Ch.592Side Episode – Camilla’s Bizarre Adventure

# Adventures filled with mystery always make the heart race.

The story of a cursed child and a spy who loved an unstirred martini.

A magical coming-of-age tale with a gloomy yet dreamlike atmosphere. The hard-boiled charm of someone who keeps rising despite being hurt and exhausted.

The author’s magic, which bloomed amid failure and poverty, crosses the printed word, and the author’s great journey, which distilled the horrors and experiences of war, penetrates the screen.

Even today, as I ruminate on these two stories nestled in a corner of my heart, the magic called imagination, as always, spreads its free-spirited wings and soars powerfully.

Where one can become anything and do anything.

A guide to the infinite space beyond.

In that moment, humans no longer exist here.

Breaking free from the cage, becoming a bird, and soaring freely.

“Minutes to go!”

A whisper in my ear awakens my consciousness.

Opening her eyes amid gentle vibrations, Camilla’s gaze met with a man raising his palm in the middle of the corridor.

The man in a long blue shirt extended his thick gloves, holding up six fingers.

“…Hmm.”

It’s cold.

As her mind awakens from deep sleep, the heaviness pressing on her shoulders instantly vanishes.

She came because they begged so much.

Why do they always push such urgent matters onto her, claiming it’s too troublesome?

“Our professor is really too much.”

Camilla stretches lazily and shakes off her stiff shoulders.

As she rubs her neck, stiffened by the cold, and rotates it around, her eyes meet with the magician sitting beside her.

“Did you sleep well?”

Camilla drops her arms and smiles broadly.

However, the magician only responds with intermittent, disjointed words.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I-asked-if-you-slept-well!”

The eyes looking at the girl fill with disbelief. A gaze that doubts whether he heard correctly.

In the corridor filled with loud vibrations, the Kiyen magician withdrew his gaze with an incredulous expression.

-Ding!

A sharp beep strikes her ears.

The sound of the blue-shirted man stomping his feet penetrates through the vibrations.

As a crew member secured to a harness with a rope lowers himself to lift the door, the bitter cold of winter rushes into the corridor like an ebbing tide.

While light conquers darkness and fills the corridor, the scene beyond the door reveals a freezing snowy field.

A valley where snowstorms carried by strong winds rage.

Explosions erupt from the mountainside wearing a white cap, and flames flicker sporadically across the snowfield spread below.

Camilla, who had kept her feet extended toward the corridor, pulls them back and unfastens her seatbelt at the crew member’s signal.

“Take this!”

“I don’t need it.”

Camilla waves off the crew member offering her a broom.

Her interests were neither the red lights about to change, nor the lifeline that would preserve her life, nor the broom that would carry her to the battlefield ahead of the parachute.

Perhaps because the airship was shaking more than expected, matching the cube was quite difficult. Still, it was a familiar habit, so she quickly solved it.

“Great!”

Preparations complete. Camilla grins as she lowers her windproof goggles.

A rugged mountain range that could appear in the Fellowship of the Ring.

Monsters of a genre that dominated an era.

Picture-perfect scenery and magical adventure.

Turning around, Camilla waves to the Kiyen magician, airborne troops, and Imperial Navy crew members, calling out:

“See you down below! Tell the professor to come pick me up in three hours!”

“Where are you going?!”

“Over there!”

“What are you trying to do without a broom?!”

“Just watch.”

The girl’s form detached from the aircraft door. Camilla grew increasingly distant from the airship fleet crossing the sky.

With arms spread wide.

Into the vast sky where cutting winds swirled.

As her body regained its center like a gyroscope, the cube, imbued with blue light, solved itself and completed its original form.

That’s why she couldn’t help but smile despite the sub-zero cold seeping into her chest.

Falling toward the snowfield, there was only one thing she could do here and now.

“Superhero landing!”

A moment later.

The sun descended upon the northern snow mountains.

**Side Episode – Camilla’s Bizarre Adventure**

The battle that felt like two years finally ended after just two hours.

Though brief, the aftermath was by no means simple.

Vera, one of the cities supporting the north, was threatened. A monster colony hidden in the nearby snow mountains had revealed itself.

