Chapter 18: Lagnis Lien da Levien

Chapter 18: Lagnis Lien da Levien

My brain froze for once since the time my neck stiffened at Asileye curses.

Lagnis, whom I’d thought was just a countryside noble in the borderlands, was in fact an incredible noble?

“I thought you were a countryside noble.”

“...I thought you obviously knew it.”

Unexpectedly, Lagnis flustered rather a bit at my answer and spoke. Seeing that, it looked like it was a famous enough noble house and event for me to be strange not to know them.

“I’m so shocked right now that my heart’s jumping.”

“Pff. What’s up with that?”

“No, this isn’t a laughing matter, you know? You wanna try touching it?”

“I, I, I’m not talking about that!”

No wait, I said my poor heart was jumping like it would croak, so why was she raising her voice? Anyway, this felt like the difficulty suddenly jumped a ton. One by one I pulled up and checked over the variables I had considered not needing even a single bit of worry until now, then brought up the most serious problem onto my mouth.

“Would the noble faction have a drake knight?”

“...uuuhmn.”

Lagnis’s face, having instantly understood what I was worried of, hardened and went into thought.

Drakes seated two at most. Putting everything else aside, there wasn’t a place to seat more than that. And if so, just in case of anything unexpected, wouldn’t they have no choice but to hire someone who could fight and also pilot a drake?

People called that kind of person a drake knight. Naturally they were knights who rode around on drakes instead of horses, and were professional soldiers who were basically war machines that specialized not in lances but in magic and aura in order to maximize their advantage in the air. Their skills couldn’t be called truly special since there was a limit to perfectly achieving both skills like Asileye had said in the past, but that was something that mattered only between knights at most.

I’d lose 100% if I fought them now.

“...no. No. I heard it from my father before. That the drake knights are direct subordinates of the royal family. Because of that significance, they should all definitely be of the king faction besides the one or two that the noble faction forcibly elects in and uses for public events. There shouldn’t be anyone that they could casually use for something like this.”

“Couldn’t they privately train one in secret?”

“Without the king’s permission, those who learned drake piloting can’t learn any fighting technique. If you break this order, then 3 generations are beheaded for treason.”

“Eh? Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

It was quite a scary law, but I felt a big relief at Lagnis’s confidence and exhaled a sigh. Scary or not, right now it was a law that incredibly helped us.

“I really wouldn’t even have a clue what to do if we had to face a drake knight. That’s a relief.”

“...isn’t there no other way except running?”

“Unless they’re stronger than a Demon King Army commander, no can do.”This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

In the first place, it was a creed violation if I ran alone, and we would get caught even if we ran together. I tapped Lagnis’s shoulder and spoke.

“Even if we ran, what other end can there be besides getting caught if they even drag a drake here? Rather than that, it’s better to try giving them a poke hoping they’ll be careless. Anyway, it’s fine since we avoided that kind of a worst case scenario.”

“...hehe.”

“What are you smiling silly for? We merely avoided the worst case scenario, so don’t relax and lower your guard.”

Even if they really had dragged a drake here, the danger greatly decreased merely by the fact that, unless it was a large-size drake, the one piloting the drake could only be a noncombatant. For now, we decided to take heart in that fact and continued our steps.

I hadn’t actually learned it either, but I simply nodded my head and pretended to be a genius. Anyway, we had to get back on topic.

“Either way, time is on our side. Just by them sending those kinds of guys even after two days have passed since then, I can say that our guys are absolutely cautious. Unless those guys are the result of going through all their caution, it’s definite that they’ll be delirious trying to dig up information. 6 days have already passed, so is it 9 days left now? They’ll be feeling really anxious just by us running away like this and not openly fighting. I honestly would like to eat up about 3 days like this, but I doubt that’ll happen.

The best was to end everything without fighting. After all, unpredictable variables arose the moment people fought. Of course, something like that would be impossible given what the occasion was, but there was nothing wrong with merely hoping for it, no?

“...I thought you were sort of acting as things came, but you were really thinking a lot as we moved, huh?”

The sincerity in her eyes was simply insulting, so I knocked a knuckle right back at her.

When the evening came like that and we passed the darkened streets back to the inn, a really disappointing result was awaiting me.

“Now, think you can run again?”

It looked like the result of our chasers going through their caution and patience was those guys.

I’d wondered why they had given up rather quickly, but those guys were all in front of Alisha’s Inn without a single one missing. And not just simply standing, but while clearly blocking the door across.

“It’s nice that I can really feel that you guys are running short and tight on time, but... did you perhaps touch our madam Alisha or other little brats?”

“Huh. We will be if you run again.”

“Eldmiaaa!! Get these fucking sons of bitches out of my inn!!”

Had she locked the door? It looked like there wasn’t any problem, so I felt relieved. Although the guy leaning on the door slammed and punched the door at that shout and tried making threats, madam Alisha merely returned with her eternally-constant curses.

“Can you really handle it? It’ll be an instant before the guards come at the noise, you know?”

In truth, I’d noticed even as I spoke. Just as expected, the bastards answered my question with sneers.

There was no way those bastards had come and waited for us while matching the timing of us coming here. The moment they lost us, they probably went to their hirer to explain the situation, then came to the inn and waited. I knew that the night patrol began patrolling after 6 o’clock, but there wasn’t even a single presence nearby.

I nearly felt silly at the reality that they had bribed the city patrol first without any concern. Well yeah, thinking again, that too was a thought bastards with money would think up.

“You little shit is none of our concern. We’re actually interested in your girlfriend, you see.”

“I know, retard.”

“So... what?”

“I said I know. Would I really not know when you’re making it that obvious?”

It wasn’t all bad.

After all, we found out that they didn’t have much time, had lots of money, and not only had a cozy relationship with the city but had really lowered their guards and were careless enough to think they could take Lagnis with them after taking me down or making me run. Would they be watching us from somewhere nearby? Maybe in a building? If our theory that they planned to run on a drake was correct, then they might simply have given the orders and were waiting outside the city.

That was something I could find out from now on, so I decided not to mind it a lot.

“I’m called Eldmia Egga.”

I drew my sword and gave the greeting for the creed installation. Perhaps having expected me to draw my sword, their sneers were unchanged. The bastards confidently took out their weapons one by one.

That was very excellent.

“First, let’s nicely get a poke of a sword in all of your thighs since you bothered madam Alisha’s mood, then start the education.”

The true creed installation was after that.

TL note: You know, I originally planned to regularly release chapters on Sundays, but then moved to Mondays because the editing took longer than expected... I think I may have messed up the calculation somewhere.