Chapter 57
Kidnapping
The regular meeting of the Grand Council had come to an end.
Just as they had gathered, the attendees began to disperse once more.
As befitted the movement of nobles ranked duke or higher, enormous armies had converged upon the central region. While they were gathered, they also held military reviews, displaying their national strength to one another while inspecting their forces.
In that sense, Escholeia was far removed from the splendor of the others.
They were a city of knowledge, free from diplomatic conflict.
Preferring practical and efficient methods, they traveled in a mana carriage powered by a mage’s magic.
“Can’t we switch to a proper horse-drawn carriage too?”
Chancellor Bernard grumbled to the mage acting as the driver.
“Are you complaining about that again?”
“Every time I come to the Grand Council, I think the same thing. I’m the chancellor of an entire city, you know? I ought to have a little dignity.”
“Oh, please don’t use words like ‘swagger.’ You’re not some mercenary who’s spent his life rolling around in the dirt. When a potbellied middle-aged man says something like that, it just sounds pathetic.”
“Besides, where would we even raise horses in a city packed like a chicken coop? The scholars would obviously object that the space needed to keep a single horse could accommodate another hundred researchers.”
“Still, I’m the chancellor. You could at least let me preserve some pride...”
“And then what? Do you want to watch the auditors send us formal notices and raise hell? I understand that extravagance matters in the world of nobles, but anyone who understands that doesn’t become a scholar.”
“I just want to ride in a horse-drawn carriage too. Sigh...”
“Keep whining and I’ll quit, you know. I’ll clock out and go straight home.”
“Sigh... Fine, I was wrong. Let’s go. Yes, yes, just go.”
Who was the master here, anyway?
To think the chancellor was utterly helpless whenever a mage threatened him.
If they really care so much about efficiency, it would be nice if the carriage could be charged with mana and operated without a mage...
Bernard grumbled inwardly.
Yes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could simply infuse it with mana and make it move?
Perhaps with a few gears and levers...
If all one needed to do was operate the controls, it would be perfect.
Bernard sketched the idea in his notebook.
The carriage, which had been moving without the slightest jolt, suddenly came to a halt.
“What happened?”
“It seems someone is blocking the road. Judging by their appearance, they’re probably bandits.”
Bandit groups that blocked roads and demanded tolls could be found anywhere.
“Shall I deal with them? I’ve got nothing else to do anyway.”
The mage grinned and dragged a finger across his throat.
“Let us avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Just give them a little money.”
“Why should we give them money?”
“They’re only trying to make a living, aren’t they? Give them a reasonable amount and send them on their way.”
“And that’s why everyone looks down on you...”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. I’ll be back.”
The mage took several handfuls of silver coins and stepped down from the carriage.
Chancellor Bernard watched with a displeased expression, irritated by what the mage had said.
Keeping his distance, the mage tossed the silver coins onto the ground and gestured for the bandits to take them and let the carriage pass.
At that moment, a sharp flash erupted from the mage’s torso.
“Huh?”
A single diagonal streak of light flashed through him.
The mage’s upper body slid away along the cut.
Standing where his torso had been was a beggar wearing a sinister grin.
And in his hand was a sword.
“W-Wait, what the hell?!”
The chancellor cried out in horror.
The mage seated in the driver’s position did not react clumsily. He immediately began preparing a spell.
It was time to demonstrate why he was paid fifty gold coins a day as an escort.
But before he could, an object flew toward him at a speed that made his efforts meaningless.
Crash!
A dagger pierced through the window and impaled his throat.
“Ghk... K-Keugh...!”
The mage’s incantation failed.
The magic circle forming in the air scattered and vanished.
In an instant, two Fourth-Circle mages had been killed.
The chancellor sat frozen as the beggar approached.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood.
Even if he tried to run, he would only die sooner.
The man who had dispatched two Fourth-Circle mages in an instant opened the door.
Then he sat down across from Bernard.
A chilling smile curled across his lips.
“A pleasure to meet you, Chancellor of Escholeia.”
“W-Who are you?”
“You don’t need to know who I am. Let’s talk about you instead.”
The man continued speaking unilaterally.
Still frozen, Bernard nodded.
“You were the one who proposed at this Grand Council that there were signs of the Wicked Dragon Godwin’s return, weren’t you?”
“I was, but...”
“What were you thinking when you did that?”
“I did it for the safety of the continent...”
“Even though doing so might put you in danger?”
“I may have been wrong. But even so, I felt that someone needed to say it...”
The mysterious man interrupted Chancellor Bernard and pressed a blade to his throat.
“Let’s not waste time with pointless talk. Dragging this out will only make it more painful for you.”