A spider army poured out from the colony located just a stone’s throw away. They were familiar foes from the previous conflict at the magic stone mines.

Fortunately, a patrol airship monitoring the skies discovered this, and nearby military units responded in time.

To conclude, Vera City was now safe from the threat.

The fierce battle that lasted over two hours ended with just one engagement.

As soon as military sorcerers shook the ground, a magician’s fireball completely incinerated the colony. The colony, which had spread throughout the mountain range like an ant hill, collapsed with a single attack.

It was an achievement worthy of praise.

Although the mining company in the mountain range, which had first reported the spider monsters, was completely destroyed, and all its workers perished.

Compared to a city of 30,000 being swept away, the deaths of 373 people was a bearable loss.

However, they couldn’t relax yet, as some remnants still roamed near Vera City, and these remnants seemed to rise endlessly no matter how many were killed.

To make matters worse, a critical problem compounded the situation:

There were no available troops.

Most of the combat units that had responded to the interception were declared annihilated.

Elite forces that had been active since the beginning of the Kiyen-Mageong conflict were buried in the snow.

The central army’s light infantry battalion and combat magicians, who had been deployed to help them, also suffered painful losses from an unexpected counterattack.

The naval airship fleet, dispatched from the West Sea Fleet for transport missions, remained on the battlefield to assist, but a few airships were barely enough to defend the main city.

The one fortunate thing was that the Supreme Commander, who had been abroad, had finally arrived on the scene.

Not the Empire’s Supreme Commander, but the North’s.

“Has the recovery of casualties been completed?”

On the snowy field, the Grand Magician passing by a damaged command armored vehicle asked the commander.

The Army Colonel bowed his head apologetically.

“Not yet.”

“I heard the loss report was sent to the General Staff more than 50 minutes ago. What has the Northern Army been doing during that time?”

“Well…”

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna reprimanded the colonel with a piercing gaze.

The battalion commander, who had led the light infantry battalion across thousands of kilometers, couldn’t take his eyes off the coal and mud hardened on the rocks. Despite commanding over six companies, his authority seemed insignificant before the Grand Duchess.

It wasn’t just because she was the sister of the previous Emperor and the aunt of the current Emperor Nicholas VI.

Alexandra Petrovna had the authority to command all army and navy units operating in the north, including the Northern Army.

This was based on a law established by her brother, the previous Emperor, who had entrusted the north to his sister.

Today, this power had become obsolete as the Grand Duchess transferred her authority to the military on the grounds that someone who was no longer an Emperor couldn’t exercise military power.

But if she decided to exercise her military authority in the north, not even the Crown Prince or the Chancellor could stop her.

Of course, the Grand Duchess had never exercised her military authority, not even once.

At least not in modern times.

Even in the fourth year when the Kiyen-Mageong conflict reached its peak, she only gave silent support to General Mikhail, who led the Northern Defense Command.

Just once, she had issued an order for the soldiers to retreat so she could personally behead the devil, and that was the extent of her military authority exercised to date.

“…”

The colonel bowed his head with a worried expression, fearing that the second exercise of her military authority might be to dismiss him.

However, his darkened complexion wasn’t just due to concern for his position.

After all, one needs to be alive to maintain a position.

“The dead are coming back to life. Reports are coming in from each unit about troops who were pronounced dead attacking our forces. It seems like symptoms of ghoulification.”

The Grand Magician immediately raised her head upon hearing the battalion commander’s report.

“Request help from the Archbishop of Novo Nikolayevsk. Do whatever it takes to prevent the ghouls from leaving this place.”

Take the wounded to the military chaplains, and if anyone suspicious appears, prepare the sacrament of the sick without delay.

The Grand Magician, who had muttered this quietly, turned her steps toward the snowfield where the heat had not yet cooled.

As she crossed through the army, she suddenly turned and stared at the colonel. Then she casually dropped a brief question.

“By the way, I’m curious about something…”

“Yes.”

“Where is the mess hall here?”

“…Pardon?”

*

The rich aroma of cooking rice fills the air. The warm atmosphere melts away the fatigue of the cold and battle in the blink of an eye.

