The Moncrito Kingdom's Hero
“…The hero party members… Lowell…”
The slave trader, who had been standing outside the carriage, finally realized my true identity and stumbled backward in shock, nearly falling flat on his face.
The merchant had already dropped to his knees and was begging for his life.
“P-please spare me! Your Highness Lowell! I didn’t know you were Lowell! I was just… just slipping sleeping powder into your water…”
“From now on, don’t pull any of that. I’m being kind because you’re a pretty and kind person, but if you’d been a wicked sort, that sword would’ve been buried in your neck right this instant.”
“Yes! Yes! I understand! I’ll live honestly from now on!”
Honestly, I didn’t want to punish the merchant at all.
After all, I had figured out the sleeping powder on my own, drunk it down without a second thought, and even arranged for that fool to be taken to the back alleys of the capital without being discovered…
As for the slave trader standing outside the carriage, I wasn’t inclined to hold him accountable either. But the moment I noticed the sack he was clutching to his chest, I couldn’t simply walk away.
“By the way… you, fat uncle?”
“Huh? A-ah… y-yes!!”
“What’s in that sack?”
“Th-this… um… I…”
The slave trader didn’t answer my question with any clarity at all. Instead, he clutched the sack even tighter to his chest and looked at me with a desperate, unwilling expression, as if he wanted to snatch it away.
From my instincts, I already knew that the coins inside that sack were almost certainly the money he had been planning to give to the merchant as payment for the elf slave.
“Do you know this, fat uncle? In the elven kingdom, slave trading is punishable by death?”
“Y-yes!!? W-well, but this is the Moncrito Kingdom…”
“Then you should know this too, fat uncle? In the human kingdoms, elven honor killings are tacitly permitted…?”
Once upon a time, that honor killing had been created by the elven kingdom to stop the reckless hunting of elves by humans in their desperate search for elven slaves. It was a measure made for elves with gentle natures to preserve their dignity and honor, and thanks to the elven kingdom’s powerful demands, even the human kingdoms had tacitly allowed it.
Of course, that had all been long ago, and probably not a single human alive today remembered it.
“You’ve sullied the reputation of the noble High Elves, my own dignity, and my honor because of you, pig uncle. Are you ready to die by my sword?”
“L-Lowell! S-sorry! I-I-I… I didn’t know you were Lowell! Please, spare my life!”
Only then did the slave trader finally understand the situation. He dropped the sack into my hands, fell to his knees, and prostrated himself on the ground.
“W-well, if you take this as compensation… I’ll change my story, but…”
I poked at the sack with my rapier, letting him know I was serious, and the quick-witted slave trader quickly opened it and showed me the contents before bowing his head once more.
“I’ll give you everything! Whatever you want, I’ll give it all! P-please, just spare my life…”
“If you insist like that, then consider today’s incident forgiven.”
I quickly took the sack and began counting the gold coins inside by eye.
Five hundred gold coins…
That was enough money to live worry-free for quite some time. Stay at a high-class inn, order whatever I felt like eating for every meal, or even buy a carriage and travel around on it…
“Then live honestly from now on, pig uncle.”
“Yes! Thank you! Thank you!!…”
I walked away from the slave trader, who kept bowing his head and thanking me, carrying the precious sack close to my chest as I slipped out of the back alley.
****
If you asked anyone on the continent right now where the busiest palace in the world could be found, every single person would name the Moncrito Kingdom without hesitation.
Not only was the news of the exiled elf from the hero party creating chaos, but the additional report that she had entered the capital made it even more complicated.
The kingdom of her birth, Grusen, had come forward with a strong request for punishment.
The elven kingdom, the motherland of the elf Lowell, had issued a wanted poster, though not in any particularly active manner, due to the pressure of other nations.
The empire and its allies had even demanded a missing-person wanted poster rather than a criminal one.
As a neutral kingdom, Moncrito found itself caught in the middle of these wildly conflicting demands.
On top of that, just days earlier, an unexpected attack by the Demon King’s forces had forced the entire kingdom’s army to mobilize. For a kingdom that had always been in the rear lines and had grown complacent, this situation was nothing short of terrifying.
