The Bait and the Trap
“It’s all finished.”
The long-awaited report had arrived.
Hughes stood before Jeanne with a face heavy with exhaustion, yet shining with unmistakable pride.
“Well done. Go down first, give everything one last check, and wait for us.”
“Yes, ma’am! Understood!”
At Jeanne’s encouragement, Hughes looked as if he had received a blessing from an angel, his chest swelling with honor.
Once Hughes had disappeared down the secret passage to complete his mission, Jeanne summoned the knights.
With every entrance to the castle sealed off, the knights gathered in the designated chamber.
“You have all fought splendidly until now. You’ve done well.”
Not a single member of the Second Knight Order had fallen. Every one of them stood here. Jeanne offered words of encouragement to the weary soldiers.
“Thanks to your desperate defense, we were able to lay the foundation for our counterattack. There is nothing more we can do here. It is time to move on to the next phase.”
Jeanne opened the hidden door to the secret passage in front of the assembled knights. A bookshelf slid aside, revealing a pitch-black opening.
“Everyone, escape through here.”
The secret passage descended all the way to the underground level, relying on a single ladder.
Considering the age of the palace, the mere existence of a mechanically operated secret passage was remarkable.
“Captain, you should descend first.”
“No. I will remain here.”
“What are you saying?”
Jeanne’s words were immediately swallowed by Diego’s booming voice.
Next, her personal guard knight, Fabian, spoke in a tone laced with concern.
“Are you saying you intend to act as the bait yourself?”
“That’s right.”
“That is unacceptable.”
“Then who else could possibly serve as bait?”
“We can do it just as well.”
“They are not fools. They will likely proceed with extreme caution. Unless they see bait worthy of a royal, they won’t bite without thinking, will they?”
Jeanne turned to Divine, with whom she had already coordinated her plan.
“What do you think, Divine?”
Divine wore a deeply displeased expression as he slowly opened his mouth.
“Her Highness is correct. They will only take the bait if it is sufficiently tempting.”
Jeanne had already asked Divine beforehand to side with her if the knights opposed the idea, and he had agreed.
Even Divine believed it was too dangerous for Jeanne to step forward herself.
Yet it was also true that she was the only person capable of fulfilling the role of bait.
“If you are that worried about me, it would be better for you to wait below. That way, if I fail to escape, you can attempt a swift rescue, can you not?”
Jeanne continued speaking to the hesitant soldiers.
“We have no time. Move quickly. If the enemy army floods in, the plan will fail and we will all die. Your swift escape is the greatest help you can give me.”
“Understood!”
From the moment Diego had been defeated by Jeanne in swordsmanship and surrendered the position of captain, he had sworn absolute loyalty.
Even if the order seemed unjust, trusting and obeying was what he considered true loyalty.
Once Diego moved, the knights who had served under him for so long followed without resistance.
Jeanne occasionally glanced out the windows to observe the enemy’s movements.
They won’t send all their troops in from the start.
Tens of thousands of soldiers could not possibly fit inside the castle, and they would surely begin with reconnaissance.
In the meantime, nearly everyone had descended through the secret passage. Only Divine and Fabian remained.
Jeanne shouted with a hint of irritation.
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you going down?”
Divine casually pulled a book from the shelf and opened it.
“In the worst-case scenario, if Her Highness is taken captive, someone must remain to attend her, don’t you think?”
“Stop talking nonsense and get down there. You’ll only be a hindrance.”
“I’m wounded. To think I would be called useless!”
“What help could you possibly be when you can’t even fight?”
“Porter?”
Jeanne furrowed her brow deeply.
Divine stepped closer and whispered.
“If an unexpected situation arises, having me by your side will prove helpful.”
Jeanne stared at him with a startled expression. Divine simply smiled brightly, as if he had read every thought in her mind.
Jeanne let out a sigh.
If I think about the future, it might be better to allow it now.
There would surely come a time when Jeanne would have to push her own will forward without compromise. Considering that moment, yielding once now did not seem so bad.
Now it was time to persuade Fabian.
In truth, he was easier to handle. As a knight, he could not disobey a direct order from his liege.
Jeanne practically pushed Fabian toward the passage.
“I understand your concern, but waiting outside is how you can help me. The fewer people here, the faster we can move. Go down now.”
“But…”
“Fabian, trust me. Your princess is not as weak as you believe.”
Jeanne met his eyes and gave a firm nod.
“Then… please be careful.”
At last, Fabian reluctantly left her behind and descended into the passage.
The Rotinzel army sent scouts into the palace first. Their orders were to search the palace and capture every last person remaining inside.
Soldiers moved in pairs of two or three, entering the palace. They scoured every corner.
“Strange. Where did all the knights who were guarding this place go?”
“If they got trapped inside the castle, they’d be dead for sure. They must have prepared an escape route before coming in, right?”
“Let’s just keep looking. They might be hiding somewhere in the building.”
They searched floor by floor, checking every room, until they finally reached the chamber where the royals were said to have been seen.
Two soldiers exchanged glances. One of them swallowed hard.
They nodded at the same time, then carefully opened the door with extreme tension.
Creak—
The soldier drew his blade warily. Inside the room was someone completely different from what they had expected.
For one thing, he was neither royalty nor a knight.
“Thank you for coming all this way.”
The one who greeted them with a smooth, relaxed demeanor was Divine. The soldiers entered the room with baffled expressions.
“Who the hell is this guy?”
“Hmm. This is definitely the room where they said a royal was spotted.”
“Anyway, let’s arrest this one first—urk.”
At that moment, Jeanne, who had been hiding behind the door, ambushed the soldier. Her short sword pierced his throat, killing him instantly before he could even scream.
