“The winner of this hunting tournament is Lady Katiyana Yefrin Rüschino of House Rüschino.”
“YEAH! That’s my sister! Incredible, Kasha!”
Daryl’s jubilant shout erupted the moment Princess Melissa finished speaking, followed by enthusiastic applause. Beside him, Margaret cheered with a wide, delighted smile. Leon stood in silence. The rest of the assembled nobles received the announcement with expressions that ranged from sullen to actively displeased.
Among them, the nobleman Kasha had saved from the bear was loudly recounting what he had witnessed to anyone who would listen.
“I’m telling you, that frenzied creature just dropped in a single shot —!”
In the midst of the commotion, Kasha stepped forward without visible emotion and climbed onto the stage without hesitation. A few nobles booed openly.
Those people.
Daryl turned a murderous look on them. Several of the targets went very still.
Princess Melissa extended her hand toward Kasha.
“Congratulations, Lady Rüschino.”
The Princess offered measured praise. The handshake was brief. Kasha felt the Princess’s violet eyes moving over her with swift, attentive interest.
“Thank you.”
Kasha kept her thanks short. Inside, though, she felt a quiet sting of disappointment. She had hoped Princess Jasmine might be present for the award.
I thought if she were close enough, I might find some kind of clue.
The anticipation she had been holding made the absence feel sharper than it otherwise would have. And now, looking down from the stage at the crowd of hostile faces, exhaustion hit her like a wave.
Her body had already been worn thin from the riding and the hunt, and the accumulated weight of the day was pulling at her.
Perhaps that was why.
Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!
The voices from before the return — the crowd gathered around the guillotine, pouring their hatred over her — rose in her like an echo. For a moment, she thought she could hear them.
My body is starting to fail again.
Of course it was. She had pushed a frame that rarely managed even light movement far beyond its limits. But knowing why did nothing to soften her frustration with herself.
Seeing Simon’s white-faced, frantic attention aimed at her from below the stage only sharpened the feeling.
If I collapse again here, I’ll really have made a fool of myself.
She breathed in slowly and closed her trembling hands into fists to hide the shaking. She tilted her chin higher, pulled the corners of her mouth into a deliberate smile. Let them think her arrogant. Arrogance was better than weakness. She had decided that long ago — she would rather be the villain than the victim.
The nobles bristled at her expression. She preferred it that way.
Then Princess Melissa’s voice cut through the murmur.
“I have a question, Lady Rüschino — purely out of personal curiosity. You are said to have no particular training in combat or weapons. How, then, did you manage to bring down a bear of that size?”
The enormous gray bear, sprawled at the far edge of the clearing, commanded instant attention at the gesture.
The moment the Princess spoke, the noise in the clearing died.
Kasha stepped forward and drew a breath.
She had been waiting for this question. This was the opening. She needed to answer it well — clearly, precisely. She needed to show them exactly what she was capable of. And she needed Simon to see it too.
“I — I — th, the b — the bear —”
Damn.
Her tongue betrayed her. The stutter, always present, came out worse now — worse than usual. Perhaps because her body was already worn down.
“Ha. She can’t even speak properly and she wants us to believe she caught a bear.”
Someone nearby said it loudly enough for her to hear. She turned and found it was coming from the cluster of noblewomen gathered around Odette, laughing openly now.
Daryl ground his teeth in their direction, but with so many people in the crowd, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact offender.
Kasha bit down — invisibly — on the inside of her cheek.
You caught a demon beast. What are you afraid of? Pull yourself together. What kind of villain stumbles over her own words?
“Th, that is to say —”
But her tongue refused to cooperate.
Then she felt it — someone watching her. Directly. Without looking away.
She knew, without having to search, who it was. Head and shoulders above the crowd, silver-white hair, eyes of deep violet — Leon’s gaze was fixed precisely and only on her.
The clarity returned.
No one can save another person’s life.
Leon had said that, in the life before the return, in the moments before his death.
That’s right. My life is mine to save.
She made herself remember exactly what she had resolved when she had clawed her way back from that death.
Remember it clearly, Kasha Rüschino.
“As you are all… aware — I have no background in hunting.”
She stepped forward again, with intention. Strangely, her voice was no longer shaking.
“There you have it! So how on earth did she catch a bear?!”
“It’s impossible!”
Kasha continued through the objections without pause.
“And yet — someone with no background in hunting has brought back a significantly larger quarry than any of you.”
She let a small smile rest at the corner of her mouth as she said it.
The crowd went oddly still.
She did not look like a woman being laughed out of the room. She looked like someone who was enjoying herself.
The distinct impression that speaking up would only make one look foolish settled over the crowd, and one by one, people stopped.
Into that silence, Kasha spoke — unhurried and deliberate.
“So the question is — how?”
She had reversed the flow entirely, turning it back on them as a question.
