A Surprising Visitor

The day after being summoned to the royal palace, we took a day off to recover from the fatigue. The following day, Rebecca and I headed to the guild as usual.

When we entered the guild, the adventurers still made a bit of a fuss about us, but it felt like things had calmed down somewhat.

“What request should we take today?”

“At this point we can accept almost any request. Want to take one with high difficulty that’s been left sitting for a while?”

“Hehe, I like that. The fact that you’d pick a request that’s been left unattended instead of just the ones with the highest rewards—that’s so like you, Luca.”

Rebecca said that as if praising me, and I scratched the back of my neck in embarrassment. If we were still struggling for money, I probably would have chosen based on the reward. But we had just received more money than we could possibly spend as a reward, and there were plenty of monster materials in the sacred domain that could be sold for as much money as we wanted. There was no real need to worry about rewards anymore.

We’d also received excellent weapons and armor, so we didn’t need money to buy equipment either. When I glanced down at myself, the gear I wore clearly made me look strong, and it helped sharpen my resolve.

“Ah, Mr. Luca, Miss Rebecca—could you come here for a moment?”

Just as we were heading toward the request board, a female receptionist called out to us. I wondered if Guild Master Edmond had summoned us again… but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“The woman sitting over there has been looking for you two. I told her that I would inform her if you came to the guild. Do you know her?”

The receptionist pointed toward the guild’s dining area. I could only see the woman’s back, but… wasn’t that Ann?

“I-I think we know her! Thank you!”

Rebecca hurriedly said that and ran over to the woman who looked like Ann. When Rebecca called out to her, the woman turned around—

It was definitely Ann.

“Is it really okay for you to be here?”

I quickly whispered that in a low voice. Ann smiled and nodded as if to say it was fine.

“But I have to go back early today—before noon. So I can only stay for about two hours.”

“I see… There’s a lot I’d like to talk about, but discussing it here feels a little awkward. Should we move somewhere else?”

At Rebecca’s suggestion, we decided to relocate, so we headed to the inn where I was staying. I sat on the chair, while Ann and Rebecca sat on the bed.

“So first… Ann—you’re actually Lady Henriette, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m sorry for lying to you before.”

“Don’t worry about it. Of course you couldn’t say anything. More importantly, is it really okay for you to be out here alone? And the marriage… to the Empire… Oh—should we be speaking more formally?”

Rebecca seemed flustered and kept firing off questions one after another.

“Rebecca, calm down a little.”

“Ah—sorry.”

“It’s fine. Thank you for worrying about me. First, you don’t need to use formal speech with me. Talking like this is fine. And… where should I begin? To start with, I slipped out of the palace secretly, so if it’s discovered that I’m here, Father will scold me. I might even be locked up.”

Ann said that with a laugh, but Rebecca and I couldn’t laugh at all. Angering the king was terrifying to even imagine.

“Why would you take that kind of risk…?”

“You two already know, don’t you? About the place I’m being married off to. I hate it so much that I want to run away, so I’ve secretly been planning to escape once I’m in the Empire. That’s why I went outside before—to see if I could survive on my own. But… it didn’t go very well.”

Ann was planning to escape…!

Hearing that made me feel relieved and genuinely happy. Rebecca seemed to feel the same way, her face brightening with a smile.

“You absolutely should run away!”

“I think so too.”

“I agree as well. Apparently the prince I’m supposed to marry has sadistic tendencies. There isn’t a single good rumor about him.”

Seriously…? The country itself was already dangerous enough, and the person she was marrying was like that too. Running away really was the only option.

I was glad Ann was the kind of princess who had the initiative to act.

“You have to run away. You can’t go to a place like that.”

Rebecca burst into tears and hugged Ann tightly. Ann looked at her with a gentle expression.

“Thank you.”

“Why don’t you just run away now? Do you want to go somewhere far away with us?”

“Would it really be okay for me to go with you…? Actually, that’s why I came to see you today. I wanted to ask if I could join you after I escape. I originally planned to run away alone, but after hearing about your achievements, I realized I could ask you to protect me… and I got a little greedy.”

“Of course that’s okay! Thank you for trusting us with your protection!”

Rebecca immediately agreed before Ann had even finished speaking.

I gave a wry smile at her eagerness and nodded.

“We have no problem with it at all—if you’re okay with us, Ann.”

“You two… thank you. Truly, thank you. I’m so happy.”

Ann’s eyes grew moist as she smiled sincerely. I had been genuinely worried about what would happen to her, so this was a huge relief.

“Then should we leave the city as soon as tomorrow? If I explain things to my family, it’ll be fine. I’ve already told them that I’ll be leaving the city eventually.”

“About that… if possible, I’d like to escape after we enter the Empire. Apparently the Empire is providing our kingdom with various forms of military aid because of this marriage. If I ran away now, there’s a chance the Empire might invade.”

I see… Being royalty really is complicated.

“So once we enter the Empire and the escort switches to their knights, I want to make it look like I died after being attacked by monsters. If that happens, it would become the Empire’s knights’ responsibility, so the Albanell Kingdom wouldn’t suffer any consequences.”

“…That’s definitely something we have to think about seriously.”

“For now, we’ll leave the country normally for the marriage procession, and the real challenge starts after that. But making it look like you died in a monster attack is actually pretty difficult…”

Bringing monsters over would be hard enough, and making it convincingly look like she died would be even harder. If Lady Seremees told me where monsters were and I secretly went into the forest to lure one out, that part might work…

But the difficult part would be making it look like the monster had actually killed Ann.