Ventorino Kingdom - Toward the Second Revenge (3)
By the time Mercede and Mari were growing weary of entertaining the Ventorino royals who had come to fawn over them in the guest room, Valdes was not inside the royal palace at all.
In fact, he had never even made it in. He hadn’t merely slipped out halfway through; he’d been turned away at the gate from the very start. Among the entire delegation, he alone had been denied entry to the palace. Thanks to that, he was free to move about on his own.
Quite lively.
As he walked, he let his eyes drift over the streets around him.
Markets were lively wherever you went, it seemed.
Because Ventorino Kingdom had suffered the heaviest damage in the war against the demon race, its hatred toward demons ran especially deep. That hostility extended, for the most part, to innocent half-demons as well. Marc had only inflamed that hatred further.
The second policy Marc had championed at his coronation ceremony was an openly hostile stance toward demons and half-demons. Creating a common enemy was always effective for rallying allies and drawing out their strength.
Valdes had only been able to enter the capital because he had the very useful guarantee of being accompanied by Ulsro’s princess. As a rule, Ventorino’s capital was closed not only to demons, but to half-demons as well.
Of course, there were exceptions anywhere, so the capital was not completely free of half-demons. Even so, if a person had even a little black mixed into their hair, the citizens would look at them with eyes full of hostility, and the pressure of all those glances made it uncomfortable to be seen anywhere.
That was why even barbarians, who had nothing to do with demons, avoided coming to Ventorino’s capital if they had black hair. Ordinary commoners hardly possessed the sharp eye or knowledge to tell barbarians from half-demons.
Well, that has nothing to do with me.
Valdes, at least, walked down the street at an unhurried pace without drawing so much as a single glance.
He was not only a peerless swordsman, but also a skilled mage. A little magic to dull other people’s attention and blur his presence was simple enough.
And he was hardly the only one. Other half-demons, demon spies, and spies from foreign countries used the same methods. If they could cast magic, they did; if they could not, they relied on magical tools.
Barbarians avoided the city because they disliked such inconveniences and were unfamiliar with magical devices. Spies, naturally, were constantly slipping through places like this in every country and every region anyway.
After passing through the streets and making his way to the outskirts of the capital, he arrived at a shabby inn.
He pushed open the door, went inside, and climbed to the second floor. There, he found the two people he had sent ahead.
"Have you been waiting long?"
"Not at all. It wasn’t long compared to last time."
"Valdes, Valdes, Valdes!! I missed you!!"
Irena watched Yueli rush at Valdes with a smile, then frowned.
She herself had stayed perfectly still despite being his second lover and the one acknowledged by the Demon Queen as his legitimate partner, yet this woman, who had only joined the harem much later, was acting however she pleased. If Yueli hadn’t been one of Valdes’s former comrades, Irena would have bound her with ink magic on the spot.
Yueli wrapped her arms around him tightly, sniffing at his neck as she greedily drank in the scent of the master she loved and felt the warmth of his body.
"Yeah, yeah."
Valdes patted her back a few times while holding her close, then turned to Irena.
"How have you been?"
"I haven’t... been well, I suppose. Honestly, I never expected to miss Lady Vilma this much."
"Ha ha."
Irena shot Yueli a disgusted look, and Yueli stuck her tongue out in return. The moment Valdes looked over, she immediately broke into a beaming smile.
"Hmm, looks like the two of you haven’t gotten very close."
"...If you order me to get along with her, I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything."
"I don’t care about anything as long as I have Valdes!"
He might have misread the personnel selection far more badly than he’d thought. Still, at the time, leaving Vilma behind in the dungeon had been the best option.
If he had left Yueli there, she would have complained of boredom and caused trouble. Leaving Vilma with Irena also would not have been reassuring, because neither Vilma nor Yueli was dependable. Unlike Irena, who knew most of his plans, those two knew very little. They almost certainly would have botched the mission.
"Let’s think about that later. What about the things I asked you to do?"
