3 bar menu

Azur Lane: Episode of Belfast Volume 4 Epilogue Part 1

EPILOGUE: “May Your Story Be Filled With Happiness”

The school festival was thus over, and a good number of days already came to pass after that.

Surrounded by mountains on three sides, this Home Port has now completely returned to its usual day-to-day routine.

「Haaaaa……」

Queen Elizabeth let out a big sigh on purpose as she put the documents riddling her desk to the side, only for a fresh batch of documents to take their place right away.

「I don’t get it…… I just don’t get it. I’m not convinced…… not convinced at all……」

「Your Majesty. I understand that it must be really frustrating for you, but if you do not let go of that matter soon, I am afraid that it might as well affect your official duties……」

Warspite, who as per usual was right next to Elizabeth’s side, smiled wryly as she checked the signed documents and started to segregate them with the order of importance in mind..

「I know, but…… Can you really blame me? I mean, just look at it! We managed to make such a great turnaround, even in the face of tremendous adversities like that! And while I know that it was mostly all thanks to Bel and her quick thinking as usual, everyone else was also working pretty damn hard to make it happen! And if you think about it as per the last year’s performance, the increase in quality was huge! We really outdid ourselves with that! It was a wonderful stage play, after all!」

「Well, I mean…… You are mostly right, Your Majesty, but……」

「Then why!? Why is it that the ones to receive the First Place were not us, but those bloody Iron Bloods!?」

Elisabeth cried out in a loud voice, as if she was trying to get out all of that pent-up frustration from her system all at once.

Just like she said, once the results of the voting came back in, it turned out that the ones to receive the First Place in the competition were the Iron Bloods with their Orchestral performance.

It is said that even Bismarck herself was greatly surprised by hearing this result, but come to think of it, there was a major problem with the Royal Navy’s stage play to begin with, mainly —— their stage play turned out to be way too long.

As a result, many of the audience seats that were originally supposed to be filled became vacant at some point, and as a result of that action alone, it seemed that the number of votes cast for the Royal Navy fell short of the ones being cast for the Iron Bloods.

「So in the end, what proved to be our undoing was that way too long of a break period we used to clean the stage up.」

「But it was something that simply couldn’t be helped!! On the other hand, don’t you think that it was actually amazing that we were able to recover from such a disastrous situation in mere forty minutes!? Because I think that this act alone was something that should guarantee us some high score!」

At that moment Elizabeth slammed her hands onto her desk in a surge of excitement, and as a result of that action, an avalanche of documents started to fall right on top of her head.

「KYAAAHHH!!!!!!」

「Y-Your Majesty!?」

Warspite scrambled to her feet, but the avalanche of papers had already swept all over Elizabeth, knocking her over and even turning her office chair upside down.

「Uuuhhh…… What the hell was that all about —— Huh?」

It was then that Elizabeth found a sealed letter amongst the pile of knocked papers and documents.

「What is this? Do you know, Warspite?」

「Unfortunately no, Your Majesty…… But it would appear that the letter does not even have the sender’s address written on it.」

However, upon seeing the sender’s name on the envelope, both of them had a strange sense of déjà vu that overcame them.

It appeared to be addressed to Queen Elizabeth herself in the Home Port.

「It looks like it was sent from the main Royal Navy’s islands……」

While saying that, Elizabeth carefully opened the seal and read the contents of the letter.

Then, what was written there was actually ——

* * *

「—— How about we take a short break for the time being?」

Having finished her assigned duties for the time being, Belfast turned towards the other maids and said that.

「A break so early, huh……? Until just recently, when the School Festival was just around the corner, we would have so much work to be done that there was hardly any time for breaks of any sort.」

Edinburgh stretched out on her desk and said something like that. She had been learning about gardening from both Kent and Suffolk until just a little while ago, so she seemed exhausted from her first real job in a long time.

「It’s almost less than a month until this year’s Halloween.」

While Bel-chan was looking at the calendar hanging on the wall, she suddenly said that out of the blue.

「Oh, I wonder if anything strange is going to happen this year, too.」

「Kent, that’s not a good way to say things like that. It sounds like you’re asking for something to happen, you know?」

「H-Hey, it’s not like I’m actually trying to jinx anything here! Geez, Suffolk, give me a break
!」

Kent hurriedly waved her hand at Suffolk, who burst into laughter right after that.

「Helloween, huh……? I wonder what we should do?」

Curacoa and Curlew nodded their heads in the same way, while Sirius said so.

「Oh it will certainly not be that big of a deal to begin with. Us maids are sure to make some sweets for everyone at the Dormitory, as per usual.」

Beside Sheffield, who said so calmly, Newcastle smiled in a gentle way.

「But you never know what will happen, because the ordinary and the extraordinary are always two sides of the same coin.」

At that moment, the wooden door to the entrance of the kitchen was suddenly pushed open.

「Bel! We have a problem!」

Elizabeth rushed into the room in a hurry, Warspite following closely behind her.

Belfast pulled out a teapot and widened her eyes when she saw the two visitors whose faces were looking rather distressed at the current moment.

「What’s wrong, Your Majesty?」

「I-It’s about this letter…… We just happened to receive a letter, and……」

As she was completely out of breath, Elizabeth held out the envelope in her hand and Warspite started to explain things in detail, as she was less tired than Elizabeth was.

「You see, Belfast, it’s about that letter that we happened to receive today. And when we saw the name of the sender, we were actually taken quite aback in the first moment.」

Belfast received the envelope and took out a neatly folded piece of writing paper that was inside of it.

When she opened it slowly and read its contents, Belfast involuntarily raised her voice.

「No way……」

「W-What’s wrong, Bel!?」

Surprised, Edinburgh also peered in from the side at the contents of the letter, and immediately raised a loud scream of surprise.

「Hey! I don’t know what it is, but is it really something that is so bad!?」

When Kent finally managed to pull herself together and asked the two of them about the letter in question, Belfast slowly raised her head and said:

「This letter seems to come from the Ghost Maid-sama.」

Upon hearing those words, shock ran through the spines of those maids who were currently in the kitchen.

「……Yes, that’s right. We were really surprised when we read that letter a little while ago.」

Warspite calmly looked over everyone and began to speak after a brief moment of pause..

「The letter basically says that the person who sent it had learned that the Royal Navy had put on a ‘Ghost Maid’ stage play during the School Festival just the other day. It seems that the event at the Home Port and the news surrounding it got around from one shipgirl to another, like a chain letter. It seems that it has spread to even the main island of the Royal Navy. The sender’s name was the name of the owner of that notebook that Erebus brought us earlier, as a matter of fact.」.

「So? What was it that the Ghost Maid had to say?」

Belfast replied to Suffolk’s question while looking at the paper letter in her hands.

「…… It would seem that she briefly heard the contents of the stage play, and that is why she wrote this letter.」

The letter also contained a continuation of the diary from that time.

After returning to the main Royal Navy islands, she seemed to have been able to contact one of the shipgirls of the same class that Rei-san was modeled after. She somehow managed to save her life during that time, and at the current moment the two of them were actually performing military commissions together on the main Royal Navy’s islands.