Ch 5

After extracting the information I needed, I erased all memories of me from the fainted masked men. Now they wouldn’t remember who beat them up or why they were there. There was a chance that they would lose all of their memory due to the aftereffects, but I didn't sympathize with them since they tried to kill me. They should have been grateful to come out alive.

"Ramnusia."

‘Ramnusia’ meant the god of Ramnus. ‘Ramnus’ was the sacred place of the goddess of revenge: Nemesis. The fact that the name ‘Ramnusia’ was designated as a group name also meant that this group valued revenge. It did not need to be said that the target of their revenge was the imperial family, this was made clear by their kidnapping of the crown prince. According to the fainted masked man, Ramnusia was a group of people whose loved ones were killed by the Blood Emperor in the past. Interestingly, the person who led the group was a man called "Adrasteia the Inevitable", who claimed he was convicted for killing the Blood Emperor. There were so many people who had a grudge against the Blood Emperor that there were informants everywhere, even if they didn’t explicitly belong to this group, which made things very annoying.

"Just how much resentment did you cause? The Blood Emperor was assassinated, but it's amazing that he managed to stay alive for so many years after handing down his throne.”

Ramnusia had learned about the crown prince's secret livelihood inspection because a knight of the White Deer Knights, who was in charge of the crown prince's long-distance escort, leaked information to them.

"My aunt's business must be booming."

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From the perspective of the imperial family, they may not have wanted to make a fuss, but it was impossible to leave this alone. Of course, much information would be needed to gain an advantage, and since it was a small local organization, there was a high probability that Big Mama Information Agency would take the job. I had heard that Big Mama already had a close relationship with the imperial family, too. With a sigh, I summoned two chirps and released them into the sky. They became my eyes, searching all over the capital.

"Caradoc. Tristan."

Caradoc and Tristan appeared in front of me through the pocket space. Every time I was able, I would revive them as dragontooth soldiers, so they appeared before me as knights.

"Did you call for me, Commander-in-Chief?"

"Yahoo! You called, Master?!"

I sighed softly. "I told you to agree to one title."

The pale-looking Caradoc laughed merrily.

"But wouldn’t it help for us to have some individuality?"

No, even if you don't do that, you’re both unique enough.

I handed Caradoc a VIP ID.

"Caradoc, I need you to run an errand for me. Use this to get the information that I’m supposed to receive from the Big Mama Information Agency and find whatever information you can about an organization called Ramnusia. Tell them to take the money from aphrodisiac sales."

"I will follow your orders."

Caradoc headed towards the Big Mama Information Agency headquarters.

"Tristan, come with me. Let’s go track someone."

"Oh! Who?"

I put on my perception-interfering glasses.

"Crown Prince Zantes. Let's go back to the place where we separated first. It hasn't been that long, so it won't be hard to find traces."

That bothersome crown prince…

* * *

The carriage carrying the crown prince stopped in an alley somewhere.

"The civil servant who was with the crown prince must have been taken care of by now, do we still have to change the carriage?" asked Diesel, the fake coachman.

Yuro replied as he put the crown prince in a large box. "We are plotting treason here, so we have to play everything safe. We don't know when and where an imperial dog might be watching, and this carriage stands out too much."

The carriage certainly drew attention, as it was designed to appear luxurious and colorful in order to deceive the crown prince. Yuro changed his hair color with a magic dye and lifted the box up.

"Don't let your guard down just because you’re leaving the capital. Leave the carriage in a hidden spot and go straight to the designated hiding place. Don't try to sell it to avoid being wasteful just to get caught and ruin our whole plan.”

Yuro’s warning made the coachman smile bitterly.

"Don't worry, Yuro. You’re the one staying in the dangerous capital, so please watch yourself.”

"Okay. Good luck."

"Yes, good luck.”

As Yuro moved the box containing the crown prince to a small, inconspicuous carriage, the coachman closed the carriage door and immediately drove off, away from the capital.

* * *

The White Deer Knights were on high alert. The panic had only started when the long-distance guards lost the crown prince in the morning, but at that time, there had only been a slight rebuke for their carelessness. Although they had not found the crown prince again until the sun had begun to set, they were relieved to find that he was just enjoying himself. In the past, at the time of the New Year Festival, the crown prince had once sent the guards back to the imperial palace first, then came back alone. The guards were reprimanded, and they decided to have the vice-captain be a close proximity escort from then on so that something like that wouldn’t happen again.

When the sun began to fall, however, the situation changed suddenly when they went to the Green Magic Tower after it was reported that the crown prince was there. When the White Deer Knights arrived at the Green Magic Tower, the crown prince was already gone. He should only have gone one of two directions. One was to go along with the civil servant towards the Adventurers’ Guild, or back to the White Deer Knights headquarters. The guards had been strongly reprimanded that day at the New Year Festival, so they figured he wouldn’t go to the imperial palace again.

