Cockroach
Cockroach
Princess Mesina Bans Da Itisel fidgeted in the discomfort brought on by the breastplate she was wearing for the first time.
The ceremonial armor made exclusively for royalty prioritized enchanted magic over the armor’s inherent performance, so there was no need to worry about strength. As a result, it was as light as ordinary clothing, though its rigidity was unavoidable. Although the only one watching was her close aide Heiri, Mesina could not move much while maintaining decorum and kept fidgeting quietly. Heiri, who had been silently observing her mistress, approached with a faint smile and spoke softly.
"I'll adjust the shoulder strap and tighten the left and right belts a little more. You might feel a slight pressure, but it will be better than it chafing with every movement."
"Mm, do that."
The adjustment made by Heiri, an experienced butler and knight, was over in an instant. Mesina, now far more comfortable, smiled with satisfaction and focused on her work again. Soon after, noticing that Heiri hadn’t returned to her original position and was still standing a little closer than usual, she asked,
"Do you have something to say, Heiri?"
"...No."
In truth, there were many things she wanted to say. Why Mesina, who had no talent for combat whatsoever, had to don armor and oversee the underground waterways in the royal family's name; why she had drastically reduced the number of guards while doing so; and so on. Heiri did not doubt her mistress's intelligence, but it was not easy to understand why Mesina kept choosing actions so far removed from safety.
Mesina, respecting her subordinate's mindset, nodded slightly and refocused on her work. In the end, it was nothing more than sitting with an expressionless face in a building grandly named the 'Temporary Command Post for Underground Waterway Ecology Confirmation' rather than the palace, going over reports brought from areas where investigations had been completed.
It was merely an act of leisurely investigating, from the victor's standpoint, the threats that the traitor Envelde might have planted after his execution. A showy event where, to emphasize that there were no threats, she brought only a minimal guard, and Mesina—whom all citizens knew had no connection to combat—had to move personally to drive the point home.
It had to appear that way, and fortunately, that was how it looked.
'Too many things are being sacrificed to protect the prestige of the Holy Light Cross Order.'
Of course, the reality was completely different. As she read the reports, Mesina anxiously watched the scales in her mind, worried they might tip toward a loss.
The Holy Light Cross Order had provided immense help throughout the long war against the Demonfolk, held many believers, and was one of the few religions where the vast majority of branches acted for the common good, not for self-interest. At any other time it might have been different, but at a juncture when the war hadn't even ended, they could not allow stories to spread that the center of such a religion had fallen and been corrupted by demons.
The recent port city raid had already severely shaken the precarious boundary between tension and composure. If the religion—which could be called a pillar of the heart—were to be shaken as well, there was no telling what consequences would follow.
Therefore, the kingdom only 'pretended' to stand by while the Holy Light Cross Order reached out to the Hero in the Empire. The Order was not asking for help because it truly lacked strength; it needed the narrative that 'the Holy Light Cross Order also suffered because the threat was so great that even the Hero had to move.' The kingdom knew better than anyone that the recently discovered saintess also needed the Hero's presence to bolster her authority.
Considering that the royal family's prestige might suffer in the process, it was an enormous concession. They could not openly demand credit for it, so even if the Holy Light Cross Order later pretended it owed the royal family nothing, they would not even be able to complain. Still, there was no helping it. The royal family could not continue the war alone.
But another problem inevitably broke out.
The fight at the main temple might have been only a preliminary skirmish, and when they received word that demon worshippers were planning to release a demon—a being comparable to an Archdemon—right in the middle of the kingdom's capital, the groan that my father, King Itisel VII, let out still seemed to linger in my ears.
It was right to consider ourselves lucky just to have avoided wasting time on meaningless assessments of responsibility. The fact that the king personally agreed to the excuse that the holy knights hadn't fully grasped the situation because it had been carried out in an unprecedented new way—and could immediately begin formulating countermeasures—was only possible because the voice of the nobles in the Noble Council had been drastically reduced in the aftermath of the traitor Envelde.
If he had been alive, how much obstruction would there have been? Given that demon worshippers had naturally infiltrated the underground waterways, it was easy to guess that Envelde had pulled more than one or two tricks over the years by deploying manpower for waterway inspections, and that many had yet to be discovered.
What if he had already been in league with demon worshippers from long ago and used this incident as a chance to rise up on a massive scale? Or, even if not yet in cooperation, what if he had belatedly decided to cooperate? Having momentarily let her thoughts drift in that direction and entertained such a hypothesis, Mesina felt a chill and shook her head slightly.
Regardless of success or failure, it would certainly have remained one of the great catalysts that brought the kingdom to ruin. Shaking off that terrible thought, Mesina addressed not her friend Heiri but the butler Heiri in an official capacity.
"I have confirmed that the final report from the civilian district is also without issues. Leave only the minimum personnel necessary to seal the passage and order them to move to other sectors according to the planned arrangement."
The pretext to deploy the Holy Light Cross Order's holy knights—who had assisted with the investigation of the highest-priority civilian residential area—to the academy was finally complete. Heiri, who precisely understood the meaning, received the orders stamped with the royal seal, nodded quietly, and left the room. In the quiet room, worrying over the pressing problems, Mesina, who had become slightly depressed, let out a deep sigh and changed her thinking.
'I should thank God that this farce is finally over—we knew perfectly well the academy's underground was the most dangerous place, yet had to pretend everything was fine and couldn't even investigate it.'
With a brief moment of rest having arrived, Mesina lightly stretched and rose from her seat. But her mind was still working harder than ever, calculating gains and losses.
Because they had already widely announced that the threat had receded, they couldn't move the knight order in a panic. For the same reason, the holy knights also couldn't move first in a situation where demons might be crawling underfoot. Since the underground waterways were publicly managed, there was utterly no way to hide their movements, and rumors would spread in some form. Even the Empire, not wanting the kingdom's balance to collapse, had cooperated... but it was a stifling situation where they could not move the Hero on a large scale either, to avoid the stigma that the Empire had intervened in the kingdom and wielded power.
Should they put out the immediate fire even if the tower they had built with so much effort collapsed, or should they endure the risk that the tower might burn along with the fire? While everyone was groaning over those two options, it was Duke Lesrom who presented a third option that could be a solution.
Following his secret advice, the plan was adjusted so that the Fourth Princess would personally contact Eldmia and make him move, and the man who was like a living, breathing generator of aftermath prepared his work far more skillfully than expected.
That young man, astute enough to make one wonder if he was really a commoner, even knew how to attach a reason for his actions. I was dumbfounded when I heard that he had painted a picture so that it seemed as if he had no choice but to help, mobilizing not only his friendship with Sir Sheryl, who was enrolled at the academy, but also his position as a professor's assistant.
'Just what part of him looks fifteen?'
He was too efficient.
I could see why the nobles were so fiercely vying to somehow recruit and make use of that boy. Now, even if a demon or whatever popped out from the academy's underground, if they could just subdue it, it had become a net gain.
Now, as long as they didn't get hurt, it didn't matter even if they couldn't subdue it. The request entrusted to Heiri would reach the hands of the Holy Light Cross Order's holy knight order in less than ten minutes, and it would take them about twenty minutes to get to the academy.
The story that the remnants of Envelde, who had been enrolled at the academy and fled underground, had 'clumsily' joined hands with demon worshippers and attempted an evil plot, and that the students had noticed it in advance and were thwarting it when the holy knights cooperated to root it out—that was quite sensational and the kind of story many people would love.
Of course, if she had directly witnessed what was happening in those underground waterways, she might have developed an ulcer from stress, but Mesina had no way of knowing that.