Prologue
It was the middle of the night, yet the king’s office in the Royal Palace of the Kingdom of Valschein was lit brightly enough to be able to read even in its darkest corners.
The aristocracy was notorious for its obsession with appearances, and their decor reflected this obsession—rooms were often filled with rare artifacts from foreign kingdoms, and on occasion, an unusual relic from a different continent altogether. However, most of the furnishings in the king’s office were created by artisans from his own kingdom.
The only object that was obviously foreign at first glance was the magical instrument currently being used to illuminate the room.
The occupant of this office, his strong features drawn into stern lines, was an incredibly busy man. As he scanned through the documents laid out before him, he was simultaneously listening to a report from the man standing before his desk.
A pair of glasses perched on the king’s nose. Recently, he had been having trouble reading the small letters on the papers he had to peruse every day, and so lately, he always had his glasses on hand.
The king wanted to hide the fact that he required reading glasses, even though he was still under fifty years old, so the glasses never left this room. It was difficult to believe that this was the same King Valschein who was known far and wide for being nominally in control of the Yumiella Dolkness.
The king looked up from the documents and removed his glasses, returning his attention to what the man standing at attention before his desk was saying. The man finished his report, never wavering in his focus.
"I see, so we still do not know where she went,” the king said as he rubbed his temples. His tone was troubled. “When I first heard she had disappeared, I thought we would quickly locate her somewhere nearby.”
"I apologize. It doesn’t seem prudent to make a big show of things and publically announce that she’s a person of interest to the state, so we haven’t been able to expand our search as we’d like to...”
Though the young man seemed deferential enough in the manner in which he framed his words, a barely concealed grin hovered around his lips, an expression that made it seem as if he wasn’t concerned at all. The king, however, knew better: an amused smirk was this man’s default expression, and in this case, it belied his internal frustration.
The man with the constant smile was called Ronald. In aristocratic society, the lineage that one could trace was of paramount importance, but despite this fact, very few knew of his family name. This vagueness was purposeful for the simple fact that it would be easy to imagine that Ronald might be chased out of the Royal Palace if it became widely known that he was a pan of the notorious Hillrose family.
Prior to setting his plans for a coup into motion, the duke of Hillrose had sent off his son, Ronald, to serve the king. Although his father’s coup had ultimately failed, Ronald had climbed up the ranks to the point that his name had become the obvious answer if one were to ask who the king trusted the most in his court.
Trustworthy and highly skilled, Ronald took care of tasks the king preferred to keep hidden behind the scenes. Hence Ronald’s involvement in the current missing persons case—the king wanted to handle this matter internally.
"She’s someone who has the potential to be a trump card for this kingdom,” the king said with a weary sigh. “I’ll send over several more skilled trackers. I want her found and brought back here, 110 matter the cost.”
Ronald nodded. "I am much obliged for your support."
“I’ll leave it to you then,” the king said. "I must ask, though, is there really not a single lead...?”
“Yes. It’s incredibly strange, but we have absolutely no reports of anyone seeing her."
The king began to think through the facts as he understood them. She would definitely have been found if she’d traveled a long distance— there were guards on the town roads and many passerby to serve as witnesses. Even if she had traveled only isolated roads, she would stand out precisely because there weren't many people there.
“She might unexpectedly be hiding somewhere nearby,” the king suggested.
“It would be a great relief if that were the case, but...is she really the sort of person to do something like that?”
“It was just a thought.”
Just as Ronald had pointed out, the king knew that she wasn’t the kind of person who would expend a lot of effort to sneak around. Everything that the king knew of her suggested that she was straightforward to a fault. If she wanted to run, she would likely just run, going as far as she could without looking back. But, if that was the case, where exactly had she disappeared to?
"She must have someone helping her," the king said.
“Yes, I think that is definitely the case,” Ronald agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already left the kingdom.”
She would've been easily found if she was operating alone. If there was someone helping her escape, however, it would’ve been much easier for her to leave the kingdom undetected. With the girl’s small stature, she could have been concealed within some cargo on a carriage, or some other such method that would've made it difficult to find her.
“Could it be considered a kidnapping?” the king asked.
“A kidnapping...?” Ronald considered. “If she had actually resisted, there would be some evidence of that.”
"Kidnapping is not just putting a sack over someone’s head and abducting them. Tempting someone with sweet promises and manipulating them into following you is a form of kidnapping.”
"I understand,” Ronald said. “You believe that someone goaded her into deciding to escape on the spot.”
