LIGHT NOVEL
LIGHT NOVEL
Banished from the royal castle—no, the ones who banished the royal castle—Tisli and Alde.
For now, they’ve decided to head for Alde’s hometown, and so their great escape finally begins. Free and easy, footloose and fancy-free!
Along the way, they try camping out of sheer curiosity, only for Alde to catch a cold—and for Tisli to fret over him far more than you’d ever expect.
She nurses him with surprising devotion, too… but how does the home cooking of a former princess—her first attempt (?)—actually taste?
And then, on the road, they cross paths with a kindhearted brother and sister. Soft touch that she is, Tisli starts looking after them—and wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly how they get dragged into trouble…
What was supposed to be a carefree journey with their identities hidden somehow keeps getting muscled in on by a corrupt local lord. Looks like there’s no choice but to bring him to justice?!
Here it is, the second helping of this madcap isekai romantic comedy. Please, do give it a read!
— Lily’s perspective —
“Has dear Sister still not been found?!”
When I raised my voice in the council chamber and pressed Rahful, captain of the Princess’s Guard, she rose with a grave expression—and what she had to say was pathetic indeed.
“Yes… my apologies. We tracked Her Highness as far as a post town near the royal capital, but after that we could not catch up with her Magic Vehicle… and we lost her trail.”
“And the search net as it stands?!”
“We have purchased several dozen Magic Vehicles and are running a grid-search operation in the direction Her Highness’s vehicle was headed, but we have yet to locate her.”
“Dear Sister may well have changed course, may she not?!”
“Should that be so… we have at present issued a directive to the domain lords—’Should anyone claiming to be Her Highness Tiariece appear within your domain, receive them with all courtesy and notify the royal palace at once’—so that even if she has changed course, I believe we shall find her.”
“As if dear Sister, having quit the royal capital, would ever announce her own station!”
“The chance is slim, I grant, yet I cannot call it nil. There may be some reason that forces her to disclose her identity—and should that come to pass, I am certain we can locate her.”
“And what manner of reason would that be?!”
“Th-that… I cannot rightly say…”
“And what if some knave should appear, passing himself off as dear Sister?!”
“There I foresee little trouble. None has ever impersonated royalty before; and should any dare, they would be exposed at once—and put to death on the spot.”
“Very well. That will do…!”
Rahful bowed her head reverently and resumed her seat.
“Has anyone else a proposal?!”
When I put the question to the roughly three hundred senior nobles assembled in the chamber, a noble charged with military affairs raised his hand.
“What if we mobilized not only the King’s Guard and the Princess’s Guard, but the national army and the Security Corps as well?”
“Neither of them knows dear Sister’s face, do they?”
“Might we not distribute a likeness?”
“Dear Sister has never wished her face to be made known. And yet you would post her likeness all about in order to seek her out? Suppose we found her by such means—how then would you quell her fury at having had her face exposed?”
“T-true enough… my apologies.”
He too had witnessed that clash in the aerial garden, so the memory must have come back to him. The color drained from his face, and he sat back down.
To begin with, the Security Corps alone—whose charge is policing the city and keeping the peace—might pass; but to call up even the national army, whose duty is war against foreign enemies, would draw far too many eyes. Dear Sister would think it strange for the national army to be in the city at all; and even were they dressed in Security Corps uniforms, their sheer numbers alone would betray the situation to her.
As I sat there with the feeling of having bitten down on something bitter, yet another noble raised his hand.
“Then how would it be to put out a wanted notice for that Alde Rama? With that man, there is no harm in making his likeness public, and we could draw information not only from the Security Corps but from adventurers and the common folk as well. And should he still go undiscovered, we need only seize the man’s family. We have already learned where they are.”
At such a notion, I let out another sigh before I answered.
“Listen well… I should hate to believe it, but suppose—on the barest chance—that dear Sister had grown fond of that philanderer. What then?”
“What… do you mean…?”
