Ben buzzed, acknowledging the plan. He was the best at looking, so of course he would be in charge of looking at the suspicious shoe store. He didn’t feel bad for bored Beelzebub, not one bit. Well, maybe a little. To be fair, it was really boring to listen to things. Looking at something interesting was much better.
“Ben nooo! Come back! What was the thing about training?!” Beelzebub’s voice faded into the distance as Ben flew away, except since it was inside his head, it actually didn’t. To maintain the image, he flew away in silence, albeit a touch giggly. On her part, Beelzebub was only half joking about her confusion. She was a fighter, not a teacher, for Mother’s sake. Maybe Mom could prevent such a strange and unnatural occurrence.
On that note, what was Mom even up to? The constant flow of information going between Mom’s Mind and the rest of the hive felt muted, recently. Beelzebub knew she and Ben’s Minds were on something of a ‘probation’ so they could focus on the mission, but they were still feeling the buzz of the hive. And Mom was either very busy with something related to Mind, or was taking the longest, weirdest nap ever. Beelzebub wasn’t the biggest fan of sleeping, especially when she could be fighting instead. But if things were boring…
She yawned. This mission sucked.
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“Grehn, I’m gonna say it. This mission sucks.”
Grehn did his best to ignore Vlugh’s whining, but to be honest, he agreed with his friend. The brilliant, multi-layered plan he originally lay out to come here to Lemonholm, ingratiate himself to the hive by acquiring them the food they so desperately wanted while figuring out a way to undermine them and free his city? Gone. Reduced to shreds.
Instead, he found himself seated opposite a royal Knight Commander, being stared at intently while his idiot friends made idle commentary during a murder interrogation. The room was dark, with only a single lamp to illuminate the faces of the Knights sitting behind the table.
To his credit, Greyan’s expression was more sympathetic than anything. It seemed like the man truly didn’t suspect them of murder any longer, but Grehn was still hesitant to trust the man.
“Sorry, Grehn, but it’s only fair, you know?” the Knight Commander said as he leaned back in his chair. He had been very fair, in fact, asking Grehn the same questions he had posed to the Lemonholmians, so the interrogation must have been over by now. He had even let the mercenaries ask the questions of each Knight. But he hadn’t given the signal that the interrogation had ended, a casual, dismissive wave of his hand.
“I have one last question. A quick one, just to confirm.” Greyan leaned forward. “Where is Yelah?”
Grehn froze. As did Vlugh. Elofan’s ears pricked up, though her reaction was much more tame.
“She… is… back in Yiwi? That’s where she lives.”
“Hm. That makes sense. I suppose the more pertinent question is why she isn’t here with you. Her team.”
Vlugh’s teeth ground audibly. “Why are you asking about this, man? What the hell does she have to do with this stupid murder mystery?”
“I was asking your team leader. Rather, your temporary team leader? I simply ask because I learned she was the leader of your mercenary team from Muweh. She is quite well-known amongst some of the Knights, you know, especially those in the higher ranks. Seiena talks about her constantly,” Greyan said. His expression had never left its somewhat sympathetic, casual state.
“You know Seiena?” Grehn desperately needed to change the subject. But this would be an amazing opportunity to make a subtle revelation about the bees, wouldn’t it? With that said, he just really needed to change the subject. Which was… not what he wanted.
Fuck, Belphegora really is messing with my head, isn’t she?
“Oh yes. She’s a treat. Though she mostly fraternizes with the true elite like the Royal Guard. Every time we meet, she seems to have something to say about the adorable mercenary girl who wants to take up her mantle as Yiwi’s mercenary queen. So? Why isn’t Yelah here with you?”
Despite himself, Grehn couldn’t find the voice to answer. His mouth flapped. Vlugh was leaning forward as if he were going to jump out of his chair, but he was also completely silent. Eventually, under Greyan’s unwavering gaze, Grehn found the will to speak.
“She is not on our team right now. I’m not sure what she’s up to, because our team has been in a rough spot recently. There’s really not much to say about it.”
