Fritz was livid.

  Now, of course, he knew this should have been expected in advance. Finding and locating the 4th Princess was a massive headache he vowed to complete after all, but now, after hearing from Her Highness, he realized the end of his troubles wasn’t close.

  In fact, it was likely that this was just the start. That man beside her, who didn’t even identify himself, was also an ominous addition. No matter what happened, it seemed that Fritz Stiglitz and the rest of the 101st were going to be entangled in some massive royal bullcrap going forward.

  He sped up his pace as he walked through the halls of the garrison HQ.

  “You look quite under the weather, sir,” Heinrich remarked from behind.

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me. I know you don’t do that.”

  “After what happened, I thought I should be more respectful, sir.”

  “I don’t feel quite respected right now.”

  Fritz let out a small ‘tsk’ under his breath. He was quite annoyed at Heinrich and the rest of his subordinates in his squadron at the moment. After all, they did just keep him in the dark about this.

  Until it finally bit him in the ass.

  “Was that really necessary?” Fritz asked.

  “Look, man, she told us to keep our lips shut. Just like you.”

  “So you kept your lips shut.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Better keep those lips shut long-term then. There’s no need for the king to know that my squadron made contact with her days in advance.”

  “Unless she reveals it.”

  “Unless she reveals it, yes.”

  “Shit, are we in trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck.”

  Earlier, Heinrich seemed a bit too smug and even happy upon meeting the princess, but now, both officers looked like a disgruntled mess. It was at this point that they began discussing how they would deal with this headache by sharing their limited brainpower.

  Explaining everything to the colonel, gaining a proper arrangement that would satisfy the princess, and, of course, preventing her from just leaving and humiliating Fritz’s squadron were all on the table. By the time they reached their wyverns, both of the creatures still happily resting in bliss at the stables, both officers came to an agreement.

  They would only reveal to the rest of the 101st the most necessary information so that they could transport her to Kalthafen without much incident. The problem was…

  How were they going to explain Stella’s ‘bodyguard’?

  “Ah, screw it.” Fritz patted the head of his wyvern after mounting it, causing it to shake its head lightly. “If it gets too sticky, we’ll just try our best to fly away from it, right, Anna?”

  The wyvern purred and raised its head up and down in approval.

  “I don’t think that’ll work,” Heinrich said, struggling a bit to control his new wyvern. “Woah! Not so fast, buddy!”

  Heinrich’s wyvern stood on its two legs while widening its wings a bit before lowering itself down on the ground again with a small ‘grr.’ Fritz watched it with some concern, but ultimately, the wyvern seemed to return to its docile state.

  It was a normal thing; the wyvern was trained to be easily controlled by any pilot, but, without a full bond, wyverns had a tendency to be a bit rebellious to their rider. It was therefore up to the rider to keep control of his mount, which usually took days or weeks.

  “We’re going now,” Fritz said. “Are you good over there?”

  “Yep. No issues here.”

  “Right…sure.” Fritz steadied himself before pulling the reins of his wyvern. “Anna, let’s go.”

  In an instant, the white wyvern flapped its wings, and they were up in the air, building up speed to rejoin the rest of their air wing.

  It was going to be a long day for Fritz.

  “There they go,” Marcus said, watching the two wyverns fly high into the sky. “They seem like good fellas, huh?”

  “Well, we did work with one of them already, and they seem like the type that we can trust,” Stella said. “Hey, you look a bit stiff over there.”

  “You think…” Marcus crossed his arms. “That we’ll have to fly those things to get to Kalthafen?”

  “...Yes?”

  “Can you fly in one of them?”

  “Yes! That’s why I told Sir Fritz to bring one wyvern for me. I’ve done my fair share of riding lessons for wyverns back in my days at the academy.”

  “I can’t ride them.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “What was that, Sir Marcus?”

  “...Nothing.”

  Marcus looked away from Stella after muttering those words under his breath. You see, the thing was, Marcus knew how to ride a horse. Any self-respecting soldier should know that.

  But the problem was, he never rode any other animal than a horse. Certainly not a creature that was basically close to dragons, well…to Marcus, wyverns were practically dragons, just smaller.

  They fly, they breathe out fire or magic, and they are quite strong. So practically, they were mini-dragons, in Marcus’s mind. This meant he was going to have to ride a dragon too.

  And he can’t do that! He half thought that he should also request a wyvern anyway, but, realizing that he might fumble the bag while Stella was watching, he decided to throw that idea into the garbage bin.

  He turned around, deciding that watching the flying duo from the balcony was not worth it anymore.

  “I guess I can just use [Blink Step] to catch up with—”

  “You can fly with me, Sir Marcus!”

  Marcus turned around, facing Stella after that outrageous proposition. Those things were one-person mounts; what was she thinking?

  “Just like with horses, a passenger can hitch a ride too,” Stella explained, as if anticipating his question. “So it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “You…designated me as your ‘bodyguard.’ Me holding on to you while flying on those things will demolish that image.”

  “You think they’re going to cross my words?” Stella tilted her head slightly. “Well, they can try. I’m the princess, so if I say the sky is red, those peasants better believe the sky is red.”

  “You saying the word ‘peasant’ does not fit you, oddly enough.”

  I already have an image of her as a pleasant, humble lady, after all.

