#014. A Nail
“Artorius.”
“Why are you calling me? No—more importantly, why do you keep calling my name and then pausing?”
“Well… because I don’t mind that Artorius gets curious about what I’m going to say?”
He ran a large hand over his face.
“…I see. So what’s the matter?”
“Nothing much. Let’s have a late snack.”
Anastasia rose from her seat, threw on a simple robe, and draped a shawl around her neck.
“…Me as well? As I said this morning, in my current state I can’t eat. I don’t need to, in the first place.”
“Then just keep watch behind me.”
From the drawer beside the wardrobe, Anastasia took out a dagger hanging from a small leather strap.
Artorius, by experience, knew where noble young ladies usually carried their self-defense daggers, and quickly turned away.
The dagger and its sheath disappeared beneath her skirt. Anastasia firmly strapped it to her thigh, then held out her hand to Artorius.
“Aren’t you going to escort me?”
“In the room…?”
“This house is the most dangerous place for me, Artorius.”
Her deep navy eyes looking up at him seemed, to Artorius, intensely profound.
“…Are you really all right, Anastasia?”
Artorius asked in a low voice. Though hidden by his helmet, his brow was furrowed.
It was because of the noise outside the room.
“Well, it doesn’t matter.”
Anastasia’s room was on the fourth floor—the top floor of the annex. She shrugged her small shoulders and flicked her delicate fingers once.
The loud noise of nails being driven into the door diminished, as if receding far away.
“You’re quite adept at shaping and wielding magic.”
“Well… I’ve lived twice. You have as well, though.”
“Then let me ask again. Are you truly fine? If they nail the door shut, it will be difficult to leave.”
“Ah, it’s fine. Really. Thanks to this, I’ll be able to mess with them a bit more.”
Artorius tilted his head.
“Mess with them?”
“Well… they probably don’t think a few nails in the door will be enough to stop me.”
That was true.
With his physical strength alone, he could tear the door off. Not only that—he could even create a new passage through the wall.
“That… is true.”
“Besides, if they nail the door shut, it’ll inconvenience them as well.”
“Why is that?”
“For this reason.”
With Artorius’s escort, Anastasia stood from the bed and walked lightly toward the door.
Then she knocked.
Knocking on her own door from the inside—Artorius observed the strange scene with interest.
“…Princess?”
Just as expected.
The maids outside responded.
Anastasia’s small lips curved into a smile.
“I’m thirsty. Could you bring me some black tea and milk?”
A brief silence followed.
They were likely counting how many nails they had driven in.
Since they would now have to remove them all and hammer them back in.
“…Could you wait a moment?”
Anastasia couldn’t hold back and burst into quiet laughter. Artorius did as well.
Of course, his laughter did not leak outside.
Yet Anastasia somehow knew that he was laughing.
It felt somewhat strange.
Like sharing a connection with someone whose expression never changed.
“Then I’ll wait as long as needed.”
Soon, hurried footsteps retreated from the door. Anastasia glanced sideways at Artorius as if to say “see that?”, then sat back down on the bed.
“See? Now instead of the dining room, they’ll run straight to my father. Then they’ll come back saying, ‘His Grace the Duke said…’ and so on.”
“That’s amusing.”
Nodding, her small head made her golden hair—shimmering like molten gold—sway.
“Yes. It is amusing. No matter what they do, they won’t be able to escape my grasp.”
Then Anastasia flicked her fingers lightly.
Hundreds of osmanthus petals of light flowed from her fingertips. They quickly gathered into a large cross and transformed into a longsword held in her hand.
“So. You said you’d teach me how to use a sword.”
Artorius shrugged and stood up.
“I believe you said you use a dagger in your left hand. And yet, looking at you now, it seems you’re holding it in your right hand, Anastasia.”
Anastasia pouted and narrowed her eyes.
She snapped back at him for pretending not to notice.
“You should point out that it’s a longsword, not a dagger, Artorius.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is already entertaining enough.”
Artorius rose from the armchair—the largest one in Anastasia’s room.
“…The chair seems to have sunk quite a bit, Artorius.”
“That doesn’t mean I can sit on the floor.”
He strode over to Anastasia and drew his sword, lifting it lightly from its sheath.
“Longsword technique begins with four basic stances. They are: the Bull, the Roof, the Plow, and the Fool.”
“…Could you say that again?”