“I see,” Greyan said. He was stroking his beard again. “Well, it seems like there are painful memories attached, so I won’t pry any further. I was simply curious. Now then! All the interrogations are finished, and any of the remaining Lemonholmians will either be exempt or interviewed on another day. But for now, we should focus on sticking together and attempting to understand the message we received.”
Chatting like chipper birds, the Knights filtered out of the room, catching up with Muweh Sawah outside. Only Greyan lagged behind.
“I apologize if I put you in an uncomfortable situation. But I found it strange that the up-and-coming mercenary I’d heard so much about was separated from her companions. Whatever the circumstances, I hope she’s doing well.”
Grehn and Vlugh nodded and followed Greyan out of the room. What were they meant to respond with? Whenever Greyan had last been in the capital, rubbing elbows with the aristocracy and high-profile individuals, the situation in Yiwi had probably been completely normal. So much had happened in such a short amount of time. At this point, what were they meant to say about Yelah? They had no idea what her situation was anymore. Her screams had gone quiet some time ago.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
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Seyorohon’s shoe store was surprisingly large for a shoe store in a small town, especially for a shoe store stuck in a random alleyway. It, in fact, presented two wooden signs: one with a red boot and another with a yellow sandal. Unlike most of the other windows in the town of Lemonholm, the windows of the shoe store were not tinted too dark to see from the outside. Instead, they displayed neat rows of shoes that were collecting noticeable amounts of dust.
Ben had been watching the store while the humans whiled away their time in the tavern, and for most of that time, nothing happened. However, as he watched, the old man called Seyorohon slowly opened the door and stepped out after peeking around. For a moment, he did nothing. Then he took his shoes off, put on a pair of flashy black leather boots, and stole away into the evening gloom.
Ben wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it sure was odd. Though for all he knew, that was standard human behavior.
The man was only away for a few minutes, but he soon returned, now wearing a completely different pair of boots. To the untrained eye, the footwear might have seemed the same. But not Ben. He noticed the slight differences in the stitching and material immediately.
“Curious. And weird.” Ben spoke to himself. As he did, he sent the images he’d seen to the humans and Beelzebub. They would want to see the strangeness.
As he did, he continued ignoring Beelzebub’s pleas to explain his request to get trained by her. He thought it was a great idea, so he wasn’t sure why she wasn’t jumping at the idea. After all, she seemed quite bored, even back home. Why else would she have begged to come to this town?
Eventually, the group of outsiders turned the corner as they returned to the inn from the tavern, though Ben could hear their arguing before he even looked at them. As they passed the store, it warranted little more than a glance from Vlugh and Meyara.
“I am telling you for certain if we re-arrange the letters of the non-emphasized words, I believe we can find the answer,” Herwen said.
“And I’m telling you that’s wrong,” Vlugh retorted, “it’s the emphasized words. Emphasized.”
“I’ll have you know, mercenary, that I took several code-breaking classes in my time at the academy. You’re a thousand years too early to be arguing with me over such a matter.”
“And I keep asking: what fucking academy? You haven’t said which one!” Vlugh said, throwing his hands into the air.
They had been trying, over and over, to lead the Knights to the conclusion reached by the Mother, to no avail. They tried subtlety, they tried leading questions, and in the end, they had to resort to direct confrontation. Or as close to directly saying the answer as possible.
“If you’re certain, Vlugh,” Greyan said, “then do you have a proposed answer?”
“Of course not! But it seems like it should be obvious that there are strange word choices being emphasized. Like, in the part that goes ‘you killed HIM, he OFFED SELF.’ What the hell is up with that? Why use ‘off’ instead of ‘kill’ again? And why not ‘himself?’ I’m telling you, it’s obviously weird.”
Of course, Vlugh already had a potential answer using the emphasized words, but to his credit, he had actually devised that argument on his own. And it was one compelling enough to give Greyan pause. Of course, Herwen, lord of the smarty-pants, had other ideas.
