The King's Betrayal and the Elf Delegation
After Bardof the King died...
The Empire's Information Bureau, dispatched late, declared Bardof the King not slain by the elves' hands but by the people's rebellion born of poverty and starvation.
The rebel army's leader was a noble chosen from the Empire's Information Bureau who favored the Empire.
And they were lavishing every support possible upon him to make him the next king.
Of course...
The Empire's Information Bureau had conducted thorough investigations beforehand, selecting among the lords who had cared well for their subjects and thus enjoyed their favor.
As expected, upon arriving at the palace, he immediately opened the palace's grain warehouses—overflowing to the point of spoiling—and began distributing grain to the people.
Thus the Kingdom of Leoba began its path to rapid recovery.
Everything flowed in the right direction.
But...
We faced one major issue.
It was: what to do with the eighty-eight elves...
At first, per Alex's suggestion, we considered sending them back to the Elf Kingdom.
"We refuse. We will not go to the Elf Kingdom."
"Why not? We will provide escort troops and carriages to escort you safely all the way to the Elf Kingdom from our Empire."
Alex had requested carriages and escort troops for the elves to the Elf Kingdom, thinking of them.
Now that they refused to return, he asked with genuine curiosity why.
"Safe return is not the issue."
"Really?"
"We have already been defiled by Bardof... If we return to the Elf Kingdom, we will appear only as filthy elves who played with humans."
As Cariel said, even after safely being freed from slavery, most elves did not return to the Elf Kingdom.
Some had fused into human society and lived among them.
Many others had left group life and now lived alone in deep mountain forests.
The elves' own sense of value was nobility and purity.
Elves who had been sold as slaves in the human world had their bodies defiled; they were viewed as those who had greatly betrayed that value.
It was a story that sounded as if heard somewhere...
Captured by invaders, escaping barely to the homeland, only to be treated as less than human by the people there, eventually being driven out again...
It was a tale from the history of some world.
"Then how can I help you?"
Alex asked Cariel, the representative of the eighty-eight elves, once more.
Cariel glanced around at the other elves and, as if they had agreed among themselves, answered Alex with faces full of resolve.
"We want to stay with Lord Lowell."
As I watched the elves' conversation with Alex, suddenly when my name came up, I looked at Cariel.
At the same moment, Cariel looked at me, and our eyes met.
Moreover, the gazes of the other elves all turned toward me...
"Of course... but Lord Lowell must permit it..."
I pondered what they meant by wanting to stay with me.
The most likely possibility that arose was that they wanted to gain merits by fighting alongside me, the Hero Party member, to defeat the Demon King, so that even if they returned to the Elf Kingdom later, they could do so with honor.
"You want to stay with me?"
"We want to fight alongside Lord Lowell to crush the Demon Army!"
A situation where rash permission was hard to grant...
People called me Lord Lowell the Hero Party member.
But strictly speaking, I was now the one expelled from the Hero Party.
I had no idea how my future would unfold.
Leading those many elves was nothing more than meaningless.
Besides that, there were more issues...
They were civilians, not professional warriors.
Bringing them along would be of little help to the human army, at best slightly better than them.
If brought along, there would also be the carriages needed to carry all of them, the equipment required, and the supplies to be procured daily.
"I understand what you mean, but it may be difficult under the current situation."
"Lord Lowell! If it's about training the elves here, I will take charge. And if there are deficiencies, Lord Lowell need only help a little..."
"That is also a problem, but right now there is no carriage here for the eighty-eight to move, nor a training location or place to stay for them. How are we to train?"
Unlike what Cariel and the other elves had assumed—that they would follow me simply by training diligently—I pointed out the reality of the situation, and they all fell silent like fish with their mouths stuffed with food.
"Ma'am, if finding a training location or place to stay is necessary, I will provide it."
"Really?"
"In the palace, at a distance of about a day, there is a residence where the imperial royal family stays. Would using that be possible?"
"A residence?"
No matter how large a residence was, it could house at most ten or twenty people...
