Proofreader: Me!

Charle’s von Garrett POV:

There was a pressing matter recently delivered to me by aide Robert, within the quest reception. "Your Highness, the Hui territory is suspected to have defected to the demons! The quest he has put up is indeed very suspicious, sire."

"It seems our guesses have been right," I mumbled gripping my cup. "The talks regarding a supposed rebellion unfortunately have a backing. Return to the capital and inform our ambassador of this event."

"At once, Your Highness!" He bowed and left deftly.

The Empire’s branch of the Shadows has supposedly caught wind of an attempt of a Demon Summoning on a wide scale. The appearance of a demon would throw the academy into a panic, as well as the Alexander kingdom where it resided.

And, as if it was fate, the latest saint candidate set out on the request of the Campbells, the heart of this supposed ritual.

‘Oh?’

“Hey, prince.” The commoner, who I’ve had my eyes on, came up to me. “What quest did Uriel take?”

Interesting. A great opportunity passed its hands to me, a way to ensure the saint will be protected, and, to see what more he is capable of.

After he left, I thought it would only be right if I were to have a small chat with the princess.

-x-

I was brought into the reception area of her dorm, adequately large.

“Charles von Garett, prince of the empire, what do you want?” Her tone was snarky, fair considering her humiliation at my hands.

“I thought it would be best to let you know some vital information regarding a part of your land.”

“About what? This better be worth my time,” She crossed her arms.

“This information may lead to the destruction of many, which of course you would want.”

“Why tell me and not my father, or our knights of the Round Table? What is your goal?”

“How much are you willing to pay?”

“Hah… you must be out of your mind. Asking me to pay for information, with no evidence, nor knowledge of what it may be,” Her blonde hair swayed with dissatisfaction.

“Demon.”

Her eyes sharpened, ending her slew of words.

“Continue, now.”

I relaxed my body, raising my leg over the other. “Did you not hear what I said?”

“This is utterly ridiculous!” She scowled, “It’d do you more good to help me than extort me for money.”

“Money? A prince needing a petty allowance?” I chuckled lightly. "I know you don’t have much; your father is a man who’d rather you work for yourself.”

“He is not relevant here!” She stood up from her chair. “You… really know how to rile up a person.”

I shook my head, “In this line of succession, it’s only expected to have a decent speaking ability.”

Luna gripped her seat with intensity, “Regardless of your taunting, how am I to trust this source of information?”

I evaluated her position, confirming that this exchange was worth it, not for my benefit but for someone else's chaos.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’ll at least tell you that, don't worry." I let out a reckless grin, "It came directly from the Shadows, here’s the stamp.”

I handed her the emblem of the shadows, and she raised her eyebrows. “It seems I have no choice, what do you want?”

"Well..." I paused, despite knowing exactly what I wanted.

-x-

Luke’s POV

In a group of four, we approached the supposed bandit camp. There were a few mishaps, like the attack of a few monsters, and Ark’s incompetence in finding his way.

“Here we are!” Ark opened his arms.

“So, where are they?” I asked.

“Uhm…” He paused, “I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“I feel them nearby, but their mana is faint,” Krulia said.

I nodded, “This area itself was recently ravished.”

“Then, let’s investigate,” Ark ordered.

Immediately, Lisana sprung into action, heading toward the ruins. While both seniors engaged in surveying the nearby clearings.

In this dead part of the forest, there were rubbles of what resembled a camp. Parts of tents and makeshift cabins were laid to waste, presumably due to the raid of the paladins in Uriel’s party. In fact, the remains of holy intervention were present in the form of glittering feathers of light.

“It seems they were here not too long ago,” I guessed, holding a shard of a sword.

I threw it away, looking at the hidden entrance of what seemed to be an underground dungeon. Under some rubble, I found it. Although, part of it comes from my prior game knowledge.

“You found something?” Lisana asked.

“Yeah, it seems to be a hidden bunker of sorts.”

Some red marks indicated some sort of fighting that had happened. The destruction of the stairs also proved that prediction to an extent.

“There was fighting,” She confirmed my thoughts.

The seniors found us huddling in front of the entrance and approached.

“Sh- sh- should we go in juniors?” It seemed as if Krulia had a shivering tail.

I eyed her suspiciously, was she one to be afraid of the dark?

“Stop being a wuss,” Ark slapped her back, exactly how Fen would to me. “Let’s go in.”

Without a moment’s waste, we ventured into the depths.

“Hm? I can feel the others’ mana now,” Krulia noticed. “They’re close, probably just a tiny bit further down.”

It was probably due to the hiding enchantment added to the now broken door, which is why she was able to still detect them earlier.

“Ah- He- hello, we- we’ve been expecting you two seniors!”The one to exclaim this had been Uriel. “Eh- Luke!?”

So Ark never told her — how cold.

“Yeah, I joined along,” I explained.

“Wait, you know each other?” Ark questioned.

“Yeah, yeah! We never knew that,” Krulia pushed for answers.

“I’m in the Golden Nest as well,” I weakly answered.

““…””

There was subtle silence between the two of them.

“Ahem.” A paladin coughed, “The name’s Henry. We cleared out this hideout, thinking this was the issue the village faced. Although, after some reflection, we realised it wasn’t.”

“Why is that?” I asked instead of Ark.

“We visited the village shortly, and it was empty,” Henry shrugged.

“Y- yes! It was a ghost town!” Uriel nodded.

Based on that, I already knew the reason as to why. This quest was bait, the Marquis of Hui mistakenly cooperated with a devil-cult, thinking it was a travelling merchant group. Which led to the desertion of the town of Campbell, it was unfortunate, but nothing could be done. Thus, they took advantage of the noble’s obliviousness and created this quest with the stamp stolen from him.

These things were learnt after the quest was completed, either through defeating the devil or preventing its descent. The prince would divulge the information to the player, admitting they would have to execute the Marquis for having worked with a devil, intentional or not.

Gathering my thoughts, I looked back at their leader.

“Which is why, we plan to search around the perimeters of the village, while you four scour the village in our position. As you can see, we lack a suitable scout,” He sighed.

There was no way to know that you needed a proper scout for this quest, considering it was a rescue mission, so his resignation was reasonable. A certain skill was required to use mana sense, of which paladins of the unity order weren’t trained.

If I recall correctly, the reason why Krulia was proficient in both the holy arts and mana was due to her unique split upbringing. After all, she was a mixed beastman.

“Alright, we’ll go check it out for ourselves,” Ark accepted their request. “Since we want to speed up this clear, I’ll meet the rest of you later.”

“We are leaving now?” I asked.

“Yeah, why waste time? It’s already evening,” Ark shrugged.

I glanced back at Uriel who bashfully waved hello, and then at Lisana who was still motionless. I would get the chance to talk to her later anyway, so it should be fine.

“Okay juniors, back up we go!” Krulia smiled.

My sleeves were dragged by her, feeling a surprisingly large amount of strength hidden in her frame.