Watching the argument escalate, the headmaster proposed, half joking, that Lux should choose the three girls who had performed best during training and reward them with festival dates.
Lux failed to see how that would be useful to anyone. The headmaster claimed it would motivate the girls to work harder.
Later, Lux walked through the capital with Airi and noticed nobles gathering in the city in large numbers.
Airi explained that the kingdom was preparing for the All Dragon Battle, a major event in which representatives from different kingdoms competed for control over the ruins. Lux and the academy's Knight Squadron would be taking part as representatives of their own kingdom.
She warned him, though, that he still had not fully recovered from his injuries. She also told him that the empire's assassin had escaped from prison and entered the capital.
According to the reports, the assassin had once been one of the strongest Drag Knights serving the old imperial family, and might now be hunting Lux, the prince held responsible for the empire's downfall. Airi admitted plainly that she did not want her brother getting killed during the festival.
Afterward came Celis, who met Lux nervously while he was wearing an elegant suit.
Tillfur explained the arrangement. As squad captain, Celis could not wander around the city without attracting attention, so Lux had been dressed as her butler. Anyone who saw the two of them together would simply assume he worked for her.
Embarrassed, Celis accepted the arrangement, and spent the day with Lux exploring the festival and enjoying the attractions.
While they talked, Celis admitted that Lux's situation was completely different from her own. He was the only boy at the academy, so everyone naturally gathered around him. People generally feared her and kept their distance, because of her strict personality.
Lux answered that everything depended on how other people chose to see a person.
Encouraged by that, Celis declared that since Lux fought for his ideals, she would work just as hard to become a Drag Knight worth admiring.
Lux smiled and assured her that she would certainly achieve that dream someday.
Then, as she stood up, Celis slipped, and Lux fell on top of her. Tillfur and the others arrived at exactly the right moment and immediately started teasing them, which left Celis completely flustered.
Afterward, the other girls prepared for Lux's remaining dates. Krulcifer spent most of her time teasing him about his awkward dancing and his behavior at the festival.
Eventually Lux went to visit Philuffy, who had dressed beautifully for the occasion. When she asked what was wrong, Lux simply told her that she looked very beautiful in her dress.
Later the headmaster arrived to check on Philuffy's condition, and Lux quietly asked her whether she truly wanted to attend the festival despite her health problems.
Philuffy answered honestly that she did.
Since Lux had been working hard all day, she suggested that he get some rest. Lux accepted, and soon fell asleep beside her.
Watching him sleep, Philuffy thought back on how happy she had felt when Lux protected her by taking the blame himself, and how grateful she was for everything he had done for her on Ree Island. She always pretended that she was fine and needed no help from anyone. Yet Lux always noticed her pain, and came to support her anyway.
Watching the two of them together, the headmaster silently wondered whether Philuffy ought to finally kiss him.
Later, walking alone, Lux was thinking about how to thank Philuffy properly when he ran into Lisha, who immediately demanded to know why he had not chosen her earlier.
Lux apologized. But Lisha explained that what she really wanted was to ask him something important.
She would soon graduate and take on a great many official duties, and she needed a personal attendant. She wanted Lux to become her knight.
Lux hesitated, because of what he was. As a survivor of the old empire, he said, he was practically a criminal.
Lisha admitted she understood the risks, and asked him to consider the offer seriously all the same. She explained further that on the final day of the festival, she planned to publicly introduce him as her personal attendant.
So he had to give her an answer before then.
At the same time, Lux remained worried about Hayes, about Fugil, and about the escaped assassin.
Then a girl he did not know appeared in front of him and addressed him as Prince Lux Arcadia.
Airi immediately suspected that she was the empire's assassin.
To everyone's surprise, the girl introduced herself politely as Yoruka, a former Drag Knight who had once served the imperial family.
Lux asked cautiously whether she had come to kill him.
Yoruka explained calmly that she had come to fulfill all of his wishes, and declared herself his servant. She asked him what orders he would like to give her, including assassinations if any were needed.
Airi warned him to remain cautious. Lux decided to trust her obedience for the moment while keeping his guard up.
Yoruka agreed to wait for his orders until after the All Dragon Battle.
Later, Lux accidentally caused chaos in the bath house when the girls came rushing in after hearing him scream. Soon afterward Yoruka joined him again and casually asked whether he wanted to continue bathing with her, which embarrassed him further.
Eventually Lux asked why Yoruka was so devoted to him.
Looking into her past, he learned that she had originally come from another kingdom, one conquered by Arcadia. She had later formed a contract with Lux's father and joined the imperial army.
Since his father was dead, Lux argued that she no longer needed to honor that contract.
Yoruka insisted that she had dedicated her life to the empire, and would go on serving it as long as even a fragment of Arcadia remained.
Then she suggested that Lux could use his current power to destroy the new kingdom and rebuild the old Arcadia Empire.
Lux rejected the idea firmly and told her he had no intention whatsoever of doing such a thing.
The moment he looked away, Yoruka attacked him.
Before her strike could land, Celis intervened and blocked it. She summoned her Drag Ride at once, which forced Yoruka to summon hers as well, and Lux was shocked to discover that Yoruka possessed a Divine Drag Ride too.
Lisha attacked her next. Yoruka countered without difficulty and released a strange energy.
Krulcifer joined the fight, and Yoruka used that same mysterious power on Philuffy's Drag Ride. Philuffy's machine lost control and attacked Krulcifer, and Philuffy insisted, horrified, that she was not the one controlling it.
Soon afterward Lisha's Drag Ride turned against Celis's as well.
Panic spread among the girls as they understood that their Drag Rides were moving on their own, while Yoruka watched the chaos unfold in perfect calm.
Elsewhere, Lisha was nervously practising a speech. She admitted to Lux that she was not used to acting like a proper princess, because she had never truly lived that way. In the middle of it, she brought up, indirectly, the question she had once asked him about becoming her knight.