mood.

 “Uuuuu… Miss Timani, why did you suddenly start telling ghost stories?! I was just praising you! You can’t treat me like this—I’m the most scared of that kind of stuff!”

 “I didn’t mean to! Everything I said was from real experience!”

 “Then use your fire to burn it! Begone, evil spirit!”

 Belith was deep in thought, while Sheffy and Xiarette exchanged a discreet glance.

 In silent agreement, neither said anything more.

 Maybe… next time they needed a door with better soundproofing? That might actually be pretty important?

 But with Timani and Livra both scared half to death, Sheffy had to offer some kind of explanation to calm them down.

 Alright then, Sylatrella, it’s your turn to take the fall.

 “The truth is very simple, Timani. That sound you heard was actually Sylatrella snoring.”

 “Ah…?”

 “Hmm?”

 Sylatrella herself was right there.

 She had a special status called “innocence”—this blue-haired little loli, even younger than Sheffy, was sitting on Sheffy’s lap, her bare little feet swinging back and forth, which now stopped as she leaned back, blinking her big eyes and looking up at Sheffy’s face.

 Yes, Sylatrella was sitting on Sheffy’s lap.

 And Sylatrella was holding in her arms a large fish that had already stopped flopping—something she had caught from the lake for Sheffy right before departure.

 It was a strange scene, but that was just how things were.

 “Lady Sheffy, what do you mean by that?”

 “Don’t ask. Just know that your snores go whimper whimper and you drool, hiss hiss—and that makes up the sound Timani heard. What seemed like a terrifying mystery turns out, more often than not, to be just that simple.”

 “But I remember that I don’t snore…”

 “No, you do. Don’t try to deny it. That’s not a good habit.”

 “！”

 Whether she really did or not didn’t matter.

 What mattered was…

 Lady Sheffy had suddenly wrapped her arms around her waist… and squeezed—hard!

 When Sheffy really used force, she was strong. So strong that Sylatrella’s breath actually stopped for a moment.

 You probably didn’t understand what kind of reward this was for the Little Holy Sword.

 Sylatrella stopped arguing.

 She lowered her head, her body limp, quietly savoring the feeling of forced suffocation just now, and let out a giddy “Guehehe” laugh.

 That cute little face twisted ever more with rising heat, unable to contain her drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. Her entire breathing rhythm had become unsteady.

 With that, Timani believed it.

 She did drool. That explained the sound of water.

 And whether it was at the residence or at the Demon King’s Castle, Sylatrella had always been present, which made Sheffy’s explanation all the more convincing.

 And only then…

 …was she finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.

 “Phew… So that’s all it was. I really thought it was a haunting or something… Wait, Holy Sword, aren’t we heading out on an expedition to quell unrest? Why are you holding a fish?”

 “My name is Sylatrella, not Holy Sword.”

 “Oh, oh, then Sylatrella, that fish you’re holding…”

 “Do you want to eat it?”

 “I am a bit hungry, but eating raw fish seems kind of…”

 “You’re not getting it even raw. It’s for Lady Sheffy.”

 “You little—has your nasty personality been too heavily influenced by Sheffy?!”

 “Hmph, that’s because I’m Lady Sheffy’s daughter. Of course I should take after my mother.”

 As Sylatrella spoke, she hugged the big fish tighter to her chest and turned her head away with a humph, saying nothing more.

 There was nothing else to it—the fish was simply field rations prepared for Lady Sheffy.

 After all, she came from a thousand years ago, and her way of thinking about logistics was still quite outdated. Back then, there was no such thing as Storage Magic. She only knew that going on an expedition meant preparing provisions in advance, completely unaware that even without these preparations, following Sheffy and the others would never leave her hungry.

 Speaking of fish… Sheffy suddenly felt a burst of irritation.

 “Damn it… Even that pervert can catch fish, and just now Uncle Jeffriel too! Isn’t it his responsibility to help suppress the rebellion? But what happened? He actually brought out a fishing rod and said he was going fishing—he even strutted right in front of me and said, ‘I’ll leave the rest to Her Highness the Princess, alright? This old man’s going to fish now…’ Listen to that! Are those words something a normal person would say?! It’s infuriating… I mean, unbelievable!”

