Ch.581Episode 21 – Peace in Our Time

Camilla, who had been trying to sleep despite the distant sound of artillery fire, opened her eyes.

The scattered explosive sounds of shells seemed to fade and stop, but then gunfire erupted violently, as if telling her to wake up quickly.

Just as she was rubbing her eyes that refused to open properly, someone spoke near her ear.

Clutching her aching head, she began to listen to the incoming voices.

“Zanjili has fallen to their hands. The Old City center has completely collapsed. We can’t even contact the local medical staff isolated in the hospital anymore. There are as many as 200,000 residents trapped in eastern Mosul on the opposite side—200,000.”

“Food, water, and medicine have all run out. What on earth is the government army doing? It seems like they have no intention of evacuating the people trapped here! They keep postponing rescue operations and just dropping leaflets telling people to escape! The entire street is being bombed, but the security forces just keep issuing evacuation orders…!”

“I was just talking with the international organization coordinator, and the situation seems more serious than expected. I heard they’ll soon cut off electricity and water too. There’s no way to rescue those buried in collapsed buildings, and the hospital beds are overflowing with burn patients. Even the Western General Hospital, which is in the best condition, is overwhelmed. We’re outmatched now.”

“Everyone, please be extra careful when going out on the streets from today. I heard from eastern volunteers evacuating to the west that snipers are everywhere. The downtown area can no longer be considered safe…”

“…Miss Rowell? Could you help with a support request from the checkpoint 1.6 miles from the Naniwa side? An elderly woman and a teenage boy are arguing with soldiers over a cart… It seems to contain the bodies of their family members. They’re strongly refusing to leave them on the dirt ground… We need someone to persuade them…”

Though she wasn’t sure what she said in response, she found herself gathering her belongings before her answer was even complete.

She stuffed her portable radio and basic first aid tools into her bag. She slipped her feet into safety boots that had protected her dozens of times from rusty nails and artillery scars—boots she couldn’t even remember when she last washed.

Finally, after putting on her winter coat, she flung the door open and rushed into the hallway.

—Thud!

“…Eek?!”

With a dropping sensation, her foggy consciousness cleared away.

Episode 21 – Peace in Our Time

Awakening from sleep, Camilla lay on the floor with the back of her head down, silently staring at the ceiling.

“……”

The bag she was sure she had been holding was nowhere to be seen, and only a pillow remained clutched in her hand. The coat she had definitely been wearing was gone, but a blanket was wrapped around her waist and legs, having fallen to the floor with her.

Just moments ago, she seemed to have been in Mosul. Was this a dream or reality?

Where was she, and who was she? Her mind felt completely disconnected.

“…Ugh, mmm.”

Crawling across the floor, Camilla barely managed to place her hand on the bed. She looked like a newborn baby taking its first steps.

It was an undignified sight for a grown woman.

So the following reaction was only natural.

“Have you now resorted to stuffing floor dust into your mouth because you have nothing else to eat?”

“Professooor…”

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrova clicked her tongue with a deeply disapproving look.

This was her response to her disciple’s disgraceful behavior as she had been resting in an armchair by the fireplace, enjoying a magic book with some lard as a snack.

Closing her book with a thud, she approached her disciple who had rolled onto the floor.

“Let me see your injury.”

The Grand Duchess narrowed her eyes.

As Alexandra Petrova concentrated magical energy on her fingertips instead of ointment, she peered into Camilla’s mouth and began clicking her tongue repeatedly, as if impressed.

“My goodness, your lips are split like well-ripened fruit. Both upper and lower are nicely cracked—you won’t need lipstick at this rate.”

“Iron supplementation is crucial… Ouch! Why are you pressing there? That hurts!”

“It was a mistake.”

“That was clearly intentional!”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Who told you not to fix your sleeping habits? You scatterbrained troublemaker.

“Your sleeping habits are as terrible as your impulsive speech. Did you have a bad dream?”

“It was a nightmare, yes.”

“What was it about?”

