Chapter 18 – A Malicious Scheme
It was a gloomy room filled with the smell of mold and plastered with dust all over. Therese and Doris can be seen inside that room, sitting on the floor while holding each other.
The blanket that was given to them is only enough for one. In order to not losing their body heat, they curl their body as small as possible and put on that blanket together.
“Rea~lly…… I have heard of their rumor but I don’t think that those guys are this much of an unreasonable reckless bunch. Right~? Therese~”
“That’s… right nanodesu* do you know where are we now nanodeshouka?”
“There are a lot of still well maintained unused castle from the warring era in Sirkaberia so yeah~. And we can’t see the outside view making it impossible to guess where this place is. But from how we shouldn’t pass out for that long, so I guess we aren’t that far off from the capital”
Because they hold each other body closely, Doris can feel that Therese is shaking from fear. Because of that she did her best to stay energetic and make her voice as bright as possible in order to make Therese calm down a bit. With Therese who gives the aura that makes people wants to protect her and Doris tendency to act as the older sister, Doris can’t help doing that. But in truth, acting like that helps her subsides her fear.
(But really, to attack the royal academy student when we are having a field work lesson. Those guys really are not normal)
Yeah, the two girls’ location now is not in the capital. They have been kidnapped when they are having a field work lesson in the forest near the capital. The field work lesson is a practical lesson where the students practice their practical skill like, in this field work case, gathering herbal plants.
Of course they have soldiers to guard them and there is also the teacher that tries to defend them in the attacks but they still got kidnapped in the end. And just to be clear, the student of the academy isn’t a pushover either. The entire student got trainings in the field of self defense and even the students who have aptitude toward magic can already cast arrays of low to mid level attack magic.
Gotten kidnapped this easily was really something that they could not even imagine to happen with that kind of solid defense line. But reality is cruel.
Those guys that is clad in black manages to repel the teacher and bodyguards in an instant and kidnap Therese and Doris that is keep on resisting them until the end.
(But why did the one that keep on resisting until the last are just the two of us? Well doesn’t matter, even if I think hard about it I will never know the answer anyway~)
Their hand wasn’t tied and their clothing also still intact. With that condition of course they will think of escaping away from their kidnapper but the door and wall surrounding them has been enhanced with a magic sealing effect. Therese isn’t much help in the muscle department and Doris also can’t do anything without any decent weapon to break the wall and door in the room so in the end they just meekly wait for a chance to escape.
With the pocket watch that is a set with their uniform they can tell what time is now but after they done checking, they realized that it hasn’t been long since the kidnapping began.
It was still too fast to hope for any rescue party to come.
Moreover the chance that help will come is extremely low. They don’t know the fate of the other classmates and teacher that were with them. If in the worst case they are all eliminated then rescue will definitely not come. And even if there are no casualties and the other managed to call for help, the chance of they being done in first by the kidnapper is overwhelmingly bigger than the rescue team manages to find their location first.
Despair.
There’s nothing can be done… all of them are futile… Doris heart is slowly dyed in the black color of despair.
Even if she tries to act fearless, in the end she is still a girl. Doris can already imagine what kind of ill fate will befall them in this kind of situation. She is no longer a kid who doesn’t know about the world.
But such dark feeling was cleared every time she look at how her little best friend tried her best to not cry by holding her mouth frantically beside her. Therese is her heart only support now.
(I must make sure to save Therese whatever the cost!)
And the girl’s resolution gets painted over by the deep darkness of the night sky.
=*=
“The student of the academy was attacked you say!?”
Renya and his companion who are having a pleasant chat in their inn lobby got disrupted by the sudden bad news that was brought by Therese friends, Rudy and Russel. Both of them have some difficulty breathing because they push their body to the limit to bring this news as fast as they can to Renya by running.
They were also participating in the field trip lesson that happened earlier today and also receives the attack. But they manage to escape in time unscathed. But then they can’t find their other two friends in the gathering area no matter how long they wait. Seeing the teachers’ expressions who are bewildered, they somehow managed to know the whole picture of the attack and understand that their other two friends are not being safe.
Knowing the situation, Rudy tried to rush back to help those two but Russel manages to stop him from doing anything reckless. He persuades Rudy to report this trouble to Renya as soon as possible instead. Of course Rudy was reluctant at first but aside from the fact that neither government official nor the guild will soon move to the rescue, if 2 rookies like them rushing in to search Therese and Doris at random they definitely will fail. So Rudy, while feeling really reluctant with that idea, still agrees to report this matter to Renya.
“I understand. Eventhough it was abrupt, leave the rest to us”
“HAA!? What are you saying? I can’t just leave them in the hand of someone like you can’t I? And do you even know where they got kidnapped? Don’t say empty promises like that easily dammit!”
“I will hear your complain later but please be quiet for a bit. I can’t concentrate”
Rudy isn’t in a state where he can be easily calmed down. That’s why Renya decides to just ignores him for now and concentrate to the depth of his own consciousness.
(I have already talk a few times with Therese. She is not a stranger for me and it should apply too for Therese… in that case… I can!)
With his body as the center, a ripple of divine power spreads throughout the area around the capital that it reaches until the far end of the continent.
Of course the ripple isn’t something that is visible to normal human eyes. In that place, the one who aware of what Renya do are only Floria and Elvira.
The area inside that divine power ripple is a point of view that can only be seen by the gods.
It automatically eliminates other useless information and focuses only on searching what the user wants. In this case, the divine energy ripple search for Therese figure and only her.
