Editing Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut:Volume 10 Episode 1 (section)

===Part 5===
That night, Lux was watching a dream of the past.

It was a nostalgic past that tended to be a bitter memory.

The scene from seven years ago of the suffering from the Old Empire’s tyrannical rule and the discrimination from male chauvinism.

He was banished from the imperial court and lost his mother in an accident.

And then──Lux stood up in order to change the empire, this was his action after that.

He obtained knowledge by searching and reading the books written by his predecessors in the library, at the same time he polished his skills with the Drag-Ride.

It wasn’t enough no matter how much time he had.

He focused on his study and training from morning until evening that he even forgot to sleep.

He was able to sharpen his fangs until so far in that short time──and then to even arrive until the point where the empire was dismantled, was largely thanks to Fugil’s assistance, but in one part it was also due to the strength of Lux’s will.

But──

『Hahaa, I get it. You’re scared right? Of the reality that what you once believed as right and accomplished might be a mistake.』

The sentence that the Blue Tyrant, Shinglen Shelbrit once told him caused a twinge of pain in Lux’s chest.

(……Wrong. I’m not hesitating anymore. In order to protect the people who I want to protect, I don’t feel any doubt.)

He had no problem in becoming a Seven Dragon Paladin in order to save his {{furigana|little sister|Airi}} from danger.

He should have sworn to himself that he wouldn’t be scared anymore of the failure that destroyed the Old Empire in the past.

(However, why?)

He had to find the proof of the backroom dealing of Rosa Granhide, the King of Vices, who caused the New Kingdom to be in danger, and defeat her.

Even though this act should be the right one, for some reason Lux was feeling contradicted inside himself.

He wouldn’t be able to protect everyone without defeating the enemy that put the New Kingdom in danger.

However, even so Lux’s wish was…

–

「──!?」

Lux opened his eyes above the sofa due to a disturbing sound.

He couldn’t feel light from the other side of the curtain. The air was cold. It was still late at night.

He immediately became alert and got up. His hand reached towards his Sword Device.

(Enemy? No, wrong──the aim isn’t us……)

Lux held his breath and observed the surrounding’s situation. As he thought, there was a voice.

Furthermore it was a loud voice of an angry man that could be heard from far away.

It sounded like someone was condemning another person because of a foot getting caught on something or colliding with someone.

Perhaps because it was midnight, the sound was echoing.

Sometimes the weak screams of a girl reached even until this inn’s room.

「Nn, munya……」

Philuffy hadn’t noticed the sounds. She was still sleeping, perhaps because she was tired.

Lux quietly exited the room and got down to the first floor. He called out to the inn’s owner who was still awake.

「Oh, what’s the matter young master? The door will be closed soon. How about you postpone your outing for tomorrow?」

「No, rather than that, just what was that scream──?」

Lux asked with a tense expression, but the inn’s owner, a middle aged man only lightly joined his hands together and said 「Aa」.

「Surely that must be annoying, but there is no need to worry. It should stop soon……」

「That’s not it, shouldn’t we help? Perhaps there is a girl who is being attacked you know? Shouldn’t we call the guards or──」

Lux was irritated by the man’s calm while insisting on that.

But, the reply of the inn’s owner was unexpected.

「Young master, is this your first time coming to this city?」

「Eh……?」

The man leaked out a sigh at Lux’s bewildered reaction.

「I understand your feeling but please stop. The man who was yelling angrily like that is the guard. Furthermore that man is a noble and a squad leader class. I’m familiar with his voice.」

The man spoke dispassionately while scratching his head with a troubled look.

「Here is the capital so it’s excessively awful. If anyone tries to do anything suspicious even for just a little bit, the guards will soon hear about it. If they aren’t satisfied with money or body, then it would be prison for the suspect.」

Those words of resignation rapidly cooled down Lux’s heated head.

Right after that, he immediately reached an answer.

「In other words, it’s that kind of thing? We cannot oppose Heiburg’s military officer who is drunk and picking on a girl right now──」

「This isn’t a problem about which is right and which is wrong. If we speak out carelessly, it will be us who get crushed. That’s all.」

「──I understand. Excuse me.」

Lux acted as though he was backing down sensibly and returned to his room.

He heard that in this Heiburg, the segregation of status was distinct but, so this was what it meant.

The noble military officers and their dependents whose influence were strengthened, the ordinary citizens, and then──the poor people.

Heiburg that got its territory threatened by the Old Arcadia Empire and was exposed to the dangers of a Ragnarok then concentrated on the route of expanding their military might.

The distortion of authority that it brought about stole the position of the leaders that the mass selected and put up the military in an overwhelming predominance.

Without armed might, they would lose strength in every respect whether in war, defense, and Ruin investigation.

The place Heiburg ended up on that route was the tyranny of the soldiers.

It was a system of government by influential people who resembled the Old Empire.

Lux, who once experienced both the front and back of that era, was immediately able to comprehend the situation.

(If I want to accomplish my mission safely, I shouldn’t risk danger now in this place. But──)

When he noticed, his hand had reached out towards the merchandise bag.

He took a black cloak with hood attached to hide the face.

