Chapter 78
Morgan used magic to put the Monarchist Restorationists, bound in thorn magic, into a deep sleep—ensuring they wouldn't wake for at least two days.
Then Lydia asked,
“What will happen if we leave them like this for a few days?”
“The weather's still mild, so they'll be fine for up to two days... After three, their bodies might dry out and they might not make it. Why? Should I put them under for longer?”
“No. I was just wondering how long they could last. Once this commotion is over, they'll be witnesses to what happened, won't they?”
“Hmph.”
Then they left the area.
Patter-patter-patter!
About five minutes into their run,
Morgan finally shouted at Lydia.
“W-wait! Lydia! Just a little, huff...! Slow down...!”
“All right.”
“Seriously...! Did you forget one of a mage's... few, huff...! weaknesses?”
Lydia and Morgan kept running.
They were headed for the warehouses near where Arti's group had gone to look for the place where Carla had been kidnapped. The route there was filled with a chilly silence.
No matter what kind of commotion had taken place,
silence had settled over what had once been a lively place.
It was the calm before an explosion.
As they passed the shopping district's buildings one by one,
the sound of their hurried footsteps rang through the alley. Every so often, people startled at the sound and peered out their windows, but they quickly retreated into their rooms.
In that atmosphere,
Morgan panted as she spoke.
“With all the riffraff scared and shut indoors...! Huff! Not having anyone to bother us...! Huff! might actually be pretty convenient...”
“...”
As they ran,
Lydia glanced at Morgan. Even with war between nations a possibility, she didn't seem particularly flustered or despairing.
Instead, she calmly distinguished between what they could and couldn't make use of in the current situation. Even for someone accustomed to the harsh realities of a fantasy world, there had to be limits.
‘Is it because, in this fantasy setting, they don't have the concept of an all-out war where nations stake everything? Mages can always find some way to survive, anyway.’
Unlike commoners drafted as soldiers from their fiefs,
mages who had proven their worth at the academy had plenty of ways to find an excuse to flee somewhere far from the battlefield. Even so, this was practically like watching a fire burn across the river.
“...”
More precisely...
Either way,
Morgan probably just wasn't interested.
Even if nations made a show of fighting each other for power, or people were caught up in those wars and sacrificed in droves, she had no particular feelings for a world that had never accepted her.
‘It must be hard to look so dispassionately at the land where you were born, even for someone like me, with the soul of an otherworlder.’
Just as Lydia was thinking that,
she spotted Arti's group emerging from an old warehouse in the distance.
Aria, Arti, Mave, Adrian, and Edel were looking toward them with gloomy faces. Every one of them was drenched in sweat and looked exhausted.
Aria stepped forward and shouted.
-Lydia—! Over here! We found something important—!
“!”
Lydia's eyes widened.
Aria was holding something in her hand. Though they were well over a hundred meters away, Lydia could see it clearly: a letter written on luxurious white paper.
“...”
And...
the seal of the Gallian royal family stamped on the letter, too.
It was perfectly clear.
“...”
Lydia sighed.
Somehow,
nothing ever went right.
‘If I hadn't heard from the Monarchist Restorationists beforehand that they'd colluded with the Gallian royal family, seeing that would have left my head in a complete mess.’
They drew closer to Arti's group.
At last, Morgan reached her limit. She bent at the waist, tongue hanging out as she panted. Lydia went straight to Aria and asked,
“Aria, where did you find that?”
“We were tracking the power of the Dark Realm in the underground storerooms when we found a place where Lady Carla was probably being held. It was empty, but this was still there. They must have forgotten to take it with them.”
As she spoke,
Aria handed the letter to Lydia.
Lydia took it.
Then she quickly scanned its contents. The letter was covered in elegant, flowing handwriting, its pen strokes sprawling this way and that like a picture.
It looked as if a figure skater had spent ages performing across the page.
“...”
『Hear, you outsiders who joined hands yet gaze upon a land beset by waves. I serve the rightful heir of the great Gallian royal house…』
The letter went on in one poetic phrase after another.
Lydia read on, stripping away the royal family's characteristically ornate flourishes and the letter's veiled contempt for the Republic.
In short, it was simple.
-Our aims are aligned, so we will cooperate.
‘It takes real talent to fill an entire page with that one line.’
Lydia had learned to write like that once, too,
but she'd thought it useless and quickly forgotten it.
Anyway.
“I see. I'd already heard it from the Monarchist Restorationists, but now that we have physical evidence, I can be certain.”
“M-Monarchist Restorationists? What are they?”
Perhaps because they were discussing a faction within the Republic,
Aria, a citizen of the Theocracy, didn't seem to understand.
But Adrian, a fellow citizen of the Theocracy who had mastered a wealth of knowledge, let out a pensive hum. He'd visited the Republic when he was young.
