Editing Unlimited Fafnir:Volume 4 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 5===

The limo passed through ancient streets then started crossing a large bridge. The surface of a vast lake was reflecting the setting sun's lingering glow. Looking ahead where the car was going, I saw a brightly lit castle come into view.

Surrounded by tall walls of stone. Countless spires towered.

"...How spectacular. Is that castle the royal palace?"

I asked Firill but she shook her head.

"No, that's Erlia Castle, a World Heritage tourist site. Nowadays, it's only used for special ceremonies."

"I see, so where's the palace?"

"Over on the side, we'll be there soon."

After the limo crossed the bridge, it continued on a road along the castle walls then accelerated. There were no cars coming in the opposite direction and no pedestrians visible either.

Just as Firill had said, a building resembling a palace quickly came into view.

A towering and magnificent palace was adjacent to the castle. Without castle walls and watch towers for defending against invaders, it was less intimidating than the castle, but it still exuded an air of history and grandeur. Its gothic architectural style indicated that the palace was built more recently than the castle.

After passing through the heavily secured main gate where many guards were stationed, crossing a spacious garden, the limo stopped at a side door instead of the front of the palace.

"—It feels like we're sneaking in even though the princess is clearly returning in triumph. We didn't go through official immigrations at the airport either..."

Ariella muttered after she got off the car, looking at the unassuming side door.

"I asked them beforehand not to publicize our visit, because it might cause unnecessary troubles if people found out that several Ds were outside of Midgard."

Shinomiya-sensei answered Ariella's question while waiting for everyone to exit the vehicle.

Carrying Tia, Lisa was the last to alight. Helen-san then led us into the palace.

"Well then, I shall first take you to your rooms."

After stepping into the palace through the side door, I instantly felt myself surrounded by warm air.

The interior had been modernized. The air conditioning was warm and gentle. Perhaps this was supposed to be a corridor used by servants, there were no extravagant furniture or interior decorations.

But as soon as we reached the third floor by the stairs, the impression was much different. The lights on the ceiling had complicated carvings while the floor was covered by a soft velvet carpet.

Helen-san led us to where there were many rooms spaced at regular intervals. Reaching into her pocket, she took out a notebook.

"Shinomiya Haruka-sama, please use this room."

Reading her notebook, Helen-san pointed at the room beside her and opened the door. The rooms were apparently all allocated already.

"Clothes have already been prepared inside the rooms, please use them as you please. The sizes are based on what you provided in advance, but we will prepare alternatives if none prove to be to your liking."

After explaining fluently, Helen-san took us to our respective rooms in order.

The rooms seemed to be assigned according to Student No. essentially.

The only exceptions were Tia rooming with Lisa and Firill getting skipped over.

"Now then, please come with me, Princess Firill."

Called last, she most likely had her own room.

Hence, Firill and Helen-san walked towards the other end of the corridor together.

—A princess' room must be very grand.

Although I felt a bit curious, it was not like I could head over for a peek, so my only choice was to enter my room obediently.

"Wow..."

Since the doors were spaced quite far apart, I already expected it to some extent. However, the luxurious room before my eyes turned out to be even more spacious than I had imagined.

The ceiling had a chandelier as one would expect. The bed in the room was also especially huge. I opened the closet standing on the side of the wall and saw a large amount of menswear made with top-quality fabric and designs.

The windows seemed to open up to a balcony. I tried to open the windows gently and cold wind immediately blew into the room. Although it felt a bit cold since I had not changed yet, I still tried walking in the balcony.

The sun had completely set by now. The stars were twinkling in the sky. Perhaps due to the altitude, the stars looked nearer than usual.

I turned my gaze to the ground and could see a vast garden, meticulously maintained. It did not look like the front garden we saw when the car came in. It was the courtyard that was not visible from outside the palace. There was a fountain in the center. I could hear the sound of flowing water.

—Clack.

I heard someone open a window. Since Tia and Lisa were rooming together, the room on my right was empty while the left one was Iris', which meant that—

I spun left to have a look and instantly met eyes with Iris on the adjacent balcony. Our balconies were not connected. Although there was a gap separating them, there was no partition to block our view.

"Oh..."

Iris showed a slightly surprised look then smiled.

"We think alike, Mononobe."

Iris smiled happily. Leaning out from her balcony, Iris extended her hand towards me.

"H-Hey, that's dangerous, you know?"

"Come—Extend your hand too, Mononobe."

"...?"

Although I had no idea what was the point of doing that, I did as told.

Our fingertips touched slightly.

"Ah, we're touching."