“You poor, silly mercenary. This is why a proper education is so vital to the continued excellence of the kingdom - not that you would care about such a thing. It is common practice for expert designers of codes to do such things to distract a code-breaker. Or otherwise, fool an inept one,” Herwen said. But he wasn’t done.
“Now, let us think rationally for a moment. Consider the letters we can use of the nonemphasized words. Perhaps it could be rearranged into something like… silvery… mud… No. Silvery… monk kid? No wait.”
“Are you done?” Jey asked.
“Hold on. We can look at it a different way. We just need to consider things logically. Perhaps there is a shift? Of course! By shifting the letters over by a certain amount, a more complex code can be achieved. I simply need to dedicate a bit more Mind to this, and I will be able to consider a few thousand possible permutations.”
“I don’t know what to tell you anymore, man. What about the rest of you?” Vlugh asked the other Knights.
Meyara spoke up. “I still think we are investing too much time and Mind into decoding this message. For all we know, it could be the mad ravings of a random townsperson. Meanwhile, the killer, who would presumably not be leaving a message to find them, runs loose.”
Vlugh let out a strong huff. “Seriously! Ok, here’s a possible solution for you. The emphasized words are what we look at, right? And to make things simpler, let’s just use the first letters. If you re-arrange those, you can get something like ‘store of shoe.’ So what if it’s something as simple as that?!”
Vlugh waved his arms at the shoe store they had just passed. Herwen scoffed, and Jey giggled at the display. Greyan, however, stopped. The look he gave Vlugh was enough to make the bees buzz angrily, worried the decision would appear too suspicious. Greyan, however, just shrugged, walked over to the store, and knocked on the door.
At first, nobody answered. The outsiders waited in the weirdest collection of weirdoes. After more than a minute of waiting, the mercenaries felt a shiver crawl up their spine. Even Ben felt affected. Almost without their noticing, a minuscule amount of Mind had wafted off Greyan and filled the surroundings in an ominous sensation. Ben was in awe. The subtle pressure Greyan’s Mind was exuding felt scarier than the bombardment of Mind he’d felt when first approaching Yiwi. How he made Ben feel this way with what felt like a tiny amount of Mind was amazing.
After only a few seconds of the scary aura existing, the door swung open, revealing a bug-eyed Seyorohon in yellow sandals. Ben had no idea where the boots were, but he appreciated how the sandals looked almost exactly like the ones on the sign.
“What?! What do you- Oh, it’s you outsiders. Haven’t you been annoying enough today already?”
Seyorohon had been one of the people who got interrogated, but Ben didn’t really care to know what he had said. Nobody had told him the old man said something important, so he assumed it was about as interesting as the rest.
“I apologize, but we just wanted to see your shop. We’d heard much about it, so we were intrigued about Lemonholm’s most famous shoe store.”
“…It’s the only shoe store. Anyway, I’m closed right now. Come back during open hours.”
“I apologize again, but I must insist that we see the store.”
The aura still hadn’t disappeared, and Seyorohon had already started sweating. The poor old man seemed to hold strong for a moment, but the longer he failed to relent, the more pale his complexion grew. Eventually, he gave in and let the outsiders pass into the store.
Shoes. Every inch of the interior was covered in shoes. Big, small, wide, narrow, every color and shape imaginable. It was almost overwhelming to see, but for Ben, it was the best thing this town had yet offered to look at. However, the most interesting thing they noticed was a scuffled pile of cloth tucked in a corner. Vlugh and Grehn found their attention drawn to the cloth and approached it as Ben watched, also captivated by the seemingly random object.
When Grehn unfolded the cloth, two things happened. First, Ben and the mercenaries were shocked to find a wooden, black-painted mask with x-shaped eyeholes in its confines. And second, a series of clicks and sounds of metal on metal rang out. The Knights had unsheathed their weapons and were pointing them at the mercenaries, wearing looks ranging from betrayal to smugness.
Grehn was the one to break the ensuing silence. “Well, mercenaries. Unfortunately, you were right about the store of shoes.”