  “Regardless, my point is, there’s no problem about it,” Stella haughtily said as she placed a hand on her hip, which again, did not fit her in Marcus’s experience. He noticed that recently, she was starting to appear more and more regal, a side he rarely saw in their travels so far.

  He supposed it was because all this time, she was acting as Stella the Ashen Saint, a fallen [Saint] disposed of by the Holy Church. But now, Marcus was probably seeing a different side to her.

  This was Stella, the spoiled 4th Princess of Sordale.

  “If they think that they can look down on you, I’ll tell Father and make them grovel—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it now.” Marcus stopped her, refusing to hear her demeaning words about commoners. It would threaten the perfect image he had in his mind after all. “We’ll see if…we can do that, I guess.”

  Finally, as if snapping back in place, Stella’s happy-go-lucky demeanor returned, and she smiled, clasping her hands gently together.

  “~Wonderful. I know you’re always so agreeable. I’m looking forward to showing off my skills at flying wyverns, Sir Marcus.”

  “Oh, so that’s why you’re insisting on doing that.”

  Stella’s cheeks suddenly turned slightly pink, but, instead of denying, she nodded with a smile.

  “Impressing Sir Marcus makes me feel good, so yes.”

  “You…really shouldn’t say those words out loud, you know. Even if no one’s around.”

  Stella looked down, still slightly embarrassed.

  “Sorry…I suppose I’m a bit too open with people I’m close with,” she explained, twiddling her fingers. “That, and I wanted to thank you for agreeing to help me out again. Lady Siris told me earlier about this idea, and she said, ‘This is a reward that’ll make any guy happy,’ and I’d like to make Sir Marcus happy, and I don’t really want to leave you behind using [Blink Step] just to catch up to us while we fly away…”

  Marcus stared at Stella as if he’d seen a ghost while she continued mindlessly rambling her reasons for proposing that idea. The worst part about it was that she seemed like she had absolutely no clue about its implications.

  …That old hag’s been whispering crap to her all this time?

  Of course, it all made sense now. There was no way that Stella would come up with such a mischievous idea on her own; she was a [Saint] after all.

  No wonder he hadn’t been seeing Siris lately.

  As Marcus internally grumbled while trying to avoid embarrassment, faint giggles emanated from inside Stella’s pendant.

  Colonel Wilhelm von Stahl of the 101st Wyvern Air Wing had never seen such bullshit before. A man wearing the same white apparel as Her Highness, including a white mask that hid his appearance, was clumsily holding on to her as she readied herself on top of a brown wyvern.

  He was her ‘guard’ and ‘savior,’ at least according to the princess’s words. In Wilhelm’s eyes, he didn’t look like one. He just looked like someone terrified of heights and draconic creatures.

  Wilhelm didn’t even need to unmask him to know that.

  It was a bit of a sorry sight. Even Her Highness seemed to have realized how bad it was, as everyone was staring at her, and she was barely keeping herself together while holding the reins of her wyvern.

  Still, the princess puffed her cheeks and placed a brave face. As the daughter of the king, she seemed like she wanted to be someone who wouldn’t be made fun of by commoner soldiers.

  It was quite cute, but Wilhelm was a dead man inside, so he wasn’t amused by it.

  “So that’s the man who saved her from the Death God Cult?” Wilhelm asked Fritz beside him while holding a metal flask filled with whisky. “Are you sure, or am I mistaken?”

  “I…wouldn’t underestimate him. He had a different aura earlier. My gut tells me that he can murder us easily.”

  “Your guts have been wrong once already, Captain.” Wilhelm took a tentative sip of his whiskey. “But, I’ll take your word for it. Just that, it seems that he’s holding on to Her Highness a bit too clumsily.”

  “He’s not used to flying with wyverns.”

  “Interesting.”

  Wilhelm stepped forward, scanning the few gathered men of the 101st on the open courtyard of Branburg’s city garrison. There were only a few of them here, mostly Fritz’s men and a few staff officers who rode into the city to check on Her Highness’s condition.

  Otherwise, the rest of the 101st was far away, conducting combat air patrols around Branburg and its surroundings to make sure that a clear path was open for the squadrons that would be assigned to escort the princess.

  After Eisenfeld, Wilhelm wouldn’t tolerate any sloppiness.

  “Gentlemen,” Wilhelm’s voice boomed through the courtyard. “We’ve got a simple mission today. Now that we’ve successfully rescued Her Highness from the evil cultists…”

  “Rescued?” Fritz silently asked behind Wilhelm.

  But the colonel didn’t notice, and he continued speaking unabated. “It is now our task to escort her back to the royal capital. As the 101st, we will not mess this up, and we will make sure that the king’s daughter is reunited with her family at last.”

  The wyvern knights all nodded gruffly, most of them already aboard their mounts. When the colonel was done with his speech, he turned around in Fritz’s direction.

  The old man’s voice was low and nearly silent. “Keep an eye out for that masked bastard and keep the princess safe. One wrong twitch from him, and you’re permitted to knock him off from high heavens using any means necessary."

  “...I’ll make sure to do that, sir.”

  Fritz gave Wilhelm a brief salute before both of them went for their respective wyverns. Within minutes, the 101st vacated and flew out of Branburg, their course set for the royal capital.