The dining area set up in the rear was in relatively good condition.

Though it was just a military truck with a tent set up, and cooking pots placed on improvised stoves made from cut oil drums, it was better than nothing after a full day of hardship in the snow.

“Mmm~”

Hugging the rice container, Camilla stirs her spoon with a blissful expression. Today’s menu is Grechka (Гречневая каша), rice made from buckwheat.

One might wonder how rice could be made from buckwheat, but Grechka is a traditional Kiyen Empire dish with history and tradition. It’s mainly eaten by farmers.

In the past, day laborers in Kiyen ate a lot of cheap buckwheat.

Wheat was much more expensive than buckwheat.

Since buckwheat alone couldn’t satisfy hunger, they sometimes boiled it with famine foods like potatoes, but these days, unless you’re elderly, people rarely eat it that way. Those who are somewhat well-off tend to eat it like plov (a Slavic fried rice) with butter or sausage.

This was an objectively proven fact.

During Nicholas VI’s reign, as meat consumption expanded throughout the empire, even lower-class people with tight budgets or rural college students with barely enough for rent occasionally added sausage, according to statistics she had seen.

She had reviewed this with Frederick just before coming to the Empire, probably from data published by the Imperial Central Statistical Office.

“Yum!”

Camilla took a large spoonful of freshly made Grechka to taste.

In fact, it was almost a meal rather than a taste, but since it hadn’t even reached her liver, it would be more accurate to consider it a tasting.

Similarly, she had pulled up a chair from somewhere near the tent and sat down hugging the rice container,

but this too was an improvised seat due to the lack of proper dining space, so it could hardly be called a meal.

The cook and the ration supervisor passing by clicked their tongues.

“I’m sure I didn’t give her a spoon. It seems I mistakenly gave her a rice paddle.”

“I don’t know either. That looks like a spoon to me…”

Regardless of the whispering around her, Camilla was deeply immersed in tasting, hugging the rice container as if her life depended on it.

If a fellow squad leader who had climbed the GOP fence at some Iron Man Hwayanggo as his first post had seen this scene, he would have been shocked, recalling “Wow… I think I saw that when throwing out the leftovers” – a wild boar the size of a compact car.

But that colleague wasn’t here now, so it wasn’t really Camilla’s concern.

Anyway, that’s how it was.

“…Ah!”

Camilla, who had been diligently working her spoon, suddenly put down the rice container on the chair and jumped up like a fish finding water.

“Professor!”

“So here you are.”

Alexandra Petrovna wore a small smile at the sight of her student jumping up and down, enthusiastically welcoming her.

“I sent you thinking there wouldn’t be any trouble when I heard a monster colony was discovered. Thankfully, you’ve returned in one piece. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No. I’m perfectly fine.”

“That’s good.”

As she smiled along with her beaming student, the mentor suddenly noticed the rice bowl gently placed on the chair next to the food truck and twitched her eyebrow.

I sent her to guard the north in my place… and she’s already set up house.

Seeing the displeased look in her mentor’s blue eyes, Camilla tilted her head in confusion. Following her gaze, she realized her hastily abandoned tasting spot had been discovered.

“Hehe…”

Camilla twisted her body in embarrassment and scuffed the snow with the toe of her shoe.

“Have you eaten?”

“Thank you for asking. How many hits do you want to take?”

“Oh, come on!”

Camilla waved her arms in disbelief as Alexandra Petrovna clenched her fist, ready to deliver a flick to the forehead. With the most wronged expression in the world.

“This is my first meal today! It’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner combined! How can you scold me for that!”

That’s right.

After a good night’s sleep at the resort arranged by the Grand Duchess, Camilla was sent to the north without even tasting the traditional food renowned as a specialty of the Lushan Federation.

For one reason only.

Because her mentor, Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna, had asked her to go to the north immediately.

She wasn’t sure why, but she heard that a spider colony hidden in some valley in the north had begun to stir. Wondering if there might be some mistake, she checked the resort’s guest book and found records of several embassy officials visiting the Grand Duchess since morning.

That’s when Camilla realized the seriousness of the situation.