Iris smiled with a happy voice.

"...Yeah, just barely. Then what do you want to do?"

"Hmm? Nothing, it just occurred to me how glad I'd feel if we were able to touch."

Iris widened her eyes and answered.

"Glad...?"

"For our hands to be able to touch when we're clearly in different rooms, doesn't that set your heart racing?"

"Hmm... Not really."

It was hard for me to imagine because such romantic notions did not occur to me.

"Eh, but I already feel my heart racing..."

Iris glared at me unhappily. Hearing her upfront confession, I felt my heart rate accelerate. Perhaps as a backlash to keeping her distance when Mitsuki was around, Iris was now expressing her feelings without any hesitation.

"...Heart racing huh."

Hearing me repeat those words, Iris blushed.

"R-Right..."

Iris scratched her cheek shyly.

Silently, we gazed at each other for a while. Then a strong gust of cold wind blew.

"Kyah!?"

Iris' skirt was lifted up by the blowing wind.

My heartbeat accelerated. For an instant, my gaze was drawn to the exposed white fabric.

"......Did you see it?"

Iris frantically held down her skirt and asked me.

"S-Sorry."

Covering up was impossible after all, so I apologized honestly.

Then Iris seemed to breathe a sigh of relief for some reason and touched her chest gently.

"Ah... Luckily, I'm wearing panties today."

"That's what you're concerned about?"

I could not help but ask her that. Iris smiled embarrassedly.

"Because... Mononobe, you mentioned before that seeing panties is like feeling you profited. It's embarrassing for me, but if it makes you happy, Mononobe, then it's not a failure to me, oh... Or are you unhappy to see panties?"

"Uh, nothing of that sort..."

"Then there's no problem!"

Seeing Iris smile sweetly, I could not help but nod in agreement.

"I guess..."

Another strong gust of wind blew, forcing me to shiver. Iris held down her skirt as well. It looked like she felt really cold.

"—It's time we get back into our rooms to change. Staying outside in these clothes is uncomfortable."

"Y-Yeah..."

Shivering, Iris nodded and walked back to the window.

"Mononobe, see you later! Since there are lots of wonderful clothes, you should look forward to it!"

Saying that, Iris closed her window and drew the curtains.

With embarrassed feelings, I returned to my room too. Speaking of which, I had yet to turn on the light.

Hence, I pressed the switch near the entrance. Immediately, the chandelier lit up and the room became bright.

The time was just after 7pm. I walked to the closet to pick out my clothing for the dinner party.

But at that moment, my portable terminal rang.

It was an incoming call but there was no caller ID, which gave me a bad feeling. No, I was certain already.

The same had happened before. Capable of concealing his caller ID, making calls to my Midgard-issued portable terminal, there was only one person I could think of.

"—Hello."

To be honest, I did not want to pick up, but not knowing what might happen afterwards, I reluctantly pressed the call button. An image with static appeared on the terminal's LCD screen.

'Hi, 2nd Lieutenant Mononobe.'

Shown on screen was a man dressed in NIFL's military uniform, staring at me with his slender eyes.

"As expected... It's Major Loki."

I sighed. The caller was just as I suspected, my commanding officer back in my NIFL days, also the man who wanted to cultivate me into the strongest "killer."

'It's been a while—That's not a greeting I need to use given the last time we spoke. First of all, let me commend you for successfully taking out Basilisk. Congratulations. Excellent job. Was Mistilteinn of use?'

"...Yes, thanks to you. But I could not have defeated Basilisk on my own. Getting through the crisis was the result of cooperation."

I had asked Major Loki during the Basilisk battle for a NIFL-developed bomb—Mistilteinn—to be handed over for us to use. That request was made according to Major Loki's verbal promise of a favor no matter what, which he made after the Leviathan battle. This meant that we were even now, but I felt slightly apologetic because my demand much have been too much.

'No no, you were amazing. Now, the defeated dragons number three: "Purple" Kraken, "White" Levithan and "Red" Basilisk. "Black" Vritra has gone missing and "Blue" Hekatonkheir has not surfaced ever since it was driven off from Midgard. The only dragons currently confirmed as active are "Yellow" Hraesvelgr and "Green" Yggdrasil.'

"Yeah..."

Major Loki talked up a storm but I replied briefly.

'You are very fortunate—2nd Lieutenant Mononobe. You are truly fortunate that "Yellow" Hraesvelgr wasn't among the dragons you were forced to defeat earlier.'

"Huh...?"

Unable to understand what Major Loki was getting at, I made a questioning sound.