"I found both of them. The witch was in a forest along the border between Ventorino Kingdom and Dezac Empire, and the last bloodline was in the capital’s slums."
"The capital?"
Valdes blinked.
That was unexpected.
He had assumed she would be living in the slums, since she probably had nothing left to her name. In fact, the report he had heard before had also said she was living in the slums.
But back then, she hadn’t been living in the capital. And even if she had managed to move somewhere else, he had never imagined that she would come all the way here.
"Yes. Even I thought it was a little surprising when I heard the report. Personally, I think she’s staying in the capital and waiting for a chance at revenge."
"Makes sense. Having your target far away and having them right under your nose are two completely different things."
Thinking about it that way, it was easy enough to understand.
Harboring a grudge against someone was not usually an easy thing. That was why, even when a person had two different grudges, they often gave up on one and concentrated on the other.
Valdes was able to cling to revenge for so long because he possessed the power to see it through, and because the range of his vengeance was realistic. For most people, on the other hand, it would not be strange at all to give up after a long time for practical reasons.
She must have chosen to remain in the capital so she could still catch a glimpse of the king from afar now and then, unwilling to give up on revenge.
"Good. I like that. It saves time, and it’ll probably make cooperation easier too. Let’s go there first."
The witch’s forest was too far away. They were not exactly short on time, but it was better to handle the closer matter first. And if the last bloodline was here, negotiations with the witch would become much easier.
Once Irena stepped out of the inn, she swept the surrounding area with sharp eyes.
"No one is following us."
"Of course I shook them all off."
After the rest of the delegation entered the palace, Valdes had returned to the streets. Even so, despite having Ulsro at his back, Ventorino had still assigned tails to him.
Because he had been spreading his spiritual sense wide, he had noticed them immediately. He wandered through the city like a tourist sightseeing, deliberately losing them along the way. He had even used magic on top of that. By gradually increasing the concentration of his magic, he had eliminated any chance they might detect it.
"Leave the rest to me!"
Using the spirit she had contracted, Yueli sharply lowered the three of their perceptions. Weakening awareness was her specialty.
They had to be careful, since if they walked into the slums and picked up another tail, things would get messy. It was well known that spies used magical tools, which meant there were naturally magical tools designed to detect or dispel magic as well.
Yueli’s spirit, by contrast, was safe. It was not for nothing that she had been able to wander for so long without anyone discovering her.
"By the way, young master."
"Yeah?"
"How do you plan to infiltrate the palace?"
As they headed toward the slums, Irena asked him, "Half-demons can enter the capital under special circumstances after a week-long review. Thanks to being part of the delegation, you were able to come into the capital right away, but..."
"Yeah, they say they do a week of screening, but they’d definitely reject me."
"Leaving aside the fact that it’s probably just an excuse, your background is a little unclear, Young Master."
"True."
On paper, Valdes’s past was that of an orphaned mercenary from Ulsro. For a foreign country, one week was not exactly a short time to investigate him, but since the record had been tampered with, they could suspect him if they wanted to.
"But it doesn’t matter."
"Pardon?"
"The screening is guaranteed to reject me. I’ll use another method."
"Another method... do you mean the queen?"
"Exactly."
A smile appeared on his face.
The method for allowing a half-demon into the palace other than the screening process was official recognition from the Ventorino royal family. That included the queen. At present there was no queen consort, and since the royal dynasty had only just been established, there were only four people who could truly be called royalty.
The system had been created to assert the special authority of royalty, but so far no half-blood had entered the palace through it. There had been a few cases through the screening process, but this route was practically nonexistent.
Still, that did not matter. He only needed one or two days. He just had to be inside the palace on the day the incident took place.
"In that regard, the queen is perfect."
"She is a woman, after all. And a loose one at that."
"Right."
It had been public knowledge for quite some time that the king and queen of Ventorino Palace were cheating on each other. It wasn’t famous enough to be scandalous, but everyone who needed to know already knew.
