Chapter 64
──On the rocky mountain east of the 'Town of Noza'──
"What!? Princess Sofia is going to hold talks with the Demon Lord?!"
Isaac Mueller shouted when the soldier who had rushed back reported the news.
He could not believe what was happening.
It had only been three days since they came to the eastern rocky mountain to investigate the 'Mysterious Sword.'
He had never imagined that matters would change so drastically in such a short time.
"Why would Princess Sofia make such a decision?!"
"When Isaac-sama and Mariela-sama are absent, Princess Sofia is the highest-ranking authority among the forces remaining in town."
The messenger answered while still kneeling.
"Therefore, if Her Highness makes such a decision, we have no choice but to obey..."
"You should have left any letters alone until we returned!"
Isaac widened his eyes and shouted.
"Why did you do something unnecessary?! Who delivered the letter from the Demon Lord's Territory to Princess Sofia?!"
"...No one did."
"What?"
"Her Highness walked to the town gate and received the letter from the messenger herself."
"Impossible... Something like that...?"
"She looked dignified and magnificent. And Princess Sofia declared to the townspeople and soldiers: 'I want peace with the Demon Lord's Territory. For that purpose, I will meet the Demon Lord'──"
Isaac listened blankly to the messenger's words.
The Princess Sofia the soldier described seemed like an entirely different person from the one Isaac knew.
Isaac had thought of her as a sickly girl without a will of her own.
War Minister Zagran, who knew the sisters Sofia and Riana well, must have said something similar.
(Could it be...? Had she been hiding her true power all along...!?)
She usually pretended to be incompetent, displaying her true power only when the need arose.
"Just like a hero from legend..." Isaac murmured under his breath, and his body began to tremble.
The princess everyone had thought was the weakest had outmaneuvered both Isaac and Mariela.
That fact filled Isaac with surprise and fear—and even a slight stirring of emotion.
"Cancel the sword investigation!! Prepare to withdraw immediately!"
Isaac shouted toward the soldiers around the rocky mountain.
Near the summit, the great sword was still embedded in the ground, bound by chains.
But he no longer had time to concern himself with such a thing.
Isaac gritted his teeth.
He should not have fixated on competing with his adjutant, Mariela.
He should have simply left that sword alone.
(No, who could have predicted that things would change this much in just three days—or, practically speaking, two and a half?! And that Princess Sofia would meet with the Demon Lord...!?)
He could not allow Princess Sofia to meet the Demon Lord alone.
If anything happened to her, Isaac would be held responsible.
More importantly, he had no idea what Princess Sofia might discuss with the Demon Lord.
Isaac needed to attend the meeting and, if necessary, stop Princess Sofia from speaking.
"We must return to town and prepare for the talks with the Demon Lord. Now that Her Highness has formally accepted the Demon Lord's request for a meeting... we cannot withdraw. If people think the Empire ran from the Demon Lord, it will damage our prestige... Honestly. How did things come to this?"
Isaac clenched his fist and shouted.
"But heroes turn crises into opportunities. We shall show the Empire's power at the meeting. Select elite soldiers to serve as Her Highness's guard! Then arrange the surroundings to showcase the Empire's power. That should do."
"What will you do about the military training, Isaac-sama?"
"Cancel the training in the western plains. The demons' request for a meeting is probably also a protest over that matter. Now that we know this, we cannot continue."
Isaac sighed.
"I never imagined Princess Sofia would make a move. I seem to have underestimated Her Highness."
He was also concerned about the Demon Lord's Territory's actions.
In such a short time, the people of the Demon Lord's Territory had sent a letter to Princess Sofia.
And they had done so at the perfect moment.
If the letter had arrived any sooner or later, it would have reached Isaac. Sofia would never have read the letter from the Demon Lord's Territory.
Isaac would have replied to the Demon Lord's request for a meeting, 'We must decline because Princess Sofia is unwilling.'
Or perhaps he would have said, 'Please wait until permission is granted by His Imperial Majesty.'
Then he would have continued the military training as though nothing had happened.
"In any case, we must return to town and decide how to respond."
Isaac instructed the soldiers to hurry their withdrawal.
However, some of them did not comply.
"Just a little longer. Just a little longer and the chain will──"
"...Is Mariela still fixated on that sword?"
Isaac looked toward the rocky mountain.
His adjutant, Mariela, was at the foot of the mountain, while soldiers following her were near the summit.
They had begun working to remove the 'Mysterious Sword' early that morning.
"Mariela-dono! The sword investigation is canceled. Didn't you hear me?!"
"Please wait. I'll cut through the chain with an ax now!"
"...Understood. We will withdraw first."
Isaac made his decision at once.
It was frustrating to let that sword fall into Mariela's and Zagran's hands, but it could not be helped.
Just as he thought that──
"The chain──it's cut!"
Isaac turned around in spite of himself at Mariela's voice.
The rocky mountain was riddled with countless holes.
They were holes dug with Earth-Attribute magic in an attempt to remove the chains securing the sword.
Even so, they had been unable to reach the bases of the chains.
That was why Mariela and the others had been trying to cut through them with axes since the previous night.
After giving the soldiers magically reinforced axes, they had worked for several hours.
At last, they had succeeded.
"For it to be secured by chains this sturdy, it must indeed be a precious sword—"
CRACK!!
The moment Mariela cried out, the chains wrapped around the sword tightened around it and shattered it.
"──Huh?"
The chains that had shattered the sword also broke apart and crumbled away.
Their fragments became tiny pieces, turned into sand, and flowed into the gaps in the rock.
All that remained were the shattered remnants of the sword.
