“You’re leaving this damn place liking it or not!”
“Stop it! I feel we’ll need this information, so I can’t stop now… And don’t pull me! I said to not pull me!” I kept shouting while my personal princess tried, with success, to force me outside of the palace’s library.
She had a good reason for such, but I couldn’t comply. Forcing myself at least until everything was somewhat stable was necessary, so I couldn’t rest right now. Tricking people I was some sort of powerful figure was complicated. It was still too soon for it to work even after working days on it, so my image wasn't well set at all.
Appearing around and making sure the rumors would spread was all I did lately, but it wasn't good enough. Even after my days started to blur into random meetings and studying, it wasn't feeling right yet. I even started to burn the nights in more productive ways than sleeping, be it trying the summoning circle or some other artifact. All for my plan to work.
Giving up on sleep wasn't too much, and neither was it something I wasn't used to. The bigger loss was the fewer chances of meeting the dream voice in hopes of getting an explanation.
And no, I’m not crazy... Too much.
Some people think otherwise considering the things I went around asking for and collecting lately, but alas. Fireworks and explosives are useful, okay? As long as it worked, the methods don't matter... Saying so gives me bad flashbacks, though, so I'll change subjects now.
“Young ladies…” The quiet old priestess in a wheelchair called after leaving the struggle to happen for a while. “Do remember where you are, please.”
“Oh! S-sorry, Lady Kushana…” Elen panicked for the first time ever and apologized to the library’s overseer I now knew the name. “And you, move on already. You’re getting me in trouble.”
“No. I’m in the middle of something… I can feel an idea coming even.”
To put some context, my library research was going through books related to the neighboring countries. My focus was on the two troublesome ones, the Divine Blanchelle Federation and the Lazzos Republic.
The first one was a collection of religious city-states built in a ‘unique’ territory (lots of crevices and canyons), and the other was a sort of Roman republic rip-off with gunpowder. Both were complicated in their own ways and both were very antagonistic with Prourene, but that was irrelevant.
What I wanted from the books was the best cultural way of making them give up.
They were very interesting places when you gave up on the 'declaring war' thing. Would even say they were more interesting than Prourene. If it wasn't for how they hated us, visiting could be fun... I’ll fault all this on ‘heroes who become rulers’, though, and change subjects.
My idea was more in line with some interesting strong points of these places that I could use as weaknesses.
The Federation, for one, had these saint figures who had oracle-like powers and some other skills. Their champion was one of these, but most of them were support-type and were reported to need protection. They seemed like the kind of thing one could snipe to end a fight…
The Republic, on the other side, had a weakness in their strong suit, which was how well-organized and chained they were. Very bureaucratic and very proper to the point of being cultural, and weird how it worked so well. It almost looked like a proper modern government with how they dealt with representatives for each territory. Keeping their politics running and working was almost as holy as the other side's saints, but it meant publicity could hit them heavily… Maybe.
Two plans that could help me avoid a war, or worse, a duel, but it seemed that I wouldn’t be working on it right now.
“Shut up and walk, okay? I’ll have you rest even if I have to knock you out.” The ranger princess tried to continue, but then sighed and turned to the door after I ignored her. “You know what… Get her, Eve.”
Then, to my pure despair, the black-haired maid entered the royal library in utter silence and moved close to me without, lifting me from my chair as if I weighed nothing and carrying me away while still quiet. I couldn’t even complain since it would be too noisy and I was a little too shocked.
How do I hate strength-types…
“Now stay quiet and let us leave. Sorry for the mess, Lady Kushana.”
“That was mean, you know?” I complained while holding the only book I managed to snag as we left the room. “I’m almost there, I know that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I won’t hear you. All you’ve done since we went ballistic on those nobles is run around pretending to be a badass or training. It’s so bad, Eve’s not even having problems following you anymore…”
“I thank you for making my job easier, milady, but it’s unhealthy.” The maid carrying me around added without reacting much to my moving around in complaint. “Rest is important too, and Sir Neil also... Huh?”
“Now that’s something… What to do now?”
Both Elen and Eve stopped mid-sentence, so I forced some movements to see what was happening. It only ended with me as surprised as them, though.
In front of us was a very short green-haired girl moving in panic. The hero’s party’s shortstack was in front of us and she seemed in panic for a good reason.
I mean, I would too if I was trying to pull the body of a knight who seemed either fainted or dead and some people appeared. More even considering he had a huge leather bag by his side like a messenger, maybe.
The weird part was that, even while panicking, she wasn't saying anything, only moving her arms and hands. Or was she trying to… For real? That’s unusual to see in fantasy... Not that I was in a good position to get it.
