The Gloomy Delegation
The atmosphere surrounding the delegation as it approached the city gates was bleak beyond words.
Though the group consisted mostly of children, any party representing an entire nation should have carried itself with pride and overflowing confidence. Instead, every face was dark as though they were attending a funeral.
Worst of all was the knight commander at the head of the column.
My future is over… just like that. My career… my…
Clip-clop.
The commander sat slumped on his horse like a man who had already lost his soul.
The mission given to the 5th Royal Knight Order under his command had been—what was the vulgar phrase?—an absolute cushy job. All they had to do was escort some kids, earn the palace’s trust, and open the door to promotion. A golden opportunity.
Until they lost a student.
And not just any student—a disappearance presumed to be fatal.
“Haaaaah.”
The commander was not the only one sighing as if the ground might swallow him whole.
Combat class instructor Dinel, riding just behind with an equally haggard expression, let out a matching breath.
“Haa…”
The two men responsible for the delegation’s safety were, in a word, mentally shattered.
They had already failed the mission entrusted to them.
Losing a single child to the wilds was common enough in this world—hardly newsworthy. But when that child was a noble, the matter grew serious. When that noble happened to be a student of the Royal Academy, it became critical.
In Dmitry, attending the Royal Academy meant one thing: you were recognized as one of the king’s talents.
Dikel III was famous for cherishing such people.
And the talent currently under his special protection was none other than Jeanie Crowell.
The story of how he had created an entire Spirit Studies department just for her was already legendary.
“His Majesty gave a direct order. Jeanie Crowell must be included in the delegation. I’m sorry, but… we’ll have to reduce the number of combat class students by one.”
Dinel kept remembering the dean’s face as the man had clapped him on the shoulder and delivered those words.
When he first heard them, his hands had clenched into fists so tight the knuckles went white.
He had despised Jeanie Crowell for daring to take a combat class spot simply because she was rare.
Intellectually, he understood.
The swordsmanship division consistently delivered excellent tournament results; their numbers couldn’t be cut. The total number of participants was fixed.
And according to the dean, the king wanted to show off the youngest Spirit Master on the continent to the entire kingdom. That made sense too.
But emotionally? He couldn’t accept it.
Even as a teacher, there was one student he hated so much he could barely stand to look at her.
Which was why, when the combat class children bullied Jeanie Crowell, he had not only failed to stop them—he had watched with genuine pleasure.
Yet he had never wished for her to vanish like this.
“Commander, sir.”
“What?”
Dinel urged his horse closer and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“The student replacing Crowell will need several more days to catch up… Will the schedule be delayed?”
“They promised to send the fastest horse from the palace. We can only wait.”
“Even if they ride through the night…”
“What else can we do? That’s our only option.”
On the morning Jeanie Crowell’s whereabouts became unknown, the commander had roared like a madman and immediately formed search parties.
“Who? Jeanie Crowell? …What the hell are you all doing? Send out search teams right now!”
They had assumed the usual—perhaps she had stepped away to relieve herself and gotten lost in the forest.
The priority was finding her before monsters did.
If she was already dead, they needed to recover the body.
They searched the immediate area with no results, then widened the perimeter. That was when they found suspicious monster tracks. Following them led to clumps of golden hair snagged on tree branches.
The signs of desperate flight were everywhere. The trail ended at a cliff.
Below raged a violent river. The still-fresh traces of orcs left the teachers and knights speechless with horror.
Staring down at the ferocious current, it was clear that even the knights standing there would have no chance of survival if they fell in.
A heavy, deathly silence fell over the knights who had followed the trail.
When they reported back to the commander, everyone could already imagine the furious roar that would follow—and the sighs of resignation poured out.
From that moment, chaos reigned.
They could have clung to hope and continued searching, but that would have made it impossible to meet the festival schedule.
Everything had its priorities. As the leader of the group, the commander had been forced to make a brutal choice. The delegation reluctantly resumed its journey.
They sent a single knight back along the road to the nearest city to dispatch an urgent telegram to the capital.
