Queen's Blade Rebellion Illustrated Stories: Upheaval, chapter 7

In this chapter, the former heroine reappears in Rebellion!
Enjoy!




Upheaval, chapter 7: The Fierce Tiger’s Den

"Coming across you was really a blessing, Maria."
“Well, for the time being, let’s have a toast for the completion of your training. Hey hey, you young lady as well!”
“Y, yes.”
Near the capital city of Gainos, there was a bar at a trading city.
Annelotte and Mirim were drinking a mug of beer together with the “Phantom Warrior” Maria.
The aloof, masked warrior who had once saved Annelotte’s life.
Without assembling a faction, she was a fighter of remarkable ability who continued fighting the Queen’s Army by herself.
Since she instantly disappeared to somewhere else shortly after the fights ended, people called her the Phantom Warrior.
Though everybody felt like they knew her true identity, it was a taboo somehow.
Fortunately, Annelotte and Mirim were fine with not inquiring into Maria’s history at all.
Annelotte respected Maria from before, and Annelotte and Mirim had searched for her once again, and had asked Maria to teach her how to fight.
Maria had said “You’re my first pupil. Nice to meet you”, and had agreed.
After several months of training, Annelotte was definitely able to learn something by living with her every day. Now, it was the time of her graduation.

Even though Maria’s beer mug was filled to the brim with ale, Annelotte’s and Mirim’s were filled with white milk.
Although it was an odd drink to request at a bar, the many different customers at the bar of that town couldn’t neglect their trades to direct questioning looks at them. At the establishment, none of the other customers were especially observing Annelotte’s party.
That was something that, as wanted people, both Annelotte and Mirim appreciated.
Because, not only they were plotting a rebellion against the Queen, the pope’s agency had recognized them as “heretics”, therefore becoming traitors to God.

“Annelotte, you’d better meet Risty.”
“Phantom Warrior” Maria, quite sleepy already, said that to Annelotte’s party while occasionally dozing off. She said someone had put her under the “Sleep Curse”, needing to sleep 16 hours or more per day, and intense drowsiness would visit her intermittently, all of a sudden.
“Risty… the “Bandit of the Wilderness”?”
Sitting next to Annelotte, Mirim asked, puzzled.
“Yes. You’ve trained under Tomoe and me, and you’ve become strong. However, you’re just one person. What you’re aiming for, is not to settle this with your own strength, one-to-one… is it?”
“Ah, that’s right… cooperating with my comrades, adding more and more people and bringing forth the strength of everyone combined… that’s what we must do.”
“As I thought, like Risty. How important and difficult it was to build up an organization, and the way strength could be brought from there… she was familiar with it.”
Maria said, shaking her jug as if playing with it.
“She decided to fight against Queen Claudette before you guys did. And she had gathered comrades and organized a rebel army… however.”
“When I went to the Large Fang Mountain, where she was supposed to be, in order to ask for her help, it was already empty there…  although we know she was attacked, as her comrades who had run away told us… but where she is now after being captured, is something we don’t know after all.”
Annelotte remembered how Risty’s hiding place was now an empty carcass, and bit her lip.
“The Queen’s Army was anticipating her, so they caught her… but what did those guys attack her for? I’m rather worried.”
“Ah, the might of someone else than the Queen’s Army… it seems. In the first place, if the Queen captured the rebel forces, they’d announce it publicly as a warning.”
“Risty’s insurrection plan is too large-scale, if she announced it, it could have the opposite effect and mislead the public, so she’s keeping it as a secret, we have to do so as well.”
Maria said so, and unable to resist it anymore, she flopped down with her cheek stuck to the table.