So, starving, she took the one-way warp gate ticket provided by the Grand Duchess to the Kiyen Empire, then squeezed onto a naval airship to cross to the north.

The situation must have been more urgent than her mentor had indicated, as even Defense Ministry personnel had come to meet her at the warp gate.

Like being on a conveyor belt, she was moved around so much that she couldn’t even eat properly. That’s why she was having Grechka as breakfast, lunch, and dinner combined.

Of course, initially she had only planned to have a light breakfast and lunch, not expecting to resolve dinner in one go as well.

After all, how difficult could monster hunting be?

Anyway, with things as they were, she jumped off the airship thinking she’d finish quickly and have brunch, but then…

“Spiders? There are corpses walking around everywhere!”

Camilla raised her voice with an expression of utter disbelief.

“I thought I was going to faint when my ankle was grabbed by zombies crawling up from the cemetery! I may not believe in the afterlife, but I do respect the dead!”

Though she didn’t believe in heaven and hell, this was the first time she had delivered a soccer kick to a deceased person’s head out of respect for the dead.

Of course, the deceased bore responsibility for making Camilla’s heart race by showing the funeral taboo of ‘resurrection’.

Even considering that, the sight of a skeleton grabbing her ankle was something she never wanted to experience again.

“Hmm… You’re right.”

As they say, no teacher can win against their student. Alexandra Petrovna couldn’t help but hold her head at the heartfelt complaint.

Come to think of it, wasn’t this all because of her?

If she had known this would happen, she should have sent her with some snacks at least.

“I was wrong. In my haste, I made a child go through unnecessary hardship.”

“Tch… At least you’re here now.”

Camilla grumbled with her hands in her pockets. Though she verbally forgave her, her duck-like pout suggested otherwise.

Alexandra Petrovna sighed softly and began to explain apologetically.

“There was a meeting today, and I couldn’t leave my post. I also couldn’t leave my blind friend behind.”

The Grand Duchess readily admitted her mistake. Even to Camilla, it was a reasonable excuse that couldn’t be refuted.

She was well aware that the High Priest was visually impaired. She had met him in person, so she couldn’t not know.

As Camilla’s sulky mood from the entire day began to melt away, she looked at her mentor with concerned eyes.

“Is the High Priest alright?”

“Despite appearances, he’s a religious leader of a nation. Wouldn’t he have assistants?”

“That’s natural, but I wonder if those people can take care of him as attentively as you do. You two are inseparable.”

“…”

Her student’s words made her nose tingle, but Alexandra Petrovna casually rubbed her nose and changed the subject.

Having confirmed her safety, it was time to worry about other matters.

The Grand Magician asked her student:

“Child, I’ve already received full reports on the problems in the north. What exactly happened here?”

“…I’m not sure I can tell you much.”

Camilla rubbed the back of her neck as if organizing her thoughts before speaking.

“Soldiers who died during the battle started coming back to life. Someone who had clearly just fallen moments ago had skin that instantly dried up. Like a mummy.”

“What else?”

“It happened so suddenly that everyone was confused… When the soldiers at the scene retreated to the memorial park outside the city, I followed them.”

“By memorial park, you mean the cemetery.”

The memorial park near Vera City. It was a complex created to honor the victims who were buried when a mine collapsed long ago.

Befitting the north where excellent magic stones were mined, even ordinary minerals in the mountain range were slightly imbued with magic.

Vera was an industrial city that processed such coal.

Coal imbued with magic was a major resource supporting the modern imperial industry,

so there was a reason why a light infantry battalion from the central region rushed on an airship to defend the city.

This was also why the Grand Duchess, who was performing the important duty of the four-party talks, had initially sent Camilla.

And why she had to come immediately to check the damage when she received reports that the battle was over.

It’s heavy.

Like a large rock pressing on her chest.

War may be familiar, but one cannot be indifferent in the face of death.

However, what weighed heavily on the Grand Duchess wasn’t just someone’s death.

“…Ghouls. Magical beasts that went extinct in the north long ago.”

Monsters have appeared. Monsters that disappeared before she was born.

