Chapter 128
Demons
The
day of the meeting. Miku and I, who had come to Alicia's room,
decided to do a final confirmation with her.
「The time has finally come, hasn't
it...」
「Let's organize the situation first.
The talks with the demons will be held today at 3:00 PM in the Royal Castle's
audience chamber—is that correct?」
「Yes, that is correct.」
「How much information do we have on
the demons who are coming?」
Of
course, we've thought about how we should act to some extent beforehand.
However, reality is always stranger than fiction, and because we don't know
what might happen, doing a final confirmation as many times as possible is
never a bad idea.
「There will be two of them coming. I
do not know the detailed circumstances, but I hear they are both women.」
「Hey, if we knew they were coming,
wouldn't it have been better to just go and make contact with them normally?」
「We're already treated as wanted
criminals in this country, right? I thought it would be best not to provoke
them too much, so as not to worsen their impression of us.」
「Ah, I see.」
Seeing
Miku clap her hands together with a pon, Alicia gave a wry
smile. Currently, the higher-ups of the Kingdom are treating us as
criminals—the culprits who took away multiple Heroes. The reason there's
a caveat of "the higher-ups" is because the place we took them to was
the Empire. The Kingdom, which is inferior to the Empire
in both magical technology and national power, cannot strongly defy the Empire.
To avoid worsening relations, they haven't issued direct wanted posters or
anything like that, and it seems they're limiting themselves to passive
opposition for now. It's true that, as Miku said, I considered making
contact with the two demons beforehand. However, I figured there'd be no
benefit if that caused them to have a bad impression of humans or worsened Izel
II's impression, so I held back. Well, in exchange, I fully intend to jump
out without hesitation if anything happens during the meeting.
「The starting time for the meeting is
merely an estimate, so I believe it will be a little later.」
「There's also a possibility that the
information itself is fake, so let's prepare a bit early and just kill some time.」
Nodding
in agreement, we decided to prepare for the meeting with the demons. Now then,
what kind of talks will this turn out to be? I'm looking forward to it... or
rather, maybe I'm leaning a bit toward being scared. Because almost certainly, something is going to happen.
The
meeting will take place in the audience chamber located on the first floor of
the Royal Castle in Grisnia. Because my experience of sneaking in
to make contact with Mitsukawa-kun and Alicia previously came in
handy, I was able to sneak in without much trouble. Of course, compared to
normal times before, the security was stricter, but it was still at a level
where I could slip in without any issues using Dark Magic. After doing a
quick check of the security up to the audience chamber, I activated Home.
Returning home once, I then opened the door again. —For this infiltration, I've
concentrated several of the doors I can currently place inside the Royal
Castle. When I arrived at the place with the seemingly laxest security
among the ones I checked earlier, I was able to return to the Royal Castle
without any issues, avoiding running into the guards. Before anyone could come,
I used Shadow Dive and slipped into the shadows. The Royal Castle
is filled with furnishings and artwork everywhere, so it's not hard to find
shadows. Worst-case scenario, even if there was nothing, I could get inside
using Dark of the Moon, so making it this far basically means the
infiltration is a success. From here, the distance to Alicia's room
isn't too far, so she's well within the effective range of Jaunt. I
should be able to bring her along without showing her the Home Gift.
It's not that I don't trust Alicia, but it's better to have as few
people as possible knowing about the power of my Gift.
「Alright, since we're both ready,
let's go together.」
「Roger!」
「...What should I do?」
「You'll be fine if you just take my
hand.」
「Umm... y-yes, I understand.」
Acting
extremely suspiciously, Alicia gently touched my hand. Because her skin
is naturally white, it's very obvious that her fingertips have turned bright
red. Ah, I see. Since she's never flown with Jaunt before, she must be
quite nervous. She doesn't need to be so nervous, though. Maybe it would have
been better if she had tried using it beforehand.
「Ah, from here on out, talking is
strictly prohibited. It may be trivial, but it's not like the space
completely shuts out sound.」
The
space inside the shadow that can be entered via Shadow Dive lets sound
pass through normally. Therefore, if we make any noise, it's entirely possible
that someone with good intuition would notice us normally. Looking at Alicia,
who was covering her mouth with her hand and shutting her eyes tight, I thought
that there was no need to go that far... but while thinking so, I activated Jaunt
again and entered the shadow. Threading our way smoothly through the shadows,
we were able to reach the audience chamber in no time.
(Oh, that is...)
Peeking inside from the shadow, I saw the figures of what seemed to be the demons who were the dialogue partners for this time.
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