The Derailed Plan (1)
Wuuuum.
The orb hummed and glowed, and a familiar face appeared within it.
"It's been a week, Minister."
Cartion Grayson, monocle in place, did not answer.
Instead, he set down the paperwork he was always poring over and simply stared at me for a long while in silence. At last, he opened his mouth.
Haaaaaah...
His very first word was a deep sigh. Well, that's a new way of saying hello.
"Minister? Is something the matter?"
Something the matter? There's been an absolute mountain of it. So much I nearly fainted.
He spoke with an expression utterly drained of life.
By royal command, the Princess has gone to convalesce wherever you are — and because of that, we're all dying back here. As of today, that's six straight days I haven't gone home.
"Ah."
Only then did I understand why the Minister looked even more exhausted than usual.
A princess of the realm leaving the royal castle and traveling down to the provinces was an extraordinarily rare event. Depending on how you looked at it, it was the kind of matter that could leak out to foreign nations as a diplomatic signal.
And at the same time, the entire South would have been swept with investigations in case any danger should arise.
That faint screaming I can hear from the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Departments must just be my imagination.
And the Minister who commanded every one of those institutions — his head must have been splitting clean in two.
Cartion let out one last long sigh and straightened up in his chair.
Let's get the regular report out of the way first, then talk. Any incidents at the Southern Border this past week?
"Uh..."
I cast my mind back.
The very first day the Princess arrived, a dwarf brought in a Blood Diamond — a top-priority restricted item. Then a pack of free mercenaries got caught trying to smuggle an unregistered artifact and attempted to blow themselves up; everyone here nearly died. And Elaine, trying to stop it, came within a hair of going berserk yet again.
There were quite a few incidents, actually — the words rose right to the tip of my tongue.
But we handled all of them, so...
Even if something happens, so long as it's resolved cleanly, it's as if it never happened at all. That was the venerable tradition of the Zero-Accident Record.
I smiled ever so slightly and said:
"Nothing happened at all."
Judging by that expression, something certainly did.
Well, no wonder he's Minister — the man reads people like a ledger.
So, where is the Princess staying right now? My guess would be Margrave Reyes's castle.
Before I could answer, he nodded to himself and pressed on.
Count Reyes is a reliable man. One of the rare die-hard loyalists. I imagine Her Majesty had that very much in mind when she sent the Princess there.
Wrong guess. I carefully corrected him.
"The Princess is currently staying at my residence in the main building, with one maid in attendance."
...What?
The Minister froze, hand still pressed to his temple.
The transmission must be faulty. Let me hear that again, Central Officer.
"She is staying at my home."
An unwed princess of marriageable age — staying in the house of an unmarried, young, male civil servant?
The Minister slowly removed his monocle. That gesture meant he was stepping down from his office for a moment, to speak to me with brutal, unvarnished honesty.
He drew breath.
You deranged fool! Do you have any idea what that MEANS!?
The thunderous bellow came tearing out right after.
"M-Minister? Are you, by chance, angry?"
Angry? This isn't anger, this is sheer disbelief!
Where on earth did that voice come from, out of that stick-thin frame?
It's one thing for a princess to VISIT a young male civil servant's home — you're telling me she's STAYING there!?
Having caught the unspoken accusation buried in Cartion's words, I hastily waved my hands.
"Th-that's not what I meant at all! Besides, there's a maid with her, so there's no problem, is there!"
There is a problem, you lunatic! A royal sharing one roof with a commoner is a colossal breach of protocol — and you're telling me you put the PRINCESS in your own house!? Do you not understand what that would look like!?
"Erzena is staying here too! You think I'd have lost my mind and done something like that?"
I wasn't some wild beast — how could I possibly dare to lay a hand on a princess of the realm? Short of going completely insane, such a thing was unthinkable.
But at those last words, the Minister recoiled in even greater horror.
The Saint is in your house too!?
Oh, dear.
Why on earth did you take in a provisional refugee? There's a safe house, isn't there!
"It collapsed some time ago, when we caught a terrorist."
All because the Smell Officer had gone berserk trying to flush out a single Changeling.
My alibi was airtight, and the Minister groaned.
Good grief... not one, but two...
"You know that's not what's going on here."
How am I supposed to know that? How is the WORLD supposed to see it, Central Officer?
But what could I do, when my home was, right now, the single safest place for both of them? I'd done my absolute best. It wasn't fair.
"There was nowhere else. I swear it."
Tell that to Her Majesty the King. I'm sure she'll be very understanding.
He fell silent for a moment to recover his composure, then spoke again.
What are your security arrangements? Two distinguished guests in one location means your defenses had better be twice as thorough.
"The Border Guard is currently establishing a 24-hour watch around my residence. Beyond that, both of them are escorted to the Immigration Office during the day, where they're under the protection of the Five Senses Officers. Agent R of the Intelligence Department is also cooperating."
Hm. Minimal measures appear to be in place... but it won't be enough.
Cartion's face snapped back to sober seriousness as he presented another plan.
I'll deploy additional Intelligence Department agents to the South. The Princess's abilities are unstable — we'll need a means of suppressing them.
"Ah, well, about that..."
Apparently the news hadn't reached him yet — not even the most recent events. Picturing Elaine rampaging in the recovery room just hours ago, I said:
"That won't be necessary."
This isn't about necessity, Central Officer. You know perfectly well how precarious the Princess's telekinesis is.
I did know. Knew it all too well.
And... that the matter was already closed.
"The telekinesis problem has been solved."
...What?
For the first time, the Minister's face clouded with genuine bewilderment.
What did you just say?
"Her Highness has learned to fully command her own power."
Elaine no longer wavered. She had found happiness within her painful past; all that remained was for her to move forward.
