Chapter 128
Demons
Translator : PolterGlast
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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