 “So how did Royal Sister respond to that?”

 “I tripped him. Sent him flying face-first.”

 “Grandpa Jeffriel is pretty old already… life can’t be easy for him…”

 Yeah, not easy. But what else could they do?

 In the end, her problems were still her own to deal with. For Sheffy, slacking off was never an option.

 Sheffy let out a heavy sigh.

 She reminded Xiarette to first Manifest into her silver-haired concealed form.

 Because what came next… wasn’t going to be light conversation anymore.

 Soon, as Sheffy’s expression gradually turned serious, the cheerful air inside the carriage slowly solidified into one of solemn tension.

 When there was nothing going on, she was the Sheffy who loved fishing.

 When things got serious, she was the princess who thought calmly and looked far ahead.

 “Let’s talk business. Belith, explain the next phase of the plan.”

 “Royal Sister is so cool… Ahem. Alright. From here, we may need to split into two groups. Royal Sister, you’ll go ahead and rendezvous with the Second Corps. Meanwhile, we’ll also need to send out a team to rescue Aunt Ailellek.”

 “Uh… rescue? What happened to Aunt?”

 “She’s been sealed away… Royal Sister doesn’t remember? The report said something about an unknown pillar of light descending from the sky, didn’t it…?”

 “……”

 Oh. Right.

 Look at that—her brain had been scrambled by Xiarette’s “technique.”

 Aunt, I swear it’s not because your presence is too low that I forgot about you, okay!

 “Anyway, rescuing Aunt goes second. She’s fine. Probably… ahem. In any case, Belith, go on.”

43. Division of Duties

 The twin moons hung high, the carriage racing across the desolate wilderness.

 By all rights, with a rebellion at hand, the mood should have been heavy with tension and dread—but there were always exceptions to everything.

 For example, if inside this carriage sat a silver-haired bundle calmly munching on a donut, it would be hard to feel any sort of nervous tension.

 Thanks to that, when Belith began to explain the upcoming operational arrangements, even she found herself surprisingly relaxed—something she hadn’t expected at all.

 —They would split into two groups.

 First, Sheffy was to prioritize arriving at the base of the Second Corps, located in the northern ice plains of the Demon Domain, and join up with them.

 Currently, the Second Corps was like a headless dragon. Though they were about to reach the battlefield, they were completely in the dark about what to do. Rather than being ready for battle, it seemed more like they simply wanted to meet their “idol.”

 This so-called idol, of course, referred to Sheffy—the one and only person capable of mobilizing the Second Corps into action.

 That was the first route.

 The second involved dispatching a separate group to the border fortress of Riedekidu, to rescue Ailellek.

 The reason for the Third Corps’ rebellion was still unclear. But regardless of which corps it was, every one of them represented valuable military strength of the Demon Domain. It couldn’t be ruled out that they were merely deceived or manipulated, rather than truly rebelling of their own will. If they rushed in and started a fight without knowing the truth, it would just become a laughingstock for the outside world.

 So as long as a full annihilation could be avoided, they wouldn’t recklessly unleash powerful magic to sweep the enemy away. In this process of figuring things out, the presence of Princess Ailellek, former commander of the Third Corps, and the intelligence she could provide, were absolutely indispensable.

 Moreover, should any real combat arise, as a Six-Winged Demon, she would be an important combat asset. Rescuing her was a matter of equal importance to deploying the Second Corps to restrain the Third Corps.

 As for Ailellek’s personal safety…

 Just as Sheffy had said—this concern came dead last in terms of priority.

 That woman could survive even if chopped in half. It wasn’t a big deal.

 The plan had now been fully explained.

 But the moment Belith finished speaking, the atmosphere inside the carriage suddenly became unusually quiet.

 It wasn’t because no one understood.

 It was because after understanding… a certain question naturally rose in everyone’s minds.

 But since the question touched upon personal gain or loss, no one had the nerve to voice it out loud—and that was what led to the silence.

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