Dawn.
After a sleepless night and hours of fighting, most of the soldiers looked visibly exhausted.
Li Xingke accepted Ask's arrangements and stayed with Tianzi to rest for the time being in a villa provided by the Ashford family.
Schneizel returned to the Avalon.
The Knights of the Round who had chosen to follow Ask also rested at Ashford Academy.
As a school founded by Britannian nobles, it had more than enough lounges.
Only one person showed no sign of exhaustion whatsoever. On the contrary, she was positively radiant.
Or rather, her excitement had drowned out her fatigue.
Cornelia.
Thanks to the timely rescue by her knight, Gilbert, she had narrowly survived the Freyja blast.
After a brief rest, she hurried straight to Ask:
"The war is over, and I've fulfilled your demands. Now I'm going to the EU to see Euphemia."
She was free to go wherever she wanted, but the EU base had effectively become Ask's private base. Its soldiers obeyed only his orders; they were his private army.
Anyone wishing to enter needed Ask's approval. Without it, not even an Imperial Princess could get in, let alone the emperor.
Ask greeted her with a smile:
"Ah, Elder Sister. I'm so glad to see you're still alive."
"Hmph. Spare me the act. It would have saved you a lot of trouble if I'd died on the battlefield, wouldn't it?"
"Why would you say that? I warned you when Freyja was launched."
A warning? He had indeed warned her. But by then, Bismarck had disabled her Knightmare's power system and destroyed its ejection mechanism. Worse, she had been right in the middle of the battlefield.
Shortly after a single transmission telling her to "retreat," the Freyja warhead had been launched, leaving her no time to evacuate.
If Gilbert hadn't