And since this seems to be the only chapter without a proper pic, I'm using this extra illustration that ended up belonging to the first chapter.
Enjoy!
Upheaval, chapter 7.5: Indomitable Heroine
In the stronghold prison “Fierce Tiger’s Den”, there was now a wild chaos.
“To the plaza! All the soldiers rush to the plaza!”
“The subterranean dungeon is under attack! Defend it as soon as possible!”
“How many enemies are there!? One hundred? Two hundred?”
Maria’s strategy to break the chain of command had paid off, and now the jailers couldn’t observe and fully understand the entire situation.
Maria was hiding herself and observing the situation, and stifling a yawn under her mask, she thought of going ahead of Annelotte’s party.
“Fuwaa… well, I’ll go soon to meet Risty as well, hasn’t it been a long time…?”
---
“Sister Annelotte, this way!”
“Wait a second! The bolt here… if I close it…! With this, it should buy us some time.”
Annelotte and Mirim had shaken their pursuers somehow, and when they came to, a gloomy staircase spread out before their eyes, and they stared at the passage leading to the dungeon with anxiety mixed in their eyes.
“Really… is it here, where the Bandit of the Wilderness Risty, is imprisoned…”
“I don’t think Maria is one to make a mistake.”
“Well… that’s why she’s my teacher.”
When Annelotte hesitated, Mirim supported her.
For not being alone at that moment, Annelotte thanked her in her heart, and she went down the stairs.
“Let’s go, we’ll meet my fourth teacher!”
“Yes!”
---
Down the long, narrow stairs, beyond a corridor even longer and narrower, there was a prison where prisoners were locked up.
“What’s, with you?”
Glaring with eyes that hadn’t lost their rebellious spirit despite having become a prisoner, a man hurled his low voice at Annelotte’s party from the other side of the iron bars.
“S, Sister…”
While protecting the frightened Mirim behind her back, Annelotte asked the man.
“Is someone called Risty, being captive here? She’s the one called the “Bandit of the Wilderness”."
“Why, do you ask?”
“We’re here to help.”
The man raised his eyebrow. The prisoners at the rear emitted a bland response.
“Who, are you?”
“I’m the only child of the Margrave Kreutz, Annelotte.”
As he heard her name, the glint in the man’s eye became even sharper.
“What I heard, was this. The Margrave Kreutz was someone who decided to go against the Queen of Thundercloud Claudette and was crushed, a man who raised a daughter pretending her to be a man.”
The man’s voice sounded with a mix of amusement.
“That person was looking for us guys, and even though we heard a rumor that she wanted to meet us… No way, did you come to a place like this for us?”
“You guys?... No way, I didn’t.”
“Aah, that’s right.”
The man, gathering with the prisoners at the rear, threw out his chest, and nodded largely.
“We guys are the group of bandits from the Large Fang Mountain led by our elder sister Risty, the “Bandit of the Wilderness” ‘ gang.”
---
The story the man who called himself Risty’s underling told them, was one Annelotte’s party couldn’t readily believe.
A mysterious demon had attacked their hiding place all of a sudden. In order to let her underlings escape, Risty had fought alone. When the bandits escaped, the Queen’s Army was expecting them.
There was some mysterious conspiracy hidden there. Although she felt that way, it was frustrating not to know the perpetrator’s true identity, and Annelotte involuntarily ground her teeth.
“Annelotte!”
A call broke the line of her thoughts, that was falling into circles. When she turned around, the “Phantom Warrior” Maria was coming over, holding her sword.
“How did it turn out?... These people, they’re Risty’s friends, right?”
“Ah, but, what’s the situation above like? If you’re here, does it mean there’s not much time?”
“Since it became a mess, I think we’ll be fine for a while. They think we’re aiming at the chief’s head, and the guards are assembling elsewhere.”
“You are…”
To interrupt the next question the man was going to ask her, Maria asked conversely.
“But, what of Risty? Isn’t she here?”
“Aah, that’s right.”
The man replied, biting his lips.