URGENT TELEGRAM
JEANIE CROWELL MISSING!
With one student missing from an international competition, a replacement was obviously required. Before long, the knight returned with the king’s reply.
Substitute will be sent. Responsibility will be addressed upon your return.
The knight commander’s insides were rotting away. His burden of responsibility made Dinel’s look trivial by comparison.
“This is a real headache.”
“Bringing the substitute is bad enough, but the entry procedures will be far more complicated. The Magicians’ Tower is notorious for being difficult, isn’t it?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“From now on, we should formally suggest to our superiors that we bring extra students from the start to prepare for emergencies like this. I believe we need a candidate system…”
“Have you lost your mind? This is an unprecedented incident! It must never happen again! You really are a thoughtless fool.”
The knight commander had always possessed a foul temper, but these past few days his sensitivity had reached its peak.
He clearly refused to accept that his career had just taken a serious hit.
“You seem to be taking this too personally. I only meant… students can get injured before a competition, and we never know when or where something might happen, so we should prepare—”
“Enough. My head already hurts enough as it is.”
The commander twisted his face into a savage scowl at Dinel’s excuse, gave his horse’s rump a rough slap, and rode several meters ahead.
He clearly wanted to be alone. Dinel muttered curses at the man’s back where no one could hear.
In every possible way, the delegation’s mood had hit rock bottom.
With their exalted commander in such low spirits, the knights naturally grew cautious. The instructor couldn’t even hide his anger in front of the children, so declining morale was inevitable.
Though the adults tried to keep it quiet, the children knew everything they needed to know.
They knew one student was missing.
To young children, the death of a peer was a shocking event.
The combat class boy who had led the ostracism of Jeanie Crowell was crying nonstop, as if something weighed heavily on him.
The commoner-born knights who had been close to Jeanie Crowell had red-rimmed eyes.
Normally the commander would never have tolerated such weakness, but this once he overlooked it.
Though he continued throwing tantrums about everything else.
“Hansen! Philo!”
At the commander’s call, Hansen and Philo quickly rode forward.
“Yes, Commander!”
“You called, sir!”
“Go ahead.”
The commander didn’t even glance at the two who had rushed over; he simply jerked his chin.
He was pointing at the two heavily armed gatekeepers standing before the gates of Valen.
Entry procedures and inspections were tedious tasks left to underlings. For the 5th Royal Knight Order, that duty fell to Hansen and Philo.
“Yes, sir!”
The two knights immediately spurred their horses and reached the gate well ahead of the main party.
They were tense for a simple reason: the people of Bailan particularly disliked those from Dmitry.
The two nations were old rivals. Inspections were always stricter than necessary.
Their attitudes toward each other were, as if by mutual agreement, not merely prickly but openly hostile—always one step away from outright aggression.
Each side blamed the other’s stubbornness for the loss of imperial prestige.
At the Winkan Festival, Bailan and Dmitry were satisfied simply by defeating each other.
Therefore, there was no reason to expect any warmth toward the delegation’s arrival.
“Oh my! Welcome, welcome! We’ve been waiting for you!”
“You’re finally here! Everyone from Drike Academy!”
There should not have been such a greeting.
“Wh-what…”
“Why are they welcoming us?”
It was utterly bewildering. Hansen unconsciously yanked his reins. Philo froze with a stiff, sour expression.
They were used to being found fault with and forced to wait outside the gates for hours. But this welcome… what was going on?
“You have no idea how long we’ve been waiting.”
“Exactly! Please take over as soon as possible.”
“…Take over?”
“Thanks to Captain Shabel running away, I’ve been stuck with that problem child. I shouldn’t have let her enter the country so easily back then… Because I was the one in charge of entry, I had to write twelve official reports. Please take responsibility and get her out of here quickly.”
The gatekeeper wore an expression of profound relief.
Hansen and Philo, completely lost, dismounted and approached the gatekeepers.
It seemed there had been a serious misunderstanding.