“The instant dear Sister learns the philanderer has been put on a wanted list, she may well descend upon this royal capital in force.”
“Th-that… surely not…”
“And yet ‘dear Sister was carried off by the philanderer against her will’ is the harder thing to credit, is it not? It is more natural to suppose she keeps his company of her own accord. And if that is so, the man is dear Sister’s attendant. Would you truly issue a wanted notice for dear Sister’s own attendant?”
“…Th-that is…”
“And to take his family hostage is further still beyond the pale. Should it earn dear Sister’s displeasure—why, that offensive magic of hers will next be turned upon us, will it not? Knowing that full well, you would still set that philanderer upon a wanted list?”
“M-my deepest apologies…”
This noble, too, blanched and sank back into his seat.
In the end… against dear Sister—worth a thousand men, and graced with both beauty and brilliance—there had never been any stratagem to outwit her to begin with…
Passive in the extreme though it was, it seemed we had no recourse beyond the operation Rahful was already pursuing.
“Enough… I understand.”
I sighed, and turned my eyes to Rahful.
“Rahful—continue the grid-search operation, and press on with the search for dear Sister.”
“Understood.”
“As for me, I must shoulder the public duties left undone in dear Sister’s absence. Every department is in a frenzy as it is, so all of you shall carry out your respective duties more swiftly and more precisely than ever before. Is that understood?”
When I swept my glare across the nobles in the chamber, they made no attempt to hide their weariness; but having no choice in the matter, they could only nod.
Just how vast a workload had dear Sister been carrying…? Single-handed, and with perfect ease, she had borne the labor of all three hundred-odd souls in this chamber. I could only feel anew, and keenly, how monstrous that truly was…
— Tisli’s perspective —
“Let us procure a full set of camping gear.”
As I drove the Magic Vehicle through the city, that was what I said to Alde.
Seated in the passenger seat, Alde tilted his head and asked,
“Campin’ gear? The heck’s that?”
“A complete set of equipment for sleeping outdoors. Among the nobility, sleeping in the open has lately come to be called ‘camping.’ Though in this case, it isn’t roughing it out of necessity—it’s an outdoor leisure activity.”
“Ah, I get it. The other day we got to the post town late and ended up driving through the whole night, huh.”
“Yes, precisely. With camping gear on hand at such times, there would be no need to drive through the night.”
“True enough… though, hold on—this Magic Vehicle’s got a roof, and the seatbacks recline, so come to think of it, couldn’t we’ve just slept in the vehicle?”
“Eh…?!”
Alde came out with it so suddenly that my voice cracked despite myself.
“Wh-what on earth are you saying?!”
“What d’you mean, what? Just that we could sleep in the car…”
“Y-you would have us sleep, just the two of us, in this cramped little cabin?! As though we were to lay our pillows side by side?!”
“Ah… right?”
When I pointed it out, Alde seemed to grasp the gravity of it at last, and scratched his cheek awkwardly.
To this hopelessly oblivious man, I went on.
“We stayed at a spacious inn, and even that turned into a grave problem—there is no possible way the two of us could sleep together in a vehicle…!”
“Well, yeah… that’s true enough…”
“Honestly… In any case, there are bound to be times ahead when we must sleep outdoors, so we need camping gear if only to secure each of us our own private space.”
“Oh, but hey?”
Even after my perfectly reasonable point, Alde pressed on… Just how badly does this man want to sleep beside me…?!
“If you put up a defense barrier, Tisli, then sleeping in the car’d be fine, wouldn’t it?”
“…Pardon?”
“I mean, you put up a defense barrier right down the middle of the car. You can make a ring this incredible, so something like that’s nothing for you, right?”
“Th-that… isn’t impossible, but…”
It was a surprisingly sensible suggestion, coming from Alde, and I mulled it over for a while as I drove.
The city we were in had flourished as a hub of transport; not on the scale of the royal capital, but bustling all the same. Carriages came and went in great numbers along the road, so I was driving the Magic Vehicle at little more than a crawl. The sidewalks, too, overflowed with people—couples with children, pairs of men and women, all strolling along happily.
