Interlude: Secret Talk
Earlier that morning, just as Rio and the others slowed their pace to a walk...
The current location was the eastern district of the Beltrum Kingdom. Deep in the woods where many people had gone missing recently, there stood an isolated cabin. It was by no means a fancy establishment, but it was clearly maintained regularly and showed no signs of age.
One figure floated gently down before the cabin. It was Reiss. He landed silently and immediately started walking towards the door of the cabin, then knocked on the door in a particular rhythm. Once he did, creak—the door opened.
“This is a surprise, Master Reiss...”
There were three men in their thirties inside, one of them having opened the door. The moment he confirmed Reiss’ face, his eyes widened as the hand he had clutched around his sword relaxed. The other two men in the room also lowered their swords and eased up a bit.
“Long time no see, Arein. Lucci and Ven, too. Have you been well?”
The three of them smiled at Reiss in a friendly manner. “Yes, we’re the same as always. We were on standby for our next mission, but we didn’t expect you’d come directly, Master Reiss. Please, come inside,” Arein answered politely.
Reiss sat down on a chair in the room and began speaking with a dramatic sigh. “Things have taken quite a troublesome development, you see. It all happened so suddenly, and I’m now in need of your strength.”
Arein, Lucci, and Ven had also seated themselves in chairs to listen to Reiss speak, but they knew that when Reiss started with this tone, things were usually as problematic as he said they were.
“...What happened?” Arein asked with a stiff look.
“Princess Christina has escaped from the castle and is heading for Rodania,” Reiss revealed calmly.
“...Huh?” Arein and the others were all wide-eyed, but he was the first one to compose himself and scoff. “I know we’ve been running about the shadows to stir things up, but it seems like this kingdom’s approaching its limit.”
The large and muscular Lucci sneered in disgust. “Damn right. What the hell were the guys in the castle doing?”
“A kingdom is a living being that won’t perish so easily. She must have had assistance escaping from the castle—probably the work of Count Claire or the like. The princess and her group were hiding from Charles Arbor’s search parties in Cleia, but they’ve annoyingly escaped the city as of daybreak today,” Reiss said, including his own assumptions.
“Then is our mission to deal with Princess Christina?” the taciturn Ven asked Reiss.
“Yes. Since they’ve broken out of the castle despite all the risks, they must have some kind of plan in place. We had plans to remove Princess Christina eventually, so having her join up with Rodania at this time would be extremely inconvenient. The Arbor faction lost enough of its influence from the wedding incident already.” Reiss shrugged, sighing sadly.
“I see. And that’s where we come in, huh?” Lucci grinned viciously.
“Charles Arbor’s large-scale search party is currently pursuing their whereabouts, but some extremely bothersome people have joined Princess Christina’s side as guards. At this rate, they’ll slip through to Rodania without any resistance.”
“Some extremely bothersome people, you say?” Arein cocked his head.
“I don’t know the limits of their abilities yet, but let’s just say there are four enchanted sword wielders who can take on minotaurs with no problem at all,” Reiss said.
The three men stiffened. “...In that case, wouldn’t it be difficult for the four of us to face them head-on?” Ven said a little hesitantly.
“Oh? The equipment you use are on the same level as enchanted swords, yes? You don’t have any trouble facing minotaurs either, no? And our target is Princess Christina, so there’s no need to defeat them all anyway.” Reiss smiled daringly, as though he was challenging them.
“...Is the goal assassination, then?” Arein narrowed his eyes.
“If possible, I’d prefer you have the search party apprehend her and send her back to Beltrum, but... Depending on the situation, Princess Christina will need to be killed before she reaches Rodania.”
“Can we not deal with the princess after she arrives in Rodania? That sounds much easier than having to deal with multiple formidable enemies.” Lucci scratched his head.
“No, her death after joining forces with the Restoration will hold a very different meaning to her death before she has a chance to,” Arein answered before Reiss could.
“Exactly. Princess Christina is an outstanding person, after all. She won’t be a mere puppet of Duke Huguenot like Princess Flora—she’d be a representative of the Restoration in both name and reality, spreading her name across the neighboring kingdoms. If that were to happen, the Restoration would gain momentum and weaken the Arbor faction’s power even further. Just try assassinating her in that situation. You’d be giving the Restoration the justification of revenge in their actions—there’s a type of power only gained through death, you know?”