"Yes. It has fifty rooms, eight bathrooms, and a large dining hall. The elves here should be able to stay there comfortably."
Suddenly I realized that the concept of a residence I was thinking of and the one Alex was thinking of differed, and a bitter smile forced itself onto my face.
"I am in favor for now, Ma'am."
Alex's offer of a residence for me to reject until the end led me to begin considering it.
Alex helped my choice by speaking up beside me.
"I know Ma'am is very strong, but just as there is a Hero Party member for the Hero, there should be a party member for Ma'am alone. I will provide the corresponding support from my personal expenses."
"I do not want to impose such a burden on you, His Highness."
"Ma'am, do not worry about the burden. What reason does the Empire have for supporting the Hero Party?"
The reason the Empire supports the Hero Party...
Although it is called support, it was in a sense an investment.
After defeating the Demon King, the Empire might claim a share of the spoils from the Demon King's Castle or the territories that were once Demon King's lands.
Of course, the Hero was not asked to hand over the treasures claimed as spoils from the Demon King's Castle.
It was limited to things that were difficult to convert to cash—lands, technologies, and the like.
"I wish to support for similar reasons. Please do not refuse."
Eighty-eight party members...
This was not so much a party as leading some kind of army...
"Understood. If Your Highness says it so earnestly, I will do so."
"Thank you, Ma'am."
Alex clasped both my hands and thanked me, while Cariel and the other elves held each other's hands and rejoiced.
It felt as if one more thing had been added to my load, though I could not quite call it good.
****
On the third floor of the Kubera Dungeon, the safe haven of the Hero Party...
Among the Hero Party members trapped here, not a single one had escaped.
Several days had already passed...
Even the support troops who had retreated from the second floor of the dungeon on the surface did not know the Hero Party's fate.
Some thought they were dead.
But...
The Hero Party was still alive here.
Their state was not good, however...
*
Thud... thud... thud...
Someone was walking with the unusually heavy sound of footsteps in this quiet dungeon that emanated the aura of death...
Thud... thud... thud...
A short-haired man in the Demon Army uniform, with at least a captain-level badge on his shoulder, stopped right in front of the safe haven where the Hero Party was hiding.
His name was Orobas, the Fourth Heavenly King.
The reason this peripheral outpost like the Kubera Dungeon had summoned him...
Was because of the battle with the Hero Party member Lowell a few days earlier.
He had been reassigned to this backwater because he had failed to win without fighting and taken responsibility, but...
He was nevertheless grateful that he had survived that battle.
Although the orc warriors he had taken with him as bodyguards and special troops were all lost, it was not a bad deal at all for him, since he had learned there was a monster among the Hero Party members.
If the Demon Army and the elves Lowell ever waged a full-scale war, he could simply withdraw and flee to the rear.
At that time, the other Fourth Heavenly Kings who knew nothing about the elves Lowell would be the ones to lose their lives.
The reason he had come to the third floor of the Kubera Dungeon today...
Was because he had received a report that an adventurer party had been staying put for several days without leaving...
When he reached the safe haven where they were apparently hiding, evidence that they were there overflowed from all around.
Crumpled packaging paper from when they brought food, bread crumbs, scattered corpses of monsters everywhere...
The surest evidence was the smell of human blood wafting from inside.
"I know everything is in here. Come out voluntarily, and I will spare your lives."
The Fourth Heavenly King Orobas shouted toward the humans hiding in this safe haven...
A little later...
Whether from hunger for several days or because they were not eating properly here, an adventurer—one who looked like he had been checked—came out, leaning on a sword as a cane.
"Coming all the way here as a human... do you want to die?"
"... ..."
The inspector was standing dazed, as if his mind had already wandered.
Normally, if a human entered a dungeon under Demon Army control, he should have been killed on the spot.
But Orobas, who strongly believed in superstition, found it unlucky that he was seeing the man's eyes grow dim...
He worried that if he killed him, it might cause a backlash and he would not remain in this backwater forever.
"What is your name?"
"... ..."
"If you do not speak, I will kill you?"
"...E-Eric..."
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