More importantly, this was the first time I managed to get a good look at the little elf, so my usual antics were in effect.
In a moment, I got notes that this life elf lady (which no one called elf for some reason) was barely 1.5m tall, but was packing more than me. Her hair was green and in a very intricate single-braid style while her eyes were golden-colored with some darker shadow to contrast.
Nice seeing someone using more than a minimum of makeup here.
Her clothes were similar to Elen’s, but she wasn't wearing any armor. Only the huge cloak, a nice-looking vest over a decorated shirt, shorts, long boots, and gloves, all in a muted green complexion with details in grey. And then, a concealed bow and quiver to finish.
I’ll give her an eight out of ten since so much of her design overlaps with Elen.
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I also heard a few things about her from the redhead maid and the glasses mage, so she was even worse in the overlapping. Bow ranger against dual-wield ranger, you see? The magic seemed to be very different, though, but alas…
“Don’t panic, milady. Can you, hmmm… Explain what is happening?” Eve tried to say, but before the shortstack could calm down, her eyes went towards me and she froze in confusion. “Ow, I guess it’s better if you go down now, Lady Illia…”
“I’d say it fits with how messed this situation is actually,” Elen said instead while I fixed myself on the floor. “But what do we do here? Not sure if we can understand the situation as is…”
“Why’s that? Is this girl mute or something?”
"The answer is maybe or, actually, something close to it at least… Sis would explain it better, but that’s whatever. She’s still trying to say something…”
The little girl was pointing at the guard, then at her, and then making other mimic-like moves, but she was a little too hurried for me to get anything from it. I’m also someone who’s terrible at playing guess, so that's that.
That is, as long as it wasn’t what I think it was…
“Hey, little elf, stop and look here, please…” I called her attention and dug into my mind to get the things I knew of sign languages, trying some simple greetings right after.
And as I thought, she got it. It was weird still… Some sort of ASL for sure, but seemed like a mix of different ones and random mimicking. Some of the signs were straight-up nonsense to me, but I could get enough even if the systems we were using weren't exactly the same.
“Now that’s fun… Do elves create sign language here? I mean, what about explaining what’s happening to me, little elf? Or tell me who taught you this, at least.”
‘Mom’ and ‘Hero’, eh? Shouldn't be Hayato, so... Oh! Now that's interesting... So that’s it… I guess it makes sense. Now everyone’s looking at me as if I’m weird, though…
“Sign language, is it? I think I heard about it… Always thought was a useless novelty, though.” Elen muttered after getting what I was doing. “Too few people know or have a reason to use it. Where did you learn it, Illia?”
“I’ve been around, I guess.” I tried to deflect the question while going back to the eld. “But that’s beyond the point… What’s the deal with this, little elf?”
I pointed to the knocked knight carrying a huge leather bag and then watched as the green-haired girl rushed to get me an answer. She was trying to be a little too specific for me, though, so it was too hard to understand… All I got was ‘messenger’, ‘accident’, and ‘important’. Enough to get an idea, but that’s it.
Better be sure just in case.
“Hey, Elen, open that bag and see what’s inside. It shouldn’t be a problem if you do it…” I told the local royal since I wasn’t willing to risk knowing something I shouldn’t. “And don’t worry about the elf, she’s not doing anything wrong.”
I could see her nodding strongly by the side, so it seemed that I got it right. Either that or she was happy not being suspicious anymore.
“Okay…” Elen answered even though she was still looking confused. “And here I thought this girl being a mess was only sis exaggerating…”
“Here’s what was in the messenger’s bag, Your Highness.” Eve gave her master a small package but then went back to check on the messenger while the princess started to tear through the package.
She then stopped glaring at the metallic orb full of runes in her hand.
“Ugh, I don’t like these things… They give me headaches.” She then turned to me and tried to give the thing away with some half-baked explanation. “Here, Illia, I’ll give you permission to hear the message… Activate the thing as if it was an artifact and you should do fine. Have fun.”
“This… Fine.”
Messing with royal messages didn’t feel good, but I had no reason to go against Elen. No one around would snitch on me too, probably, so it should be safe.
Her explanation was very barebones, though. This thing wasn’t an artifact for me to just ‘know’ how to use it, but worrying wouldn't do me any good. It wasn't as if I hadn't played with some normal magical items too, so it shouldn’t be too hard...
I was good enough at it to read the spell anyway, so I could wing it. Something like this was much simpler than an artifact by this point. This one seemed to be in line with wind magic, by the way, but I could see earth magic in it too, which gave me an idea of what it would do…
My preference was calling both of these kinetic magic, by the way. The first of the gaseous realm and the second of the solid one, but this much was still a theory of mine.
