CH 28.1

Capturing Alicetia’s room proved to be extremely difficult.

“Ugyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

“… Again?”

After a few moments after shouting, the door of the room suddenly opened and a soldier who had walked in was thrown out. His face was completely blank, as if he’d seen something so horrible.

“Sylvia… what do you think of this…”

“I believe she used spirit magic to create this darkness. The other traps are probably made with spirit magic as well. If it’s spirit magic, it can’t be interfered with by common magic, so having a magician handle it won’t help.”

Spirit magic is a higher level of magic and cannot be interfered with by common magic.

“However… this will only lead to more unnecessary sacrifices… we will have to have the Princess disarm it.”

Volken put his hand on his chin and muttered.

“I’m sure this is the one thing Alicetia won’t agree to do even if I order her to do it.”

Alicetia must have sealed this room for good reasons. If she herself found the items inside unneeded, she should just dismantle them right away, so I’m guessing they have some kind of purpose.

“Princess has about fifteen inventions sealed away.”

“How do you know that?”

I didn’t know how many she had sealed up, either.

“Princess properly submits the details of what she makes and what the use of her inventions is. However, there were fifteen items marked with a ‘sealed mark’, so that’s how we know how many there are.”

I think I remember reading those papers, but… I don’t think she has to write so many details about her inventions with such a discipline…

“She was so particular to even use a sealed mark… how honest. I’m so proud of her.”

“Indeed. It would have been better if she had at least written an outline of what she sealed, though.”

“You fools!! What are you playing around for!? How come you have not collected everything yet!?”

A week has passed since then, but no one has come out of the room with anything. The only ones who have come out were the ones who have fainted. Is there something inside?

Count Ottoman is too much… as I recall, his lavish spending has almost ruined his family’s finances. He must really want Alicetia’s inventions. He is already blind to his surroundings.

“You cannot capture it no matter how you look at it… I won’t help you, after all.”

“Please, do something about that.”

“You didn’t think it through properly!! You shouldn’t have gotten involved. I’m sure that this misjudgment of yours is the misfortune that will befall the knights and soldiers. The trust you had built up with the Order had already fallen to the ground, you know? If this was a battlefield, you would be the only one they would abandon.”

I guess he finally understood that his mistake was fatal. Volken’s forehead was sweating profusely.

“How… however, I also think that we should know what the princess is creating… and why is she going as far as hiding it in her remodeled room.”

“She said they were mostly prototypes for something that can’t be realized right now. I don’t know the specifics, but they seem to be unfinished products due to a lack of skill. I’ve heard that even in that state, if its use were to spread, the effects would be too great, so she had sealed it up. It’s dangerous, but it can’t be used by anyone but her anyway, right? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

I didn’t ask for specifics, while Sylvia and Alicia asked about it, but they didn’t get a satisfactory answer.

“Then I guess we’d better give up before we cause any more damage… The other four Lords have already fled.”

It is true that the Five Lords agreed to it, but four of the Five Lords, not wanting to be disliked by Alicetia personally, made up some reason to flee to their fiefs. In the beginning, they also came to check on the progress a little bit, but when they found out that Alicetia was setting a serious and merciless trap, they just ran away as if they had nothing to do with it. The only one who’s going to get hate for this is Volken… Count Ottoman’s reputation is so low to begin with that it’s not going to drop any further.

But even when we tried to stop him, Count Ottoman persisted, and persisted he did.

He had gotten the Five Lords of the Council to approve it, and used their names to get the approval of the parliament. The Five Lords now probably want to use Count Ottoman as a scapegoat to escape Alicetia’s wrath.

And two weeks have passed.

I guess Count Ottoman did his best. He tried to break down the wall, but it wouldn’t break. He wanted to storm the room with his private army and grab something forcefully, but the door of the room closed by itself after only a few people entered, making it impossible to enter. He proceeded to search the room with other private soldiers, promising them rewards, but in the end, nothing came up out of it.

After two weeks of searching, a change occurred in the room.

“Your Majesty… this paper came out of the crack in the door of the Princess’s room.”

I look at the paper that Volken brought along with the additional documents while I was doing political work.

“The room’s security mode has changed from Normal to Nightmare. It is recommended that no one from the kingdom enter. —First Princess Alicetia.”

“…… What do you think?”

“Me? I’m terrified from the fact that things were set on ‘Normal mode’ until now. Has Count Ottoman activated something? Or did the Princess somehow detect that we were searching the room?”

“Don’t casually blame me like that! I had nothing to do with it. You’re the one who’s at fault here, so all the blame lies with you, Volken. You had some unnecessary thoughts. You can regret it together with Count Ottoman.”