“Our elder sister was taken and was immediately moved to somewhere else. From the talk of the jailers, seems like there’s a special ward further inside.”
“Further… inside.”
The man grabbed the prison bars, and begged Annelotte with a frantic expression.
“We beg you! No matter what happens to us guys, help our elder sister!”
Annelotte, Mirim and Maria went down, deeper and further into the prison.
At the bottom layer, after Mirim’s Hyper Vibration Sword tore to pieces the firmly sealed iron door, the three people finally managed to reach the depths of the “Fierce Tiger’s Den”.
“Here it is…”
They were in a strange room.
The room’s entrance was wide enough to fit a hundred people, but only a thick pillar stood in the center to support the ceiling.
A gloomy, damp atmosphere with the stink of a beast, as if to reaffirm somehow that they were in the inner depths of the “Fierce Tiger’s Den”.
Creak… creak, a creaking sound was echoing regularly through the whole room. From the central pillar, a log grew sideways, and as one beast pushed that log, the pillar rotated.
With a red mane of disheveled hair, and glaring shining eyes, the beast bared her gritted teeth.
Her name was…
“Risty… Are you the “Bandit of the Wilderness”, Risty…?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been called that… but yeah, that was my name.”
Facing them, the beast slowly rotated the pillar.
Though she was slightly dirty, from her eyes it could be seen that her mental strength hadn’t disappeared, and both her arms were swelled to bursting with more muscles, even if that beast had been captured, it showed that she was still a wild animal.
“Someone’s here… I thought if somebody came to help me… it would be Leina. Maybe she’s lost her touch. Heheh.”
Risty murmured, while pushing the pillar.
“This here… Ouch…”
Mirim said, scared, and Risty answered.
“This here goes up to the upper prison… It’s connected to the prison my friends are in. If I don’t keep on rotating this pillar, the ceiling of the upper prison will fall down and squash all my friends, what a horrible taste.”
While she talked, Risty kept on turning the pillar. If her legs missed one step, her friends would die… that was a plan only a demon could devise, and Annelotte’s party started paling with dread.
“But… in that case, you can’t sleep, nor have a meal?”
“Aah, that’s right… Since I was brought here, I haven’t slept a wink, and my mouth hasn’t taken even a drop of water.”
“That can’t be…”
Next to the surprised Mirim, Maria sighed, and muttered.
“A curse… right?”
“Quite so, and I know which one.”
“A curse?”
“Aah… on the day of the attack, a curse was put on me… the “Indomitable Curse” befell on my body. I can’t eat, drink or sleep well, but I won’t die from it… on the contrary, you could say I’m alive thanks to the curse.”
“You were captured months ago… and you still keep your sanity.”
When Maria said so, Risty grinned broadly, somewhat proudly, relaxing her mouth.
“On my arms, the lives of my friends are hanging… Plus, isn’t it natural?”
Risty said so carelessly. Annelotte admired the strong spirit she saw in her, and her mental strength to protect her friends.
Even if she was captured, and cursed… unlike her, who began to act violently with the demon blood lurking inside her, she protected her friends, the people important to her… Feeling such a resolution in Risty’s words that “resolution” didn’t do them justice, Annelotte decided to respect this person.
“I’m Annelotte. I came here to meet you… Bandit of the Wilderness… no, “Indomitable Heroine” Risty.”
After saying so, Annelotte began telling Risty the situation so far.
Because of Queen Claudette, her home and her lands had been taken, and she had been defeated when she tried to take revenge.
Saved by Maria, she went on a trip to organize a Rebel Army. To ask for Risty’s help, she had gone to the Large Fang Mountain, but it had already been attacked by someone, it was an empty carcass.
Some of Risty’s subordinates had joined Annelotte, they were still in good health.
“Risty, you’ll escape from here. If you can rescue your captured friends from the upper floor, you’ll be free as well.”
After Annelotte said so, Maria continued with a nod.
“The opponent who cursed you, I have a clue on who it is. Instead of being shut in a place like this, I think your nature is more like going and beating them?”