After the ripple found the target, it mapped the surrounding area around Therese into some kind of visual image.
It marks the place and composes the information within.
After doing all that, the divine power ripple reverberate back to Renya position by using Therese as reflector. With that, Renya can tell which way and calculate how far Therese location is now.
Renya controls his divine power, the power of god that still unfamiliar to him, with all his concentration and he somehow was able to find out where Therese location now.
“…… From the capital to the northeast…… inside the forest…… a fortress……”
“The fortress in the forest located northeast of the capital? ...... !! Renya-san, that must be one of the fortress that was used in the warring time and is now abandoned! Excuse me but can I borrow a map?”
Russel without even a speck doubts to the things that Renya whisper in his meditation, takes the important information from it, and manages to arrived at a conclusion in an instant. And then he points a certain part in the old map that is spread over in the table.
“This one. We once have a practical combat training in that place. And in that direction there are none other fortress beside this one so this must be it”
“Is that so… it’s not that far from here. If we rush now we might make it”
“Oi! From where did you know such thing!?
“Err, well I am also worried about Therese you know? So I make her bring a special magic item that I gave her. At least, as long as that device still giving off signal then she must still be alive”
Of course it was a lie. But telling the truth to them in this situation is troublesome and they are racing against time here. It was easier for Renya to tell them a believe-able lie so he can get into action quicly.
“Let’s go girls. I’m worried about those two”
“Yeah!”
“Alright!”
“As you wish!”
As soon as they reply, the three girls of Renya party rush out from the inn. Renya follows them from behind when suddenly Rudy calls him.
“Oi!”
“What is it?”
“……… Those two…… please help them”
“Roger that”
With his voice that filled with mortification from his own weak and inexperienced self, Rudy plead to Renya to help his friends. Renya answer him with a short, dependable answer.
“After this we will go tell the academy and the guild”
“Ah, use my name when you report that information. My name should increase the info credibility”
Russel nods. This time Renya rush out for real.
Renya was amazed by the two schoolboy determination. Especially Rudy who is still lacks maturity and has a bad temper. It was amazing that he was able to hold himself to not do anything rash in this kind of situation and trust Renya to handle it.
He must want to rush out himself in this kind of situation and entrusting it to other people must give him a crushing feeling of powerlessness.
As the same fellow men, he can easily imagine how much the pain will tear apart his heart if he was to fall into the same situation as him. On top of it that boy still understand his powerlessness and still able to say ‘please’ to Renya.
He was just an acquaintance that he just knows and they don’t talk to each other much.
That kind of disposition, even if he was once a human that is just rising up and becoming a god recently, he still wants to answer Rudy’s determination no matter what it takes!
(And to achieve that… I won’t be picky with the method)
This body from the start is a thing that he gets by using all kind of things and technique that is available to finally risen to the seat of the war god.
For the sake of Therese and Doris, Renya release all the limiter that is shackling him from his inside.
The four of them run without speaking any words in the middle of the night. Their figures are soon to disappear in the darkness. As soon as they pass the town gate, they literally ‘fly’ to their destination.
=*=
The moon shining brightly on the heaven illuminates the fort.
Therese and Doris, who was brought to the wide ground that spread in the outdoors of the fort, had been wary of their surroundings while cuddling each other for a while.
They are surrounded by high walls.
Weeds growing wild everywhere, the wide ground that must been well maintained in the past is now ruined to the most from being exposed to winds and rains for who knows how many years.
And numerous people that wears black robe surrounds them.
Their height are not the same making a sharp undulation between them, in addition they also can’t tell those people that is clad in black age or gender because of the black hood that is covering their face.
Their figures that are bathed in the light of the surrounding torches making those people clad in black seems more terrifying in Therese’s and Doris’ eyes.
The only a man that shows his face firmly is only the one that stands in front of the out of place altar
.
He has long brown unkempt hairs that reach the shoulder that seems to never gotten any care.
The man's face that is illuminated by the torch in the vicinity of the altar looks very unhealthy, there is a deep dark color under his eyes, and those eyes also only minisculy opened, it gives an eerie because you can’t tell where those eyes are being pointed at
.
The man suddenly changes his look when the two prisoners were brought up close to his field of vision.
Therese and Doris naturally shocked by the man sudden changes.
"First of all, I want to apologize for our rough invitation for our female guest"
"If you gonna apologize then how about letting us go?"
Although what she says is the most logical answer, it was just Doris trying to put up brave front so she won’t get swallowed by the eerie atmosphere around her.
After all both their hands and feet are not being tied, they can also use magic if they want. But the number on that side is just too overwhelming. She keeps forcefully encourage herself that there are still chances to escape and still keep up a brave front unyielding.
She don’t think even a bit that she can run away from this many people but she have to keep her mind positive so she can protect her little friend.
“If it was about that I'm so sorry for that we can’t fulfill that appeal. Tonight we are having an especially gorgeous moon, it is a wonderful night suitable enough to present a tribute to our great lord. And that tribute to be sacrificial lamb will be you two girls here, you two girls are precious offerings for our great lord. Because of that reason, the request that you appeal to us before is, truly regrettably, very truly regrettably, rejected!"
The man with an over exaggerated gesture rejects Doris’ appeal.
The man eye that looks dead at first suddenly flared up enigmatically like a madman. With eyes that give of the light of a lunatic, he speaks out loud in a tone like a lunatic do.
Doris who saw that extreme expression change was flinched completely by it. Therese also got frightened for encountering the human type that she never encounter before. It really can’t be helped from thinking of how dangerous the opponent acts.
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