'Oh my, you're not aware? Hraesvelgr is currently regarded as the dragon that is impossible to fight.'

"No... I've heard that it's the most troublesome opponent, but not to the point that it's impossible to fight..."

'True, that's a position that cannot be approved from Midgard's standpoint. But we of NIFL has come to that conclusion from the standpoint reality."

I had often heard that Hraesvelgr was a formidable foe but this was my first time being told explicitly the dragon was impossible to fight. In charge of handling dragon disasters across the entire world, NIFL possessed vast quantities of data. Perhaps as a result of that, their assessment was far harsher than Midgard's.

"Why can you say with such certainty... it's impossible to fight?"

'The reason is simple, because we have attempted all kinds of attacks to no effect at all.'

"But the same applies to all the other dragons, right? Because they can't be defeated no matter what, that's why humans have suffered from dragon disasters for over twenty years."

'Indeed, apart from Hraesvelgr, NIFL cannot defeat any of the other dragons either, but that stems purely from weapon specs. Even if the opponent was that Leviathan, we could still inflict scratches by using laser weaponry in saturation attacks, but Hraesvelgr is on a completely different level.'

"...What do you mean by that?"

I frowned and asked.

'I said it already, no effect at all. Currently, there is absolutely no method capable of interfering against Hraesvelgr. Had it been Hraesvelgr attacking recently instead of Basilisk... You'd probably be forced to choose a different solution.'

"A different solution—Really?"

I remarked bitterly after realizing what Major Loki implied.

'Your face betrays your skepticism. You don't mean to say... that even if Hraesvelgr were to attack, you'd still fight it?'

"Indeed."

I could answer this question without any hesitation at all. However, Major Loki made a look of disappointment and sighed.

'—2nd Lieutenant Mononobe, that is called a futile struggle, not a fight. Because I've mentioned that fighting is impossible, I wish you could come up with the best solution while taking this as a precondition.'

"......"

I knew what Major Loki's 'best solution' was referring to. Namely, to kill the D targeted by the dragon, but I could not approve of that kind of method at all.

'Your face betrays your wish to differ. Although your contributions to Leviathan and Basilisk's defeats were amazing accomplishments... You seem to have forgotten your real job. Your power exists purely for murder—'

"Major Loki, what business do you have this time?"

I interrupted him and demanded for him to get to the main point.

Because I did not want to listen any further to a conversation that pissed me off.

'Hoo—Are you that unwilling to confront who you are? Fine, let's get to the main point. Your current position should be the Principality of Erlia, right?'

"...Yes."

Having applied for permission to leave Midgard's borders, our actions were naturally known to NIFL. There was no point in hiding things.

'Your objective is to guard Kili Surtr Muspelheim and transport her to Midgard, right? Seriously... Midgard's decision really calls their sanity into question.'

Major Loki sighed deeply then turned his sharp gaze at me.

'—However, it's convenient that the team includes you. I have only one item of business with you, namely, I want to ask you to eliminate Kili.'

I had pretty much guessed what Major Loki was going to say, but I could not agree to his request.

"Your request goes against Midgard's policy."

'Of course I know that, but Kili is a terrorist. Whether to humans, to Ds, or to yourself, she is only a disaster, right?'

Major Loki asserted in a strong tone of voice. I had also predicted what he was going to say, but—

"At least at this point in time, Kili is under our protection. I cannot take hostile action on my own."

'Mm-hmm&mdash;So you insist on obeying Midgard's decision. As a member of an organization, that's the correct decision. You're not declining out of a concern for getting your hands dirty... Hence, I can't force you.'

Major Loki spoke suggestively while shrugging.

"I am terribly sorry I cannot agree to your request."

I apologized to him somewhat sarcastically.

'No, it's fine, I was simply looking for an easy solution. However, I guess I have to do my own work after all.'

"Huh...?"

Seeing a smile surface on Major Loki's lips, I could only feel a sense of chill.

'My side will take care of Kili. I hope you won't interfere, if possible... But if you insist on fulfilling your duties loyally, that'll be interesting too. It's not a bad idea to use this chance to make you the complete "Fafnir"—'

—Beep.

Leaving ominous words behind, Major Loki hung up on his own.

I stood there frozen in the room that had returned to silence.

Major Loki was going to take action. In other words, he was going to send his team.

This time, I really was going to fight the special forces team I used to belong to—Sleipnir.

And perhaps...

The figure of a certain man flashed in my mind. He was Major Loki's personal bodyguard and the one with the deepest history with "Fafnir."

Recalling things about ''him'', I could not help but clench my fist.