He quickly changed into one of the clothing that he brought for disguise among the merchandise.

Furthermore he only carried the Sword Device of his Wyvern and leaped outside from the window.

He leaped on the fence from the second floor, and from there he landed safely on the street.

Different from before, there was no sign of people in the city at midnight.

Amidst the cold wind that felt like it was cutting into the body, Lux started running towards the direction of the voice.

After sprinting for around 200 ml on the stone paving, he discovered a girl who was being harassed by a guard inside a complicated back alley.

「Noo-!? Please let me go-!」

「This annoying brat. That guy is a traitor to the country. Don’t think this will be over with only you accompanying us for a night yeah.」

Inside the darkness, the outline of that scene was gradually getting clearer.

The moment the drunk man pulled the girl’s arm further, Lux hit his shoulder with his sheathed Sword Device.

「Guouh!?」

「Over here!」

Lux pulled the hand of the girl when the man pitched forward and collapsed and started running.

After getting out of the back alley and running for a while, they finally arrived until in front of the main street.

He didn’t hear any footsteps from behind. It seemed they managed to escape safely.

「Haa, haa……. Excuse me──who, are you?」

「Are you injured? Please take care. Then, excuse me.」

It was great and all that he moved to help the girl, but it would be scary later if he stood out more than this.

He tried to leave behind the gasping girl and left before she memorized his face.

「Ah……. Ple, please wait a second!」

「No, I don’t need any tha──」

「I, I’m thankful for the save. But where is this place? We had been running quite far, so I don’t understand the path back.」

「Eh……?」

Lux was spontaneously bewildered when the girl asked him that.

Although it was midnight, there was some amount of moonlight and the lamps in the city remaining.

「Bu, but you are a citizen of the capital right? I have just arrived in this city──!?」

Lux who was about to say that noticed the secret of the girl.

He didn’t notice until now because he was absorbed in escaping, but looking closer, the girl kept casting down her eyes quietly.

「Forgive me. Just as you can see, my eyes cannot see. If I have a cane than I can more or less find my own way, but I left it at that place before──」

(Kuh……!? No good!?)

Lux finally noticed the troublesome situation he was put in.

That soldier he hit was dead drunk, so there was the possibility that he fainted right away after the hit, but he couldn’t just return there brazenly while pulling the girl’s hand.

And then, although they were currently at the main street, there was no way he could leave this blind girl behind without a cane this late at night.

With how the girl got into trouble with a guard, he also couldn’t use the method of handing her to another guard.

Furthermore because Lux rushed out in a hurry, he didn’t bring the map of the capital with him.

Lux was someone with a relatively good sense of direction, but it would be difficult to search for this girl’s house in this dark night.

「Do you have any acquaintance who you can trust? Someone who you feel like you can rely on other than this city’s guard──」

There Lux tried to search for a method to at least return this girl back safely, but,

「None…… I think.」

The girl made a self-depreciating expression and hung her head down.

「I am a shamed human in this city……. That’s why, I can only go at midnight even for a stroll like this──」

「What do you mean……?」

After asking that, Lux regretted it thinking that he shouldn’t inquire excessively.

But, the words that were dragged out from the girl by that casual question induced Lux’s fate to an unexpected direction.

「Because in the past, I was a military cadet Drag-Knight. At the very least, if Rosa or Calensia were staying by my side──」

「-……!?」

The moment Lux heard those two names, agitation and a shudder ran through Lux’s back.

The gentle-looking blind girl tilted her head and waited for Lux’s response.

(This girl, is a former military cadet of Heiburg……!? What’s more, she has connection with the Seven Dragon Paladin Rosa and her aide Calensia──)

In Lux’s mission this time, he wasn’t directly involved with those two.

Because his current objective was to infiltrate into Heiburg’s Underground Market and search for the proof of their backroom deals with Dragon Marauder.

Therefore he also had a choice to not listen to this girl’s story, but Lux felt a strange fate in this encounter.

「Say, do you have any clue about your home address, like the terrain around it or the name of the street?」

「It might take some time but…… I think I can manage somehow. In the past I could see, so if I rely on my memory from that time──」

[[File:SaijakuBahamut v10 02.png|thumb|right]]

If that was the case then there was some prospect in sending the girl home.

After all if she was a former military cadet then it was possible that she was familiar with the map.

「Ah, I’m sorry! I’m being a bother am I? Even though you have only just come to this city recently, and you had also saved me just now.」

The girl suddenly returned to her senses and told Lux that in panic. Lux took the hand of the girl.

「No, please let me send you home. Also, it might take a bit of time but, can you allow me to listen to your story?」

「Ye, yes. My name is Stefa Hersmice. I’m a former military cadet, and right now I’m an apprentice nurse.」

「I’m Lu──not. Rudy Eintoss, a traveling merchant. Nice to meet you.」

He told her that and started walking through the quiet city at night.

A blind girl without a cane and a young man who had come to the capital for the first time.

As expected, their pace was slow while they also had to be careful of the guards’ eyes.

Lux talked with the girl using the excess time.

「Is that so, you came to this city for a honeymoon──. Certainly, this is a place that is prospering in various things in the business aspect.」

The reason her tone sounded a bit cynical might be because she was aware of the defense industry as a former military cadet.

