Chapter 4: The Festivities Begin

  The Defairedead had been a military vessel. The Principality had built it as an airborne fortress to seize air superiority in the Great European War. It had many different functions, but its primary responsibility was troop transportation. The Defairedead was capable of sending close to one thousand soldiers several hundred miles, without the effort of foot, train or land vehicle travel. In addition it could carry ammunition, provisions, medical supplies, as well as the Hunter Units and their pilots.

  “Heeeeeerrreeee we go!”

  On the Defairedead, the top level held the party hall and the ship’s core, the second level had the dining area and guest rooms, and the lowest level was used as a storehouse. In a corner of that lowest level, Sven vigorously sent a locked door flying open with a kick.

  “This is...”

  While it was many times smaller than the spacious facilities on the upper floors, inside was a relatively well-equipped galley.

  “That’s right... The ship had this too, didn’t it?!”

  Finally remembering, Lud clapped his hands.

  “These were the galley facilities back when the Defairedead was used by the military... I can’t believe they’re still intact!”

  When the Defairedead was changed from a military to a commercial vessel, it underwent a major remodeling. It was disarmed, its night camouflage was repainted, and the inside was renovated to be a luxury passenger vessel, with a newly-equipped galley rivaling the kitchens in top-class restaurants and hotels.

  But, it was still only partially a commercial vessel. In order to be able to quickly return it to its original form in Wiltia’s hour of need, the new facilities had all been created modularly so they could easily be swapped out for the military-use equipment. However—

  “The gas and water lines are intricately entangled, so dismantling and putting it all back together would have been difficult. That’s why they stopped using it and just sealed it up!”

  In front of her delighted master, Sven puffed out her chest with a proud smile.

  Making use of its large payload, the Defairedead was equipped with exceptional food preparation facilities for a military vessel, and could provide hot food to it soldiers, rather than the plain, unappealing food served at the frontlines. For example, since the soldiers ordinarily ate nothing but stale, dried bread, the airship was equipped with a kiln to bake fresh bread.

  “Yeah... I can definitely use this! We’ll be able to do it with this!”

  Lud had traveled on the ship before, but had forgotten about this second galley. He was embarrassed by his own carelessness.

  “I get it, this is where you were trying to bring me.”

  “Hehehehe, that’s right♪! It was a waste of time arguing with those idiots when we can use this anyway. Time is money, after all.”

  Sven replied triumphantly.

  “I forgot about this place. You’ve got a good memory, Sven.”

  “Of course!”

  It was only natural that Sven would know all about it since she had also been a passenger while it was in use by the military. However, she was aboard as cargo and as a military weapon—the Hunter Unit, Avei.

  “Oh...”

  Her smile stiffened, suddenly feeling there was something wrong with Lud’s words.

  “Alright! Now then, time to start the prep work!”

  “Huh? Oh, yes! Understood!”

  The party was broken up into day and night sessions, and even if they couldn’t make the day session, they planned to deliver fresh bread during the evening.

  “Now then, I’ll go and procure some ingredients!”

  The kiln had been secured, and Lud had brought as many of his basic baking tools with him as he could, thinking he would rather use tools he was used to for such an important event. All that was left were the ingredients, starting with the flour.

  “There is a food storeroom on the bottom level, so I’m sure they have what we need there. I’ll rush down and get it.”

  The storage vault and ice chest in the upper level galley stored the foodstuffs for each day, brought up from the giant storeroom on the lower level. The storeroom on the lower level held all of the provisions.

  “Is it okay for us to just take it?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Master! Aren’t we here because we were asked to bake bread? We are using the Defairedead’s supplies to bake bread for the party’s guests. Is there anything wrong with that?”

  Sven responded with certainty, once again puffing her chest out with pride in response to Lud’s doubtful look.

  No matter what their true intentions were, the official document was a request for Tockerbrot to provide bread for the party. As such, the ship had a duty to provide them with the necessary ingredients.

  “Well, if I come across anything rare or extraordinary in the storeroom, I’ll grab it. Considering how rude they’ve been to us, we shouldn’t be punished just for snagging some souvenirs.”

  Foodstuffs weren’t the only things stored inside the ship. It was fully loaded with high quality liquor and treats for the upper-class guests.

  “I was thinking we should bring back some souvenirs for Jacob, the sister, and that insolent brat, too.”

  “Take it easy, okay?”

  “Ohohohoho, I’m going to give that brat something so luxurious, like nothing she’s seen before.”

  Sven was in high spirits, and Lud didn’t try to stop her.

  He was known to be an honest, kindhearted person, but when he was on this ship during the war, he had pinched sweets, alcohol, tobacco and the like. However, much of his stealing had been under orders, and the commander who had asked him the most often was none other than Sophia. She had once called him in the middle of the night and ordered him to steal brandy for a nightcap.

  The inability to disobey the orders of a superior was a miserable part of military life, and when he stole the brandy and brought it to her, she ordered him to stay until she finished it. In the end, she told Lud, “I’m drunk. I won’t be able to put up any resistance, no matter what happens,” and he had replied, “In that case, perhaps you should go to sleep, sir.”

