Chapter 85
Chapter 85
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 85
>Chapter Title: The King's Silence (3)
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*
A soft rustling sound could be heard, the sound of bare white feet padding across a velvet carpet.
Elfihera was holed up in her chambers, pacing back and forth as she chewed on her lip. For hours, she had wracked her brain, but no solution came to mind.
“That... that beast in heat... If he had just waited a little longer, I would have taken him in myself...!!”
This could only be attributed to the characteristic fervor of the short-lived species.
Creatures with short lifespans, like rats, rabbits, and humans, would start mating and coupling the moment you looked away.
In contrast, look at beings like dragons, phoenixes, and elves. They welcome a single partner for life, spending a long time together, slowly nurturing each other's spirits to bring forth the fruit of their love!
The saying 'to live happily ever after for a hundred years' is merely a human play on words. To elves, a love as brief as a hundred years was no different from a fleeting game of passion.
Therefore, Ivan Petrovich, driven by the impatience typical of his short-lived race, is about to miss the opportunity to take an elf as his partner!
How foolish.... Elfihera sighed in dismay.
“Then again... Sir Petrovich has so little time left, so he must be eager to find a mate and see his descendants as soon as possible. I was lacking in understanding...!”
If he just waited two and a half years, they could go to Kallion together, and in Kallion, there were many ways to cure the congenital disabilities of humans.
Here, the congenital disability of humans refers to the shortness of both their thoughts and their lifespans. Since a longer life naturally leads to deeper thoughts, it was fortunate that only one cure was needed.
Elfihera slumped onto the sofa, lost in sorrow.
“I must not let him win.”
If he wins, he will marry the princess!
For ordinary humans, marrying into royalty was undoubtedly a significant rise in status, so Sir Petrovich had certainly made a bold move.
But no. He was choosing the wrong path. Marriage to an elf was on a completely different level compared to marrying human royalty....
“This is no time for such thoughts.”
Elfihera was a rational elf, so she forced herself to halt the thoughts tinged with anger and pity. This was a moment that urgently required a cool-headed assessment of the situation and a clear solution.
If she made even the slightest mistake, she might not be able to save Ivan.
“How do I stop him from winning?”
Should I sponsor a noble who could defeat Ivan?
But what if Ivan gets seriously injured...? A horse with an injured leg dies sooner than its natural lifespan. Humans would be no different. The short-lived species can lose their lives from even a minor injury!
“Should I request help from my home country?”
Wait. This seems like a pretty good idea.
“The tournament is in five days... and these kinds of tournaments never end quickly.”
Even a typical jousting tournament among knights, held in conjunction with a festival, usually lasts for at least a week.
A tournament hosted by the royal family, with the grand prize being marriage to the princess, was hardly going to end overnight.
If that’s the case.... there was enough time for reinforcements to be sent from Kallion. If they used an airship for a high-speed journey, they could arrive in at least a week!
“I'll request support, and assuming reinforcements arrive promptly... I must win in the tournament for the first two days.”
Participants in tournaments like jousting or gladiatorial combat don't compete more than once a day. The contestants were nobles, not gladiators, after all.
This was to manage the condition of each participant, and also because these kinds of events served as a social venue. A tournament participant would only have to fight one, or at most two, duels a day.
“I can do it. I'm a genius. The daughter of the genius mage, Veolgrin... I am Elfihera Grikenkos!”
Stating an undeniable fact with composure, Elfihera steeled her resolve.
In an instant, she arranged her mana and activated the emergency communication crystal orb. It was a remote channeling artifact connected by a two-way illusion-type spell—a miraculous creation that humans, who still used telegraphs, couldn't even dream of.
Soon, the crystal shimmered, and a low voice echoed from it.
-What is it?
“Father!!”
-Yes, my daughter. I'm listening.
Elfihera shouted as if she had forgotten all noble etiquette and rhetoric.
“Please dispatch Sir Koenwulf to Pritzenkaya immediately!”
-...?? Did you eat something bad this morning? Ah, is it evening where you are? Was there something wrong with dinner? Or is it mana poisoning?
“Ugh... No, that's not it....”
Brushing aside her father's affectionately mocking voice, Elfihera struggled to explain the situation. Not with the whole truth, but with elven rationality.
1. The princess is currently hosting a noble duel with her own marriage on the line.
>2. Winning this duel makes a marital alliance with the princess possible.
>3. Therefore, we must be able to use this situation to our nation's advantage.
>4. There is no restriction on nationality in this duel. (Naturally, this information was secretly passed only to the nobles within Pritzenkaya, so there was no need to specify a restriction on foreign nationality.)