Gazing out at such a peaceful scene, I said,
“But… camping gear is hardly just sleeping bags, you know? Cooking implements, cutlery, and chairs for sitting outdoors besides—you’d want those, would you not? To begin with, I have no intention of forever sitting on the bare ground and eating with my hands, you understand?”
“Hmm… well, now that you mention it, true. Then how about we just get the stuff for eating?”
“If we’re getting the eating utensils anyway, we may as well get the whole camping set while we’re at it.”
“Well, I don’t mind getting the whole set, sure…”
Alde went on, a dopey look on his face.
“You… you keep tacking on all these reasons, but you just wanna try this campin’ thing, dontcha?”
As though I were some child who simply wanted to play. And so I denied it with everything I had.
“As if that were the case…! I am making an entirely practical proposal, the better to make this journey even a little more comfortable, and it is by no means a childish craving to go camping—”
“Yeah, yeah, all right, all right.”
Cutting off my argument, Alde said breezily,
“What’s the harm? A childish craving’s fine. Right now’s basically a vacation, isn’t it?”
“…Mm. W-well… that may be so, but…”
At Alde’s words, it struck me all at once.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t taken a vacation in years.
So perhaps, just as Alde said… in a small way—the very faintest stirring of a feeling—I may have wanted to try this game called camping after all.
The most trifling little feeling, truly.
As I was reflecting on this, Alde said,
“Bottling up feelings like that’s no good, y’know? It builds up stress.”
“And on what grounds do you claim it builds up stress?”
“Nah, just a hunch.”
“…Thank you for an opinion all but pulled out of thin air.”
“Sheesh, you’re never honest with yourself…”
Never before had I assented to an opinion offered on mere intuition… and yet, for some reason, I found myself willing to take Alde’s to heart.
To begin with, I’m no princess at present, nor are we debating matters of state.
And so, when I went so far as to say, “W-well… I suppose there’s a little wish to play in me, or maybe there isn’t…” and granted Alde his point—
—Alde wasn’t listening to a word I said! He was looking at the back seat of the car!
Honestly, what a restless man Alde is!
Wholly oblivious to my indignation, Alde grumbled,
“But man… if we’re doing that, there’s one problem.”
Surprised to hear him speak of a problem, I tamped down my indignation and asked in return,
“A problem…? For the record, we have money enough, you know?”
“Nah, that’s not it.”
Curious about where Alde was looking, I pulled the Magic Vehicle over to the roadside and turned my eyes to the back seat.
And there… I noticed the back seat was buried under more luggage than I’d realized.
Alde shrugged and said,
“Well, that’s the thing. Camping gear’s bulky, right? I’m thinkin’ there’s nowhere to put it.”
— Tisli’s perspective —
I pulled the Magic Vehicle into one of the carriage hitching-stations dotted about the city, opened the rear door, and took fresh stock of our belongings.
As for the bulky cargo, there was the wooden crate of preserved food, our garment cases, and, above all else… my armor.
Having gone straight from my battle with Alde at the royal castle into this journey, I’d been left lugging along the armor I’d worn into combat.
In hindsight, I might have sent this armor from the inn in the royal capital back to the castle; but at the time I never imagined our cargo would keep mounting and mounting, and the thought simply never came to me.
Gazing at the cargo, Alde must have been thinking the same thing. He murmured, as if to himself,
“Looking at it like this… armor’s bulkier than you’d think, huh.”
“Indeed. And a full plate, at that.”
“Yeah… though, here’s a thought—you’ve got magic, so couldn’t you have skipped wearing the armor altogether?”
“To me, armor is not a thing for protecting the body, but for overawing one’s opponent.”
“Ah… I see. So that’s why this armor’s extra chunky.”
“Just so.”
A waif like me, standing about on a battlefield, would be nothing but adorable, after all. The armor is worn to make oneself look even a little larger.