Artorius demonstrated the stance again while naming them one by one.
“The Bull, the Roof, the Plow, and the Fool.”
“The Bull, the Roof, the Plow, the Fool.”
“Correct. Let’s begin with the Bull stance.”
Barely twenty minutes into the training, Anastasia sincerely regretted asking him to teach her swordsmanship.
Artorius insisted on extremely precise and meticulous posture, as though he had a protractor built into his eyes.
So much so that it became difficult for Anastasia to endure.
Ten more minutes passed, and in that short time, Anastasia’s nightwear was already soaked with sweat.
In the end, she surrendered completely to Artorius’s instruction.
“I genuinely have a question, Artorius.”
“What is it?”
“Is it really necessary to precisely reproduce how much my right arm is angled relative to the bridge of my nose, down to the inch?”
“Of course.”
Artorius then demonstrated several slashes and thrusts following the four stances, along with their flowing transitions.
Even Anastasia, who was nearly a novice in swordsmanship, found it impressive.
It was practical—rather than elegant or ornate, the movements connected quickly and fluidly in a restrained manner.
“…It’s quite impressive.”
Artorius sheathed his blade again and leaned it against the wall.
“With this kind of longsword, offense and defense intersect at the same moment.”
Then he moved behind Anastasia, lifting her arms again to set her posture precisely.
He covered her small, pale hand gripping the hilt and said quietly:
“Step onto my foot, Anastasia.”
“My father never did this.”
Anastasia joked as she stepped onto his foot.
“This isn’t dancing.”
“I know.”
Artorius began to move her body slowly, like a doll in his arms.
“Switching from a Bull stance to the opposite Bull stance alone results in a horizontal slash aimed at the opponent’s neck and head.”
With each movement of his hands and feet, Anastasia’s body followed in clean trajectories like a marionette on strings.
“Transitioning from the Roof stance to the Fool stance produces a powerful downward strike.”
Whoosh—the blade sliced sharply through the air.
“All of these stances are intermediate points. The sword is wielded by moving from one stance to another.”
Only then did Anastasia understand why he had been so obsessed with precise posture.
“So… if the stance isn’t exact, the transitions won’t function properly.”
“That’s the first reason.”
“There’s a second reason?”
Artorius nodded and set Anastasia back down on her feet.
Then, with a hand imbued with a deep, abyssal power, he grasped her blade and reduced the golden osmanthus sword back into scattered petals.
“All stances serve both to defend oneself and to attack the opponent simultaneously. In other words, an imprecise stance means you will be injured.”
Artorius sat back down in the sunken armchair.
“So…”
Anastasia drew out her words, looking at his shining blue eyes with interest.
“It’s all for my sake, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
She understood.
In a single motion, defense against the opponent’s attack and her own offense intertwined.
In that precisely meshed moment, even a slight mistake in posture would prevent proper defense.
“Alright.”
At that moment—
Knock knock knock.
Another knock came at the door.
Anastasia shrugged and stood up.
“Good. Did you bring the black tea and milk?”
The maid outside hesitated, then whispered in a trembling voice:
“Well… His Grace the Duke has ordered that no water be brought to the princess…”
That was expected. Anastasia leaned close to the door and whispered:
“Hey, maid. What’s your name?”
“Be—Betty, Your Highness.”
“Good. Step away from the door now. All the other maids as well. It’s best if you all withdraw as far as possible.”
“Y-yes…?”
Anastasia tapped the nailed door lightly with her fingertips and declared:
“The door is going to explode.”
Then, from beyond the door, a very familiar voice rang out.
“Hey, sis. You can’t do that. Father already anticipated this and sent four knights here.”
It was Aslan.
Anastasia narrowed her eyes.
Interesting. Things were turning out more intriguing than expected.
“Aslan. As your older sister, let me sincerely advise you for your own safety…”
She stepped back from the door, raising her voice slightly.
“You’d better move aside immediately. Otherwise… you saw them, didn’t you?”
“Saw what?”
“The corpses on the way back from the ball.”
A sharp intake of breath came from beyond the door.
Yes.
They were afraid.
Anastasia had seen those corpses as well. She hadn’t needed to—but she used it to steel her resolve.
She would shed as much blood as necessary.
She would not pity them for something as trivial as this.
She was the one who had been the most pitiful—dying at the hands of her own kin, bleeding from her wrist until the very end.