“Hm? Now that I’m taking a closer look at you… I see.”
Risty stared at Maria’s face. In the eyes behind the mask, it seems like Risty felt something.
“Understood. I’ll trust you.”
Saying that, Risty pointed to her chest with her chin, and spoke.
“You there, you were called Annelotte, right. Put your hand here just for a moment.”
“Huh…? Eh, ah, my hand? Like, on your chest?”
Annelotte stared in wonder at the sudden command.
“Thaat’s right, put your hand right here on my chest, c’mon, hurry up.”
“W, w, why…?”
“Just do it!”
“Uh, w, well then… E, excuse, me.”
Annelotte timidly put her hand on Risty’s chest. Annelotte’s fingertips pressed between the sweaty skin and the dirty clothes.
“I, is… this okay?”
“Aah, that’s right… just a little deeper…”
“Uh, uuh… hm?”
Like she told her, Annelotte’s fingers went deeper into her breast. Her fingertips touched something solid.
“That’s it, pull that out.”
“Uh, uuh.”
She pulled it out slowly, it was a small jewel ornament.
“This is…?”
“You can have it. Whoever has that, can proceed to the Gemstone Mountain.”
“Gemstone Mountain…”
“There’s a person called the “Gemstone Princess” there. That person will know you’re my comrade if you show it to her.”
“…I understand.”
Annelotte replied, grasping tightly the jewel ornament.
“But, I’m just holding onto it. Risty, first of all you have to get out of here.”
“No, you have to go now, head to the mountain, I’ll meet you there.”
“That’s absurd. We’ll go together.”
“I’ll help Risty. You go on!”
“Sister Annelotte, we must hurry!”
Annelotte nodded at what Maria and Mirim said, and headed for the exit. To see her off, Maria said to her back.
“We’ll be fine, hurry up and go!”
“I’ve decided to believe in you, thanks, Maria. Let’s go, Mirim!”
“Yes!”
Along with Mirim, Annelotte ran up the stairs, without looking back.
---
1 hour later.
Surrounded by soldiers, Maria held the collapsed Risty.
The pillar wasn’t rotating anymore. From the soldiers’ way of speaking, it was obvious the prisoners from the upper floor had escaped successfully. Mirim probably destroyed the jail when she left.
“Crap… I think I can’t move my body.”
Risty murmured with frustration.
“It can’t be helped, you’ve been doing hard labor for many months without a break. You did a great job, Risty.”
Maria’s words had a somewhat gentle sound to them.
“Sorry… I keep on being saved by you.”
“What are you saying. It was you who saved me first.”
Step step, the soldiers narrowed the circle that surrounded them.
“Those guys… they were very interesting.”
“Don’t you think? That’s why I lent them a hand.”
“If it’s those guys… I feel they can do it.”
“Though I want to see this through to the end… this is relentless.”
“You won through Queen’s Blade, are you giving up with just this much?”
“Now, I wonder about that?”
Fuwaa, yawning greatly, Maria drew her sword smoothly.
“I’m slowly getting sleepy… I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.”
“That’s fine, me too… but I’ll strain my remaining strength to the end! Anyhow, that’s why I’m the “Indomitable Heroine”!”
The collapsed Risty shook up her whole body, and stood up.
“Here we go!”
“Let’s do thiis!”
The two people shouted simultaneously, and plunged into the soldiers.
To distract their attention from the escape of the bandits and Annelotte’s party, it was a desperate battle.
-To be continued-
Quite an intense chapter, well worth the exclusivity.
Who would have thought Annelotte had such naming sense, though?
And about Risty's new title, I went with "Indomitable Heroine" because it sounded the coolest, but she could be "Persistent Heroine", "Fortitudinous Heroine" or something like that. Considering how hard it is to nail the "official" titles, I half-expect it to be wrong.
Awesome, thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big Risty fan, so this is plenty cool.
Is there a 3rd QB anime season yet?
The 3rd season would be Queen's Blade Rebellion season 1, no? If you mean QBR season 2, no, we still don't have a clue when it'll start.
Delete