Be that as it may, the armor was very much in the way… and so I said,
“It can’t be helped. Let us dispose of this armor.”
“Huh?!”
When I made the decision, Alde, for some reason, was startled.
“D-dispose of it…? Isn’t this armor made of orichalcum?!”
“Well spotted. Precisely.”
“I’m a former Royal Guard, I’ll have you know—I’ve got at least a little knowledge of arms and armor! If anything, the fact that even I can tell means it’s top-grade and the hardest defense there is, right?! Isn’t it a waste to just dispose of it?!”
“Even so… the space in the Magic Vehicle is the more precious thing now.”
“Then how about getting rid of the clothes instead?”
“Well… I’ll hardly be using formal wear anytime soon, so I could keep a set or two and dispose of the rest, but… even doing that won’t free up much space, you know?”
“Hmm… true enough. But what a waste…”
“It isn’t as though I’m throwing it away. I’m merely selling it.”
“Well, if that’s how it is… I suppose there’s no help for it…”
Though it wasn’t even his, Alde looked genuinely sorry to see it go.
Still, to me—a traveler now—the armor was a useless encumbrance and nothing more. So we drove the Magic Vehicle right up to an arms shop and asked them to buy the full plate.
But… here a problem arose.
The instant the shopkeeper laid eyes on the orichalcum full plate, his face went pale.
“M-my deepest apologies, madam… our shop hasn’t the funds to purchase arms of this caliber…”
“Oh? Is that so?”
Caught off guard, I blinked, then said,
“I don’t in the least mind selling it cheaply, you know.”
“No, no—even were you to lower the price, we haven’t so much as those funds, such is our state…”
“Then might you take it off my hands for free? It’s in the way.”
“I-in the way?!”
The shopkeeper looked fit to leap out of his skin.
“M-madam! Do you understand the value of this armor?!”
“Of course I do, but…”
“No! You do not, madam! This full plate is made of orichalcum, and orichalcum is foremost among the rare metals difficult to mine, with magic resistance head and shoulders above all the rest, and—”
The shopkeeper’s impassioned lecture threatened to launch in earnest, so I hastily stopped him.
“No need to explain. I made this armor myself, so I’m well aware.”
“You made it, madam?!”
The shopkeeper looked at last about to faint dead away. So, before he could topple, I asked,
“Would you happen to know a shop that might be able to buy this armor?”
“There isn’t a single such shop in this city! Short of going all the way to the royal capital, it’s quite impossible!”
Hmm… that is a problem…
I cast a healing spell over the shopkeeper, who had begun to reel, just in case, and Alde and I left the shop.
Whereupon Alde said,
“See? What did I tell you. That armor’s a ludicrously high-grade piece.”
“Be that as it may, at present it’s nothing but bulky trash…”
“You’re calling orichalcum bulky trash…? And hold on, didn’t you just say you made it yourself?”
“Yes. I succeeded in transmuting orichalcum, and so I made this armor.”
“…Huh?”
At my explanation, Alde came to a stop.
I tilted my head, turned back, and called to him.
“What’s the matter? Stopping all of a sudden.”
“I mean… what did you just say?”
“Ah—even if I say I made it, the design of the armor is a craftsman’s work, you understand?”
“That’s not it! What did you say you succeeded at?!”
“Transmuting orichalcum, I said?”
“That! That’s the one!!”
Alde jabbed a finger at me and spoke with tremendous force.
“It’s absurd enough just to say the word ‘alchemy,’ and you’re telling me you produced not gold but orichalcum?!”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“How in the world?!”
“Once you grasp the laws of this world, rearranging matter to generate a substance is a simple thing. Though, naturally, it requires a commensurate amount of magical energy. For instance—”
“No—never mind! Even if I listen to your explanation, there’s no way I’ll understand it!”
Having asked me himself, Alde now refused my explanation. Honestly, what is with this man…
Exasperated, I decided to steer the conversation back to the main point.