Adrian spoke in a mournful voice.
“So in the end, it was the extremists who did this. So many powerful people want to consolidate their authority in their own lands, or create new opportunities for those seeking to overturn the world... To borrow even the power of the Dark Realm and stage this whole farce...”
Lydia nodded.
“Perhaps they recruited or manipulated someone close to Lady Carla to make this happen.”
“With the aid of the Dark Realm's power.”
“That's right.”
Adrian let out a sigh.
“This is exactly what the demon worshippers want most. How can they not understand that?”
“In the end, it means anyone who's ‘not an enemy’ will do, as long as they can remove the obstacle in front of them.”
“To deal with their own enemies, they don't hesitate to borrow a hand from the enemies of humanity...”
As this grave conversation unfolded,
Arti hesitated for a moment.
He simply couldn't follow what they were saying. The very idea of turning to demon worshippers to defeat political rivals or overturn the world was beyond his understanding.
‘Shouldn't nobles protect their lands and their people? That's how the nobles in the Department of Swordsmanship seemed to see it...’
But...
Why turn to demon worshippers...?
He voiced the question on his mind.
“Lydia, so... the Gallian royal family negotiated with those people from the Republic, the M-Monarchist Restorationists? And the Monarchist Restorationists brought in the demon worshippers to achieve their goal?”
“That's right.”
“What exactly are the Monarchist Restorationists trying to do...?”
Adrian answered.
“To turn the Arcana Republic back into the kingdom it was long ago. They're a faction seeking to ‘return’ to the powerful magical kingdom that existed in ancient times.”
“W-why would they...?”
Morgan seemed to have caught her breath. With a soft ‘Phew,’ she stood up and addressed the confused Arti.
“In the Republic, you need the assembly and complicated politics to get anything done. Under a monarchy, you only have to prove your loyalty to the royal family. I guess that seemed more appealing to them. So they want to return to a past that's easier to understand.”
“...”
Arti opened his mouth with a hollow expression.
“Just...? They can accept ordinary people suffering without a second thought for something like that? And they're trying to use demon worshippers and another country's politics, too...?”
“Yeah.”
Morgan murmured coldly.
“Just for that.”
“...”
“And because they think that's all there is to the world.”
“...”
Arti fell silent for a moment.
The powerful protect the weak.
Royals and nobles work for their country.
Humans fear the forces of the Dark Realm and keep their distance.
Those kinds of common-sense beliefs
were crumbling.
Humans would turn to the devil without hesitation, even for the most trivial reasons. The world that had seemed so peaceful was actually precarious, liable to collapse at the whim of those in power.
He was beginning to see that reality.
“...”
Arti felt as if every basic belief he'd held had been denied. He also felt a sense of duty to stop this before it was too late.
Looking at Lydia, he spoke at once.
“We have to stop them. We need to find a way, no matter what.”
“Mm, the country bumpkin's right. We need to find a way first. I still find it hard to believe, but after seeing that the Gallian royal family is doing something like this... I can't look away.”
Mave was the one who responded.
As someone who revered Lydia and the Gallian royal family, it was hard for her to accept even a glimpse of such an ugly collusion. But she kept hold of her reason and tried to understand the truth before her.
That was why she could speak calmly.
Lydia looked at them and said,
“I, too, believe we have to stop this situation. To do that, we need to resolve the central issue behind this entire plan: the kidnapping of Lady Carla.”
“But... it's already been several days, and the places we've searched were empty.”
“Even if the enemy moved first, once we identify their destination, we can catch up to them right away.”
“Their destination?”
“That's right. It seems the Monarchist Restorationists plan to disguise themselves as merchants and join the Western Merchant Company headed for the academy.”
“The Western Merchant Company...!”
Arti recalled what had happened earlier.
The Western Merchant Company.
With that chaotic, complicated procession, it would be easy to hide their identities in the confusion. Hiding Lady Carla among the cargo wagons would be easy, too...
He spoke in a hurry.
“Th-then let's go after them right now! If there's a place nearby wide enough for the Western Merchant Company to stop, it'd be the plains...!”
“No, the sewers.”
“What...?”
Arti looked at Morgan.
She'd been firing questions at Aria, then closed her eyes and started calculating something. Eventually she opened them again and gestured with her chin toward the stairs leading from the shopping district down to the sewers.
“Remember the wide lake we saw as we were leaving the academy? The shopping district's waste will flow through the sewers and into it. They can slip out that way.”
“The sewers...?”
“They'll probably take Carla through the sewers to the lake, then secretly join the Western Merchant Company as it approaches the academy from outside. The academy finished searching the sewers on the first day, so they should be empty now.”
“...!”
At that,
the group turned their heads toward the sewers.
All kinds of foul smells and murky liquids were flowing out of them.
Morgan shook her head.
“I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.”