—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Yuziro
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
For the first time since my brain hurt after I got scolded by Asirye, my brain shut down again.
Lagnis, whom I thought was just a rural noble, was actually a high noble?
“I thought you were a rural noble.”
“…I thought you would obviously know.”
Rather, Lagnis replied with considerable surprise at my answer. Seeing her reaction, it must have been a famous noble house and a well-known incident to the point where it would be strange not to know.
“I’m so surprised that my heart is pounding like crazy.”
“Pfft. What’s that?”
“No, it’s not something to laugh about. Do you want to feel it?”
“T-t-that’s not what I meant!”
No, my tender heart is beating like crazy, but why is she getting serious? Anyway, it feels like the difficulty level has suddenly skyrocketed. I carefully brought up the most serious problem while reviewing one by one the factors that I thought didn’t even need a shred of worry until now.
“Would the noble faction have wyvern knights?”
“…Hmm.”
Lagnis’s face stiffened and she fell into thought, immediately understanding what I was worried about.
At most, two people can ride a wyvern. Then, wouldn’t they have no choice but to hire someone who can fight and also pilot a wyvern in case of emergencies?
In the world, such people are called wyvern knights. Naturally, they are knights who ride wyverns instead of horses and are specialized in magic and aura to take advantage of aerial superiority rather than lances, no different from war weapons.
As Asirye told me in the past, it’s difficult to perfectly achieve both, so their skills can’t be said to be truly outstanding, but that’s only when comparing knights to knights.
If I fight them now, I’ll definitely lose.
“…No. No. I heard a story from my father a long time ago. Most wyvern knights are directly under the royal family.
Because of that symbolism, except for one or two that the noble faction forcibly selects and uses for external activities, they’re all definitely part of the royalist faction.
There won’t be anyone they can use lightly enough to move for this kind of thing.”
“Couldn’t they secretly train them internally?”
“Unless they have permission from the king, those who have learned wyvern piloting cannot learn any combat techniques.
If they violate that, their family for three generations will be executed for treason.”
“Huh? Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
It was quite a brutal law, but I let out a big sigh of relief at Lagnis’s conviction. In any case, it’s a law that’s tremendously helpful to us right now.
“If it were a wyvern knight, I would have had no idea what to do. It’s a blessing in disguise.”
“…There’s no answer other than running away, right?”
“Unless they’re stronger than the Demon King’s army commander, I can’t do that.”
In the first place, if I run away alone, it’s a violation of my belief, and if we run away together, we’ll get caught anyway. I patted Lagnis’s shoulder and said,
“If they brought a wyvern, what other ending is there besides getting caught? It’s better to hope they let their guard down and try to stab them. Anyway, we avoided that worst-case scenario, so it’s fine.”
“…Hehe.”
“What are you grinning about? We only avoided the worst, so don’t let your guard down.”
Even if they really brought a wyvern, unless it’s a large wyvern, the one piloting the wyvern would have to be a non-combat personnel, which alone greatly reduced the risk.
For now, we decided to be relieved by that fact and continued walking.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The encounter with the combat power measuring devices with replenished personnel happened exactly two days later.
“Hey, I heard our friends were indebted to you.”
The guys, who all looked rough, appeared near the adventurers’ guild area. It was a section not far from where I had beaten up the two guys last time.
At first, I thought it was unexpected, but when I thought about it calmly, I became convinced that it rather smelled like a performance.
They were waiting for us in order to take revenge, with burning eyes. There were eight guys who seemed to be adventurers. More than I thought, and their vibe was different from the first two guys.
But still, they didn’t feel strong. In the first place, if they’re taking on this kind of job, they probably don’t have proper skills. The hiring criteria would have been just a bit stronger than the neighborhood thugs.
“Oh, yeah. Take good care of your friends from now on. Then, see you!”
“Wha?!”
With that, I ran into the alley next to me while carrying Lagnis.
“H-hey! That fucking bastard, catch him!”
Can you catch me? I still have the experience of living between home and Ogwen. Just following the route that comes to mind right away, there’s no need to even run while holding Lagnis from her waist.
As we ran like that, Lagnis, who only had to be carried, came to her senses belatedly.
“Y-you startled me!”
“Is this enough to surprise you, Margrave? I need to run while holding you for a bit, so just hold on tight. I’ll explain later.”
Compared to how surprised I was, it wouldn’t even be considered surprising. Well, it’s not like I can blame Lagnis for not asking in detail and making assumptions on my own.
The pursuit was more persistent than I thought, but after running through the winding paths and crossing some rooftops, they seemed to give up. Only then did Lagnis, who had some room to breathe, manage to catch her breath and ask.
“Those people, were they strong?”
“Not really?”
“Then why did you run away?”