The other soldier tried to call for reinforcements, but Jeanne was faster. She clamped a hand over his mouth, kicked his legs out from under him, and brought him down.
At the same time, she signaled Divine with her eyes.
Divine moved swiftly to close the door so no sound would leak outside.
Jeanne pressed her foot down on the soldier’s head, reversed her grip on the short sword, and drove it downward.
“S-Spare…”
Thud!
The sharply honed blade slipped precisely between his ribs and pierced his heart. Blood gushed out like a fountain, soaking Jeanne’s clothes.
Divine unconsciously frowned.
He had lived his entire life among books. The sight of blades flashing and blood spraying was an utterly foreign experience to him.
The shock he felt now was something he had never experienced while reading descriptions of war and death in texts.
Jeanne indifferently wiped the blood from her dagger onto the dead soldier’s clothes.
She then unstrapped the matchlock the soldier had been carrying and examined it closely.
“Were you startled?”
“I am fine. But are you alright, Your Highness?”
Divine pushed down his shock and checked on his liege’s well-being.
War had already drawn near, and from now on he would witness blood and flesh countless times as long as he remained at Jeanne’s side.
“Let’s hurry.”
“You seem remarkably calm about this.”
“I have no room left to feel guilt over killing enemies. I am already overwhelmed simply trying to protect my own people. There is no space in my heart for the enemy.”
Jeanne handed the matchlock to Divine.
He immediately recognized it as the new weapon that had crushed Liam’s army. He wrapped it in cloth and slung it across his back.
Jeanne said, “Go down first.”
The passage was pitch dark. They had to descend the ladder relying solely on touch.
One misstep would mean falling from an immeasurable height.
“Wouldn’t it be better to close the passage door instead of leaving it open? If it’s wide open like an invitation, it looks too much like a trap.”
“I was planning to do exactly that.”
“Of course. Our clever princess would naturally have thought of that.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether your compliments are sincere or not.”
“I never say empty words.”
The light exchange eased some of the heavy atmosphere that had settled over them.
After Divine, Jeanne climbed onto the ladder and activated the mechanism from inside. The open bookshelf slid shut with a low rumble.
Divine looked up. The faint light that had filtered through the gap vanished, leaving only complete darkness.
The rain of arrows had stopped.
Nicholas’s soldiers gradually realized that the Bluisol knights’ resistance had vanished.
They used siege weapons to smash through the firmly locked castle gates.
There should have been defenders, yet the interior of the castle was as empty as the city outside.
Nicholas first sent soldiers to search inside the castle.
The reports that came back were consistent: there was truly no one left inside. However, two soldiers had not returned.
Nicholas issued another search order to find them. This time, the men searched more thoroughly and reported back.
“In the room where a royal was reportedly seen, we found two dead soldiers. We also discovered a secret passage behind a bookshelf.”
“A secret passage. So they all escaped through there.”
“Yes, sir. Shall we search inside it as well?”
At the soldier’s question, Nicholas nodded without hesitation.
“Comb through every inch and drag those rats out!”
At his hasty command, Aaron, who had been silently observing until now, finally stepped forward.
“What if they’ve set a trap?”
“A trap? At most they’ll have a few soldiers lying in ambush. We can just push through. If you’re scared, stay out of it again.”
“Hmm…”
Aaron stroked his thick chin, lost in thought.
“Since capturing the castle was your achievement, there’s no point in me intervening now. Do as you wish. I’ll simply look around to see if there’s anything worth taking.”
With those words, Aaron withdrew.
No matter how I look at it, something feels off.
Just as Nicholas despised Aaron, Aaron also viewed Nicholas as pathetic.
However, he simply considered him a greenhorn far beneath him, which was why he did not openly antagonize him the way Nicholas did.
I heard the King of Bluisol is extremely greedy for power and values his own life above all else. There’s no way the real king would have stayed behind in this castle.
Even so, the two of them were rivals competing for their own king’s favor.
The reason Aaron could so easily give up this opportunity was that it did not seem like it would yield a particularly great achievement.
Even if it wasn’t a trap, they would likely find nothing or at best capture some distant royal relative. There was no need to exert himself.
Aaron clicked his tongue as he watched Nicholas’s troops move busily about.
The secret passage descended far below what would have been the first floor. It connected to an underground escape route.
His feet finally touched the ground. Divine groped along the wall with his hands. He found the lamp that had been prepared in advance.
He lit the lamp and shone it upward.
It was out of concern that he wanted Jeanne to descend as safely as possible.
Soon Jeanne reached the bottom as well.
The two walked through the dark passage. After carefully examining the floor in the lamplight, they found the pile of stones Hughes had stacked as a marker.
“The fuse runs inside the wall.”
“He prepared it remarkably well in such a short time. Of course, the mechanism was already in place.”
“It seems the passage was designed to be sealed after the royals escaped. To prevent pursuit from behind.”
“Correct. Hughes modified the device using gunpowder so that when activated, part of the passage will completely collapse.”
“That’s impressive for a common soldier. Even though he came from the Salpetre unit, it’s still remarkable. I’m truly curious how Your Highness came to know such a talented individual.”
“Let’s call it my little secret.”
Destroying the entire castle with the remaining gunpowder would have been impossible—both temporally and physically—without ancient magic.
However, destroying the device installed in this narrow passage was entirely feasible.
Jeanne’s final plan was to collapse the passage once the enemy entered, then use the resulting flames to set the entire castle ablaze.
There was only one reason this trap could work.
A psychological blind spot.
She was taking advantage of the enemy’s assumption that no one would willingly destroy their own royal palace.
Noise echoed from above.
Jeanne lifted a torch. It was time for the counterattack.