Camilla blinked her eyes slowly, as if thinking, then blurted out her answer.

“I dreamed about how you kidnapped me and brought me here, Professor.”

And then,

—Thwack!

“Eep…!”

“I see you’re not fully awake yet.”

Camilla screamed and fell forward with a thud, clutching the top of her head. The Grand Duchess, meanwhile, shook her wrist with a sulky expression.

“I wondered what all the groaning was about before you fell out of bed, and it was because of that silly dream?”

“Owww…”

“Stop making a fuss and get up.”

Though Camilla shot her a somewhat resentful look, the Grand Duchess quite shamelessly stood with her hands behind her back, pretending not to notice.

Her attitude suggested that she had already done enough by providing basic first aid.

The flick to the head was just deserved discipline, of course.

Wiping away tiny tears from the stinging pain in her mouth and the throbbing on her scalp, Camilla vigorously dusted off her skirt with a disgruntled face.

“I had that nightmare because you work me so hard, Professor. Even yesterday, you made me clear out nine monster dens…”

It was a complaint tinged with resentment.

In her mind, her grievance was entirely reasonable and justified. After all, it had been well over ten days since she was dragged to this freezing northern region.

“What kind of master kidnaps their one and only disciple to Novo-Nikolayevsk, which is colder than Siberia, and dumps monster extermination duties on them? That’s supposed to be your job, Professor.”

“My, my. Is it proper for a disciple to criticize her aging master, demanding she work like an ox until death? Instead of helping, you complain?”

“Anyone would think I never helped you before!”

Indeed.

Camilla had repeatedly assisted the Grand Duchess in eliminating monsters and remnant demon forces lingering in the northern regions of Kien. This had been going on for about six months now, since last year.

While she had participated in the Imperial-Demon Realm conflict, strictly speaking, cleanup operations weren’t her responsibility. Her job was to end the conflict, not stay behind to handle the aftermath.

The reason she was here in the north, diligently hunting down remnants, was entirely because of the Grand Duchess.

Right after the conflict ended, Alexandra Petrova had proposed that Camilla become her disciple.

Not only did she owe the Grand Duchess her life from their time in the north, but this was an opportunity to learn from a living legend renowned for her exceptional skills. Camilla had welcomed the proposal with genuine enthusiasm.

The problem was that the Grand Duchess, who insisted on a strict apprenticeship system, had begun working Camilla to the bone.

In magical society, the relationship between master and disciple was traditionally one where the master could exploit the disciple as they pleased—comparable to domestic servitude. This tradition dated back to ancient times when magic was considered heretical, and traces of it remained in magic towers and ivory towers even today.

It was a process that Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrova herself had experienced when she took in a wandering witch as her master.

However, there was one key difference between the Grand Duchess and Camilla: the generation gap.

It was the difference in mindset between a former Muggle educated in a structured system of schools and universities, and a grand sorceress accustomed to medieval European-style one-on-one training.

At first, Camilla just endured the hardship.

After all, wasn’t it worth the suffering if it meant saving people? While she was at it, she could practice magic and gain practical experience. Since a grand sorceress vouched for this training method, it must be effective in its own way.

…But, wow. This was really…

Hundreds of times harder than volunteering in conflict zones.

That’s why it happened.

Camilla, who had been following her master’s instructions without complaint, finally snapped with an “I can’t take this anymore!” and fled to the wilderness.

“You just keep working me to death! You don’t even feed me properly! You said I could rest after finishing, but as soon as I do, you add more tasks! You teleport around effortlessly while criticizing me for being slow! Even the worst employers during the Industrial Revolution weren’t as bad as you, Professor!”

“So, have you grown to dislike your master?”

When the Grand Duchess raised an eyebrow in question, her disciple quickly added:

“…That’s not it!”

“Then what?”

“Haven’t you ever thought you might be going too far, Professor?”

One might ask what’s so difficult about eliminating remnant forces, but this was the northern region of the Kien Empire, notorious for its harsh conditions.