“I was curious how many times I’d have to repeat this for them to directly come to the inn.”
Since she looked completely lost, I decided to sit down for a moment and give her an additional explanation.
As it’s gradually getting dark, if we kill some time, those guys will probably decide on today’s plan and take a different action.
I just hope it’s not the disappointing result of waiting in front of the inn today.
“I’m speaking confidently because they’re still moving within the range I expected, but I think the guys just now were also close to experiment rats thrown out to figure out what kind of guy I am and how skilled I am.
If I lure them into an alley and fight, I’ll beat them all up… but if I do that, their level of caution will skyrocket.”
“So that’s why you didn’t use aura?”
“Yeah, that’s ri… huh? How do you know that?”
“You used it when you killed the leader back then.”
I know she’s talking about the guy I kicked to death for showing the desire to touch Asirye 3 years ago…
But how did she know it was aura when even Asirye said it didn’t feel like aura and felt more like a buff? As I gaped, unable to control my expression, she opened her mouth with a rather puzzled look.
“I saw the estate knights sparring with aura. There were many movements that couldn’t be followed without aura. The speed you showed then wasn’t possible without aura.”
Tilting her head as if to say no, it seems she didn’t realize it by sensing something, but purely based on the movements she remembered, she guessed what was possible and impossible.
It was like a thief being sensitive to their own condition, but since I had already reacted without realizing it, I couldn’t deny it, so I nodded roughly.
“Yeah, that’s right. I thought you could sense aura.”
“That’s… not something just anyone can realize. You probably won’t understand.”
Actually, I didn’t realize it either, but I just pretended to be a genius and said I see. Anyway, we need to get back to the main point.
“Time is on our side anyway. The fact that they sent guys like that even after two days have passed is proof that the other party is being extremely cautious.
Unless the result of exhausting all that caution is something other than those guys, they’ll definitely be desperate to find out information. It’s been 6 days already, so there are 9 days left?
Even if I just run away like this without fighting, they’ll be very anxious, right? I’d like to do this for about 3 days, but I don’t know how it will turn out.”
The best thing is to end it without fighting. Because the moment we fight, unpredictable variables occur. Of course, given the nature of the situation, that’s probably impossible, but I can at least hope for it, right?
“…I thought you were acting on a whim, but you’re thinking and moving a lot, huh?”
The sincere look in her eyes was so irritating that I smacked her on the head.
Then, as evening came and we passed through the darkened streets and returned to the inn, a very disappointing result was waiting for me.
“Now, will you try running away again?”
I guess the result of exhausting the tracker’s caution and patience was those guys.
Somehow, I thought they gave up a bit too quickly, but the guys were all in front of Alisha’s inn without exception. Not just standing there, but clearly blocking the entrance.
“I’m glad I feel like you’re pressed for time… but did you guys touch our Lady Alisha or the other kids inside by any chance?”
“Heh. If you run away again, we’ll have to touch them.”
“Eldmia!! Get these fucking bastards away from the store!!”
Did they lock the door? Seeing that there’s no problem, I was relieved. Even though the guy leaning on the door in response to that shout tried to intimidate by knocking on the wall, Lady Alisha only responded with her usual swearing.
“Can you really handle it? If it gets noisy, the guards will come in an instant, you know?”
Actually, I noticed while talking. As expected, the guys answered my question with a sneer.
There’s no way the guys were waiting for the timing of our arrival. From the moment they lost us, they must have gone to their employer, explained the situation, and were now waiting at the inn.
I know the night patrol team starts making rounds after 6 o’clock, but there’s not even a proper sound of people around.
It’s so disheartening that they bribed the city patrol without any hesitation. Come to think of it, that’s also the idea of people with money.
“We don’t give a fuck about you. Actually, we have business with your girlfriend.”
“I know, you moron.”
“So… what?”
“I said I know. Isn’t it obvious?”
It’s not all bad.
Because I got to know that they don’t have time, they have a lot of money, they have ties with the city, and they’re letting their guard down enough to believe they can knock me down or make me run away like this and take Lagnis.
Were they watching from somewhere nearby? Were they inside a building? If the hypothesis that they would fly away on a wyvern was correct, they might have already left the city and were waiting outside after giving orders.
That’s something I can find out later, so I decided not to care too much.
“I’m Eldmia Egga.”
As I drew my sword I greeted them to indoctrinate my beliefs. As if they had expected me to draw my sword, their sneers remained unchanged. The guys began to confidently take out their weapons one by one.
Very desirable.
“First of all, since you touched Lady Alisha’s nerves, you’ll all get stabbed in the thigh together, and then we’ll get started on your education.”
The real indoctrination of beliefs comes after that.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Time for some Modern Reeducation