"From what Edwin’s told me, it didn’t seem like she’d been talking to any potential accomplices before that. This seems like it could be the most natural course of events.
Ever since that incident, she had isolated herself completely, and the only one she had opened up to was the second prince, Edwin.
Ronald thought silently for a bit before speaking again.
“We will only consider the worst case scenario—the possibility that she was abducted by another kingdom. We will ignore all other possibilities for now and focus on that.”
“I’ll leave it to you. You must bring Alicia Ehnleit back at all costs.”
Ronald bowed deeply in response to the king’s command.
The girl they had been discussing, one Alicia Ehnleit, was a user of light magic—something incredibly rare in this world, and a definitive trump card against the element of darkness. In other words, she was the strongest pawn the kingdom had against the ever present threat of Yumiella Dolkness.
Back in the king’s office, another man entered a beat after Ronald exited, making them just miss each other.
“You’re back,” the king said to the second man. "Judging from your expression, I assume she wasn’t just hiding in the dungeon.”
"I apologize,” the man said. Unlike Ronald’s ever-hovering smile, this man wore a terribly haggard look.
This man was Adolphe, the commander of the Knight’s Order, the pride of the Kingdom of Valschein. He was a swordsman who had been until a few years ago considered the strongest person in the kingdom. At the time, he was at the extraordinary level of 60. What was particularly notable about him was that this strength was despite the fact that he was completely untrained in magic.
As might be expected of a world in which most skilled magicians were of an aristocratic background, genetics had a large effect on magic ability. It didn’t matter if someone increased their level and mana stores —there was a certain level of innate talent needed to convert that mana into elemental magical energy and output it as a spell.
The commander of the Knight’s Order was a symbol of hope for the people of Valschein who had no ability in magic—he was living proof that one cold climb the ranks with just pure skill and swordsmanship.
However, Adolphe didn't brag about his accomplishments. He may have had a sense of inferiority because he couldn’t use magic, but despite being the strongest person In the kingdom in both title and level, he showed no signs of being attached to the top of the ranks. Even when royalty from foreign kingdoms showered him with compliments, desperate to poach him for themselves, Adolphe would modestly deflect their commendations and say, “There will eventually be someone who can surpass me.”
The king respected Adolphe for both his military performance and his integrity. Seeing one of his staunchest supporters looking so worn down with care, he offered words of comfort. “Don’t worry too much about it, Adolphe. It’s nothing you should feel responsible for.”
"No, the failings of my subordinates are my responsibility,” the grizzled swordsman countered. “Please decide upon our punishment once things have settled.”
As Adolphe’s words suggested, the Knight’s Order had been involved with Alicia's disappearance.
A year and a half ago, Alicia had journeyed to the Demon Lord's castle with a party of warriors brought together in order to take down the Demon Lord, and of all the things she could have done during that battle, she'd ended up stabbing her ally Yumiella Dolkness in the back. Luckily, things worked out, because Yumiella recovered and even defeated the Demon Lord, but Alicia’s choice meant that they had been one step away from the kingdom being swallowed up by the Demon Lord’s army of monsters.
Naturally, the kingdom couldn't reveal such information to the public for fear of outcry, and even among the scant few who knew the events as they had happened, there were some who thought there was no choice but to secretly execute Alicia for her deeds. It was Yumiella, the victim herself, who begged mercy for her. It was announced to the public that Alicia had been critically injured in the battle, while in reality, she was being confined in the Royal Palace under house arrest... This was all that Yumiella herself knew about the situation.
While it was true that Alicia was confined to a room in the Royal Palace and was living out her days with no freedom, she was frequently taken on trips to a dungeon near the Royal Capital. There, she was forced to level grind while accompanied by members of the Knight’s Order, who were there to both protect and supervise her.
During a break between battles in the dungeon, Alicia had briefly left the guards to relieve herself and disappeared into thin air—this was how she’d gone missing.
“I offer my deepest apologies,” Adolphe said again. “We understand how important she is to the kingdom, yet still we failed."
“There’s no use regretting something that’s already happened,” the king reassured him. “Now that she’s gone, we must find her at all costs.”
“If it comes to it, I’ll handle Countess Dolkness, even if I have to do it on my own.”
There were two layers to the pronoun “it” in Adolphe's somewhat threatening statement. He intended to serve as the first line of defense against Yumiella if they couldn’t find Alicia, especially if Yumiella ever opposed the royal family.