As Camilla said, it was colder than Siberia, with temperatures so extreme that mercury thermometers would shatter on their own.

Treacherous terrain with perpetual snow, whether it was the Himalayas or the Urals—she was starting to confuse them.

Vast snowfields where even after flying 2000km for 9 hours straight, there was no end in sight.

Hunting down guerrillas hiding in such places was no easy task.

It wasn’t for nothing that Camilla, who had become somewhat accustomed to war through medical volunteering in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and other places, had fled without looking back after six months. If hell existed, this was it.

Nevertheless, Camilla had fought diligently.

Bundled up tightly, she would fly on her broomstick to defeat flying monsters that shot arrow-like spines in clusters.

She would find and seal the entrances to offspring dens spread like spider webs along frozen valleys, then cause explosions to collapse them all at once.

Then suddenly she thought:

‘Wait, am I going to die first at this rate?’

After sinking an entire colony and barely escaping the collapsing rubble from the ground subsidence, Camilla made her decision. She would quit immediately.

So she made an excuse about going to the Order to persuade Lucia, secretly slipped away to the wilderness, and then…

‘There you are, child. I’ve been looking for you.’

She had been sound asleep, trying to escape her crazy master, when the culprit herself appeared right in front of her face as soon as she opened her eyes!

Then she was bundled up in her blanket and kidnapped back to the north. Even the border checkpoint guards were about to call the police when they saw the bundle carried by the royal member squirming and making “Mmph! Mmph!” sounds. It was like a real horror movie.

This was how the Grand Duchess had been able to exploit her disciple’s labor for six months: through magic and power.

The skill to instantly teleport between cities, and the royal authority to grab her disciple by the scruff of the neck from overseas and throw her into a warp gate, regardless of whether it was a holiday or the crack of dawn.

Thus, the disciple who had been kidnapped in a bundle complained:

“The kidnapping was a bit much, don’t you think? The kidnapping.”

“When did I ever kidnap you? What a ridiculous joke.”

In response to Camilla’s wail or scream or whatever it was, the Grand Duchess picked her ear and feigned ignorance. But Camilla still looked indignant.

“You even brought me from the Zamria Federation! Secretly dragging me to the north at dawn and sending me back before sunrise! Why are you pretending not to know?!”

“I must be getting forgetful.”

“Gaaahhh…!”

It was always like this. This was how the Grand Duchess exploited her disciple.

Of course, none of her colleagues seemed to know where she was being dragged off to. Except for one person—Frederick, who monitored the Grand Duchess’s movements through the embassy in Petrograd.

According to Frederick, who reviewed daily intelligence documents every morning, she was “working like a black ox,” which gives you an idea of how severe Camilla’s hardships were.

Anyway.

“Haah… Really…”

In the magnificent castle’s office.

Camilla, who had been rolling around rough terrain until dawn, now literally lay sprawled on the carpet, shedding pitiful tears.

Her master, who had been treating her like an Industrial Age English factory owner who served three cups of tea as a meal, or like a cotton plantation owner in the American South during the Civil War, raised her with a flick of her finger.

“You lack perseverance.”

“I’m not a slave…”

“Quiet.”

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrova, standing behind Camilla, dusted off the dirt that had accumulated on her backside from rolling on the floor and added:

“We have somewhere to go, so hurry and get ready.”

*

Though she might be called a backbreaker by her disciple, a master was still a master.

Just as Camilla, who worked diligently like a black ox traversing the snowfields every day, remained the Grand Duchess’s cherished disciple, Alexandra Petrova had not completely neglected her duties as a master.

Of course, it was problematic that her idea of being a master involved exploiting labor under the pretext of training.

Then again, Camilla had her own impressive record of setting fires and contributing to her master’s hypotension treatment.

From the perspective of propriety and righteousness, the master’s labor exploitation and the disciple’s serial arson could be considered an even exchange, a quid pro quo. (Though whether Confucius would agree remains uncertain.)

“…Wow.”

“Do you like it?”