“The alchemy doesn’t matter, really.”
“No… even to a layman’s eye, I’d call that the discovery of the century, but…”
“What matters now is that this armor is nothing but bulky trash.”
“Unheard-of armor, and she calls it bulky trash…”
“But dumping it around here would be illegal disposal. What a bother.”
“I’d think some passerby would happily carry it home, though…”
“Whatever am I to do…”
I sighed as I watched Alde load the armor back into the Magic Vehicle’s trunk.
Then Alde said,
“Can’t you use that super-magic of yours to stash this armor away somewhere?”
“I’ve never devised that sort of magic, so it’s impossible on the spot.”
If I adapted teleportation magic, developing a spell to store cargo in a subspace—a “storage spell,” for convenience—would not be impossible in itself.
But spatial-control magic is rather intricate, requiring me to sit glued to a desk and think it through carefully for months. Doing that on the side, mid-journey, is a tall order even for me.
Incidentally, the reason I’d taken no interest in storage magic until now is that there was little need for it. With teleportation magic, I never required much luggage to begin with.
And so I said,
“Well… it wouldn’t be impossible for me to take this armor back to the royal castle just once, by teleportation, but…”
“You can do that?”
“Yes. But while I can return from here to the royal castle, I cannot come back from the castle to this spot. Even I require a gate to serve as an exit, you see.”
“Well… that figures. Otherwise it’d mean you could go anywhere at all with a single spell.”
“Yes, quite. Teleportation magic is not so all-powerful. And using an exit gate would give away the fact that I’d returned to the royal castle. Well, even if it were found out, I could simply force my way out again… but I don’t feel inclined to.”
After I’d finally made my clean break from the royal castle, to have to drag myself back over a mere suit of armor would utterly spoil the mood of the slow life.
In that case… I hit upon a second-best plan.
“Well… my whereabouts will be pinned down either way, but setting that aside—shall we call in at a government office and leave this armor in their keeping?”
“You mean to use a government office as a storehouse?”
“More than a storehouse—the personal effects of a former princess would surely be delivered to the royal palace.”
“I see. A government office would have a post office, too.”
With a wry smile, Alde asked, “So, shall we head to the office now?”—and I shook my head.
“No… leaving it at this city’s office would be unwise.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because the direction risks giving away our destination.”
The destination of this journey is Alde’s hometown. As we’re sightseeing along the way, we make frequent detours, but in essence we hold to a course headed in that direction.
Why would I—who ought to have nowhere in particular to go—keep to a fixed course…? Factor in Alde’s hometown as well, and a sharp mind might just deduce it.
Rahful especially, who served as captain of my Princess’s Guard, has a quick mind, so it would be no surprise if she pieced it together.
And so I murmured,
“It’ll mean a detour, but we’d best dispose of the armor in a city off our current course.”
Alde nodded, seeming not especially bothered.
“Sure, why not? It’s not as if we’re in any hurry.”
“True… with the Magic Vehicle, it should only be a few days’ distance…”
So then, which city ought we to make for?
Within the royal palace, Rahful may well be the only mind sharp enough that I need be wary of. In which case, I need only get ahead of her thinking.
Reading ahead against Rahful—heading the exact opposite of the way we came would only rouse her suspicion.
Yet a wholly random course risks being brushed off as a mere decoy to throw off the search.
In which case…
Calling to mind the map of my country, which I’d committed to memory, I said,
“Let us head for a city to the southwest. By Magic Vehicle, it’s about three days from here.”
“Is there a reason you picked southwest?”
“Seen from the royal capital, the southwest is where the border with our neighboring country lies closest. Rahful, I’m certain, will deduce that I’m contemplating defection.”
“I see. Though, going up against you, Tisli, the odds are stacked way too heavily against ’em.”
Whether impressed or exasperated, Alde gave a shrug with a look I couldn’t quite read.
(Continued in the Kindle edition)
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