“…If you’re expecting the tenkorius to come to your aid, you can forget about it. I’ve prepared enough to keep that one away for three days.”
“In other words, we win if we can hold out for three days.”
The princess chuckled while covering her mouth with a folding fan.
That provocative attitude of hers was frustrating, but the alchemist wasn’t young anymore to be provoked by such flippancy.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but there’s no path left for escape.”
“I know… Well, we could just break our way through.”
The alchemist had suspected that they were plotting to escape, so he physically sealed off all of the exits by covering the mansion with walls and reinforcing them with barriers.
Even they would need time to break through that, and unfortunately for them, they could only get that time if they could defeat him.
Despite that, not a hint of despair or resignation could be seen on their face.
But at the same time, neither could excessive hope be seen on them.
Evidently, they understood the situation, and that was exactly why the alchemist suspected they still had an ace up their sleeves that he did not know of.
“…I haven’t the faintest clue what it is, but it’s annoying.”
“Oh my, what ever could you mean? Do you mind teaching us?”
The princess spoke as though she didn’t care, but she was actually restless deep inside.
The alchemist was onto them, not because the princess had failed, but purely because their antics could only buy them so much time.
It was much stranger to put up a resistance while being scared and discouraged, so she acted tough instead, but that too eventually failed. The princess could only bite her lips in frustration.
Either way, he wasn’t someone who would lend a hand to someone who didn’t try to do anything on their own.
And they all hated the thought of just buying time and waiting for him to help them.
If they couldn’t even do what they could on their own, then what right did they have to ask him for help or continue travel with him?
However even the little resistance they could offer for such realistic and emotional reasons was seen through.
“Tch, it can’t be helped. I didn’t want to use this because it would hurt the materials, but…”
As the alchemist’s expression changed, the princess gulped. Playtime was over. Sensing that, the maids grew tense, while Kite tightly held his great sword, and they all braced themselves physically and mentally for what was to come.
“Priority Code ‘For the Sake of My Only Flower’… Signal All Cut!”
But with just those words, something happened that put to waste everything they’d prepared.
“What—!?”
Chills ran down the princess’ back as though her very own instincts as a magician were reaching out to her.
Those words just now were not a chant, but they seemed to command something, and suddenly, like puppets whose strings have been cut, the maids all simultaneously collapsed.
“Guys!?”
Kite found himself rushing toward them but halted when he heard someone scream from behind him.
“Frau! Alisa! What’s wrong!?”
Those two should have been standing on either side of Princess Lilisha to protect her.
They were among the more senior members of the maid squad and were slightly older and taller than the princess. She could carry them still if she strengthened her body with magic, but they were unusually heavy, as though they were unconscious.
“Ah, ahh… J-Just what is this!?”
“Princess… Something is strange… I can’t feel my body…”
They were still conscious, so their expressions were understandably twisted into shock and panic.
Their eyes, neck, and mouth could move, but they couldn’t put any strength into their body.
They couldn’t break their fall, and neither could they wince in pain despite falling straight down into the hard floor.
“No way… I can’t use magic!?”
“My mana isn’t circulating properly!”
Despite that, the maids still tried to break free from their strange situation.
Unfortunately, all their efforts did was reveal that even their mana couldn’t circulate properly.
“What did you do to my
“Stella-san!”
“Stella!”
The princess and the hero called out to her anxiously.
She might have been able to stand unlike the other maids, and she might have also been able to move, but that halberd she was so good at could now only serve as a walking stick to help her stand.
Her face was still as expressionless as usual, but her sharp gaze was undeniably full of hostility toward the alchemist.
But in a sense, that only meant that that was all that she could afford to do right now.
“…What a surprise. If it were just one or two, it might have just been an error on my part, but to think that all of you would actually retain consciousness…”
The alchemist remained composed, but he too was taken aback by the situation.
“But how? It’s not something that could be fixed by time or aging. Did their nervous system evolve on its own? Nonsense. They’re still humans. Something like that shouldn’t be… But then why isn’t it working? Did Nicholas add something in? No, what could that young politician possibly do?”
The alchemist muttered to himself, seemingly lost in his own discussion, as though the maids weren’t even present.
“It’s frustrating that he’s insulting my father, but at this rate…”
She didn’t know what had the alchemist so stumped, but at this rate, they were going to be wiped out.
Now that they’ve lost their numerical advantage, these maids were no different from sitting ducks.
No wonder he was so leisurely. He could render them powerless at any point in time.
“Looks like we can’t buy any more time than this…”
Frustrated by her own powerlessness, the princess could only gnash her teeth despite the unknown methods of the enemy before them.
The barrier and the walls made it impossible to perceive the situation outside, so there was no way to tell how beneficial the time they bought was for Shinichi, but regardless, they needed to make their next decision quickly.
“Let’s at least try to get everyone else out. I’ll break the walls and the barrier…”
“I’ll send them away with a gust of wind. If we can just send them to the villa, Shin will…”
The princess and the hero whispered quietly among themselves so as to not be noticed.
Of course, the maids still noticed them, and as unhappy as they were to leave their master behind, they knew they were nothing but a hindrance right now, so they kept quiet, but…
“As if I’d let you do that!”
It might have been because the hero pulled out his sword, or because the princess quietly prepared her spell, or perhaps because the alchemist had run out of theories, but regardless, the princess and the hero could no longer execute their plan.
“────Royal Code 『Rebels Shall Prostrate Themselves』”
It was just like that time when the alchemist neutralized the maids.
The princess immediately paled, and she immediately threw her staff away and yelled.
“Kite-sama, please throw your weapon away, kyaa!?”
“Huh? GUWAAH!?”
But it was too late. Doing anything after
Just as what transpired with the maids, the princess and the hero fell straight down as though a great mass had been added onto their bodies.
They were conscious, they could feel their body, but they couldn’t move. Any attempt to do so would result in an opposing force that would prevent them from doing anything.
Kite’s great sword melted like candy, while his very own armor shackled him.
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