Blood from the two mages dripped from the dagger.
The chancellor swallowed hard and desperately tried to suppress his trembling.
“You were planning to unveil a device that predicts the appearance of demonkin, weren’t you?”
“H-How do you know about that...?”
“I have ears everywhere.”
The man grinned.
The only people who knew about it were a few scholars Bernard trusted, his secretary...
And Ferda Valdrova.
“Ferda Valdrova!”
The chancellor shouted as though struck by sudden realization.
“You... Were you sent by Regent Ferda?”
“Who knows? Do you think he sent me?”
“Damn it! I should have known the moment I saw that look in the eyes of a brat that young...!”
Chancellor Bernard shouted furiously.
Instead of answering, the man snickered.
“Our dear chancellor is cuter than I expected. You might not be so bad after all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“What else could it mean?”
He produced a syringe.
“This.”
The enormous needle was horrifying in itself.
What truly frightened the chancellor, however, was the thick black liquid inside, as viscous as tar.
“What in the world is inside that?”
“A vaccine.”
“A vaccine?”
“That’s right. A vaccine. Medicine that will wipe out every mass of bacteria infesting this world.”
The man placed his thumb against the plunger and prepared the injection.
Then he drove the syringe into himself.
Not into Chancellor Bernard.
“Ugh...!”
The man groaned in agony.
Yet he was not dying.
It was a mutation.
No—an evolution.
Something resembling the tar he had injected began seeping across his skin like oily grease, spreading until it covered his entire body.
By the time the transformation ended, the man’s form had been dyed completely black.
He no longer resembled a human.
He looked like a mannequin made from some soft material, or perhaps a newly formed cocoon.
Red eyes tore open within it, blazing with light.
When his mouth opened, sharp beastlike teeth were exposed in a threatening display.
“N-No way...”
As the chancellor put all those features together, a single word flashed through his mind.
“Demonkin...!”
The man had become a demonkin.
“Hahahaha! At last, his... His blessing flows through this body as well!”
The man caressed his own face, lost in ecstasy.
As though he had finally achieved his lifelong ambition, he reveled in pleasure before turning his gaze back toward the chancellor.
Bernard instinctively sensed his death.
Desperate to survive by any means necessary, he threw a question at the man.
“Why would a man as skilled as you... become a follower of the demonkin?”
Followers of the demonkin were ignorant wretches.
They were even more vicious than devil worshippers.
“I, too, was once a knight who understood honor.”
The man let out a mad, rasping laugh.
“But no matter how closely you cling to honor, serving a king who is easily swayed by the glib tongue of some treacherous petty man means it can all come crashing down in an instant.”
He was a fallen knight.
“So I decided there was nothing left worth knowing. I’m going to destroy it all.”
“If you become a demonkin... you will no longer be able to live normally, either in the human world or anywhere on the Cerdes Continent. You will become a lost soul that can enter neither heaven nor hell. Knowing that, why would you...?”
“That’s what you think.”
The man raised his dagger and cut Chancellor Bernard’s arm.
It was not a deep wound, but blood began flowing freely.
The man pressed his own hand against the injury.
Bernard briefly wondered whether he was inflicting an injury only to treat it afterward, but then something astonishing happened.
“Mother Maroon...”
The man’s pitch-black body gradually began turning flesh-colored.
It was not simply changing color to resemble a human.
Parts of his body lengthened, while others contracted.
In the end, he transformed into a figure extremely familiar to Chancellor Bernard.
Bernard himself.
“Well, Chancellor? Do I look like you?”
The man wearing Bernard’s appearance smiled.
It was a malicious smile that Bernard had never once made in his life.
“What do you intend to do with my research?”
“As expected of a chancellor. Your mind works quickly.”
The man tapped his own head with the dagger.
“You already know, don’t you? You’re building a device that predicts the appearance of monsters. There is naturally only one thing the demonkin need to do.”
Sabotage the research and ensure that the prediction device never existed.
“D-Do you think I’ll simply allow that?!”
At the thought of losing the research to which he had devoted his entire life, Chancellor Bernard finally summoned a measure of courage.
However, the other Bernard sitting opposite him moved swiftly and seized him by the throat.
Slowly but powerfully, he began to strangle him.
“Ghk... K-Keugh!”
“Rest well. I, too, will follow you into the world of the void.”
Just as he was about to kill the original Chancellor Bernard—
“Ambush!”
The shout of a man standing guard outside pierced through the carriage.
The disguised Bernard turned his head and saw a battle raging outside.
Mysterious assailants had clashed with the demonkin followers disguised as beggars.
Only two men were overwhelming more than twenty opponents.