>5. Therefore, if one of our Privy Councilors wins, we can establish a union kingdom of Kallion-Krasilov!
There were no flaws in the logic she had devised in such a short time. Elfihera looked down at the crystal orb with a confident smile.
Of course, the crystal only transmitted sound. Thus, Veolgrin, unable to see her smile, sighed deeply and said.
-My daughter is more interested in international affairs than her studies. This father feels so reassured.
“Father...!!”
-Yes, I understand. Your words are reasonable. But it seems you've left something out. What is it?
“Pardon?”
-There's no way you'd ask a favor of me for such a reason, let alone have the audacity to request that I dispatch 'Sir Koenwulf'. What is it? Who do you want to interfere with in this tournament?
It was an elven insight. If his daughter suddenly asked for something, he judged that her true goal lay hidden behind the request.
Elves, by nature, do not directly state what they truly desire. This was Kallion's noble etiquette.
“Well... Sir Ivan Petrovich is participating... he's participating.”
-Ah, little Ivan. Hmmmm.... Hmm.... I suppose Elizaveta was interested in Ivan. Then this is... ho... that little one is quite clever.
“Pardon? Clever?”
-This so-called 'marriage duel' is actually just the princess's little game. Never mind. It's nothing you need to worry about.
Veolgrin muttered something in amusement, then turned his attention back to Elfihera.
-Good. It wouldn't do for our Ivan to be tied down to one place just yet. I will send Sir Koenwulf. But it will take at least a week, and didn't you say the duel starts in five days?
“Ah, I can handle the first two days! I'll register Sir Koenwulf as a participant for now!”
-Hmm. And, you are aware that Sir Æthelflæd Koenwulf is... a woman, aren't you? Not exactly a fitting gender for the princess's spouse.
“In love, there is no gender, race, or nationality!”
-I think... there are. Never mind. What does it matter? If Ivan is participating, Sir Koenwulf might be interested as well.
The communication with the crystal orb ended. Elfihera clenched her fists, her body trembling.
Elves do not practice swordsmanship. There was a prevailing attitude that considered sweating and engaging in close-quarters combat to be vulgar.
And as she had once recalled, if an elf wielded a sword, it meant they had achieved mastery in swordsmanship despite such attitudes.
Elves were a long-lived race, and when they dedicated their entire lives to a single art, they could reach a level of mastery superior to any other known race. The sheer amount of physical time was on a different dimension.
Sir Koenwulf was the strongest among those 'elves who wield the sword.' In other words, she was the strongest warrior in Kallion.
Strong enough to have taught the Hero swordsmanship.
*
The next day, after her morning lecture, Isabelle headed to the campus square with Yuri as usual. It was the most enjoyable time of the day: lunchtime.
It wasn't that she was some factory worker who lived for her lunch break. It was because the mister would show up with his lunchbox.
Most men are terrible cooks (not true; most chefs of this era were men), so Ivan's lunch was usually just raw ingredients. In other words, things he called a salad by just pouring some dressing over vegetables.
This was her time to teach him the cuisine of her homeland. Isabelle was confident in her cooking, and that confidence had generally been proven by good results.
Although the mister, no matter what she fed him, only ever gave responses that could be summarized as 'This is delicious,' 'Hmm,' or 'This is greasy'....
‘Anyway, I told him to come see me as soon as he was discharged...!’
She had heard he was discharged and had waited patiently at home, but he never showed up, and the stew she made that day had to be thrown out.
An adult who doesn't keep his promises is a bad adult, and bad adults must be punished.
Isabelle let out a sly chuckle as she walked out onto the campus grounds.
And there she saw Esidis, kicking at the ground all by herself.
“Huh? Esi, where's the mister?”
“My uncle is... um... busy today, I guess? Was he not on your side of campus?”
“Uh... he wasn't at the Knight Academy.”
Well, he must be busy. It's normal for him to be busy, I guess.
Isabelle accepted it. It must have been something that kept him so busy he couldn't even come to see her.
That mister must have something incredibly important to do, important enough to refuse the temptation of 'kimchi stew'.
Fortunately, it seemed she hadn't been stood up. Isabelle grinned and took out her lunchbox.
“Well, at least we don't have to eat that weird salad today!”
“Oh, uh-huh.”
Esidis mumbled, nodding her head.
*
The next day, and the day after that.
Ivan was nowhere to be found at Saint Yansk University.
“How is this possible?!”
How could a person who was always visible wherever you looked on campus just vanish so completely?
