◆Sword Maiden, Shirone

  Velos kingdom is the biggest human race kingdom that’s located closest to Nargol.

  Sandwiched between the Akeron mountain range and the thriving blue forest, this kingdom was located at the estuary of a river that flowed down to the central plains.

  The kingdom’s population is around 150,000 people. Due to the kingdom being located in the demon infested area, there are no other cities outside the rampart. Though the other kingdoms around were poor, Velos kingdom was different from them. Velos kingdom was the biggest source of harvested fruit that resembled apple around this area.

  Due to its sweet flavor, there are various requests from other kingdoms to make use of this fruit as a flavor or as an ingredient for liquor.

  The fruit of this Velos is exported all the way upto Holy Republic Lenaria, far south from this place.

  Currently, Kyouka-san, Kaya-san, and I are inside the royal palace of Velos kingdom. By the way, we entrusted our hippogriff to the horse barn of this kingdom.

  Though I pity the other horses, it really can’t be helped since there’s no other option.

  「If it’s not Shirone-sama, welcome to this Velos kingdom!」


  A man in his fifties, the king of this kingdom, Eclas. This is the second time I am meeting him.

  Eclas is a nice chubby uncle; he talked to us, people who are even younger than his daughter, politely without even showing any unpleasant expression while doing so.

  His appearance resembles that Echigos guy. But, their inner personalities are polar opposite of each other.

  「Shirone-sama. And over there is the little sister of hero-kun, I presume? 」


  Eclas is looking at the one who is sitting on my right in a self-conceited manner, Kyouka-san.

  By the right etiquette, instead of sitting, she should be standing since the king of this kingdom is welcoming us while standing. Reiji-kun aside, I do think that she’s being rude toward the king.

  But Kaya-san isn’t even reminding Kyouka-san. Rather, it seems that she took it as natural.

  「It’s as you say, King Velos. That person is the little sister of hero Reiji-sama, princess Kyouka. She wants to stay in this kingdom for a while. Please set up the arrangements for us」


  Kaya-san is saying so in a self-conceited manner.

  「Hahaha. Naturally. Please feel free to stay in this Velos kingdom for as long as you want」


  Eclas is laughing heartily without even an ounce of anger after hearing Kaya-san telling him so with such rude manners.

  There’s no malice in his eyes, in contrast to when we talked to Echigos. I thought that he was a kind person when we met him before, but it didn’t seem that he changed from the previous time.

  We chose this Velos kingdom as our base to gather information about Kuroki.

  Though Algore kingdom was closer to Nargol, it’s an unsuitable place for us to stay due to the incident that was caused by us last time, so Velos kingdom is our choice as a base due to its wealth.

  「By the way, young ladies. The truth is, we’re going to hold a ball dance the day after tomorrow, do you want to participate in it?」


  「「「A ball dance? ! ! 」」」


  Our words are overlapping.

  We exchanged glance in hearing king Eclas’s offer.

  So a meeting of such big shots exist no matter where you are. This might be the so called high society in this world.

  Especially in a demon-infested world like this one, humans must cooperate to survive.

  Not just inside the rampart, it would be for the best if they cooperate with other countries; for this reason, many high-ranked royalty and nobility of each country often held these kind of gatherings. So to speak, this is a way of communication between the countries.

  It was held in the form of tea party, banquet, simple meeting, and ball dance.

  I participated in several ball dance and banquet parties during my journey with Chiyuki-san and Reiji-kun.

  Despite being called as ball dance, it has various forms; it’s not just limited to a ball dance like in Cinderella story that first came to my mind.

  It might be held in a form similar to a dance party like the ones in American movies or folk dance-like ball dance.

  According to Chiyuki, the ball dance has the same meaning as the lantern festival dance[Obon Festival] in Japan.

  But well, despite many disparities, the most common one is a ball dance where you form a pair of man and woman to dance along with elegant music.