“Munya…  I heard a rumor that they send that kind of criminals to a secret detention center for their execution…I don’t know where.”
“…So, locating it is our next objective…?”
Annelotte was at a loss.
Munya, munya, Maria was sleeping like a log.
The dead atmosphere was broken from an unexpected direction.
 “Did you knoow?... Hiccup!”
Both Annelotte and Maria, who was more than half asleep, looked back at the owner of the voice. Holding the jug filled with milk with both hands, Mirim was in a good mood, smiling with a flushed face.
“There is a concentration camp called the “Fierce Tiger’s Den” to the north of the frontier. Atch [half-sneeze]… Its existence is kept a secret, made for criminals, it’s unofficially used to house criminals to be executed… so I have heard.”
Showing a somewhat dreamy look, Mirim still gave a steady answer.
“Is that true? Way to go, Mirim!”
Saying so, Annelotte patted Mirim’s shoulder… and frowned.
“…You reek of liquor! Mi, Mirim! You, what are you drinking…?”
“Eh, this heere?”
Mirim answered while drinking and spilling the contents of her jug, exhaling breath that reeked of liquor with a “Pooh!”
“It is miilk.”
“It absolutely isn’t!”
“Milk isn’t yellow, and bubbles shouldn’t appear in it, either…”
“It is milk, an uncle turned to me and said: “A lady like you should drink uncle’s special delicious milk” and gave it to me.”
Facing Annelotte and Maria, Mirim answered, laughing with a cackle.
“ Because of that, please hear me out. I was nice, but miss Elina used to threaten me, saying “If you make any more mistakes, I’m sending you to the Fierce Tiger’s Den”. Don’t you think that’s cruel? What do you think? Although she liked me despite my mistakes, she was always being picky, and teasing me… uuuuh.”
“Wa, wait Mirim, get off me, you’re sticking too much to me!”
“Since I still need to work hard, that’s why, that’s why…”
“W, wait a second, Maria! H, help me here!”
“Snoore.”
“You fell asleep!”
Annelotte managed to take the seriously intoxicated Mirim to a hotel, but not without great effort.
She’d never let Mirim near alcohol again, she decided.

---

The “Fierce Tiger’s Den”, according to the information relayed by Mirim (that by the way, the person herself didn’t remember at all), was on the north of the continent, a facility like a stronghold built in the middle of a coniferous forest, covered with snow.
“I investigated a bit, this facility was built by the 3rd generation Queen, seemingly to imprison those who opposed her.”
Lowering her voice, Maria said to Annelotte.
“During Aldra’s reign this facility was never used, it was left to rot…”
“So, is it Claudette who restored it?”
“Exactly.”
“Sister Annelotte, miss Maria, looks like we’ll arrive soon.”
Mirim, who was observing the “outside” situation, said to the two people in a whisper.
“Is that so?... We were cramped in here, it’s about time we got out.”
“Good, if we stay cramped anymore, my body will harden.”
A cart had been dispatched with goods to the “Fierce Tiger’s Den”, and inside a small gap, three people were hiding in it, complicatedly entangled.
Bump, the cart shook with a bang, and stopped.
That was the sign, the three people exchanged glances, and nodded firmly to each other.
“Well, let’s go along with the plan.”
“Maria, you still have room to improve. In this place, you’ll be defeated.”
“If I seem to get into big trouble, I’ll escape suitably, worry about yourself, and do your best.”
“Both of you, a guard is coming!”
“Well, let’s get out… yaah!”
In order to have the drop on the guard who was revising the cargo, Maria jumped out of the wagon.
“The prisoners you all captured, I’ll make you return everybody to us!”
Maria said, cutting down the guard. Moving like a flow, she knocked down two guards and the cart driver, almost simultaneously with the high-pitched alarm that sounded from the top of the watchtower.

 
“Come here kittens, I’ll beat you all!”
Maria was shouting, somewhat happily, while she faced the situation, and in reply, the guards from the top of the watchtower shot arrows at her.
A barrage of arrows rained from above, and Maria raised her shield to protect herself.
“Tsk, not fair!”
Cursing, she took out a dagger from the back side of her shield and threw it, and the guard holding the bow fell down the watchtower with a scream.
“Heey hey, if you lose your cool, you’ll get hurt!”
In response to Maria’s provocation, a guard with a spear ready bustled into sight.
“Really, isn’t this too much to receive one person!”
Grasping her sword once again, Maria was quite definitely laughing.
Skipping over and cutting off the spearhead of the thrusting guard, she knew that was an indication that Annelotte’s party had successfully escaped from the cart.
“Hey hey hey, you guys know you’re plenty for a person like me alone!”
Shouting with a cheerful voice as if enjoying herself with a game, Maria deliberately stressed out that she was one person on her own.