The first to stray was the king. A man who had always liked women, he had been messing around with other women for a very long time. Once the queen realized it, she began taking lovers of her own. Even so, it seemed they were both careful about birth control, because there had been no reports of illegitimate children.
"I don’t know exactly how far it goes, but if I put a charm spell on my face, seducing a loose woman like her shouldn’t be difficult."
"Huh? But if the queen openly shields you, won’t Marc be furious? If he sends an assassin behind her back..."
Yueli, who had been listening from the side, asked.
It was a reasonable question. If the queen were to personally certify a handsome half-demon for entry into the palace, anyone would naturally assume there was an affair involved. A normal man would never sit still for that.
"I agree. And even if he doesn’t send an assassin, you’ll be drawing a lot of attention. Can you really handle the tutoring?"
"No. Marc can never lay a hand on his wife’s lover. That bastard’s secretly afraid of his wife. He knows perfectly well that if he makes the first move, his own mistresses won’t get away unscathed."
"Ah."
"And the attention doesn’t matter either. Other humans might notice, but they won’t be able to touch that woman. All I need is to divert Marc’s attention for a while."
When Irena saw the wicked smile on his face, her eyes sparkled.
"Then the girl is what you need."
"...Huh? Girl?"
"Why are you confused?"
"What do you mean, girl?"
Valdes looked genuinely flustered, and in turn Irena became even more bewildered. There was only one girl they could possibly be talking about here. The last bloodline, the very reason they were heading to the slums now.
At that, his expression darkened.
"Girl...?"
"The last bloodline?"
"Is something wrong?"
"...Hmm. Come to think of it, the report didn’t say anything about her age. No, wait. Didn’t I tell you her age? I thought I did. Don’t tell me..."
From Valdes’s reaction, both women could tell that something in the plan had gone awry. That realization made them anxious as well.
The information about the last bloodline had been investigated by the Demon Army’s intelligence division, but the two of them had been the ones who used that information to pinpoint her location. If something had gone wrong, the mistake might be theirs.
If they had identified the wrong person, and she was not the last bloodline after all, then things would become a little complicated. It would not be disastrous, but it would still mean they had failed to carry out Valdes’s orders properly.
"Ugh...!"
Yueli, calm down.
Yueli had been his first assignment from the moment he gave her a mission, and she was panicking at the thought of failing it like this.
"Hoo. Right. Everyone calm down. We won’t know until we check."
"B-but..."
Afraid that they might have failed the mission, Irena’s voice trembled.
"No, it could still be a girl. The odds are low, but... it’s definitely possible. We’ll know once we get there."
"...Yes."
And so, in a slightly dampened mood, the three of them quickened their pace toward the slums.
It was the capital of a nation, but that did not mean the slums were small. In fact, the larger the capital, the larger the slum grew as well. Wherever there is light, there is bound to be shadow.
Especially in Ventorino’s capital, where all kinds of illegal activity had sprung up during the process of rebuilding after the war. Victims of that process, people who had already been poor, refugees who had fled here to escape the war only to lose everything in the end—all manner of people lived out their lives in the slums.
"Is this the place?"
"Yes, this is the house where the last bloodline lives. We were lucky. If we’d been a little later, she would have already gone out to work."
The place they had arrived at was one of the many rotten shanties. A neighborhood that made you wonder whether anyone could even live there. It was the sort of place that made it clear the name “slums” had not been given for nothing.
"Wow... this place is insane."
Yueli, visiting such a place for the first time, kept looking around with fascination.
"...Who are you?"
Apparently the noise had carried, because before they could even knock, someone appeared from inside.
Just as Irena had said, it was a girl. She was so thin and had her hair cut so short that, at first glance, it was hard to tell she was female, but Valdes’s sharp eyes were certain she was no boy.
And something else confirmed it as well.
This girl was the last bloodline of Ventorino Kingdom’s former royal line—the true Ventorino dynasty.