Monsters from folklore that a wandering witch, whom she once regarded as a mentor, had told her about.

They might still be active in other countries, but at least here, in the Kiyen Empire, they were monsters that went extinct 100 years ago.

Yet today, they appeared here.

“…”

Teachers and students grow alike.

Alexandra Petrovna looked into Camilla’s blue eyes. Camilla also looked into the Grand Duchess’s blue eyes.

Though no one spoke, the two shared similar thoughts.

“Corpse spiders, and ghouls.”

“How curious. Monsters that don’t exist in the Empire appearing twice. And specifically in the north.”

“…”

“Get ready, child.”

Nodding, Camilla cleared away her rice bowl and began packing her belongings. Her gestures were busier than usual.

On the snowy field where snowstorms rage.

In the mountain range where the heat of battle has not yet subsided, sharp winds echo like wailing ghosts.

Alexandra Petrovna looked up at the sky where snowflakes danced and murmured cautiously.

“I wonder if peace will come in our time…”

Her student, who was busily gathering clothes and magical tools, looked at her mentor.

With a slightly alarmed expression.

“What?”

“…? Why do you look like that?”

“Nothing, nothing at all…!”

*

Naturally, it wasn’t easy to discuss the problems occurring in the north with outsiders.

The appearance of ghouls was an issue that needed to be addressed promptly, but imperial matters should be resolved by the Empire. It was an internal affair that other countries couldn’t interfere with.

However, it wasn’t clear why ghouls had appeared in the north or where to begin investigating.

“Typically, in such matters, it’s customary to seek help from the Order, but… the timing is not good.”

The ghoul problem erupted while the four-party talks were in progress.

If the Kiyen Empire agreed to launch a joint investigation with the Order while the four governments were discussing diplomacy, it might unintentionally become a point of contention.

It seemed like a curiously coincidental timing, but Camilla suggested not thinking too deeply about it.

“It’s definitely strange, but… I think we should refrain from making speculations when there’s no clear evidence yet.”

“The child is right. Suspicion only breeds more suspicion.”

“Should I at least tell Lucia about it?”

Camilla suggested starting a discreet investigation. Lucia could certainly help with the investigation in a careful manner.

However, the Grand Duchess rejected this proposal.

“No need. There’s no need for the Saint to get involved.”

“Isn’t this a matter of urgency?”

“I already sent a letter before meeting you. The divine madman will come running excitedly.”

The term “divine madman” referred to the “High Priest” of the Order.

The High Priest was the only one with expertise in exorcism rituals and heresy interrogation, combined with rich experience. Perhaps even more of an expert than the head of the Inquisition. Calling for the High Priest was the best choice her mentor could make.

Though she wasn’t sure why she disparaged the High Priest as a “divine madman.”

Camilla simply guessed, “Did they fight? Maybe they encountered each other during the war,” and left it at that.

“Let’s go. If we want to return to Bahar in time to meet him, we need to hurry.”

“Yes!”

The Grand Duchess, accompanied by her student, traversed various locations.

The military chaplain corps treating the wounded and the parish priests incinerating bodies. Military units that remained on site from the initial report at the mine to the ongoing recovery.

They also stopped by Vera City to check if there were any other issues.

Breaking through the veil of night, they arrived at Novo Nikolayevsk, the capital of the north.

Alexandra Petrovna and Camilla visited a government office.

They had heard rumors that crucial clues to solve this case had been discovered there.

Though the exact details were unknown, as they passed through cities, they heard rumors about masterminds and instigators.

“…Let me ask again. Whose doing did you say it was?”

Alexandra Petrovna raised her eyebrow askew and asked again.

Camilla, wondering if she had misheard, dug into her ear with her finger and concentrated.

The owner of the highest office in the government building, the head of the Imperial Police Security Headquarters, kicked his desk and shouted loudly:

“It is believed to be the work of a secret underground organization that has been insulting the Imperial Family in the north for the past five years, seizing residents’ private property and military supplies, and plotting armed struggle with the aim of changing the government, preparing to overthrow the Imperial Family!”

“…”

“…”

It seemed she had heard correctly.

It was an absurd statement.