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The trip to Stollar with Princess Eligore was by no means a smooth ride. She got rolled into trouble at every step and we had to run about in hopes of solving it.

But she had no ill will, and not everything was brought by her carelessness either, so when we were stuck with truly bad luck encounters I felt like she was cursed or something.

However, such a trip was coming to an end now. We would reach Stollar in just a few hours of travel on the highway.

Arriving at that stage, I discovered something strange.

“Huh? What’s that?”
“What’s wrong, Nicole?”
“Uh, look there.”

I pointed towards the directions we were going.

The canopied carriages didn’t have a vertical canopy to allow people to get in and out of the coachman’s seat. As such, you could freely see the road ahead and behind.

Ahead in our direction, Stollar’s rampart could already be seen periodically through the gaps in the forest trees, making it known that we’d get there very soon.

The problem was, there was also one horseman rushing towards us at tremendous speeds from there.

“Is that a horseman?”
“Ellie, what did you do this time?”
“T-That’s rude! Even I could not have caused anything when we have not even reached the city yet!”
“So you will cause it when we reach…?”

I retorted, but either way, the horseman ahead couldn’t be ignored. It was just one horseman, so we’d have the advantage if it turned into a battle, but it was still necessary to be alert.

“Finia. Just in case, switch with Michelle. If it turns into a battle, please cover us with appropriate support magic.”
“Understood. Michelle.”
“Okaay!”
“Michelle, raise the canopy and be ready to shoot in either direction.”
“Gotcha!”

Michelle replied quite casually at my and Finia’s words. But her carefree voice allowed us to not be overly tense.

Cloud also took the shield from his back in reaction to my voice and got ready. The reason he hadn’t pulled out his sword yet was that in the chance that the horseman wasn’t an enemy, it would only make the atmosphere tense.

It was even possible that seeing his sword, the other party would see us as enemies and engage in a pointless battle.

“There’s one enemy, but don’t lower your guard. There are no signs of an ambush, though.”
“Got it. So we just have to be careful of that, I guess.”
“What shall I do?”
“Ellie, you remain inside the carriage until I say otherwise. Cover your face too if possible.”

Princess Eligore was famous and her face was known even by the citizens. Her popularity even reached a faraway city like Stollar.

It was plenty possible that getting her face revealed would invite a lot of trouble.

Thus, as we were getting ready, the horseman arrived before us.

“U-Umm…”

I addressed the approaching horseman to ask about the situation.

However, they didn’t slow down and instead dashed right past our carriage.

It wasn’t that my voice hadn’t reached them. As proof, during the passing, they even replied, “My apologies, I am in a hurry!”

Normally, they’d have shouted, “move aside!” instead of wording it so politely, so they seemed quite sincere.

“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing it didn’t turn into trouble, huh?”
“But I wonder what was that about? They seemed to be in a rush.”
“By the looks of it, they looked like a military messenger. Maybe something happened in the city.”
“Military messenger? They seemed to be heading to Raum…”

The next moment, there was a heavy collapsing sound from Stollar’s direction.

It wasn’t the sound of an explosion, but a collapse. In other words, something had crumbled down.

And it had reached us over ten kilometers away. It was easy to imagine something major has happened based on that alone.

“W-What’s going on?!”
“Michelle, look! There’s a cloud of dust above the city!”

It was a cloud of smoke visible even from this far away. Something big enough to warrant it seemed to have crumbled down.

We could see the city buildings before the smoke, which means whatever had crumbled happened on the opposite side of us.

“This is bad! Let’s hurry, Nicole!”
“Yeah, but…”

There were still over ten kilometers left to cover. No matter how we rushed, it would take at least thirty minutes.

“No helping it. I’ll go ahead with Teleport!”
“You’re going alone, Nicole?!”
“I-I know it’s dangerous, but it would be faster that way.”
“Please wait! I’ll come too!”
“Finia?”

Finia insisted on coming along after hearing my words.

Seeing her eyes, though, it didn’t seem that she did it just because I was going ahead.

“Considering the scale of the collapse… There must be injured people at the collapsed site. It would be better for me to come along as I can use healing magic.”
“I see. Then you can—”
“Then I will come along too.”
“Wh-, Ellie?!”
“If the place is in chaos, it should be better to have someone with high standing with you to give instructions. I will of course make sure not to get in your way.”

I gave some thought to her words.

If the leader at the scene was dead or injured, it would be necessary for someone else to give instructions.

If there was someone else, then that was that, but if not, the chaos would just drag on and increase victims even more.

But if Eligore, who was a princess, showed up at the scene, she could take command for the time being and give instructions.

That way, it would allow us to perform organized rescue operations and the victim count would definitely decrease.

“Okay. I’ll take Ellie and Finia. Michelle, sorry but get the carriage to the city. Cloud, you protect her.”
“Okay!”
“Gotcha, I’ll hurry up then.”

Now that I was taking Finia along, there was only Michelle who could drive the carriage. Since we didn’t plan to leave the carriage here, she had to remain and drive it.

And I couldn’t take Cloud with his horse either.

I constructed the magic circle, took Finia and Princess Eligore’s hands, and we teleported away together.