+++ Louise Florentine de la Fleur +++

Jahellios System

New Krakow

Artowisz City

The last man kept firing his gun at me, but I had already engaged my [ETHEREAL DEFENSE] spell, which created a field that blocked his bullets, preventing him from harming me. He shouted for mercy as I approached, and prepared my wand. My only line of defense in this cruel city.

“You’re scum,” I spat at him, as his gun began clicking, already out of bullets. “Go meet your maker, [AIR SLICE].”

You killed one hostile!

Experience logged and stored.

He was sliced in half, brutally, as I intended. These types of people didn’t deserve to live. For they harmed me. My family. My little brother. I looked at his dying eyes with nothing but an empty stare, as life vanished from them.

You and everyone who wronged us deserve that.

I wanted nothing more than to spit at him. To spit at his pitiful corpse even when my noble pride refused to allow such barbarity. They killed my father. They might have killed my little brother. And they almost killed me. All for what? To eliminate us from the competition. As if I cared about that competition. For all I cared, all of them could tear each other apart like the wolves they were.

But no, they had to include us in the crossfire. And in the process, destroyed the life I held dear.

“Clear!” I heard someone shout behind me. It was them, the same band of strangers that Ms. Kalista, my father’s close friend, hired to assist me. They all lowered their guns as they stared at the macabre art I left in the room. Yes, keep staring at it. I internally taunted in spite, especially what appeared to be their leader, “Captain Jonathan Jones,” as he was named. A commoner space captain.

And one of the most crass barbarians I had laid my eyes on. And the same man currently helping me. I suppose I had sunk so low that even someone like him had to take pity on me and aid me. It was an insult that I wanted to cry over but always held off.

I’m not a child anymore. I reminded myself. I have to grow up.

But all those budding feelings of being slighted. Of being insulted. It was grilling me from the inside. Pride, my pride was beyond shattered. And I hated it. I was the daughter of the Duke of New Krakow. The sole heiress of House Fleur. I should not falter. I should stand strong. Yet…I could only almost stand with nothing but a superficial show of superiority.

I just…

“It’s alright, Louise,” Jonathan said to me, his hardened frown softening. I suppose from his perspective, I looked like a young girl bathed in blood, pondering about the atrocity she had committed. In a way, I was that same girl. I just…killed. I had done nothing but kill and kill. They said it should elicit a strong moral response, yet, right now, all I felt was emptiness. “You did well enough.”

“I didn’t,” I bluntly replied. “I still haven’t found André. He’s still out there, lost. Lost and alone. We can’t…no, I can’t stop.”

I pushed through the three of them as if trying to break my way out and return to my mission, the mission to find and rescue my little brother, but I felt him, Jonathan, once more pat me on my shoulder, almost stopping me.

“Can you not!?” I hissed at him.

“Think clearly Louise. It’s not yet over. There’s no need to push yourself too much and endanger yourself. We’re going to plan our next move.”

“Plans?! I don’t want to talk about plans! I want to scour the whole city and find him now!”

He didn’t seem to be moved by my sudden outburst. “You need to take a breath or something.”

“I am breathing, Mr. Jones. I am breathing. And I will continue to breathe until I find him, or kill them all if they touched him wrong.”

“But you’re not right in the head.” He countered. “You need to calm down and clear your head. For the sake of your brother.”

I looked down, as I took a deep breath. I didn’t know that I had been hyperventilating all through that, and I could almost feel my fatigue rushing through my body. But most importantly, I felt something well in my eyes. I tried to wipe it off, but it didn’t come off. I tried to wipe it more, taking the handkerchief I had kept on my coat and trying to wipe it off further. They just stared at me, especially Jonathan, without saying anything.

“I just…André…I can’t…I can’t…” I said in between sobs, as I tried to make sense of my failure. Everything, the torrent of blame fell on my mind. Why did I not kill all of those intruders? Why had I not expected their attack after my father dropped? Why had I not watched my brother closely? Why had I run in the wrong direction? And why had I not found him?

“What kind of an older sister am I?” I asked. “I can’t even…I can’t even find him. Father, Mother, they…they entrusted him to me. It’s my duty. But I’m out here, crying like an idiot.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I sniffed as I heard Jonathan speak, still with the same neutral, monotone voice that he held. Briefly, I was annoyed at how uncaring he always seemed. He always acted this way. Acted as if he was self-serving. Acted as if he wanted no interest in my plight. Yet…his words…

“Look, you’re putting on more than the most effort most siblings would put just to save a lost brother. Trust me, he’s proud of you, and he’s looking forward to seeing you. And he will see you, Louise. Mark my words.”

“I…” I continued wiping it off, as I finally steeled myself to end my pathetic sniffling after many eternal seconds of attempting to cease it. Immediately, I gave him an annoyed frown, just to get back at how he was literally treating me like a child. Me, the sole heiress of House Fleur! How dare he!

With that, his face lightened further, and his cheeky smirk, the only other emotion he would show to me, appeared. “Well, there’s the snobby brat I was looking for.”

