"Waaah... I will demand your ruin for this, Talulah! Mark my words, I shall treasure this grievance until the stars fall, and the moment a vulnerability presents itself, I will show you no mercy!"
Inside the iron cabin, Jeanne stared down at the desk in sheer agony, her teeth grinding as she glared at the dragon leader who was currently using her misery as a source of pure entertainment. She looked as though she wanted nothing more than to pluck every single scale from the Draco's tail!
It had been going on for days now. Talulah had taken to hovering over her shoulder like a strict academic tutor, watching her sweat over these miserable equations. The woman was clearly doing it out of sheer spite, amusing herself solely with the piteous look on Jeanne's face.
"Maintain your inner peace, Jeanne," Talulah replied smoothly, offering a dismissive wave of her hand. "Our advance through the frost hills currently relies entirely on your spiritual insight to chart our heading. Since you are merely idling here anyway, isn't it a splendid thing to challenge your intellectual limits?"
She offered the justification with such a straight face that Jeanne found herself entirely lacking a logical counter-argument.
Talulah was fully convinced she was doing this for the young saint's own benefit. It harbored absolutely no connection to a desire for petty vengeance, nor was she utilizing this closed room to repay Jeanne for all the playful headaches she had caused over the past few months. None at all.
"You are executing a vendetta, and you needn't think these flimsy excuses can deceive me!" Jeanne hissed, shooting a venomous glare at the ink-stained parchment. "You had best pray that destiny never delivers you into my custody, or you shall feast upon the bitterest fruit imaginable!"
It truly was a mystery to her. Why did her mind stall so spectacularly whenever it encountered formal mathematics? By all rights, she considered herself a remarkably sharp individual; absorbing new concepts usually came with incredible speed.
In the past, whenever she faced a complex numerical formula, she could unravel the solution with ease. While her processing speed couldn't match the grand mechanisms of an engineering engine, she was vastly swifter than any clerk relying on a mechanical abacus.
However, Jeanne was conveniently overlooking a crucial detail: her historical success with numbers had never been a reflection of mathematical talent. She had simply relied on her omnipotent spiritual insight to bridge the chasm, skipping the logical progression entirely to arrive at the correct figure in a single bound.
But now, it seemed her guiding divinity had chosen to dismantle the surrounding walls of her sanctuary, leaving only a single, heavy iron door standing in her path.
She simply couldn't open this particular door without doing the actual work, leaving her utterly exposed whenever Talulah chose to deploy a textbook as a weapon of domestic terror.
You are only this arrogant because you know I cannot throw a punch at you right now, Jeanne thought, her eyes drilling holes into the leader. Just you wait. Sooner or later, I will reclaim this debt with compounding interest!
The intensity of her gaze actually caused Talulah to pause, a brief flicker of doubt crossing her mind. Had she pushed the joke a fraction too far? Perhaps she should close the ledger; if she pushed this notoriously stubborn saint into a corner, the eventual reckoning might be terrifying.
"Ian, alter our heading slightly toward the eastern ridge!" Jeanne called out suddenly, her head snapping up toward the helmsman stationed at the primary console.
Hearing the instruction, the driver adjusted the steering gears without a shred of hesitation.
Had anyone suggested a year ago that he would steer a massive mobile district based entirely on the spoken word of a girl who wasn't even looking at the navigational instruments, Ian would have declared that person utterly mad.
But today, while he still considered the practice insane, Jeanne was the sole exception to the rule.
The young lady possessed what could only be described as a celestial eye. No matter what hidden chasms or treacherous ice shelves lay along their path, she could detect them from her seat at the desk, saving the host from countless costly detours.
Initially, the crew had harbored immense skepticism toward such an absurd claim. But after Jeanne's guidance had repeatedly saved their hull from a catastrophe, the navigators had surrendered entirely to her authority.
The host was currently moving through the outer snowfields at a cautious pace. They had chosen not to charge blindly toward the northern frontier the moment the engines fired up; instead, they were using this initial stretch to synchronize the crew and ensure every sector operated in perfect harmony before crossing into foreign territory.
