Chapter 154
Sir Chaffee and Bizon secretly left their home . Shuffling through the city’s dark streets and narrow alleyways, their end-goal was Stewart’s mansion .
A blonde-haired boy could be seen waiting for the two of them at the entrance underneath the light of the moon . The young boy knew they were coming immediately and focused his consciousness behind them both . After verifying they weren’t being followed, he motioned them to come inside .
“Mebett!”
“Father! Mother!”
The tension in the air was finally alleviated just a bit as a father and mother were allowed to wrap their arms around their crying daughter .
Waiting inside the front hall of the mansion was Mebett, the girls and their dragons . Ra-chin had been acting as a lookout in his Ellison form due to his excellent detection ability .
Sir Chaffee had been told by Duke Marsfield to join up with Ellis’s group . The family may end up having to go in hiding for a prolonged period of time, so Bizon had also been told to pack appropriately .
After allowing the family a short time together, Ellis got down to business and explained to Sir Chaffee about the mansion Mebett had been taken to . Every demon in the building had been slaughtered by Reeve and Su-chan, and after a thorough sweep, they confirmed that there had been no demons left in hiding . They hadn’t been expecting anyone to disturb their gruesome ritual at all . Unfortunately the original inhabitants of the mansion couldn’t be found either . There was an altar-like stone pillar erected in the basement, and according to Su-chan, there were signs that humans had been recently killed there .
“The royal capitol might be more infested by demons than we had thought . ”
Ellis was being extremely candid with Sir Chaffee, giving him her honest opinion . Meanwhile he could only nod in agreement .
“In truth, immediately after the decree had been passed a number of nobles headed to the castle to confirm the current circumstances . Unfortunately nobody was being allowed to see His Highness and could only speak with his spokesman . And even when the spokesman himself entreated the King, the only response he received was a ‘It’s my decision’ . ”
Sir Chaffee paused for a moment, suddenly recalling something, and asked the girls a seemingly unrelated question .
“By the way, shouldn’t a Dragon Maiden being found in the King’s bedchambers have invited her dragon’s wrath?”
Everyone stared at Sir Chaffee in mute amazement wondering what the hell he was talking about . Even the dragons were left speechless, unable to respond when the answer was painfully obvious .
“Um, Sir Chaffee, what the hell are you talking about all of the sudden? Such a foolish thing would never happen . ”
Finally Reeve gave voice to what everyone was feeling .
“Seriously old man . I mean, if the King had so much as come-on to Reeve I’d have probably left this whole city a burning wreck you know?”
In the face of a question too ridiculous to consider, Su-chan was able to give an equally ridiculous answer with a disturbingly calm manner .
“So, why even ask such a question in the first place?”
Frau nervously asked the question you would think would be obvious to ask, but everyone’s surprise and obliviousness to the situation came as a large shock to Chaffee .
“Well you see a Dragon Maiden and her dragon appeared at the royal palace not that long ago . It didn’t take long for the two of them to agree to act as the King’s personal guards after that . You should all know her . The Dragon Maiden is that dancer from the Brave Party, and the big guy with the sword and that other one from the Merchant Guild came along with her . ”
“IMPOSSIBLE!”
Fe-rin’s voice shook the room, the absurdity of what had just been said being far too much for him to bear . He continued on in a half-crazed state like a scientist who just heard that the sky was actually yellow .
“That woman, you’re talking about that rotten woman Peach? That woman tried to join with me, and I was left vomiting ectoplasm feeling like I was about to die! There is no way that woman would ever in her entire life be qualified to be a Dragon Maiden!”
“Supposedly, what kind of dragon did she come with nya?”
“Um, if I remember right then they called it the Nightmare Dragon . It apparently has a large body like a horse with its head looking like a dragon . ”
“Oi uncle, there’s no such dragon here on the Almerian continent . ”
Ah-nyan immediately rejected the answer Chaffee gave to Katie’s question .
“Are you sure it’s a Nightmare Dragon and not just a Nightmare Demon instead?”
“Oh, I heard of those . They were Nightmare Incubuses or something like that . ”
Claire made an educated guess on the matter, but according to Pi-tan she probably wasn’t too far off the mark .
