CH 182

「Wh-, what the f̲u̲c̲k̲, Inglis?! We’re having an emergency here!」

「Th-, that’s right! What are thinking when you said that?!」

「What am I thinking? I said thank goodness I didn’t have to go through the kissing scene.」

「Oi oi oi! What the hell does it matter?!」

「Th-, that is indeed a crisis, but we have something bigger at hand! W-, we need to stop him fast!」

「I know, it’s alright. Rani and the two are already on the move.」

「Eeh?! Inglis, you knew this would happen?!」

「A-, amazing! Even though I was so clueless!」

「Well, we only knew that there was a possibility of something happening.」

Last night when they dropped Alina off, they saw Ian talking with a man named Diego. What they talked about didn’t sound that peaceful, coupled with how Lahti seemed to feel Ian’s conduct as odd, especially with how he left their country to join the Weissmall Troupe.

He said that, with Ian’s characteristics, it would be hard to imagine him leaving his destroyed territory and the damaged Royal Capital of Alucard behind him. Which meant that he was hiding some circumstances that would force him to do so.

Not to mention, whilst Inglis wasn’t aware of Ian’s personality and his odd behavior since they only just met with each other, there was one thing that Inglis could feel from him that was clearly out of the norm.

That was Ian’s mana. Under the influence of Yua, Inglis had been obsessed with probing into the mana in her surroundings recently, and she found that the flow of Ian’s mana was clearly not that of a normal person.

Normally, when someone was not doing particularly anything, the flow of their mana should be slow as it enveloped their whole body. There were individual differences in the strength and the wavelength of their mana, but it was basically the same for everyone. To put it in other words, that was how a human body works.

However, Ian’s was bizarre, as all of his mana was concentrated in a single point in his chest where his heart was. It was obvious that he was not an ordinary person and he was hiding something. Not to mention, the man that Ian was meeting with, Diego, was just as unusual in terms of the flow of his mana.

When Lahti mentioned that he found Ian’s choice of action was odd, Inglis had told him to leave him alone and not to pry too hard. This was mostly to avoid involving Lahti in any weird danger.

That being said, they couldn’t apprehend Ian with just suspicions alone, and they couldn’t possibly cancel the performance of the Weissmall Troupe either. And, most importantly, Inglis wanted to have a serious duel with Yua.

And so, they went and attended the play prepared for anything that might happen. This was the reason for the sudden change of personnel; why Rafinha asked Pullum to be the one to pilot the Flygear, and why Principal Miliera was asked to put up her protective barrier all around the audience seat.

With how the stand-off concluded, the interference that Ian and his group had brought really saved Inglis’ skin, and while she was indeed grateful for it, she still would stop their assassination plot.

By now, Rafinha and the other two should have noticed something was off and started their move.

「So you……noticed? How?!」

「The flow of your mana…or rather, you yourself are unusual. However, you were trying to act normally this whole time, so it always bugged me. I also felt the same oddity from the man named Diego you met before.」

「!!! I see…you knew so far already……」

「We only saw you meeting by chance, however.」

Inglis’ suspicion grew when she saw Diego, but even if she didn’t, she knew she still would make the same preparations regardless. King Charleas came to watch her, and more importantly, her mother Serena, Aunt Irina, and even Marquis Wilford were here as well. She wanted to ensure the safety of her family.

「Diego?! You don’t mean General Diego?!」

「You know him, Lahti?」

「Alucard’s Military General. He is known as the strongest man in the whole Kingdom!」

「Heeh……」

That was something to look forward to. Perhaps she could get some bouts with him later.

「Ian! When you said your family, your territory, and the Royal Capital were destroyed by a Prisma, it was all a lie?! Then!」

「As if it ever was! If it was a lie, this wouldn’t happen to us.」

Ian stripped off his own clothes, exposing his body underneath.

「……!」

「W-, what the hell is that?!」

「I-, Ian?!」

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Most of Ian’s body, except his neck up, was not that of a human’s… it was a machine, like the interior of a Flygear1. The heart in his chest shone like the main engine of a machine. That was the area where Inglis felt his mana concentrated.

「Our Lord, Archlold Abel, gave it to us, a technology of the Highland!2 I was attacked by Prisma and lost half of my body. This is the only thing that someone like me can do, with this, even I can fight! For the family that I lost, for my people and everyone, for my country!」

「Lord Abel?」

That was a name she hadn’t heard for a while. Abel had been killed in the battle above the Royal Castle in the hand of Black Mask, the leader of the Ironblood Chain Brigade, who was wielding a weaponized Hyrule Menace. Perhaps it meant that Abel had already laid his hands on Alucard to the north before he came to this country.

「Don’t be stupid! What good does it do to our country if you come here and try to kill the King of another?!」

「That is what the Highland wishes! Now that our Kingdom has been devastated by Magic Stone Beasts, we need to fundamentally overhaul our National Defense System! That means we have to be given Artifacts by the Highland, more than ever, and even try to get a Hyrule Menace!」

That would be so. Ian was correct. The more a country of Midland needed to fight against Magic Stone Beasts, the more they had to rely on the Highland. And in order to fight Magic Stone Beasts, an Artifact was a must. This was not something anyone could do with any individual effort or training.