As Isabelle fumed, Esidis was anxiously biting her thumbnail. It seemed she was suffering from malnutrition now that Ivan, who had been responsible for her balanced diet, was gone.
“Did he... did he go off to stalk someone again...?”
Isabelle became very curious about what that meant but decided not to ask. She knew well that it was pointless to react seriously to the ramblings of someone mentally and physically fragile.
Isabelle wisely sought out someone who could resolve the situation: Mord, who had been kicked out of the orphanage (reason: the King of Droan destroyed it).
“Do you happen to know where Mister Ivan went?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, you've been running to the orphanage as soon as your lectures end these days....”
“Ahem... Hmph.”
It was rather embarrassing for a man of Droan to be doing 'volunteer work', so Mord cleared his throat and said.
“I was wondering about that myself. I should ask when that blasted orphanage construction will finally be finished. Right, I know a guy who would know.”
Mord strode confidently toward a corner of the campus.
He headed for a man who had taken up an entire bench, his face covered by a newspaper.
“Get up.”
“An agent of the Counter-Intelligence Command never sleeps. We merely rest.”
“Cut the crap and get up. Isn't this dereliction of duty?”
“Is that something a spy from an allied nation should be saying?”
Crumpling the newspaper that covered his face, Pavel sat up, rubbing his eyes.
He glanced around at Mord, Esidis, and Isabelle surrounding him, then let out a sigh.
“How does our captain manage to do this every day... It's so damn annoying.”
Pavel, assigned to guard the children of the Hero's Party in Ivan's temporary absence, stood up, wiping the dried saliva from the corner of his mouth.
He was an intelligence agent with a history of personally orchestrating a terrorist attack in the heart of Pritzenkaya, and thus, he knew all of its intelligence vulnerabilities inside and out.
Therefore, with him back at the Counter-Intelligence Command, no human agent could pull off any funny business in this city. They would inevitably be caught in his information network.
So this job was just a way to kill time. The kind of job where he could show up when something urgent happened and still not be too late.
Pavel scratched his forehead and asked.
“What is it? Make it quick. I'm working.”
“Yeah, right.... Ivan Petrovich. Where is that guy?”
“Our captain? Uh... why?”
Isabelle stepped forward and exclaimed.
“Ever since you kicked me out saying it was a state secret, the mister has been missing!”
“That's because he's on official duty right now.”
“What, for three days? Without even going home? Isn't this exploitation! Does this country not have regulations on working hours?”
“What, Tilles has something like that? I'm going to naturalize in Tilles.”
“Wow, seriously.”
For the record, Tilles did have legally mandated working hours. Sadly, the law did not apply to serfs, tenant farmers, and other commoners.
But Krasilov didn't even have that. Why would you let a human rest when they are capable of working? Wasn't that a waste of labor?
“Well, want to go see him? I was getting curious myself.”
“What?! We can go see him? This isn't another state secret or something, is it?”
“Of course it's a secret. It's a secret, but... well, does it matter? It's not like anything will change just because you guys know.”
“Huh? What... what is the mister doing right now?”
Pavel said with a grin.
“Training.”
*
“Next.”
Ivan, wearing a blindfold, lowered his head and whispered softly.
Even in the darkness-shrouded room, a superhuman's senses could detect even the slightest reverberation of light. This was a way to maximize those senses.
Soon, he felt the next opponent enter his range.
The inevitable sounds a person makes when they move—the friction of joints, the tension of muscles, the beating of a heart, the drop of sweat rolling down a cheek and hitting the floor.
He's nervous. Height, 187cm. Judging by the sound of his planted foot, his weight is between 80 and 100kg. A well-trained physique.
The right footfall is heavier. He's right-handed. And he'll be holding a heavy weapon.
The weapon's length? Its type?
I'll have to find out.
-Tsk.
Ivan clicked his tongue softly.
*Tsk, tsk, tsk.*
In the darkness, toward an unseen opponent, toward an opponent panting with tension.
He must have cast a dark vision spell before entering. Yet even with his sight, the opponent was hesitant to approach Ivan, who was as good as blind.
The small sound of his tongue clicking echoed through the room, allowing him to gauge the shape and distance of the surrounding objects.
The spatial acoustics created a visual map in his mind. Slowly, he envisioned the state of the room.
Ignoring the dozen or so men collapsed and panting at his feet, mindful of the weapons they had dropped and the spaces they occupied, once again, toward the opponent before him.
*Tsk, tsk, tsk.* He went.
Like a venomous snake, coiled and whispering. Low.
*