"I suppose I should report, then, that fifteen years of suppression have come to an end."
...
Cartion fell silent for a very long time.
Then, slowly — very slowly — he drew in a breath. Just as I moved to cover my ears—
What in God's name have you DONE, you little bastard!?
A shrill screech entirely unbecoming of his age burst out of the crystal orb.
Meanwhile, in the lower reaches of an active volcano on the western edge of the continent.
"Get that support beam up! Cover it with cloth — we can't let any ash in!"
"Not this way! It reeks of sulfur!"
Burly soldiers bustled about, raising a temporary base in the only spot the lava could not reach.
Rrrumb... rrrumblem...
A disquieting rumble suddenly rolled down from the peak, and lava came gushing from the vent.
But no one so much as glanced upward.
"H-hey, did you just see—"
"Shh. Don't look. The dragon will eat you."
As if they'd heard nothing at all, they simply kept their heads down and worked.
Active volcanic regions were thick with superstitions. One of them held that when the master of the mountain stirred, anyone daring to meet its gaze would be devoured on the spot.
No matter how brave or self-assured a man might be, he believed the superstitions here — because this was a place of inexplicable natural phenomena, and of beings that ranked alongside them.
And yet, one single man was looking up.
"...The dragon has met the fire spirits."
He was a dark-skinned man clad in armor made of strange, alien scales.
Unlike the other soldiers, he did not move an inch, simply glaring at the volcano's vent in silence.
That was when it happened.
One of the soldiers approached with a taut face and saluted.
"Dragon Hunter, sir! The temporary base is nearly complete! All supplies have been loaded!"
The Dragon Hunter.
Only one man in this entire world bore such a dangerous title.
Kaban Vladbich.
The man who had killed three dragons faster than anyone before him slowly turned his head.
"Prepare yourselves. We begin the operation the moment the sun sets today."
"T-today, sir?"
When the startled soldier repeated the question, Kaban frowned.
"The master of the volcano has grown old and feeble. Now is the ideal moment."
"If that's the case, would it not be wiser to wait until it dies of old age, and then claim its corpse—"
"Don't be stupid. Time is relative. For a creature that has lived a thousand years to die of old age, you'd have to wait at least another decade. Could you hold out in this shithole that long?"
Dragons lived long. A fleeting instant to them was, to a human, closer to a span of years.
Watching the volcanic ash fall like snow, the soldier's face hardened.
"I have waited a very, very long time for this day. Today is the day that waiting bears fruit. It must be today."
The red dragon, Mnassil.
The name of that colossal being was known to every soul in the West.
"And besides... killing them is no longer enough."
Kaban murmured, low and quiet.
He still remembered it. The day the volcano had breathed fire — the sight of a single dragon roaring from its summit, scorching the very sky.
I must... rule them.
And he recalled the one who had shown him this new path.
Kaban Vladbich. You have always hated dragons — so much that exterminating every last one of them became your life's purpose.
But your aim was wrong. You must go the other way. You must... dominate them.
And when one day you achieve it — when you, a mere human, have broken mythology itself — help me.
This is the token of that promise.
Kaban drew a magic scroll from his breast.
The Crown of Blood Thorns.
The most powerful mind-domination magic in existence — and a branch of Blood Magic, forbidden and accursed by the world.
As he stared at the scroll, the last words of that mysterious ally flickered through his mind.
For after mythology, the next thing to shatter... is false faith.
A woman with hair black as the deepest night, and eyes the vivid crimson of freshly spilled blood.
Hatensilla.
The proposal made by the woman who called herself Saintess of the Evil God Cult — the Dragon Hunter had accepted it.
"The age of myth ended long ago."
Kaban Vladbich ground the words out between his teeth.
"Soon... I will drag you down into the realm of beasts."
Killing dragons meant nothing anymore. Humanity had already conquered nature.
But to rule dragons — that would be a new chapter entirely. The signal flare announcing the true Age of Man.
In that age, neither dragon nor god nor anything else would reign above us.
"An age shall come in which man alone stands at the summit."
But there was one problem.
"Have the core materials all arrived?"
"W-well, sir..."
The soldier hesitated.
"This operation requires Blood Magic. Where is its catalyst, the Blood Diamond?"
"It has... not yet arrived."
"What? And the modified artifact?"
"The mercenaries assigned to transport it — we've lost contact with them!"
"Why are you only telling me this now... no. Never mind."
Irritation surged up in an instant. It was a completely unforeseen situation — but Kaban did not lose his composure.
In dragon hunting, a variable of this scale was nothing. He still had a contingency.
"Establish contact with the Cult. Tell them we require an additional catalyst for the Blood Magic."
"Yes, sir!"
The soldier immediately reached for his communication crystal.
Wuuuum.
But the crystal, which had begun to glow, quickly faded back into a plain glass bead.
"Huh?"
A second try.
Wuuuum.
Dark again.
That could mean only one thing.
"Th-the Cult is not answering!"
"Don't talk nonsense!"
At last his fury exploded, and he seized the soldier by the collar.
"Why would the Cult go silent!? Two weeks ago they answered perfectly fine! They're the ones who should be praying for nothing but this hunt's success!"
The plan was unraveling from the very first thread.
The perfect moment was tonight — tonight alone.
It all felt as if someone was obstructing him with eerie, surgical precision — and at the thought, Kaban bellowed at the sky.
"WHO is it — WHERE — that dares to interfere with this hunt!?"
"Hah-CHOO!"
At the perfectly timed sneeze, Elaine's eyes went wide once more.
[Do you feel unwell? Shall we go to the recovery room?]
"No, I'm quite all right. So please stop lifting my body around with telekinesis, would you?"
That made four times today alone.