"Tell me, how much longer must I remain anchored to this desk as your living compass?" Jeanne grumbled, tossing her quill aside. "You cannot possibly intend to keep me confined here as a glorified map for the rest of the season. I deserve a life of liberty!"
Looking at the maddening pages of calculations, she wished she could be anywhere else—even turning the frozen soil with a shovel would be preferable to this academic torture.
"A little longer," Talulah answered with a chuckle. "Once the navigation crew achieves perfect familiarity with the new steering arrays, you may roam wherever your heart desires. If you wish to fly back to Laterano to visit your kin, I won't raise a single objection."
Seeing how thoroughly bored the saint had become, Talulah realized she needed to find a proper distraction, lest Jeanne's idle mind turn toward causing trouble for her instead.
She certainly didn't want a repeat of the incident where Jeanne, left to her own devices in full view of the guards, had attempted to paint decorative murals along the leader's dragon tail. If such a display occurred on the bridge again, Talulah's authority as the leader of Reunion would vanish entirely.
"Here, let these two fresh volumes of calculus ease your boredom!" Talulah announced with an affectionate smile, though her words carried the chill of a winter gale as she dropped two more ledgers onto the desk.
Jeanne's eyes went wide with horror. How could such freezing cruelty emerge from a person who appeared so thoroughly warm? Was the dragon not worried about drawing down some form of divine retribution?
Left with no alternative, Jeanne dragged the books closer, treating the formulas like an unwelcome set of puzzles. It was a bizarre sensation—knowing the underlying truths of the world through her insight, yet lacking the academic vocabulary to explain them. Am I truly losing my mind? she wondered, pausing to stare at her ink-stained fingers.
No, she needed an immediate distraction to shift the balance of power, or her future within this command room would become a tragedy of grand proportions.
But whom could she target to break the deadlock? Her eyes drifted across the workspace until they locked onto the source of the textbooks themselves. A sudden spark ignited in her mind.
Had they not completely forgotten about a certain sinister presence that hadn't shown its face in months? The very entity responsible for giving these advanced materials to Talulah in the first place had been strangely quiet.
Jeanne caught Talulah by the sleeve, pulling her into a secluded corner of the command deck before whispering, "Say, I just realized... we haven't heard a peep from Kashchey lately. What is that old serpent up to? It feels as though he has completely vanished from the world."
In the past, the relentless black snake would intrude upon Talulah's thoughts four or five times a day, attempting to annoy her to death. Yet recently, he had become entirely transparent, existing as nothing more than a silent piece of furniture within her mind.
Hearing the observation, Talulah paused, a look of realization crossing her face. The frantic pace of managing the city's departure had been so consuming that she had entirely forgotten about the monster lurking within her own thoughts.
Aside from an occasional dry remark tossed out during strategy meetings, the serpent had maintained a remarkably low profile.
"Who can say?" Talulah murmured, her brow furrowing. "The old bastard still commands a network of temporary vessels out in the civilized lands. For all we know, he is currently orchestrating some grand conspiracy or ruinous plot to torment another territory."
She was entirely certain the serpent was up to no good. If Kashchey ever turned his talents toward altruism, the world would likely be staring down the apocalypse.
"How can you slander my honor so casually?" a sharp, protesting voice echoed through Talulah's consciousness before she could even finish her thought.
Talulah's expression soured instantly. Why did the villain always choose the most inconvenient moments to ruin her mood?
"I happen to be managing affairs of immense gravity," Kashchey continued, his tone adopting a mock vulnerability that neither woman believed for a single second. "The sole reason I have refrained from speaking to you is because I knew if I interrupted your reunion, you would ensure my existence became thoroughly miserable..."
"Affairs of immense gravity? What could you possibly be managing that resembles honest work?" Talulah countered, her skepticism unyielding. Yet, a faint curiosity stirred within her; what had the old duke been doing during these quiet months?
"What affairs? My ledger has been bursting with activity," the serpent hissed smoothly. "And curiously enough, these developments share a profound connection with your current trajectory. Pull Jeanne into our shared mental space; since your schedule is currently clear, I raise no objections to sharing the details."