I punched him in retaliation. Yet he only descended further into his laughing fits.

Damned commoner.

+++

+++ Jonathan Jones +++

Harold took down the entire bottle of beer in one go. I watched him silently, as his face almost turned red. The entire affair, alongside the cleanup, drained us greatly. Especially since we still hadn’t found her brother. So far, this entire mission has been a drain on our time, assets, safety, and morale. All for twenty-eight thousand SCs and for a noblewoman in dire straights.

Looking back, the old me would never have done this thing. I always hated the nobility, the rich, the old fat families that drained everything from the plebes like me. Especially Loran’s Royal Family. They were all pigs, yes, I would call them that. While I was no red-blooded socialist or communist, I had always been more aligned with them than the entrenched class that ruled over us.

Yet…now, I had not just sympathized with someone like Louise, I was actively risking my skin for her.

I mean, who wouldn’t? I asked myself. She’s just a lost kid. She didn’t ask for any of this. She didn’t even have the power to get herself out of it.

In many ways, much like I had the misfortune of being born without much wealth, and with a family threatened by external forces, she was born in one that had much wealth but was threatened at all sides by external forces. We both didn’t choose that, hadn’t we? Would I say I deserve this life then? This empty, endless struggle of back and forths, and pointless paths to chase, all for nothing?

All while bearing the sins of what I had done during my most desperate times. Did I deserve it? Did she deserve that?

“I need more of this,” Harold said, already a bit drunk. “Two glasses, no, three glasses,” he said to the waiter, who nodded and left the both of us. I sighed.

“We need you in tip-top shape tomorrow, Harold. We’d be resuming our search immediately,” I warned, and he just shook his head, disinterested in my yapping. Of course, the drunkard wouldn’t understand my sheer logic of conducting moderation at such vices, but alas, I wanted him to at least listen.

After all, I didn’t want any more brain-dead situations. Braindead situations would arise more easily if one was not sober. Quite frankly, while I would drink, yes, I would never drink beyond sobriety. It was simply not my style. It would leave you too irrational, vulnerable, and an easy target. While I espoused running away from problems in life, I had always found drinking to run away from it to be nothing but an even more self-destructive path.

I’d rather face my thoughts head-on, as my brain criticizes me for every damned failure and sin I had done, than hide by bodying myself with alcohol, only to be left with a crippling hangover come morning.

I mean, why would someone even prefer a hangover over just meeting his thoughts? I asked myself. It was stupid. One was actual pain. One was just a normal business session. Why, what kind of a person would you be if you fear even your own thoughts?

Which means nothing anyway. I’m just being hypocritical again. Truly, the best policy of mine. Be hypocritical, at all points. I really wondered why Juliett would even be interested in having me as her “partner” for her grand quest of “saving the sector!”

Maybe she’s just joking.

Harold waved off my concerns, laughing to himself. “Oh shut up, it’s nothing. I would manage. Wake me up with cold water if you like. I function better at fighting when infused with alcohol anyway.”

“Heh, that you are, drunkard.” I said as I took my own sip of my glass. I really wanted something fancier next time. A proper wine, perhaps. On the contrary, I actually liked wine more, even though I still avoid going beyond one or two shots. Perhaps I liked to cosplay as a classy man.

“Shut up, asshole,” he spat back laughing as well. “You know, that Louise girl…she really does care a lot for her brother, doesn’t she?”

“The hell did you expect? Of course she does,” I replied. “He’s family for her. She’s going to care for him. Till the end. Beyond the end even.”

“I always wondered about that. You’ve always said that your only family was the gang.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So I’m wondering, do you have any actual family? An actual blood ties to someone? I know I had a mother and a father. But you, he found you an orphan, didn’t he?”

I didn’t remember her face. It was too blurry when I randomly tried it. But I remember my father clearly. Everything that he said to me. Almost everything. His words flowed repeatedly in my ears. The lessons of life that he had armed me with. He was…still now, my only true family. I could almost imagine him, laughing, as he awaited for me. Or when we would be on those hunting trips.

I smiled faintly. “I did. I know I did. He was a real one. A tough one even.” I looked down at the glass of beer in front of me, as my memories became distorted. The final days I had with him. On the run. Hiding. The first time I saw a man shot dead by my father. Yet they took him away.

I shook my head, before downing the entire glass of beer for myself. I felt its effects, and I wanted more of it.

“I need two more glasses too,” I said as I looked at Harold. He didn’t react much, merely calling for more orders, as I tried to run away from the burning fury that was welling in my chest.

“Son…don’t you ever follow me. But…if you do, please…bring these, so that I’ll know that it’s you.”

He pressed a blue colored flower, native in Loran, on the same journal I had kept since I was a child, and closed it. The same journal I still keep to this day. And in it, was the same flower he had given me.

I still haven’t bought it there.

I’ll find your final destination. And whoever sent you there. Eventually.

I needed that damned alcohol.