The blade, reduced to tiny fragments, was rusted and on the verge of crumbling away.
It was as though it had lost all its vitality.
"What in the world? The sword... it shattered itself?!"
"No... No..."
The voices of Isaac and Mariela echoed around the rocky mountain.
The soldiers stopped their withdrawal preparations and stared at the scene before them.
"Does this mean it refused to let us obtain it that way? Did the sword choose its own master?!"
"I... thought it was a trap set by the Demon Lord's Territory, but..."
"No... There couldn't possibly be a sword in the Demon Lord's Territory that would shatter itself..."
The soldiers muttered with sighs.
What they had witnessed was an incredibly mystical sight.
A sword embedded in rock and restrained by chains.
Someone who tried to obtain it by cutting those chains.
An ancient sword that destroyed itself with the chains, as though rejecting the act itself──
To the people of the Empire, who venerated heroes, it was a strangely captivating sight.
"...Ah... ah."
Adjutant Mariela placed a hand against the rocky mountain and hung her head in despair.
"...We will withdraw. Mariela-dono, follow us afterward."
Unit Commander Isaac said this and turned his back on her.
Isaac and Mariela did not know the truth.
The object embedded in the rocky mountain was merely a rusty sword that had been lying around in General Raizenga's mansion.
The chains securing the sword were an 'Improved Chain Lock' made by Thor.
And the 'Improved Chain Lock' had been equipped with security measures designed to prevent both the secured item and the chain itself from being stolen──
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'Improved Chain Lock Security System'
A function designed to prevent important items from being stolen.
Activated by magical power.
After activation, if the 'Chain Lock' is forcibly removed or broken, it tightens around and destroys the item it is meant to protect.
Afterward, the 'Chain Lock' itself breaks apart and loses its magical power and reinforcement properties. It becomes nothing more than fragments of metal.
The 'Security System' can be deactivated when the person who activated it supplies magical power again.
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"Could it be...? Does this mean we pulled it out incorrectly? Does the sword reject anyone but the chosen one...? Does it refuse to let us take it, even if it has to shatter itself...?"
Mariela muttered blankly at the foot of the rocky mountain.
As Isaac listened to her, he began gathering their belongings.
"Those with free hands, recover the fragments of that sword. We will investigate them after returning to the Imperial capital. They should also be useful as material for the unit's activity report."
That sword would be entered into the Empire's records.
So would the fact that Mariela had failed to recover it and destroyed it instead.
That would be a failure for Mariela—and, by extension, for War Minister Zagran. That part was fine.
"But it is also a failure for me. Because I got involved with this sword, the meeting between Her Highness and the Demon Lord is taking place. I had intended to continue the military training for much longer. In the end, I planned to conduct magic and arrow-firing drills near the border with the Demon Lord's Territory..."
Restricting an enemy's movements and isolating them was a basic strategy.
After that, holding talks would have allowed him to draw terms favorable to the Empire.
He should even have been able to make the Demon Lords understand the Empire's power.
"...It is not over yet. I have a plan to make up for this failure. Somehow, I must show the Demon Lord's Territory the strength of the Empire at the meeting──"
Thus Isaac and the soldiers began moving toward the 'Town of Noza.'
After the unit departed──Adjutant Mariela sat down on the ground.
It felt as though all the strength had left her body.
She had destroyed the 'Mysterious Sword' with her own hands.
The unit's records would show that it had pitched a tent here to investigate the sword.
Mariela's blunder would already have been recorded as well.
(If Princess Sofia had not done something unnecessary, we could have spent more time on the investigation.)
She had never imagined that the princess would interfere with her.
Zagran, Mariela's superior, must have said it himself: 'Princess Sofia is an expendable member of the Imperial family.' 'In the end, she will only be used for a political marriage.'
And he had told Mariela alone.
'If she disappears, Princess Riana will have no one to rely on but me, Zagran...'
──Something like that.
Mariela recalled War Minister Zagran's words one by one.
Her superior was a successful man.
And Mariela had served Zagran for a long time. She had never failed before. This failure was the result of Mariela acting on her own judgment.
"...I'm sorry, Zagran-sama."
Mariela murmured toward the superior who was not there.
"You said this, didn't you, Zagran-sama? If I failed to demonstrate the Empire's power, I was to use the second plan. It is a dangerous strategy, but it will allow us to make better use of Princess Sofia..."
Mariela took a letter from her belongings.
It was a letter entrusted to her by War Minister Zagran. The second plan was written inside it.
Mariela broke the seal and opened the letter.
When she saw the familiar handwriting of her superior, she smiled as though reassured.
"'Destroy the dormant demon beast living in this northern land. Use Princess Sofia to exterminate it'──is that what it says? Isaac Mueller was also gathering information about this demon beast... But it seems Zagran-sama had seen right through his actions."
A smile escaped her lips.
The letter detailed everything Mariela was supposed to do.
It also contained warnings.
'New species of demon beasts, such as the Demon Beast Gargalossa, have begun to appear. Investigate the surrounding area first.'
'The local collaborators are listed here. Contact them and enlist their help.'
'With this operation, you should be able to demonstrate the Empire's power efficiently.'
And at the end, it said, 'Once the operation is complete, you will be permitted to return to the Imperial capital.'
"Leave it to me, Zagran-sama."
Adjutant Mariela knelt facing the direction of the Imperial capital.
"As Your Excellency's subordinate, I, Mariela, will fulfill my mission and demonstrate my abilities. For the Empire's prestige and Your Excellency's advancement──"
And Adjutant Mariela passed on her orders to her subordinates.