Plans Going Forward

After returning to the formation and defeating the Metal Lizard without much trouble, the knights looked at me as if they had just witnessed something unbelievable.

The fact that they were looking at me like that meant they thought I was much weaker… it seemed true that adventurer ranks were not conveyed at all in the Empire.

“Luca, thank you.”

“No, sorry for being late. But Lady Henriette…”

When Rebecca came over to me, we both looked down the cliff together. Then, taking advantage of that moment, I quietly told Rebecca that Ann was safe.

Lady Seremees had contacted me earlier. Ann had managed to escape to the Divine Domain before the carriage fell.

“I see… that’s good.”

Rebecca murmured that in a truly small voice, but immediately after, she made a sorrowful, helpless expression.

“What should we do now…?”

After Rebecca said that loud enough for the knights to hear, one of the knights turned his pale face red and glared sharply at me.

“I-It’s your fault for disappearing because of a stomachache! If you had been here, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“…That might be true. But originally, the duty of guarding Lady Henriette was assigned to the Empire’s knights. We were pushed to the very back of the line, and even if I had been there, it’s unclear whether I would have made it in time. More importantly, you were the ones riding horses, able to move quickly, and positioned closer to Lady Henriette—so why couldn’t you save her?”

When I threw those sharp words at the knight while glaring at him, the knights all fell silent as if they had nothing to say.

“Are we going to be killed?”

But that one sentence caused unrest among all of them.

“I-If we’re weak enough to fail a mission, they’ll give us a harsh punishment…”

“…That’s certain.”

“No! T-The princess of a neighboring country was just a woman Prince Balthazar requested on a whim, right? Any other woman should be fine. L-Look, we could gather some beautiful women still left among the townspeople and offer them instead.”

“Y-Yeah. We could also take some from villages along the way.”

“And besides that! W-We could just say that the princess committed suicide.”

The knights spoke freely, discussing schemes so that the blame would not fall on them. Hearing that conversation made my whole body tremble with anger.

These guys really are scum. What do they think Ann is? And gathering other women—at this rate they would obviously do it by force.

Women generally tended to be physically weaker than men, so in the meritocratic Empire their social standing was probably low.

I truly came to hate the Empire as a nation. At least this meant I would not hesitate to fulfill Lady Seremees’s request.

“…I think it would be better to tell the truth. If we lie and it’s discovered later, it will become a serious problem. And if the woman we offer displeases the Empire’s prince, it might make him even angrier. Wouldn’t it be better not to do anything unnecessary?”

“I think so too. More importantly, we should return to the Imperial Capital quickly, prepare ourselves, and then head out to search for Lady Henriette. Even if the chances that she’s alive are low, they’re not zero.”

I had no interest in what happened to the knights, but I spoke up to prevent other women from becoming victims. The knights glared at us for a moment, but perhaps remembering our strength, they fell silent.

It was not something to be happy about, but the Empire’s meritocracy might actually work in my favor… if showing strength allowed my opinions to be accepted, the chances of successful reconnaissance would likely increase.

“I agree that we should head to the Imperial Capital immediately. If the princess is still alive, we can report that we came to request rescue assistance for the search.”

With that serious knight agreeing with us, everyone’s opinion gradually leaned toward returning to the Imperial Capital.

“W-We can’t search right now, can we?”

“Of course not. Do you even know how to get down such a deep cliff? Without equipment or tools, it’s impossible.”

“That’s true… yeah.”

“It might be best to say we returned as quickly as possible to get tools.”

Once the knights’ decision to return to the Imperial Capital was settled, we finished preparing to depart under a gloomy atmosphere.

One of the carriages carrying our luggage had been destroyed, so we transferred the contents and consolidated everything into one carriage, then borrowed the spare horses and rode them ourselves.

“By the way, you two don’t really need to go to the Imperial Capital, do you?”

Just as we were about to depart, one knight asked that question. Normally that would be true. Our employer was the guild and Ann, so going to the Empire would not accomplish anything.

But we had a reason to go to the Empire.

“No, we’ll help search for Lady Henriette as well. We accepted the request, so we have to see it through to the end.”

“I see… understood. Then you may come along.”

At the serious knight’s words, the other knights said nothing, and we followed behind them as they headed toward the Imperial Capital.