“Her Majesty, the investigation results confirm that the Demon King’s forces that infiltrated our kingdom recently were led by Orobas, one of the Four Heavenly Kings, along with his special unit.”
“What the hell were the border guards doing while Orobas and his army marched right up to the capital’s gates!?”
King Deorus the First, the one who had been most shaken by the Demon King’s invasion news, was venting his rage on his ministers.
“I apologize, Your Majesty. The Ogres in the special unit are simply too strong. The border guards were powerless and fell in an instant.”
As the minister had said, this was an incident that could happen in any kingdom. The border guards had no chance against the Demon King’s special unit composed of Ogres. Luckily, the invasion had been so swift that they had only managed to reach the village where elf Lowell was staying before being repelled.
Because the other kingdoms had sent most of their troops to the front lines to fight the Demon King, their home forces were also depleted.
“Still, isn’t it a blessing? The elf Lowell single-handedly wiped out the Ogres and beheaded the Demon King’s vice general. Isn’t this something to celebrate?”
“Are you saying this now!? If that elf hadn’t been there, the capital would have fallen to the Demon King’s special unit!”
“…!”
“If things had gone wrong, the capital would have been invaded by the Four Heavenly Kings! We need to take this situation seriously, not talk about blessings!”
King Deorus the First, whose anger had finally boiled over because of the incident, found the overly optimistic words of his ministers infuriating even in the midst of a crisis.
He wanted nothing more than to arrest and execute the rotten nobles who had allowed the situation to develop this way, but he could not bring himself to do so.
“So where is the elf Lowell said to be now?”
“T-that’s… The last sighting was at that village, and her whereabouts have since become unknown.”
“Haaahaa…”
King Deorus let out a long, heavy sigh at the unsatisfactory answer from his ministers and clutched his throbbing head.
No matter what the other kingdoms said, he could no longer treat elf Lowell so carelessly. She had protected the village, the capital close to it, and even the king himself and his beloved family. The story of how she had saved the kingdom from the Demon King had already spread across the entire realm, and as the king, he could no longer remain silent while people watched him.
“Immediately order the wanted posters for the elf Lowell, which are posted throughout the kingdom, to be torn down. If anyone is caught trying to apprehend her, they will be punished severely.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The nobles who received the king’s orders began recording every single word he spoke so they could prepare the command documents to be distributed across the kingdom.
Meanwhile, in the royal study of the king’s palace, the nobles continued to arrive and solve the kingdom’s problems one by one…
Knock knock.
“Your Majesty, Princess Sophia has arrived.”
“Invite her in.”
Even while busy, King Deorus the First set aside everything the moment he heard that his most beloved daughter had come. His usually stern face lit up with a bright smile.
“Oh! Sophia! What brings you here?”
Princess Sophia, known across the land as the treasure of the Moncrito Kingdom, was not only incredibly beautiful but also the king’s most cherished daughter. Born in the late years of his life, the kingdom had gone without a single famine in the year of her birth, and the king had celebrated a festival every day for her.
“I came to pay my respects before the temple event.”
“The temple… event…? Ah! So it’s already that time…”
The king suddenly recalled his promise with his daughter and hit his own forehead with his palm, filled with belated regret.
“Sophia, I’m sorry. With the kingdom so chaotic, I forgot our promise.”
“It’s alright, Father. I’ll go by myself if necessary.”
“Sophia, I think you should stay at the palace for now. I’m worried something might happen to you while the kingdom is in such a state.”
Lately, adventurers from other nations had been flocking to the kingdom hoping to earn the bounty on elf Lowell. Along with them came every kind of criminal and bounty hunter, making the capital’s security far from ideal.
The king did not want to send his daughter out, but her resolve was absolute.
“I’m fine, Father. It’s not like I’ll be going alone. Besides, if I don’t go, how will the priests and the people view me when Father can’t even attend?”
The king’s admiration for his young daughter’s clever words was so genuine that the nobles watching from the side of the study room could not help but exclaim in amazement.