The strangest thing happened. Even her stuttering began to sound, somehow, as though it had been chosen on purpose.
Odette snorted — loudly, pointedly. Kasha’s smile did not diminish.
“It seems no one has guessed.”
“Stop drawing it out and just explain!”
Duke Tyrot finally lost patience and called out. And Kasha, as though she had been waiting for exactly this, gave her answer.
“I may have no background in hunting — but I have a device.”
A device?
The murmuring erupted again.
“There’s no device powerful enough to take down a bear!”
“Does she mean something like a magic-charged bow? A weapon?”
“She can’t come up with a real defense so she’s talking nonsense. Do we have to keep listening to this?”
Odette and Lady Hailey, surrounded by their group, laughed without effort. Daryl, Margaret, and Leon’s expressions darkened in unison.
But Kasha continued.
“The reason I chose to participate in this tournament — was so that I could demonstrate, in front of all of you, the device I have built.”
As she spoke, she drew the device from the leather case on her shoulder.
Beside the stage, Simon’s face went from white to the color of ash. He began biting his nails. Seeing it, Kasha felt a little better.
She opened the valve with practiced hands.
Whmmm—
A low vibration spread out through the air. Inside the glass sphere of the device, golden light began to stir and pulse. Several faces in the crowd shifted toward something more serious.
“You built that yourself?”
“But magic force is supposed to be blue — why is it gold?”
Kasha answered loudly enough for all to hear.
“This is holy power. I built a device that runs on holy power.”
“Holy power?”
People blinked at one another in genuine confusion — all outrage temporarily suspended.
“Holy power — in a device?”
“Is that even possible?”
Then someone stepped forward and answered the question for them.
“It is.”
The crowd went quieter still.
Leon Aranias.
The son of the Holy Saint Larissa, vice-captain of the Order of Holy Knights — he ascended the stage and stood at Kasha’s side. Was there a more authoritative voice on the subject of holy power’s application?
Leon first asked Princess Melissa’s pardon for taking the stage without prior leave. Then he faced the crowd.
“I witnessed it myself. Lady Kasha Rüschino used this device — powered by holy force — to bring down the bear.”
“I saw it too!”
The nobleman who had been up the tree added his voice from somewhere in the crowd.
The assembled nobles began to murmur with something that was no longer mere skepticism — it was the sound of an understanding that didn’t quite fit anyone’s existing frameworks.
“But — even so — how does holy power bring down a bear? Holy power can’t be used offensively — that’s simply how it works!”
Someone brave enough to speak the objection said it clearly. This time Kasha answered.
“Because it isn’t an attack.”
The crowd grew even more puzzled.
“If it isn’t an attack — what is it? How did you catch the bear?”
At that moment, a commotion erupted from the pile of quarry at the edge of the clearing. A pheasant that someone had brought back had apparently recovered from unconsciousness — it was flopping its injured wing and struggling to escape.
Someone started toward it to catch it again.
“Wait.”
Kasha called out. She raised the device, settled it at her shoulder, took aim — and hesitated. Not from fear, but from the trembling in her hands. Her body was failing her again.
Then Leon appeared at her back. He stepped up close behind her — close enough that the crowd before them blinked.
He reached around her and lightly adjusted the angle of her hands over the device — just slightly. Even through his gloves, the warmth was unmistakable.
The position they were in — Leon’s broad frame behind her, her hands covered by his, the two of them so close they might have been one — drew a collective intake of breath from the crowd before the stage. It looked like nothing so much as an embrace.
Crack.
The sound of something fracturing came from Odette’s direction. Several of the noblewomen near her startled — she had crushed her fan in her fist.
“She’s out of her mind…”
Simon let out an involuntary groan. He looked at the scene — Kasha, practically folded into the arms of Leon Aranias — and wore the expression of a man who had just watched his last card disappear.
Fwing.
Kasha fired.
A golden streak arced from the device like a comet’s tail.
Thud.
It struck the pheasant dead-on.
Thump.
The bird dropped — silently, without protest.
The crowd watched in stunned silence as several of Princess Melissa’s attendants walked to the pheasant and bent to examine it.
“Well?” asked the Princess.
“Its injured wing…” The attendant looked up, visibly at a loss. “Its wing has healed. And it is deeply asleep. It is in perfect health — but nothing we do can wake it.”
“Asleep, you say?”
“It isn’t dead, Your Highness — but no amount of shaking seems to reach it.”
The attendants demonstrated, holding the bird upside-down and giving it a firm shake. The pheasant hung there in perfect serenity, swaying gently, eyes peacefully closed.
The crowd’s stunned gazes turned toward Kasha one by one.
There we are.
Kasha smiled.
Everyone was watching her as though they couldn’t look away. Including Leon, who had quietly stepped back. Including him, especially.