The Kingdom of Valschein currently had a positive relationship with Yumiella, but things could easily change based on how she was feeling. The Kingdom needed a way to stop Yumiella if she ever became drunk with her own power and set out to unify the continent under her control. The king was well aware that Yumiella claimed that she had no intention of doing such a thing, but what was important wasn’t whether she would do it, but whether she could do it.
The plan for if the second “it” were to ever happen was for Commander Adolphe and Alicia to cooperate on the battlefront, unifying the strength of his sword with the power of her light magic. There were several other people that were included in this plan, but the main strategy required Adolphe and Alicia at the center.
Preparation for this strategy meant that it was crucial for Adolphe and Alicia to build their strength. Accordingly, Adolphe had lessened his workload in order to focus on his own training while Alicia was being sent into a dungeon.
Even with all these countermeasures, Yumiella would still be tough to beat. She had superhuman physical ability, dark magic that was especially adept at destroying large areas, and recovery magic that could heal her own wounds... She was an entire army in one person.
"I won’t make you go up against Lady Yumiella on your own,” the king said, gently opposing Adolphe’s willingness to charge at an invincible living war-machine. “That’s a battle that you have little to no chance of winning, and I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
“My subordinates in the Knight’s Order are making progress on their growth,” the old warrior argued. “I’m easily replaceable. If anything were to happen, please take your feelings out of consideration and use me as needed, Your Majesty.”
“How easily you could be replaced is up for debate. I believe you to be the strongest swordsman in the world. If magic didn’t exist, Lady Yumiella wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”
The king’s reasoning was thus: magic relied heavily on the user’s innate ability. The root of Yumiella’s strength was her dark magic, and if she didn’t have that advantage, Adolphe could probably win against her —she might not even have been able to reach level 99 without her magic.
Adolphe shook his head sadly in response. “I appreciate your praise, and I follow your logic, but I don’t think that would be true. Even without her dark magic or her powers of recovery, I believe she would have eventually reached level 99.1 could sense her strength and her will from the few words we exchanged during Lady Yumiella’s audience with you right after she entered the Academy.”
"Don’t be so self-deprecating. You’re incredibly strong,” the king reassured him.
“I’m simply stating facts. I felt that I stood no chance against her. I don’t feel jealousy or anything of that nature... That may be my weakness—the fact that I don’t particularly care whether or not I am the strongest in the kingdom."
The king had always considered the commander’s humility a virtue of his, so this topic was of acute interest to him. Given what he knew of her, he had to agree that if Yumiella were to drop down to being the second-strongest person around, she would become incredibly frustrated and desperate to climb back to the top. She had a certain level of confidence that could be considered a form of pride.
"I see, that’s what you mean...” the king mused.
“My apologies, I’ve taken up your time with unnecessary talk. Is there any further progress on Lord Ronald's investigation?”
“We have no leads. We’re continuing the investigation under the assumption that there must have been outside involvement.”
"I didn’t think someone would dare to come after her in a dungeon...” Adolphe considered. “Although there are many adventurers of unclear backgrounds making their livings in dungeons these days. It would be easy to slip in.”
“One might say that such a plan is too bold, while others might call it a short-sighted method to gain access to a target. I’m thinking that the Lemlaestans might be getting out of control again.”
Lemlaesta was the kingdom neighboring Valschein. It was a small kingdom, but their technology-based economy meant that they were skilled in developing magical instruments. The small nation was currently embroiled in a conflict over who would succeed the throne, and there had consequently been some occurrences of those in Lemlaesta taking some injudicious actions to further their own ends.
“Lemlaesta...” Adolphe said with a thoughtful frown. “It’s definitely close enough to flee to.”
“Are you thinking of going there undercover?”
"If I just disguise myself a bit, they won't find out who I am. Even if an agent from Lemlaesta has her, I won’t be able to just bring her back by force, but I believe there’s an inherent value in me being close by.”
Though she wasn't as strong as Adolphe, Alicia was quite strong. As an undercover non-combatant, Adolphe wouldn’t be able to resort to extreme measures.
The king considered the diplomatic issues that would arise if Adolphe’s identity was revealed, the effects of the commander of the Knight’s Order being temporarily unavailable, and all of the various other possibilities before making his decision.
"Understood. You’ll head to Lemlaesta then. Once you reach the capital, coordinate with those onsite there and join in on the search for Alicia Ehnleit.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
And so, taking leave of his king with a final bow, Commander Adolphe headed to the Kingdom of Lemlaesta.
What Adolphe did not know was that Yumiella Dolkness had already surpassed level 99 not too long ago...
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