  That’s when she beat the snot out of me with the brandy bottle, wasn’t it...

  The Commander had sometimes behaved unreasonably and irrationally like that, but Lud never understood why, at that moment, she had knocked the daylights out of him. She normally wasn’t an angry drunk, so it was all the more mysterious to him.

  “I guess... The Commander is up there right now, enjoying the party...”

  “Achoo!”

  Sophia sneezed.

  “Sniiiiiifff.”

  She sniffled without the delicate modesty expected of a lady.

  “Do you have a cold, Miss soldier-lady?”

  Milly spoke up with a worried look on her face.

  “No, I’m in extremely good health... maybe it’s because of the air pressure?”

  Milly and Sophia were in the party hall on the top floor of the ship. Capable of holding one hundred guests, the middle of the hall had enough space remaining to hold a grand ball. In the back, it held a stage where a band was performing, with a high ceiling and a luxurious chandelier hanging from above.

  “W-Woooow...”

  Milly blinked, wide-eyed, having never seen anything like it.

  “Jeez, how unnecessarily gaudy.”

  Sophia appeared entirely unimpressed with it all, and gave a light snort as she muttered how worthless it was.

  “Oh my, if it isn’t young Lady Rundstadt.”

  “It’s such an honor to be able to see you here.”

  “You look as beautiful as always! I mistook you for an angel, fallen from heaven.”

  Discovering Sophia, a shuffling crowd of men crowded around her. The sons of Wiltia’s nobility, they were all neatly groomed, and wore silly, dainty smiles on their faces.

  What’s up with these guys?

  The only Wiltian that Milly knew well was Lud. Because of that, she thought all Wiltian men were gruff and stone-like, but the men in front of her were weak and gutless, and Milly suspected they would faint if even their nose was grazed by a punch from one of the miners back in Organbaelz.

  “Miss Sophia, won’t you let me have a dance?”

  “No, please allow me!”

  “No, no, first me!”

  All the men held out their hands.

  “My apologies. Today, I have a companion with me.”

  “Hwah?”

  Milly’s attention was struck by the change in Sophia from the soldier to the smiling young daughter of a noble.

  “Oh, this young girl... Is she your attendant?”

  “Your page?”

  “Maidservant?”

  Bombarded with questions, Sophia gave them a completely unexpected answer.

  “No, she’s my daughter.”

  “What?!” Huh!?

  It wasn’t just the men who were shocked. Milly was too.

  “Um... Miss Sophia? Uh, um...”

  “Daughter? But, you’re... still not...”

  “That and... she’s...”

  The men were all flabbergasted.

  What the hell is this woman saying?!

  Sophia was older than both Lud and Marlene. While it wasn’t totally out of the question for her to have a child, for that child to be as old as Milly was completely unrealistic.

  “Oh, does that seem strange? Our family’s greatest ancestor took a twelve-year old wife, and had a child the following year—the successor to our name. There is nothing unusual at all about me being a mother.”

  This was the true story of the head of the Rundstadt family, which took place four hundred years ago. Some events seem typical in the era when they occur, and Sophia’s story would have been plausible back when the thinking about marriage was different, but her peculiar explanation only served to bewilder them further.

  Or at least, that would be true for the common folk.

  “Um, no, well... I didn’t mean it like that...”

  “Um, I meant that I think nothing of it.”

  “Uhh...”

  The noble buffoons now wore expressions of embarrassment and awkwardness.

  “Now then, if you’ll excuse me.”

  As if everything had gone exactly as she had planned, Sophia took Milly’s hand and they walked away.

  “Sorry for using you like that... Those types can be a real pain in the ass.”

  Sophia’s family, the Rundstadts, was a distinguished family with a four hundred year history, dating back to the time when the Principality of Wiltia was known as the Luftzand Domain. Moreover, because of her beauty, men would flock to her whether she liked it or not. Sophia found it unbearably irritating.

  “Isn’t it impossible, Miss? For me to be your daughter, I mean...”

  “Not really. You saw, didn’t you? Their stupid faces, with their mouths wide open?”

  Just as Sophia had said, the Rundstadt founder’s wife had been far too young. If the young nobles had called out Sophia’s story as ridiculous, they would be slighting her ancestors. It wasn’t something they could say because they valued lineage and power above all else.

  “But that isn’t it... our hair and eye colors are different... heck, our faces don’t look the same at all.”

  Milly wondered just how much better things would be for her if she was beautiful like Sophia, and started feeling slightly sad.

  Men continued to appear, one after another, and all were shot down by Sophia. At first Milly shrank at Sophia’s lies, but as the party progressed, she started to find it amusing as well.

  “What the hell was with that geezer? He was old enough to be your father!”

  “There are always some like that... They’re under the illusion that all women want to be their lovers.”

  “How stupid!”

  “Hehehe.”

  Sophia laughed delightedly as she listened to Milly insult the men at the party.

  “So, you’ve finally stopped being so polite with me.”

  “Oh...”

  Because she had been speaking with a soldier and a member of the nobility, Milly had nervously tried to use formal language, which felt awkward and clumsy, but somewhere along the line she had returned to her usual way of speaking.