---

At the same time, Annelotte and Mirim had successfully escaped from the cart, and were taking a roundabout path to the back of the stronghold.
From the distance, the sound and the voices of the battle reached their ears, carried by the wind. As long as they heard them, it’d mean both Maria and them were safe.
“According to the diagram Maria prepared, around here we should go underground to get to the prison, but…”
Frustrated, Annelote’s palm touched the stone wall.
She expected a gate according to the information, but due to the recent remodeling, the door was plastered up and was unusable.
“We’ll have to start over… look for another place to get in.”
Replying to what Annelotte said, Mirim shook her head.
“No, Sister. If we miss here, there will be no time.”
“If so, then how…?”
“Open… here!”
Fully prepared to die if necessary, Mirim drew her sword. Responding to her fighting spirit, the Hyper Vibration Crystal blinked, and the Hyper Vibration Sword roared.
“…Teyaaah!”
Mirim pointed it toward the wall and thrust, grinding with a thunderous roar while sparks scattered around the wall.
“Hyaauuuuh!”
Raising her voice involuntarily as the vibration assaulted her entire body, Mirim didn’t stop her assault on the wall.
“Mi, Mirim, don’t overdo yourself!”
“I, I’m, fine…! Hyaaunh! If, if it’s for you, Sister!”
Mirim withstood the vibration through gritted teeth.
Cold sweat appeared on her face, but she could only watch. A person such as Annelotte would get impatient.
“Mirim… Mirim!”
“A, ahn…! S, Sister… Annelotte… Sisteer… hyaaunh!”
Pop!
Suddenly, Mirim’s sword no longer faced resistance.
The sword scraped off the wall little by little, and pierced through the opposite side.
“I did it! Uh, ah, eh, huh…?”
At the same time she smiled a smile of satisfaction. The wall clattered and crumbled, as if it was about to collapse and fall on top of Mirim.
“Mirim! Watch out!”
Holding out her hand at once, Annelotte tried to grab Mirim.
“S, Sister…!”
“A, uwah…!”
But Annelotte and Mirim, along with the side of the wall, fell into the very spacious room of the semi basement.

---

Whooosh!
Although they must have fallen several meters, thanks to the water at the bottom, neither Annelotte nor Mirim were greatly hurt.
Plain water? No, that was wrong.
“Ah… it’s hott!”
Annelotte jumped up in a hurry. Thick, billowing steam collected on her face, and she couldn’t see even 1 meter ahead of her. They hadn’t fallen into water, but into boiling water.
“A, are you alright, Sister Annelotte!?”
Thanks to the Hyper Vibration Armor, Mirim was completely unhurt, and she called out to the anxious Annelotte. When Annelotte quickly covered all her senses, checking that she wasn’t injured anywhere, she nodded to Mirim.
“I, I’m fine… However, w, where, on earth…”
As if replying to Annelotte’s murmur, wind quickly blew from the wall Mirim had destroyed, blowing away the steam that covered them.
“W, what…!”
“Kyaa…!”
Annelotte was speechless. Mirim covered her eyes involuntarily.
Around the two people, stark naked girls stood stock still staring at them with a blank stare on their faces.
Kapoon.
Such a relaxing sound resounded from somewhere.
"A... A bath...?"
Gradually grasping where they were, Mirim murmured with a shaking voice.
The large bathroom for the guards.
Probably, they were in such a place.
“In…”
One of the stark-naked guards murmured, overcome with surprise.
“In…?”
Mirim asked back involuntarily.
“In… Intrudeeers…!”
They weren’t wearing anything, nor were they carrying weapons, but they were still members of the guard. Coming to their senses because of the scream, they surrounded Annelotte’s party to capture them.
“S, Sister…!”
“Don’t panic, the opponents are all unarmed… we’ll break through somehow!”
“Y, Yes!”
As they got together and covered each other’s backs, Mirim and Annelotte drew their respective weapons.

Could Annelotte and Mirim, as well as Maria, rescue Risty after all?
They won’t know that unless they fight.

-To be continued-



Like some people say, Leina "took a level in badass".
Seems like there's a little timeskip here, I wonder what the others were doing during the time...
And yes, this chapter references two scenes, Tomoe's training and Maria's first appearance, that I'll need to take care of in the future (as long as I can stay ahead of the anime... :p)

Next chapter, we're unexpectedly sticking with Annelotte!