“What’s a Nightmare Incubus?”
“An ill-natured demon . The monsters discover a person’s truest desires through their dreams, destroying their victims hearts so they can manipulate them however they wish . ”
Ra-chin answered Ellis’s question with clear disdain .
“Well then, it’s probably safe to say that the three idiots are being manipulated by this Nightmare Incubus . ”
“Probably . And now the Nightmare Incubus has taken the King as well . ”
Everybody fell silent for a moment . It was easy for them to figure out that the King had fallen under the Nightmare Incubus’s influence . But, there was nothing they could do after that .
The girls couldn’t just barge into the castle and attack the demon when on the surface it was acting as a personal guard for the king . It’d be pretty easy to imagine how such an act would be misconstrued, and Skycastle would be sending troops towards Warren before the day was through . That just left proving that the Nightmare Dragon wasn’t a dragon at all, but an evil demon that was sucking away the King’s lifeforce in a diabolical plot to secretly control the country from behind the scenes . Unfortunately, nobody had any idea how they were supposed to do that .
Lord Chaffee reluctantly pulled out his Howling Plush Toy, and contacted Duke Marsfield . He explained every detail of what they had discovered then and there, leaving nothing out . There was a moment of silence on the line, but when the Duke finally did respond, it was with some quite unusual orders .
“We’ll wait for the King’s royal decree to make it’s way to Marsfield, and I’ll head over there claiming to want an audience with him . When that time comes, I’ll have you Jewelry Box girls accompany me . ”
Sir Chaffee nodded his head, responding that he thought that course of action was the best move as well . Ellis and the other girls on the other hand thought it was pointless . Even the King’s spokesman wasn’t able to get an audience with the King right now . Somehow able to guess the faces that the girls were making even though he wasn’t actually there, Duke Marsfield’s boisterous laugh echoed out from the plush toy .
“That’s right, I never did tell you ladies . Duke Marsfield is just a title . My real name is Jack J . Skycastle, the King’s younger brother and first in line to succeed the throne . As you can probably guess, my brother won’t be able to turn me away . ”
Ellis and the rest all stared at the little plush toy as if looking at it long enough would make the impact of this outrageous claim hit a little softer .
With a tentative plan in place, Ellis and the girls started working through the details of what to do until then .
Sir Chaffee and Stewart are Skycastle nobility . They should remain in the area in case any problems arise, and more importantly, it’s their responsibility as nobles to try and reign in the King’s ambitions . So Sir Chaffee would have to remain here, and Stewart would have to cut his vacation in Warren short to rush back .
But with how things were right now, Bizon, Mebett, and Gurre could be ordered to act as sacrifices at any time . So the safest option was to have them live with Ellis and the other girls in Warren for now . The first time the girls visited they had flown to Skycastle’s western gate to enter the city . Next time they would be flying to Marsfield first, traveling alongside the Duke, and entering through more normal means .
“Okay Sir Chaffee, we wish you the best from here on . ”
“Yes, everyone, please take care of Bizon and Mebett for me . And tell Stewart to not hurry . He should return to Skycastle using a regular route and arrive back here as if nothing is wrong . The fact that the other nobles know he and I are close to Warren’s Dragon Maidens is already a step against us . But before this I went ahead and spread the information that Gurre is returning home with my wife . They’re both sisters after all, so no suspicions should be raised if they hear that the two of them have headed to Wheat Grace to visit their father . ”
Sir Chaffee rattled off a few additional notes to Ellis and the other girls with a smile while giving his beloved wife and daughter a farewell hug .
Everyone moved through the city’s suburbs just before dawn had risen, avoiding any wide open spaces or prying eyes that could cause even more of an incident . Bizon and Mebett would be traveling via Pi-tan’s barrels along with Ellis on their way to Warren . This method left the least amount of strain on a normal person’s body and would allow the two of them to get some rest on the way there . Ellis would be riding with them to act as some extra moral support for Mebett who was still shaken from the night’s events . Frau would be riding her dragon while Reeve and Katie would be riding Su-chan .
And then contrary to how everything had started, the dragons slowly flew off into the sky so as to not make a single sound .
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