Stein Rays's Move (20): The Fort and Sazaby

“Well, I wonder if Lord Roa managed to pull it off.”

Sazaby murmured to himself, though there was no one in particular he was addressing.

Long before Roa sat down to talk with Niez Hock, Sazaby and Nelfia had already left the Tenth Knight Order—by the time the dummy modeled after Lord Rays was being loaded into a carriage.

Nelfia was presumably riding alone at full speed across the Zetta Plains, heading back to the royal capital to report what had happened.

If things went as Roa had said, she would also have to throw herself into laying the groundwork for the plan Roa had prepared to counter the First Knight Order’s impending attack.

Roa had offered to assign her a few people to help, but Nelfia had refused. “I’ll draw less attention on my own.”

That was certainly true; Nelfia would have no trouble. Still, Sazaby had hoped she might at least say something like, “I’d feel safer if Sazaby came with me.”

Of course, he knew Nelfia would never say anything like that.

Even so, just how much of the plot had Roa seen through?

He had said he’d discussed it with Lord Rays, but from everything Sazaby had observed up close, all the odd things that man had proposed now seemed to be falling into place...