That’s why Christina had to be eliminated before she became a part of the Restoration. The death of someone unaffiliated with their organization couldn’t become justification for revenge, after all. On the contrary, if she was killed on the way to Rodania, the matters of responsibility would be unclear and lead to a struggle between each side.
“Ah... I see,” Lucci groaned in annoyance, accepting Reiss’ point.
“Duke Huguenot would probably prepare such a script with glee. Even if it did come down to assassination, she must die in a way that leaves no suspicion of such, so it won’t be a simple matter.”
Leaving no evidence behind was elementary when it came to a plan like this, but it wouldn’t be enough to just kill Christina if she joined forces with the Restoration. If Christina was assassinated, Duke Huguenot would be able to fabricate justification to retaliate against the Arbor faction—which was why she had to die in a way that left no suspicion. If they left any evidence to suspect assassination, the possibilities for a scenario were endless. They could even prepare a random sacrifice and claim that the assassin was affiliated with Duke Arbor.
In that respect, the most efficient method to prevent the suspicion of assassination would be to have monsters—creatures that apparently couldn’t be manipulated by humans—kill the target.
“However, assassination is a last resort. One of the four is a particularly irksome person—not someone I’d like to become involved with, if possible. Unfortunately, he always seems to appear in places that hinder our plans, so it’s been quite a problem... Just between us, Lucius was also nearly beaten to death by him.”
“Wha... Captain was what?!”
When Lucius’ name came up, the three men’s eyes widened. They were members of the Heavenly Lions, but they didn’t seem to be aware that Rio and Lucius fought in Amande.
“That’s why, to put it honestly, the four of us alone may not have enough combat power to go against him. If it comes to assassination, we’ll have to gather more people on our side and avoid a direct confrontation. Keep in mind you should only be trying to buy time.”
“...”
Hearing Reiss speak this highly of someone made Arein and the others gulp, their expressions stiff.
“Well, that plan is merely a last resort. The main objective is to have Charles’ search party apprehend Princess Christina. Doing so means we can count the King’s Sword and the hero as fighting assets on our side, so do your best.”
“The King’s Sword is the one Captain fought with over the position of the strongest swordsman in the kingdom, right...?” Ven asked with wide eyes.
“Yes. The ability of both the enchanted sword and the man himself are exceptional. The hero with the divine bow also has a good arm, so our plan will have a much higher chance of success with their cooperation.”
“Then will you be heading to Charles first, Master Reiss?” Arein asked.
“No, I’ll approach them to see if they’ll cooperate after I’ve pinpointed Princess Christina’s location. It’d be a problem if I handed them information without the princess’ location and they moved of their own accord. Charles is a self-interested man, so he’d probably accept a trade of information for his cooperation.”
“Understood.” Arein and the others nodded with strained expressions.
“And so, our highest priority right now is to locate the princess. Let’s start by dividing routes between us. Bring me a map of this area.”
“Here you go...” Ven stood up from his seat and brought over a paper map from the shelf in the room. The map was hand-drawn with all kinds of geographical details filled in—clearly different from the rough maps of main roads that were in circulation on the market.
Reiss spread out the map and hummed, staring at it closely. “Charles isn’t aware that four enchanted sword wielders have taken Princess Christina’s side, so his search range would focus on areas within one or two days’ walk. But they can move much further by using physical body enhancements to carry people. We can leave the search near Cleia to them and spread our net further beyond that.”
“In terms of points that can be reached within a three to five days walk from Cleia towards Rodania... these roads here, and these cities and post towns here seem likely.” Arein moved his finger and circled corresponding points along the roads. The roads split along the way, so there were five possibilities.
“...Then you three can handle where these roads merge together—at this, this, and this post town. If all goes well, they’ll be caught in our net in a few days.” Reiss pointed at three cities located further down the road from where Arein pointed, roughly a week’s distance on foot. Two of them were connected directly to the road to Rodania, while one was along the road to the Galarc Kingdom.
“Understood.” The men stood alert and nodded.
“I’ll tell you the composition of the party traveling with Princess Christina to aid your search. They’re a group of nine people in their mid-teens, so they should stand out.”
Thus, in a location unbeknown to both Rio and Charles, the search for Christina began.
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