After passing through the warp gate at the northern immigration office, the snowfield disappeared and a desert spread out before them.

A downtown area filled with skyscrapers that seemed to touch the clouds, with lights flowing like rivers along roads that branched out like blood vessels. It was a completely different dimension from Novo-Nikolayevsk, which had no high-rise buildings except for the Grand Duchess’s castle—truly another world.

It felt like seeing a city in a wealthy Middle Eastern country.

Camilla picked up her luggage bag and recalled Abu Dhabi, which she had visited long ago.

“This is amazing.”

“Don’t act like a country girl visiting the capital for the first time. You’re embarrassing me.”

“When someone who actually came from the countryside says that—”

—Thwack!

“…Ouch…!”

As they were exchanging light banter, Camilla received a sharp flick to the head and tucked her neck in like a turtle. Regardless, the Grand Duchess turned away from her impudent disciple who was rubbing her scalp, casually putting her hands behind her back.

“We’re not here for sightseeing, so don’t be so sentimental.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Camilla stretched her neck out again, checking if a bump had formed on her scalp. However, her interest was directed not at the state of her flicked head but at the surrounding scenery.

A conference, was it?

The professor had brought her from the northern empire to this place for official business. She said there would be an event of great diplomatic significance, and since she would be attending, Camilla should come along.

She heard that all her colleagues were already here too.

“Hmm~”

Of course, Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrova’s reason for bringing Camilla here wasn’t just to handle official business. She also wanted to give her disciple a break after all her hard work.

One can’t just work non-stop, right? That would surely lead to physical breakdown.

It’s rather ironic that the very person who worked her to the bone under the pretext of training was now showing her the outside world as if doing her a favor, but still.

Who could complain when both parties were happy? Alexandra Petrova was glad to be able to go out with Camilla after a long time. And Camilla felt the same way.

After organizing the luggage bag with magic, the Grand Duchess took her disciple and roamed the streets. The disciple followed behind her, humming through her nose.

“From tomorrow, we’ll be quite busy, so let’s first go meet your colleagues. I heard Ranieri’s child is here too, so everyone should have arrived by now.”

“Oh! Is Francesca here too?”

When Camilla asked with round eyes, the Grand Duchess nodded lightly.

“I sent her an invitation. I just received word through the crystal ball that she arrived by express yesterday.”

“Looks like I’m the last one.”

“I suppose so.”

Camilla smiled brightly, filled with anticipation. Even though they hadn’t been apart for that long, it felt like she hadn’t seen everyone in ages.

“Hehe.”

She was so excited that even the Grand Duchess, who would normally have chided her with “a grown adult laughing like a child,” didn’t scold her. After all, how could she reprimand her disciple for being happy?

It was all good.

Alexandra Petrova took Camilla to their promised destination. She had just received word from Francesca, who had arrived early, this morning.

Almost everyone who was supposed to come had already arrived.

Only she and her disciple were left to arrive.

There were no issues to speak of. Except for calming down her disciple who was bubbling with excitement at the prospect of reunion.

Everything else was fine.

…But.

What on earth was this?

“……”

“……”

“…Child. Could that possibly be—”

“I think that is someone I know.”

“…Well.”

When her disciple, who was sipping a drink through a straw, answered, the master responded as if dumbfounded.

“Yes, now that I look again, I recognize him too.”

“……”

“…But why is he tied to a pillar? And what’s with the pile of kindling at his feet?”

Camilla, who had been mindlessly sucking on her straw even though her drink was gone, shrugged as if she didn’t know.

In truth, it wasn’t a lie.

She really didn’t know why Frederick was tied to a pillar.

“Help me! Someone help! There’s a crazy magician trying to burn a person here!”

Screams erupted from atop the pile of kindling as Frederick shouted something while tightly bound with rope.

Seeing this, Camilla and Alexandra Petrova looked at each other simultaneously.

“…Should we help him, Professor?”

“Whatever this is, let’s leave them to enjoy it.”

“This isn’t enjoyment, you senile magician…!”