One had brown hair, and the other was blond.
Startled by the unexpected attack, the man released Bernard’s throat and demanded,
“When did you hire escorts?”
“Cough, cough... W-What escorts?”
Chancellor Bernard looked back at him in complete confusion.
Before the disguised man could hear any further answer, the demonkin followers were swiftly dealt with.
Those masquerading as bandits had all been mere rabble, while the two newcomers were highly skilled knights.
“This is troublesome.”
The man was genuinely worried.
Two mages could be killed in an instant if ambushed before they began their incantations, but fighting two knights simultaneously would be difficult.
The man decided to use his wits.
He would sow confusion.
“Gentlemen! Be careful!”
He kicked open the carriage door and ran out in apparent desperation.
“Inside! There’s a man inside who looks exactly like me! He’s trying to kill me!”
The man ran toward them as though terrified.
At the same time, he concealed the dagger he held in a reverse grip along his forearm.
The moment he entered striking range, he was prepared to launch a surprise attack with the hidden blade.
“Hurry! Deal with the man over there—Ghk!”
The man did not make it far before tumbling to the ground.
A dagger was embedded in his ankle.
It was identical to the one held by the brown-haired man.
“Aaaagh! What is the meaning of this?!”
There was no response.
Instead, the brown-haired man rushed forward and kicked Bernard’s head with all his strength.
Thud!
A sickening sound rang out, as though bones had snapped.
The body of the false Bernard went limp.
The blond-haired man widened his eyes and shouted,
“Sir Zed! What have you done to the chancellor?!”
The man called Zed gestured with his chin toward the fallen figure.
“That isn’t the chancellor.”
“What are you talking about?! He isn’t even disguised with magic! If you kick him that hard, he’ll definitely die—Huh?”
His commotion came to an abrupt end when he spotted Bernard belatedly emerging from the carriage.
“Why are there two chancellors...?”
Zed sighed.
“Honestly, you’re like some naïve country bumpkin. Work on your powers of observation. For now, bind this man securely. I’ll bring the real one over.”
“Uh... Understood.”
Arwon restrained the impostor, while Zed helped the real Bernard out of the carriage and supported him.
“Are you unharmed?”
“Y-Yes... I am. Are you men servants of Regent Valdrova...?”
“My apologies for the late introduction. I am Zed Swallow, a knight who has sworn loyalty to the Principality of Valdrova. This naïve fellow here is Sir Arwon. On the regent’s orders, we have been secretly watching over and protecting you.”
“You serve the regent...? Why would the man who stabbed me in the back help me?”
“Pardon? I don’t know what misunderstanding has occurred, but for now, we will escort you to the regent.”
Bernard’s head was spinning, likely because he had nearly been strangled to death.
However, he had no other choice.
The mages who were supposed to operate the carriage were dead, so the carriage could no longer move.
The journey was long, and walking away from this place would be far too dangerous.
Chancellor Bernard resigned himself to the situation.
“Very well. I will accompany you.”
“Then allow me to stop the bleeding first.”
Zed lightly treated Bernard’s wound, while Arwon tied up the other Bernard and placed him across a horse.
They departed, leaving the scene of the incident behind.
Even as they rode, a question continued circling through Arwon’s mind.
“Sir Zed.”
“What?”
“How in the world did you know?”
Zed had attacked without hesitation, allowing him to catch the impostor off guard.
But Arwon could not understand how he had been so certain.
Zed gave a faint chuckle.
“There wasn’t any shine.”
“...Pardon? Shine?”
“That fake over there apparently couldn’t reproduce the glossy sheen of the chancellor’s bald head.”
Arwon’s gaze drifted past Zed’s back.
Chancellor Bernard’s head was faintly reflecting the moonlight.
“Ah.”
It was absurd, but he could think of nothing to say.
***
After riding throughout the night, they arrived at a place where a carriage was waiting.
Regent Valdrova’s carriage and tent had been set up there.
A young silver-haired maid greeted them.
“This way.”
The maid lifted the tent flap slightly, and Bernard stepped inside.
A warmth unlike the cold, damp ground of the wilderness touched his skin.
The interior was several times larger than its external appearance suggested.
It was so cozy and well maintained that it was impossible to believe he was inside a tent.
An extradimensional tent... Isn’t this an extraordinary treasure?
Even a single extradimensional pocket, which had to be created using fairy dust as a medium, was considered a treasure.
A tent of this kind was on an entirely different level.
The only rulers capable of owning such an object were emperors.
Or dragons.
Once again, Bernard was reminded that the young man was the consort of a dragon.
“Welcome.”
A young man with gray hair and blue eyes greeted him.
It was Ferda.