“…Sis?”
“I won’t go easy on you just because you’re one year younger, Aslan. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t come of age yet.”
Anastasia raised her right hand lightly.
“Blowing up a door and turning you lot into a mixture of armor shards and flesh minced together doesn’t even require an incantation.”
A clattering sound came from behind the door—knights stepping back.
Then Aslan shouted urgently:
“W-wait!”
“You’ve got something to say, Aslan?”
“F-father won’t let this—”
“You should run.”
Anastasia lifted the hem of her nightgown slightly with her fingertips.
She raised her right foot in a soft slipper—
And stomped it down.
BOOM!!!
The door exploded outward as if struck by a giant’s fist.
Coughing erupted from beyond the doorway, and several knights lay slumped against the walls.
“I warned you.”
Covered in dust and wood fragments, Aslan struggled to comprehend the situation.
The door had quite literally exploded.
“Why are you just standing there?”
Anastasia snapped sharply, and Aslan finally came to his senses.
“D-do you even realize what you just did, sis…?”
He tried to confront her, voice boiling with anger—but it was futile.
“Do I realize what I’ve done? Of course I do.”
Her small body floated above the debris.
With a light flick of her fingers, the rising dust parted around her.
She landed lightly in front of Aslan and looked up at her rude younger brother.
“You opened the door, didn’t you?”
“Wh—”
And then she kicked his shin.
“Ghk!?”
“Who told you to look down on your sister like that—with such arrogant eyes?”
Yet Aslan still didn’t fall. He stubbornly supported himself on the other leg.
Naturally, Anastasia kicked that shin as well.
“Stop it!”
Aslan finally collapsed and looked up at her.
“Why. Does getting your shins kicked hurt?”
“Of course it does, you crazy—!”
“Crazy? You’ll learn to speak politely after getting your mouth kicked once. Isn’t that right, Aslan? Boys must learn through being hit.”
As she moved to smash her knee into his face, Aslan suddenly shouted:
“Y-you don’t stand a chance against me! You’re small and frail!”
He sprang up and grabbed her collar, lifting her.
“…Ugh.”
It hurt. Her thin body was easily lifted without resistance.
“…Let go, Aslan.”
“I won’t obey your orders—!”
But that was as far as he got.
Artorius had arrived in an instant and seized Aslan’s wrist.
With terrifying strength.
“I’ll warn you.”
His right hand crushed Aslan’s wrist while his left arm held Anastasia around the waist.
“If you don’t let go, I will break your bones.”
Artorius was fully capable of doing so—and Aslan knew it.
“F-first let go of this so I can move my fingers…!”
In the end, Aslan had no choice but to plead in a trembling voice, even using polite speech.
“You grovel before the strong, yet grab the weak by the collar. Do you know? That alone disqualifies you as a man.”
Artorius released his wrist as if discarding trash. Aslan stared wide-eyed at his bruised wrist, fingers trembling.
“My hand… won’t move properly…”
“If you apply ointment and rest for a week, it will heal.”
Aslan gritted his teeth.
His pride was wounded.
Even though he had groveled to save his wrist, he had no intention of correcting his inflated ego.
“…I’m telling Father about this.”
A declaration that could only be mocked.
Anastasia leaned into Artorius’s embrace and replied:
“Go ahead, Aslan. By all means.”
“Hah! You don’t even realize what that brute just did, do you? This is assault on nobility! It’s insubordination!”
She knew perfectly well.
“So what? Are you going to run crying to your oh-so-great father and say, ‘I grabbed my sister’s collar and a knight bruised my wrist’?”
Grit.
The sound of Aslan grinding his teeth reached her.
“J-just you wait! This won’t end well for you! Not at all!”
Aslan fled while clutching his arm. Anastasia called out to a maid who had kept her distance as instructed.
“Betty. Are you there?”
“Y-yes? I’m here, Your Highness.”
The dust-covered maid approached with her head bowed.
Anastasia looked down at her from Artorius’s arms, placed a hand on her chest, and exhaled lightly.
Her breath, imbued with magic, became a gentle yet powerful gust, brushing the dust clean off the maid.
“A-ah… Th-thank you. Thank you, Your Highness.”
“If you’re grateful, tell my father this.”
“H-how should I say it?”
Anastasia smiled faintly and slowly raised her right hand.
Along with her middle finger.
