Orcs and the Female Knight 4

The orcs had not laid a hand on the female knight, and they were seriously plotting the assassination of royalty. The viewers were on fire over this bizarre turn of events. The fact that this was a deranged luck-based game where skipping the time attack cut your rewards, and attempting the time attack required high-star party members, seemed to be the furthest thing from their minds.

Was this what it meant to be a K-gamer?

The heated debate over why the orcs hadn't violated the female knight had reached a level that rivaled a panel of experts in furious deliberation. Faced with that tidal wave of intensity, even Han Se-ah handed chat moderation over to the management bot and took a step back.

"The Royal Knight Order, huh… That's a story I never saw coming."

"Tell me about it. Orcs from inside the Tower sneaking into a forest blessed by the royal family? Honestly, if anyone else had told me that, I'd have written it off as a drunkard's rambling."

"I hope we can resolve this anomaly as quickly as possible."

While the viewers raged at the orcs, the party was reeling over the Avergne Forest. Irene in particular — you could practically see the sense of duty blazing in her eyes. A forest blessed by the Goddess, defiled by orcs. As a nun, she could hardly stand by and watch.

Orcs appearing in a blessed forest famous throughout the kingdom. The one silver lining was that the situation had grown large enough to set the Adventurer's Guild's feet on fire.

If ordinary orcs had simply settled in the Avergne Forest, it wouldn't have been much of a problem. But orcs that had come out of the Tower establishing themselves there? That became a political headache. It might even hand the kingdom a convenient excuse to encroach on the free city of adventurers.

"Still, the good news is the orcs haven't started moving yet. They've set up camp, but they haven't gone after any nobles or royals. Why they kidnapped the female knight, though…"

"The shaman brought her back and hid her inside his house. Do you think they were planning some kind of dark ritual?"

"Yeah. Considering those orcs kidnapped her clean and never laid a finger on her, a sacrifice is about the only thing that comes to mind."

This world of Heroes Chronicle had been built on the foundation of Heroines Chronicle, so everything you'd expect was here. In a collector-bait otaku game, sultry older-sister characters modeled on witches and dark mages — gloomy yet dripping with sex appeal — were practically mandatory.

Older women in what passed for robes but looked more like modern city-wife outfits, dripping with sweat over a cauldron so every curve showed through. Or the reverse: a playful little girl who turned out to be a genius of witchcraft. Sound familiar?

"Evil shamanism, or black magic. Wouldn't be strange either way."

"Wouldn't be strange either way?"

"Of all the vast forests in the kingdom, they just happened to settle in one blessed by the Goddess. Whether there's some shamanistic significance to it, whether a black mage is trying to blaspheme the Goddess, or whether they're just orcs being orcs — there's no way to know."

I answered Han Se-ah's question seriously, though I was a little confused myself. The outline of this quest wouldn't become clear until it progressed further.

If the enemy were human, there wouldn't be much to overthink. A shady group targeting royalty with foul methods. But the fact that the enemy was orcs made ten years of accumulated common sense — a kind of fixed idea — scramble my thoughts.

How? Orcs?

It felt like one of those locked-room murder mysteries where the culprit turned out to be the victim's four-month-old kitten working with a two-year-old parrot as an accomplice. Intellectually impossible, motive incomprehensible, and the plausibility had been drowned in soup and served for dinner.

"Well, they are orcs."

"Orcs committing blasphemy and royal assassination… It really is a strange affair."

"Still, the ones at the palisade looked a bit smarter, more like soldiers. …In the end, though, they were still orcs."

We walked through the forest, talking as we went. Leaving Charlotte and Mary behind in the safe zone, we headed for the exit of the Tower. The reason was simple: to run from Antenor.

We had captured a mutant shaman alive, and Charlotte had started examining it. The moment Antenor, holed up in his lab, got wind of the news, he would come charging over with fire in his eyes. Get tangled up in that, and we might have to recount every last detail of today's adventure from start to finish, over and over.

Having already suffered through that once, the party voted unanimously to leave the safe zone. We also demanded that Charlotte, who had taken the mutant shaman, share any information exclusively with us.

"I hope Miss Charlotte and Master Antenor turn up something useful."

"We have to move faster than the Royal Knight Order. At this rate, they might snatch the entire reward out from under us."

"Ugh, why are there so many competitors?"

"An adventurer's life is always full of competitors."

"Unnie, having the Royal Knight Order as a competitor is a bit much, don't you think?"

Our steps were light as we left the twentieth floor behind and headed down, down. We had come prepared with rations and ready to camp inside the Tower on the twentieth floor, yet we had found a major lead in a single day. Rivals had appeared — first Rebecca, now the Royal Knight Order — but with all the information we had gained, it hardly mattered.

