Crest of the Strongest Knight

Chapter 50 - Festival Preparations

"...And that's what she said."

"Sure you jest, Dame Medrauta."

"No, I'm quite serious. Here, read it if you don't believe me."

Medrauta tossed the letter in her hands to Sakura. She'd written a letter to Lady Merlynne three days ago after the Summer Gala concluded. The reply had only arrived now, and Sakura found it less than satisfactory.

"She won't see us until the festival is over!?" Sakura exclaimed in disbelief as she double-checked the contents of the letter. "That's in two weeks!"

"Yeah, well, I doubt the Witch Queen's gonna come back to life within the next two weeks, Lady Sakura. I think you can relax for a few more days."

"Are you two talking about that crazy prophecy again?" Viviane asked. Medrauta had filled her in on the night of the gala after they'd finished aiding the princess in her quest to find Prince Galahad. Riku hadn't appreciated the spread of information, but he'd expected it.

Seeing Viviane having just returned from a storage room with a pile of fabric in her arms, Medrauta took them off her hands before answering. "Yeah. Though, I'd much rather be talking about how wonderful you look today."

"G-Geez! You've been like this ever since the gala..."

"'Cause you're not gonna understand how I feel if I'm not always on the attack. And besides, it's not like your appearance is the only thing that's wonderful," Medrauta said as she set the heap of fabric to the side before walking up to Viviane and cupping her chin with a hand. "I love your adorable reactions too."

"Get a room, you two." Sakura rolled her eyes. "Don't you know how tiring it is to be the third wheel all the time?"

"My bad," Medrauta grinned as she backed off. "Still, we're missing our fourth again today, huh? She was already gone yesterday. The hell's up with that?"

"Perhaps the princess got tired of watching the two of you flirt constantly," Sakura suggested.

All things considered, it was a pretty fair line of assumption. After the gala, the princess had been quite distraught at her brother's actions and the dissolution of their oath as knight and lady. Worse, the imperial inquisitors discovered that her brother had divulged the location of where she'd stored her seal to Lady Rosenhall, leading to her quick arrest.

However, seeing as Lady Rosenhall hadn't been anywhere near the princess' chambers since Gwenhwyfar's arrival, there wasn't even sufficient circumstantial evidence to continue holding her captive.

As she was Duke Rosenhall's daughter, refusing to release her would be a slight that even the imperial family could not afford, especially when activity near the northern border had been so unpredictable lately.

With everything going on at once, the last thing Gwenhwyfar needed was to watch Medrauta flirt incessantly with Viviane.

Despite all of this, the academy festival was still slated to begin a week later. Thanks to the situation with Kaslavna, a good portion of the academy's staff had been sent to the northern border as reinforcements, freeing up much of the students' schedules with canceled classes and exams.

While students were usually allotted just three days to prepare for the festival, the remaining instructors decided to kickstart preparations immediately after the gala by allowing students to use the empty blocks in their schedule to work on their festival booth during the whole week. As an activity that was designed to foster a sense of unity within the school body, students were free to choose their own groups of up to six people.

Naturally, Medrauta and Viviane had paired up immediately, and surprisingly, the princess had begged to join their group too. Although Medrauta was initially against it, she eventually relented after Viviane welcomed Gwenhwyfar with open arms. Sakura soon followed suit after Riku excused himself with some pretext or other, and the four of them had a pretty productive first day.