  “T-That’s, well... um...”

  “Don’t worry about it, I like you this way.”

  Sophia cheerfully reassured her.

  Sheesh, this is hard...

  Milly was supposed to hate soldiers, but before she knew it, she had relaxed around Sophia—a fact that made her feel like she had been tricked.

  “Alright then, should we eat something? You must be starving. There should be something here to fix that hunger of yours.”

  Sophia pointed with a nod. Milly saw a tremendous feast, with foods she would never have dreamed of, made with ingredients she didn’t know existed. It was an extraordinary sight that seemed to lack any sense of reality.

  “Is there... any bread?”

  Milly asked without thinking.

  “Hm... Bread? There should be plenty at the edge of the table.”

  At a party like this, a staple like bread wasn’t usually offered as a main dish. Instead they served bread for people who might not be very hungry.

  Common products were set out, such as croissants and sliced bread. Milly picked out a piece of bread and brought it to her mouth. It didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t delicious enough to praise.

  This is wrong, this ain’t his...

  She knew from just one bite. It was totally different from Lud Langart’s bread.

  His bread has a more delicious... and happier flavor to it.

  Despite the baker’s surly and frightening face, the bread from Tockerbrot was filled with kindness. It had the power to put a smile on the faces of the people who ate it. It was as though Lud was kneading his own smile into every batch of bread dough.

  “So, I guess you really like bread?”

  Sophia asked, looking at Milly as she concentrated on the flavor of the bread in her hands.

  “My dad... He was a baker.”

  “I see! I guess that makes sense then... Hm? Was? Did he close down his bakery?”

  “He died, in the war...”

  The smile disappeared from Sophia’s face at Milly’s reply.

  “Sorry... I didn’t mean to make you talk about that...”

  With a solemn expression, Sophia apologized sympathetically, with genuine remorse. She didn’t shrug off Milly’s feelings just because she was a child.

  “It’s fine, really.”

  However, Milly gave a slightly curt reply, as though she was telling Sophia, “You’re a Wiltian soldier, where do you get off?!”

  But Sophia apparently didn’t pick up on the meaning behind Milly’s reply.

  This woman... She’s kind of similar to Lud...

  A serious, goodhearted person, and while Sophia wasn’t as brusque as he was, she was still awkward and naïve to the world.

  “Now then, should we be leaving?”

  Collecting herself, Sophia took Milly’s hand, and they returned to the same corridor where they had entered.

  “Huh, isn’t this the wrong way?”

  Or so Milly thought, as Sophia was walking in the opposite direction from the stairs that led back to their room on the second floor.

  “No, this is the right way. I asked the person in charge, and he said the choir’s waiting room is this way.”

  “Ahhh...”

  Without thinking, Milly almost shouted in surprise. She had completely forgotten about the story she told Sophia. Milly had planned to sneak away in the crowd at the party, but she had been so captivated by the whole experience with Sophia, she hadn’t thought about escaping.

  “Uh, uhh...”

  Sweat seeped from her body, and her mind was consumed with intense panic.

  “Uh, um... I, at least... should change... I have to give back this dress...”

  “Don’t worry, you can have that dress. That should give your friends quite a shock, right?”

  Sophia was beaming.

  It was a lovely and expensive piece of clothing, but under the circumstances, Milly resented her generosity.

  “M-My bags... I need to grab them...”

  “Hahaha, I’ll send them along to whoever’s in charge. Don’t worry about that. Don’t you need to hurry? Aren’t you performing soon?”

  Caught in her lie, Milly didn’t care at all about the choir, but in fact, they were to go on stage in thirty minutes.

  Sophia regretted selfishly dragging Milly around with her for so long, and was trying to make up for it now, which only served to back Milly further into a corner.

  She couldn’t stall any longer. There was no chance for her to run away.

  I guess I should just be upfront and apologize...

  Milly understood now that Sophia wasn’t the type who easily took another’s life. Sophia would possibly hit her, but Milly knew she wouldn’t die. However—

  What to do...

  She didn’t want to see the smiling Sophia, who had completely trusted Milly and showed her kindness, now be disappointed by Milly’s lie.

  As she struggled with her thoughts, they had arrived in front of a door at the end of the corridor. The plaque on the door read, “Band and Choir Preparation Room,” and below it was written, “Authorized Personnel Only.” Milly wasn’t authorized personnel. Her lie would be discovered as soon as they opened the door.

  “Major Sophia Von Rundstadt of the Principality Military!”

  Sophia said, banging loudly on the door.

  “Oh, crap... I accidentally knocked like I always do...”

  Milly didn’t even hear Sophia’s words.

  What should I do, what should I do, what should I do?!

  Milly’s entire body trembled.

  “Uh, um—”

  Unable to stand it any longer, Milly was about to confess everything to Sophia.

  Bang!

  Her voice and an echoing gunshot rang out at the same time.

  Baking bread took time. One had to mix the flour and the yeast, knead the dough, and let it ferment. Yeast was a microbe, a fungus used in food processing. Since it was a living organism, it took time to mature.

 

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