Now, unable to find him at either of the two locations, the White Deer Knights were put on emergency alert.

"What do we do?! Isn’t this a big problem?!" the vice-captain asked nervously.

Meanwhile, the captain of the division was deep in thought, until finally he spoke.

"From now on, we will operate assuming the worst case scenario. I will issue an emergency order with the authority of the capital’s security chief! Group one will scatter to find out if there were any carriages that rode through the capital’s gates.”

"Yes! Understood!"

As soon as the order was issued, the group one knights dispersed quickly.

"Group two, investigate the vicinity of the Green Magic Tower!"

"Yes! Understood!"

"Group three will track down the civil servant who accompanied His Highness. His name is Den. If anything happened to the prince, Den wouldn't have been left alone either.”

Before the groups were out of earshot, the knight captain cautioned each of them. “Be careful all of you! The house where Den was staying was run by the Duchess Arthemius.” He turned towards the remaining knights. “The rest will disperse and search all over the capital. If you find anything at all, use a flare!"

"Loyalty!"

The remaining White Deer Knights dispersed in search of the crown prince.

"What should we do?" asked the vice-captain.

The captain sighed and said, "… I don't want to do this, but there's only one place I can rely on in this situation."

The vice-captain made a grim expression.

"You mean that illegal information organization?"

"Yes, it can’t be helped due to the urgency of this situation. Let's go to the Big Mama Information Agency."

* * *

"What are you thinking about, Master?" asked Tristan.

I lightly stroked my chin.

"I was thinking for a moment about what to do after saving him from the kidnappers."

The crown prince being kidnapped was a huge incident. Even if this wasn’t let known to the outside world for the sake of the imperial family's dignity, there was plenty of room for suspicion that I was involved. Of course, Guild Director Glont, who cared for his subordinates, would trust and defend me, but this was a despotic country. I could have been arrested for suspicion, then tortured or even executed. Of course, I wouldn’t let that happen without a fight.

"Ah, you’re concerned about how to avoid suspicion." Tristan said.

"That's right. If you are questioned about a crime you haven't committed and are harmed, you might end up actually doing what you're been questioned for in anger."

Tristan laughed cheerfully. “Shouldn’t your instinct be to play things safe for the sake of defending your innocence?"

"Ayy, that's not true. There's this saying, ‘If someone hates me for no reason, then I will give them a reason to hate me."

"Did they invent a new saying while I was dead?"

I smiled lightly at Tristan's question. "They did, they did."

Tristan ran ahead, then suddenly stopped in an alley.

"What’s wrong?"

"Hmm, I think they stopped here for a while. Exactly at this point."

Looking at where Tristan pointed, I saw subtle, evenly spaced horse footprints. Usually, a horse’s legs crossed each other when they ran, so it was clear that the carriage came to a stop in this area. It was a colorful and large carriage, which was rare in the capital, and there were twenty-four aligned horse tracks from six horses, so it couldn’t have been any other carriage. Tristan looked around and approached another area a short distance away.

"A carriage stopped here, too. There seemed to have been a common two-horse carriage standing here for quite a long time."

Looking at the width of the wheel marks, it seemed to be a common carriage one would often see on the streets of the capital. The depth of the marks indicated that it had stood there for a long time. The capital was a fairly developed city, but not all roads were paved. The streets where carriages traveled frequently were kept as dirt roads intentionally. Roads were not built with shock-absorbing asphalt, so constant carriage traffic would quickly crack the pavement, leading to expensive repairs. On top of that, a cracked road could hurt the horses, and the hard pavement could strain their knees and put them out of commission for a long time. Come to think of it, all of these issues came down to money. Because of all this, the carriage roads remained unpaved. So, if a carriage was parked on a soft dirt road for a long time, only the area where it was parked would be marked by the wheels.

"Are you saying they moved the crown prince from here?" I asked.

"Well, that is what I think. Or, if there's an investigator among them like me or Master who can read tracks, they could have left this here to throw us off their scent. Or it could just be another carriage that doesn't matter at all.”

Either one was a possibility.

"What is your opinion, Master?"

"Same as yours. It would certainly be harder to track them if they moved the prince to a common carriage. The carriage that the crown prince rode was too noticeable. But…”

"You can't rule out the other possibility, right?"

I nodded. After thinking briefly, I decided on my direction.

"All right. Tristan, you follow the trail of the small carriage. I'll follow the trail of the big carriage."

I could track pretty well, but not as well as Tristan could. If they had passed through a busy carriage intersection, I would likely lose the trail. However, Tristan would be able to track based on small differences all the way to the end.

"Whoa! It's reassuring that Master believes in me!"

Tristan's playful smile made me smile, too.

"Tristan, I trust you. Who else could I trust with this?"

Tristan looked surprised and then smiled.

"…Then I will live up to that expectation."

For some reason, his smile felt somewhat sad.