「Yes. I’m together with my childhood friend Phi, ……anel you see. There will be a lot of parties on New Year’s eve too, so it will also double as socializing from here on.」

Of course that was the pretext of his fabricated social position.

「Even though from your voice you sound young, but you are hardworking aren’t you? That’s admirable.」

「No, it’s not that amazing. More importantly, just now you mentioned the name of Rosa.」

「Do you know about her? She is already the Seven Dragon Paladin of the Heiburg Republic. It will be great if she is in good health but──」

「That’s, about her……Lady Rosa, can I ask how is she being treated in Heiburg?」

「…………」

Hearing Lux’s question, the girl slightly looked down and fell quiet.

Even just from that, he could somehow guess the circumstance.

「Ah, you don’t need to force yourself to answer if you──」

「I think from the view point of another country, it must look like she is a really bad existence. She is an EX Class Drag-Knight, but she is a haughty and arrogant, dangerous person. I heard such rumor. But……I cannot believe that.」

「You cannot believe, the rumor about Lady Rosa?」

「Yes. She was born from a noted military family, and her personality was certainly aggressive. However──if I have to say, it felt like it was just her turning her cowardice into hostility. Even when an accident happened in the mock battles against her, she was really upset.」

「Your eyes, it was because of an accident in the practice ground?」

The blind girl who introduced herself as Stefa nodded.

How should he say it, this was unexpected.

Thinking of Rosa’s current figure which was so arrogant and haughty like that, he couldn’t even imagine the Rosa that this girl talked about.

When he heard even more of her story, Calensia and Stefa were normal citizens from the street, but they had promise with their Drag-Ride aptitudes and became military cadets. There they became close with Rosa.

But, Stefa’s eyes got injured and she was expulsed from the academy. Since then she didn’t really follow about what happened in the military academy.

During that time, the bad rumors about Rosa were starting to flow one after another before she knew it, and now Rosa had become an existence that was feared by the people of the capital.

At the same time, the controlling power of the military was increasing in momentum from that time, and Heiburg was rapidly becoming a country that was hard to live in.

「Regarding the reason why Lady Rosa changed completely, do you have any idea about it?」

「……I don’t know. But, right after I was expulsed, it seemed that several military cadets died from accidents in mock battles though.」

It seemed that around that time, the military’s top management died and the organization structure changed, with various other events happening.

Lux was able to imagine that it must be around the time that Hayes’s involvement with Heiburg was starting to become active.

He also heard from Stefa that Calensia tried to investigate Hayes regarding the trend at that time.

「My cousin Calensia didn’t show any signs of changing but, I haven’t met her for a long time. I believed that Calensia would stop Rosa even if she actually did anything bad, and yet──」

「…………」

Lux was listening to her words while recalling the skill exhibition battle that was held in the Campus Festival a month ago.

–

『Calen. You aim at this one who is near dead. Weeell, the punishment for you was decided already, though, by the time you got done in by such a brat twice. What’s going to happen if we lose because of your fault──. If it’s the clever you, don’t you get it already, riight? It won’t be just your parents, even your little sis will be turned into slaves you know?』

–

At that time, the relationship between the two had already become one sided.

Rosa was threatening, oppressing, and toying with Calensia.

If Stefa believed in the relationship of the two, then there was no way he could tell her about that.

If he acted carelessly, then even this girl might get harmed by Rosa’s whim.

「If I can meet with Calensia, then perhaps I will be able to understand something……」

Lux was unable to answer the girl’s earnest wish.

「Err……is your house around here? The bread shop and general shop──and the stone statue are nearby.」

「Ah, I mostly understand the area if we are here. Really, thank you very much.」

While they were talking like that, they finally arrived nearby the girl’s house.

She had no cane, so just in case Lux sent her off until in front of her house. Then when Lux was going to return to the inn──

「Err, Rudy-san, you are going to stay in this city for a while aren’t you?」

Stefa hesitantly talked towards Lux who was turning around.

「That’s the plan but, is there something?」

「I’m guessing, that perhaps, you are intending to participate in the Underground Market that will happen soon?」

「…………」

Lux was immediately on his guard when the girl guessed exactly right.

The Underground Market itself was a legal market, but there was also illicit trade that handled illegal merchandise being done under its cover.

Lux disguised his identity to infiltrate there with the objective of catching such trade in the act.

「No, I’m not──」

This girl had an unexpected connection with Rosa and he asked her about her story against his better judgement, but it wouldn’t be good to get involved further than this with this girl.

But, if it was the military that was managing the Underground Market, there was no doubt that this girl also understood the situation.

And then, if he could meet the cousin of this girl, the aide of the Seven Dragon Paladins, Calensia, at that time the puzzle pieces that he had on hand would be connected right away.

He would be able to approach the core of Heiburg that was increasing its strength by its connection with Dragon Marauder.

「Please! If you see Calensia in the Underground Market, please tell her about me! I will do anything to repay you, so please let me meet with her!」

While Lux was hesitating, Stefa spoke her heartfelt wish.

And then Lux too made his conclusion at the end of his hesitation.