Strategy (2)
Strategy (2)
The place where Bella contacted us was a forest not very far from the casino.
It was also somewhere I remembered. In the game, you couldn't go deep into areas outside the casino building, and the forest wasn't fully implemented either, but at least the spot where we gathered matched the direction I remembered from the casino building.
"This close......"
Alice looked back and spoke.
Even by the standards of the world where I used to live, a building that qualified as quite tall stood piercing the sky. It was the casino and the hotel structure that stretched all the way above it. It wasn't a skyscraper to the extent of being one of the tallest in the world, of course, but it was still a building where you had to crane your neck all the way up to barely make out the top when standing close.
And brilliant lights from below illuminated that extravagant structure.
Enough to be visible even from this forest.
It was such a dazzling place that you could hardly believe the area around it was a dense jungle so thick it was difficult to develop.
In a way, they really had chosen the location well. A depraved city hidden in a forest. Wasn't that exactly the sort of place you'd only find in a novel?
"You're on time, I see?"
Bella was standing a little off the path leading from the forest entrance.
Since almost no one wandered the forest at this hour of the night, carrying a lamp like that didn't seem to pose much of a problem.
Bella wore the same fox mask I had seen earlier and a leather suit that clung tightly to her body. Her manner was entirely composed, but the outfit seemed chosen out of extreme wariness about revealing her identity.
Well, both Lucas and Bella did sometimes act flagrantly disrespectful in front of the emperor, but in truth, their loyalty was absolute. They would never do anything that deviated from the emperor's established plan.
Bella held a bag in her left hand. It wasn't very big. If I had to judge by size alone, it was about the size of a handbag. Although the shape was just a shabby leather satchel.
That was...... probably Berati's. I remembered Berati carrying a bag like that while exploring ruins in the game.
Inside, there was likely one of the Holy State's Divine Treasures.
"Hm."
Bella looked us over and made that sound.
Bella was exceptionally capable. If I had to judge, it would be accurate to say she had already reached the pinnacle within the talents she possessed.
But that didn't mean she could clear an ancient dungeon all by herself.
"Excellent."
Bella smiled as she spoke.
She was still wearing the mask, of course. It was because Claire and Leo had already seen Bella's face once.
Her voice was different too.
To my eyes, knowing the truth, and to Alice's, she was obviously Bella, but...... well, what would others see?
Leo I wasn't sure about, but Claire was quite observant.
However, when I glanced at Claire's expression, she didn't look particularly surprised.
"The emperor's two daughters and two children from loyalist houses. I've heard your abilities are outstanding as well."
"That's right. Both of them have proven themselves highly capable. I, a fellow imperial princess, will vouch for it."
When Alice took a step forward and said that, Bella shrugged her shoulders.
It was a subtly overbearing attitude.
Bella was a difficult character for me to parse. She was only mentioned in the main story, with a few illustrations and a couple of voiced lines in flashback scenes. That was all. Even if you said she had a personality similar to Claire's, it certainly wasn't completely identical to Claire's in the main story.
On top of that, the atmosphere of the original Claire had already faded significantly in my head. For the past two months, I'd had an unbelievably diligent version of Claire right near me.
Still, if I thought about it based on the personality I had been observing for the past ten years......
This attitude was an act.
Whenever Bella wasn't wearing the mask, she always acted playfully around us. Though she sometimes pulled slightly annoying pranks or teased us.
"Well, since the Empire's next emperor says so, I shall comply."
"......."
At Bella's words, Alice glared at her.
Leo gulped. In the original story, Leo's attitude toward Alice became much more familiar starting from here, but that day seemed like it would come much later now, probably because of that "next emperor" remark.
"The location? Did you find it?"
"With three imperial princesses attached to the task, if we couldn't find it, the Empire's prestige would suffer, wouldn't it?"
But Bella's next words were far from optimistic.
"However, this time, failing to find it in one go doesn't exactly seem like it'll harm the Empire's prestige, anyway."
"What do you mean, couldn't find it?"
"It seems we caught her too quickly. Berati didn't know the exact location of the ruins. She merely infiltrated the area after deducing the location based on the Holy State's records."
"...... So, does that mean there are more people like that woman who have infiltrated the Empire?"
"Probably so? Tsk, having a huge territory is a problem too, you see."
As Bella said that, she took a piece of paper from the bag she was holding and held it out to Alice. Though Alice wore a slightly hesitant expression, she took the note Bella offered without further comment.
Strictly speaking, it was more of a map than a note.
"A sketch map of the surrounding area."
It wasn't something made for military purposes, however. This area was quite broad and complicated. Since Northwood had no desire for tourists to get lost, they made and distributed these as if creating a theme park guide map.
Compared to the theme park guide maps I remembered, though, this one lacked color and didn't have any mascots drawn on it.
On the sketch map concisely depicting the vicinity, the commercial district formed around the casino and the forest surrounding that commercial district were marked.
And on the forest around it, X marks were drawn at regular intervals.
"My apologies to Lady Berati, but."
Bella spoke as if she was mocking Berati.
"It seems the knight from the Holy State truly had terrible luck. How could she have searched so hard, yet only pinpoint the location at the very last one?"
"......."
At that remark from Bella, all of us could only agree.
*
Divine Treasures react to other Divine Treasures. Not because each is a device with a different individual ability, but because they are all parts of one vast mechanism.
The original story never actually revealed what the function of those Divine Treasures was. If I thought about it in terms of the series' other worlds, it would probably be expressed as containing the power of a god and thus being able to grant impossible wishes...... but honestly, the topic of that Divine Treasure had been maintained across multiple worlds throughout the entire series, to the point where players started grumbling that they were sick of it, so I didn't know if it would be carried over into this world too.
Still, most players were at least guessing that they would use that Divine Treasure to revive the heroine who died.
That didn't mean I intended to give up on reviving the heroine. If this were a game, I would have approached the inevitable with the mindset of simply enjoying the ride, but this was reality.
"Honestly, I think I can see why Berati couldn't find it."
Bella spoke with a fed-up expression.
Only after nearly three hours of wandering the forest were we finally able to locate the entrance.
We had never properly seen what a Divine Treasure was in the first place, so even if someone told us it would glow brighter when another was nearby, we had no idea how bright that glow would be.
It was only when we were near the dungeon entrance that the light became very faintly stronger.
Which meant that glowing wasn't actually the default state of a Divine Treasure; rather, from the moment it entered this region, it had been continuously glowing because it had determined that another Divine Treasure was close.
"......I wonder if Charlotte's side still hasn't finished their assault?"
Alice muttered as if worried.
"......."
She was right. After taking this long, even if we went inside now, we would be too exhausted to fight properly.
I let out a small sigh.
Again.
*
"......."
When I half-snatched the Divine Treasure from Bella's hand and walked straight to the dungeon entrance without hesitation, everyone else's expressions went blank.
It was because I simply walked between the tall trees without any real path to follow.
Even so, the time it took me to advance was probably less than thirty minutes.
...... By my reckoning, it felt like almost eight hours, though.
Even if I rewound time, trying to find the result of all that circling around from the starting point again was excruciatingly difficult. At least I knew the direction of the building, so I located it earlier compared to my very first attempt, but the difference wasn't that large.
So, I rewound time again and again, searching until the people around me could find it plausible.
Every time I located the dungeon, the party's expressions shifted from a face that thought it was only natural to a look of surprise.
And this time, they had reached a point of practically forgetting what to say.
"......."
Alice's expression as she looked at me grew even more meaningful, but I deliberately said nothing more.