Just because the female knight called Josephine had returned didn't mean the Royal Knight Order would spring into action immediately. The higher-ups had heavy backsides; that was common knowledge. They wouldn't come swarming over the word of a single female knight.

At the very least, they would want to verify the facts once more, or demand information from the Adventurer's Guild. Thinking of it that way, we still had a chance of winning.

That the higher-ups had heavy backsides was the most obvious common sense in the world — but there were also times when those heavy backsides suddenly grew light. A situation like this one, where even higher higher-ups were about to snatch away their livelihood, was a textbook example.

"They've already assembled an expedition?"

"Apparently ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they hastily contracted with a mercenary company's supply train that was originally headed for the upper floors. Rebecca's company, I hear. You know her, Roland?"

"Ah. So that's how it went."

Rebecca's mercenary company, freshly stripped of their luxury-goods wagon. And the Adventurer's Guild, feet on fire, desperate to resolve the situation before the royal family intervened.

The timing lined up so perfectly that they seemed to have contracted every last mercenary even at a financial loss. Nobles who sponsored the guild had probably opened their wallets in a hurry as well — those vanity-stuffed aristocrats who had come looking for us after the Full Moon Wolf hunt.

Nobles who had been savoring free-city life, where ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠money alone could buy honor through adventurers. There was no way they would sit still and watch the kingdom reach its hand toward the Adventurer's Guild now.

"Planning to tag along with the expedition again and snip off the orc chieftain's head?"

"Of course, Elise. We killed the Full Moon Wolf and a gate popped out. I'm looking forward to seeing what the mages cook up this time."

"True. Plenty of people came down to the twentieth and thirtieth floors carrying that kind of expectation."

Early morning, before the rest of the party had joined us. Talking with Elise gave me a rough sense of how the quest was flowing. As expected of the queen of guild receptionists — her information network was something else.

Adventurers were people too. Live by a planned schedule long enough, and you ended up seeing the same receptionist often. If there was a beautiful receptionist you met every time you returned alive from exploration and rest, even if you didn't fall in love, building a fondness for her was only human nature.

Adventurers weren't intelligence agents demanding top-secret information, so their tongues tended to loosen in front of a pretty woman. Came down to the thirtieth floor recently. Probably won't push past the twentieth for a while. Those little scraps of small talk all flowed toward Elise.

"This expedition will have more participants than the last one."

"Right? The nobles opened their wallets and hired a ton of mercenaries, and after what happened on the tenth floor, other adventurers have gotten a bit greedy too. Speaking of which, there's a request that came in for your party."

"A request?"

"Yes, a request. What exactly have you been doing inside the Tower that the Royal Knight Order suddenly sends a request your way?"

A request from the Royal Knight Order specifically naming Adventurer Hanna's party. Anyone could guess it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had something to do with Josephine, the female knight who had returned yesterday. As the rest of the party began filtering in one by one, we put our heads together at the table and read through the request letter.

By the grace of the Goddess — skip. For the glory of the royal name — skip that too. After cutting out every last flourish of flowery language, we ended up skipping roughly half of the long sheet of stationery.

Stripped of the unnecessary parts, the conditions they offered were simpler than expected. It was a request asking Adventurer Hanna's party — who had hunted the Full Moon Wolf, rescued the female knight, and captured a mutant shaman alive — to serve as their guides.

"Guides, huh. Should we take it?"

"No. Better not to accept. Fortunately, this didn't come down in the name of the royal family — it's a request that arrived at the guild under the Knight Order's name."

"Hmm? The reward is pretty generous. Why refuse?"

The party stared at me in surprise as I naturally moved to decline. Why turn down a request that would hand us gold coins just for showing them the way? That was the look. Elise beamed as if she found their innocent faces adorable.

True to her preference for handsome men and beautiful women, she began tapping the long request letter with a finger and explaining in my place.

"See this phrase here — 'for the glory of the Royal House'? When the Knight Order starts invoking the royal family, it means they have no intention of sharing the credit. In exchange for gold as guides, they intend to monopolize every achievement earned during the request."

"Which means…?"

"It's probably because of the Full Moon Wolf hunt and the gate made from its byproducts. A gate leading into the Tower, and the profits that come with it. Something the capital's nobles would covet, don't you think?"

Accept this request, and the player could pocket a large sum of gold — but no additional rewards. Twentieth-floor gate access, skill points, equipment upgrades, and other precious rewards money couldn't buy. We couldn't afford to give those up.

In the end, the fact that the kingdom's Knight Order had become a rival remained unchanged.