Either way, I focused some mana in the orb and called the spell. The mana usage was very low, and by the feeling of it, my guess was right. So, lo and behold, the orb started to vibrate in my hand while making some small noise I got it closer to my ear by reflex, proving my theory fully.
What a funny way of making a loudspeaker with a very low output, eh? Or calling it a headphone was more fitting? I guess it would ignore the message part like this... Ah, whatever!
Focus on the message. It was a pressing matter too, so no time to bother with other things. Especially when it was such a huge chance...
In summary, an incursion from the Republic guys ended with them doing the ultimate Sengoku-anime move and then beating down the people who went against them. Or in more layman's terms, they built a castle overnight at a terribly well-defended position. They pulled a Sunomata on us!
How theirs worked was beyond me, but it should be along the same lines. More so, if they were pulling such a daring move, then it was the prelude to something bigger. Something bigger that I could defeat to make my name more well-known.
The more I heard of it, the more I was sure of such.
It was enough to make this little elf looking at me expectantly appear as a good luck charm. Should I steal her? I'm lacking in ranged attackers too unless Cal comes, so... I guess I’ll take her for a test drive. Will work well with the new weapon I wanted to test out.
“Ms. Elf, what’s your name?” I asked while returning the message ball to the princess.
She was surprised for a moment but started to sign some letters right after. I failed to get them all, though.
It still looked very similar to what I knew, but some things ended up a little too ambiguous. I got enough to pick her first name, at least, so it was fine.
“Nice to meet you, Lhori.” I extended my hand for a handshake, and she stared at it for a moment before picking up what was the idea. “I hope we get along, but for now, I’ll need to conscript you, okay?”
She only stared blankly at me just like the other two girls close by, though.
None of them heard the message orb, so it was the expected reaction. But since I could explain everything while we moved, I would leave it for later. This was also a good excuse to have them not stop me. Not that Elen seemed willing to let it pass.
“What about some explanations? Or any at all.” She stopped me before I could flee, and by her expression, leaving wasn't an option.
“Someone built an overnight castle. The kind of thing everyone is surprised about and talks about for years, so, if I went there and solved the problem… Do you catch it? It’s, like, the perfect chance to show off. If I go there and take the damn thing down, then…” I tried to explain, but the whole idea seemed too cool, so I was a little too hurried to explain properly. “I was waiting for something of this kind.”
“What a mess…” Elen complained as she stared at my fidgety self wanting to rush away, but then gave up. “Sigh… What you need, you crazy girl?”
“First, I need little Lhori here. You’re an archer, right? One of the super good ones too or something of the kind.” I said, getting a weirded-out reaction from the princess and a blank stare from the girl I was still holding the hand. “And if we could get that mage guy to come along… Nah, that'd be too much. More people would make me look less powerful...”
“Whatever! So, you want to kidnap the forest girl, right? What’s more?”
Lhori was staring at us with a resolute (kinda) expression, but I could see that she wasn’t very sure about this idea. She somehow didn’t seem to be against going, at least, so I could iron out the details later.
“Carriage, potion box, and alchemic things. Poison and some alchemic fire should do… And powder too, some fireworks to be specific. Oh! And a chair, a nice chair.”
“Why the hell a chair…?! You know what, I don’t care. On everything else, are you planning to clear the castle from inside and get the glory or something?”
“Kinda. Not exactly, but I don’t really have a full plan yet… I’ll need to see the place to be sure, but we can manage to take it with what I have… Maybe.”
“Oh? So that’s how it is? Are you sure this… No, it sounds fun enough, so let’s go. Just…” The princess accepted my sudo-plan but then turned to her maid for a second option. “What do you think of it, Eve? Could we take on a castle?”
“Would be hard without most of the maids or a horde of adventurers skilled in stealth. And it would be expensive either way…”
“The answer is ‘probably not happening’ then? Sounds interesting.” Elen smiled in a way that said she was interested but then turned to the elf I had apprehended. “And what about you, do you want to participate in this mess? Not sure if you know this, but this girl here isn’t any demi-god like your hero friend, so it can very well be a crazy impossible mission.”
The elf started to switch her stare between me and the princess before she stopped to think for a moment, which then ended with her nodding a lot. Looks like the first recruit was done.
“Okay then. Eve goes get a carriage, you get your toys and I’ll rush to the throne room to warn everyone. Got it? Also, if I feel it’s getting too dangerous, we’ll be running away right away.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I saluted to the princess’ orders and, for some reason, Lhori imitated me. Heh, she’s fun.
“Then we meet in a while. Moving on, everyone!”