To the Place I Must Go (3)
If I wasted any more time, he might try something underhanded. So I didn’t hesitate—I hurled myself straight at him. But—
“I’m sorry, I failed—!!”
The mastermind behind this incident must have realized the instant I closed in that he wouldn’t survive. He offered an apology to no one in particular, then—
Srrk—
Slice. Slice. Slice. Sliiiice—!!
He drew a knife from inside his coat and began carving his own face to pieces. The clear intent was to destroy any chance of identifying him as the assassin.
“What…?!”
The horrific sight made my rage flicker for a split second. Still, I didn’t hesitate. I drove a steel shard into his gut to stop any further madness, but the man had already endured too much. With a face like a crushed dumpling, he collapsed and died on the spot.
I rushed to check his pulse. Nothing. All that remained before me was a meat puppet that had once been human. At this stage, even Azero’s power couldn’t regenerate the body. He was no longer alive.
I might have tried magical tracing, but without a proper control group for comparison, pinning down the culprit would have been nearly impossible.
Once the sorcerer commanding the skulls died, the few that remained lost their souls. They crumbled into nothing but bones rolling across the ground.
“Damn it… Now we’ll never know who was behind this!”
I cursed the way things had unraveled and, in a burst of fury, kicked the corpse.
Thud—!!
But anger was one thing—standing around wasn’t an option. The moment I regained my senses, I sprinted to the lady’s side. She had clearly lost a dangerous amount of blood.
“My lady, are you all right?”
“…Yes. For now.”
“Come here. I’ll heal you. But I must remove the arrow first… It may hurt a little.”
“I-it’s fine. Really… I trust you.”
Squish—
“Ugh…”
I pulled the arrow free from her arm, making sure no fragments remained, then wrapped her in Azero’s blessing.
Ziiing—
“Ah… it’s so warm…”
“…Please don’t try to stand yet. Azero can heal wounds, but she cannot restore lost blood.”
“All right. I’ll stay still.”
The lady, now successfully healed, forced herself to act composed so I wouldn’t worry. Yet seeing how pale and drained she looked, guilt crashed over me—guilt for failing to prevent the attack and for allowing her to be hurt like this. The feeling seized every inch of my body.
Had reason not reminded me that I must remain calm no matter what, my mind would have shattered on the spot.
So I begged for forgiveness.
“I’m sorry, my lady. I should have healed you immediately. This sin, I will—”
“No. You did exactly what you had to do… If you hadn’t charged in and stopped that rain of arrows, we would have been pinned down and struck by even more.”
Her fingers trembled as she gave a small smile, then removed my combat helmet and gently stroked my face.
“Once again, I owe you my life.”
“Please don’t say that, my lady!”
It was then that the urgent sound of horses galloping toward us echoed from the distance. Someone must have sensed the disturbance and dispatched troops in haste.
“Lady Karalin—! My lady—!”
Yet the men who arrived only after the battle was over filled me with nothing but resentment. Under normal circumstances I would have scolded them mildly, but with the situation as it was, boundless fury consumed me. Every word I spoke dripped with venom.
“What took you so long…? While my princess—your princess—was dying before your eyes…”
“Lord of Steel───!”
“…………This is assassination. This is treason—!!”
At my roar, they lowered their heads like rabbits cowering before a predator.
“You know full well what happens to those who lay hands on royal blood. I intend to hunt down the bastard who plotted this vile scheme and chew him to the marrow. Do not harbor any foolish thoughts.”
“Yes! Understood—!!”
“…The lady will return with me. Lieutenant, divide your men and secure the scene.”
“…Lieutenant Wilhelm obeys!”
“If the investigation team finds even the slightest discrepancy when they arrive, I will personally tear apart not another soul—but you, Wilhelm, and your entire clan. Every last one.”
“………Leave it to me. I swear upon my honor.”
With that, I cradled the lady carefully in my arms and spurred my horse toward the royal castle where the court physician waited.
As I said, this was treason.
Whether the culprit was a man or a woman, I believed every last one of them should be rooted out and their heads displayed in the city square. No—given the severity of the crime, the blood eagle would be more fitting.
But several problems stood in our way.
‘How utterly, meticulously planned. That assassin bastard shredded his own face. He even swallowed poison.’
I’d wondered why he died so quickly. It turned out the assassin targeting the lady had taken poison before mutilating his face, ensuring his death beyond any doubt.
The royal scholars rushed to identify him, but—
“We still have no idea who he is…”
“I-if you give us just a little more time, we might be able to restore something!”
“………We don’t have time.”
The real issue was that we were scheduled to depart for the academy the very next day.
