"Just as I thought..."
Fiammetta no longer knew what to say. She simply kept silent and watched Hoshino rise from the ground, slowly walking out of the dust she herself had stirred up.
That suffocating strength...
Fiammetta felt this was somewhat inappropriate. Lady Durandal seemed to regard Laterano as an enemy.
Yet Fiammetta had always believed the Pope's invitation should have been made in goodwill. After all, when facing someone like Durandal, what use was hostility?
She could absolutely destroy a country.
Goodwill or hostility, neither seemed to carry much meaning. There were only two words for dealing with her.
Honesty.
"Please don't be like this."
Fiammetta forced a smile and offered her that advice.
Hoshino nodded honestly and defended herself with complete frankness. "But what's wrong with me being like this?"
"No, no, no. You need to consider other people's feelings."
A rather unlikely thought suddenly occurred to Fiammetta, and she asked, "May I ask, Lady Durandal, how old are you this year?"
"Sixteen."
"..."
That answer brought about another awkward silence.
Whenever she spoke with Durandal, Fiammetta would inexplicably feel ashamed of herself. The feeling only deepened as their conversation went on, as though she had wasted all her years of life.
At sixteen, she could only be a novice at Landon Monastery, right?
Other people's sixteen-year-old girls...
And why was a sixteen-year-old girl so tall and so well-developed? Fiammetta would have believed it if someone told her she was twenty-four.
"What are you standing around for?"
Hoshino lifted her white lance, holding it horizontally like a closed umbrella. At last, that heavy fighting spirit was no longer apparent, and Fiammetta finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"You invited me. Why did you suddenly stop once we reached the entrance?"
The question was thoroughly unromantic. Still, it suited