Leave a comment

“Around half the knights were in support of Prince Magna, but the soldiers Stied brought from somewhere easily overpowered them. Those soldiers wore weird pitch black armor that covered their entire bodies, and were ridiculously strong. There was a lot of confusion during that conflict, and Prince Magna disappeared amidst it. The nobles and knights supporting Prince Magna that survive all retreated to their own territories and are hiding. They haven’t given up on Prince Magna and are trying to find other ways to oppose Prince Stied.”

Pitch black armor? Normal knights would wear easily recognizable armor, so that made me feel dubious about wherever Stied got them. I also questioned his sanity, relying on such suspicious helpers.

“Even though no one knows exactly what happened to Prince Magna or where he is, they’re behaving like he died. Everyone on Stied’s side claims that, so most of the people believe it’s true.”

In other words, there was still a small chance Magna was alive. Maybe that was also the reason why Magna’s supporters had not given up yet. If all they wanted was to survive, it would have been easier to switch sides.

“Alright, I get there’s a big mess going on in the capital now. But why do we have to hide because of that?”

Diaria finally spoke up, in response, the gatekeeper lowered his voice even more and leant closer to us.

“When the change happened, Governor Grom refused to give a clear answer in support or against, so Prince Stied’s nobles started coming to the city. They didn’t chase Governor Grom out of the castle, but all his relatives are under heavy surveillance. They also sent some shifty guys that called themselves inspectors to the training school, where they just abused their authority and now almost no one goes there.”
“And the guild? Did they do anything there?”
“No, the guild is still safe. That place is part of a larger international organization, so not even Prince Stied would dare get on their bad side. But the entire city feels weird now, so the number of adventurers around here has decreased, and the guild is worried, struggling to get requests fulfilled.”

Because of the Demon King’s revival, monsters were growing stronger. If adventurers stopped working on top of that, things could get dangerous around the city. Before we left they were barely keeping things together, but now…

“Anyway…as to why I actually dragged you all over here…to put it simply, Prince Stied has marked all of you as wanted criminals.”
“?!”
“What?!”
“Wanted criminals…”

Somehow the only one who did not have a strong reaction was Luvias. Her face was still pale, but her lips were pressed with determination.

“I fear Stied found out I joined hands with Magna, and our rising fame and popularity was a thorn in his side. So I guess he decided to get rid of all of us.”
“Would he really go that far..?”

Just because he was not popular enough, he decided to get rid of anyone more popular. But that would never raise his own popularity, that much is easy to figure out. Apparently he is too dense to figure that out though…

“I’m sure they’re watching your house too.”
“Huh?! Are Maria and Sepia safe?”
“Yes, the guild quickly stepped in and hid them. But the issue now is you being here. If they see me walking and talking with you like this, things could get nasty later. But we’ve known each other for long enough, and you’ve done a lot for the city, so I just had to tell you.”

Nobles always think of themselves as the most important beings ever, so a mere gatekeeper’s life had little value to them. So if they found out he had let us live, it was easy to imagine they would kill him. But he still stepped in, for people like us who did not even make an effort to remember his name.

“Either way, I’ll manage somehow. Prince Stied might have taken control of the city, but pretty much none of the citizens are loyal to him. I can fumble the records or accidentally destroy them somehow. Just try to make sure you don’t get recognized, or flee to another country. Good luck, I have to go now.”

With that, he quickly walked away. Everything was silent around us now. We had never expected such an insurrection, and now we had gone from a venerable title of heroes to the opposite, wanted criminals. I really did not know how to react.

“What should we do?”
“I mean…what can we do?”

If we were against demons, we could just solve it with sheer force. But an insurrection was a different story. We would need a really good reason to actually point our weapons at other humans. Only Luvias had the authority to decide what to do, whether we fight, or we hide, it was all up to her. We all looked at her, awaiting her decision. After taking a deep breath, she raised her face, determination in her eyes.

“I can’t let my brother kill people just because he feels like it. If we ignore him, the entire country will collapse and innocent citizens will suffer. Not to mention that I really doubt the demons would watch that without acting. We have to go to the capital and see if we can support my father or Magna. Though before that…”

She glanced at me. I knew what she meant, even if she said nothing, and I nodded in response.

“We have to check on Maria, Rina, and Sepia. Then we can try contacting Grom and think how to counterattack.”

It was a bit depressing to think that after getting so much stronger, our first opponents would not be demons, but other humans. But considering the situation we had to act, we had no other choice. We just had to steel our resolve and move out.