As if it had been calculated, his final desperate act of clawing his own face had proven devastatingly effective. Still, I had already guessed from the corpse’s state that identification would be difficult, so the disappointment was easier to swallow. What I hadn’t expected was that he had used a saw-toothed blade to tear his face so thoroughly.
Therefore, the only thing this revealed was that the attack had not been carried out by common bandits or thugs. It proved the assassination had been meticulously orchestrated.
“Treason! This is treason!”
“Even if she is not the official successor, she is His Highness Rexas’s one and only precious daughter.”
“We must track down whoever committed this outrage. When is the ministerial council being convened?!”
The royal castle was thrown into chaos, and the will of Fralbert swiftly converged on gathering every high official for an emergency strategy meeting.
“…L-Lady Karalin has been hurt?!”
“It doesn’t seem fatal. They say that madman Yohan single-handedly smashed every assassin’s skull…”
“So it has come to this. His Highness Rexas will lose what little hair he has left. For such an ill-omened event to occur while guests are present—his dignity will be utterly ruined.”
And then there were my poor friends, who had followed us without the slightest inkling that any of this would happen. They were just as bewildered.
“……C-Cryan… I think we might have come at a bad time~”
“We picked the absolute worst time. I’ve never seen Yohan this furious before.”
“……U-uuu—. We’re doomed.”
“But if you think about it the other way, the one who orchestrated this also chose the timing very poorly…”
“W-what do you mean by that?”
“It’s open to interpretation, Eclipse. Consider it homework. Come back when you understand.”
“Umm—. I still don’t get it……”
“The dopamine dinosaur with decent instincts and a decent head on her shoulders seems to be expecting something. Perhaps you know? The answer might come if you ask her.”
Whether they were chatting or not, I had witnessed the entire incident from start to finish. Having single-handedly dragged the lady back from the brink of hell, I naturally had every right to attend the council and flip the entire hall upside down.
So the moment the ministerial meeting was called, I strode toward the conference chamber with urgent steps. But someone caught my sleeve from behind.
“Excuse me, Lord of Steel?”
“—Lady Gorgo.”
“Shall we talk for a moment?”
I was in a hurry, yet when she spoke to me like that, I knew there had to be a reason. The story she told me was nothing short of shocking.
“…So that’s what happened.”
“In other words, Shagalor approached Grespara, learned the location of the fallen soldiers, and even discovered how to control them.”
“What this implies is obvious. It looks like Shagalor’s doing.”
“……….”
“…You can curse. I can see you holding it in.”
Even with permission, I couldn’t bring myself to utter vulgarities in front of the great ancestor. So I simply ground my teeth and thought.
‘Fucking bitch—.’
Since Shagalor was currently the mother of the heir, even if Rexas himself did not attend, she would undoubtedly slither into the meeting to support Abel.
But what if I stormed in and exposed the truth in front of everyone?
‘Oh dear, I’ve been caught. My apologies.’
Would she really react that way? No, I didn’t expect it. More likely—
‘There isn’t a single piece of physical evidence! The assassin is dead, and the one who claimed I colluded is a demon. So you’re going to believe the words of a mere demon? You are? Really? You’re all framing me! I’m so sad. Waaah—.’
She would try to wriggle out of it with exactly that kind of response. And since the logic was sound, even if I brought Gorgo along, Shagalor could deny everything indefinitely.
The proper method would be to maximize the accuracy of the evidence with the help of the scholars and the royal physician, but—
As I said, we had almost no time.
The cunning Shagalor might have counted on exactly that.
Walking into the ministerial meeting now could be like willingly crawling into the web of a venomous spider that had already laid out countless threads.
…Therefore.
Therefore.
A single idea flashed through my mind.
The place I needed to go right now might not be the council chamber at all.
‘A head-on charge is the worst move. I have to bet everything on another place. No exceptions.’
Since that woman was acting so stubbornly, we would respond in kind.
“…Lady Gorgo! Gorgo!”
“Oh my, ‘lady’? Child, have you forgotten how old I am…?”
“Please help me. The fate of the entire North rests on the next few hours…!”
“I-if that’s the case, of course I’ll help! Tell me what you need.”
“……….”
The logic was simple.
In the end, the one person who could take all these circumstances, synthesize them, and reach a final conclusion was not the two ladies currently at my side. It wasn’t even Abel.
And it was most certainly not Shagalor.
So what was the point of a meeting?
If I could directly change one person’s heart, I could bypass every trap and break through this crisis.
And judging from the way I had seen him last time…
If I laid bare the sincere feelings I had never voiced even while drunk, I believed it would be enough to move what lay deep inside that man’s heart.
The moment the thought struck me, I broke into a run. I cleared my throat, preparing a voice that would ring out loud and clear.