Chapter 57 - Kidnapping

The regular assembly of the Grand Council came to an end.

People began to disperse just as they had gathered.

As expected when figures of duke rank and above moved, massive armies amassed in the central region.

In this state, they showed off their national power to their rivals, effectively doubling as a military parade for inspection.

In that sense, Escolaia was far removed from their extravagance.

They were a city of knowledge, free from diplomatic conflicts.

Preferring practical and efficient movement, they were riding in a magic carriage powered by a mage's magic.

"Couldn't we switch to a horse-drawn carriage too?"

Chancellor Bernard complained to the mage acting as the driver.

"Are you saying that again?"

"I think that every time I come to the Grand Council. As the Chancellor of a city, huh? I need to save some face."

"Geez, don't use words like 'face.' You aren't a mercenary who rolled around on the rough streets; a middle-aged man with a potbelly just looks cheap saying that."

"Besides, where would we raise horses in a city built like a chicken coop? It's obvious they'd complain that the space needed to raise one could accommodate a hundred more scholars."

"Still, I'm the Chancellor in name, you should let me keep my pride..."

"Do you want to see an audit notice fly in and cause an uproar? I know luxury is important in the noble world, but the bastards who understand that don't become scholars."

"I want to ride a horse-drawn carriage too, sigh..."

"If you keep whining like that, I'll quit, okay? I'll clock out right now and go home."

"Sigh... Fine, I was wrong. Let's go, yeah, go."

'He's the real boss here.'

To think that the Chancellor was in a position where he couldn't do a thing if a mage threatened him.

'If we're going to argue efficiency, it would be great if we could recharge magic power without a mage...'

Bernard grumbled inwardly.

'Yeah, how great would it be if we could just infuse magic power and make it move?'

'Using some gears and levers...'

'If we could just operate it like that, it would be perfect.'

Bernard sketched his idea onto a notepad.

The carriage, which had been moving without a single bump, suddenly stopped.

"What's going on?"

"It seems someone is blocking the road. Judging by their appearance, they look like bandits."

Bandit groups blocking roads and extorting tolls existed everywhere.

"Should I take care of them? I don't have anything else to do anyway."

The mage smirked, making a throat-slitting gesture.

"Let's avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Just hand them a little money."

"Why give them money?"

"Aren't they all just trying to make a living? Give them an appropriate amount and send them off."

"That's why you always get looked down on..."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, I'll be right back."

The mage grabbed a few handfuls of silver coins and stepped out of the carriage.

Chancellor Bernard watched with a displeased expression at those words.

The mage who took the silver threw the coins on the ground from a distance and gestured for them to take it and let them pass.

Just then, a sharp flash of light erupted from the mage's torso.

"Huh?"

And following the streak of light that burst diagonally, the mage's upper body slid off.

In the spot where his upper body used to be, a beggar with a sinister smile could be seen.

And a sword.

"U-Uh, w-what!?"

The Chancellor screamed in shock.

The mage sitting in the driver's seat prepared a magic spell instead of reacting clumsily.

It was time to show why he received fifty gold coins a day for escort duty.

However, an object flew in at a speed that put his efforts to shame.

CRASH!

His throat was pierced by a dagger that shattered through the glass window.

"Th-This, k-keugh...!"

The mage's incantation failed.

The drawn magic circle scattered into the air and vanished.

Two 4th Circle mages had been dealt with in an instant.

The Chancellor watched the beggar approach, frozen in place.

He implicitly felt it.

Even if he tried to run, he would only die faster.

The man who had instantly dealt with two 4th Circle mages opened the door.

And sat on the opposite side.

He gave a sinister smile.

"A pleasure to meet you, Chancellor of Escolaia."

"Wh-Who are you?"

"There's no need for you to know who I am. Let's talk about you."

The man continued talking unilaterally.

Frozen, Bernard nodded his head.

"You're the one who proposed at this Grand Council that there were signs of the return of the Black Dragon Godwin, right?"

"That is true, but...?"

"What were you thinking doing that?"

"I did it for the safety of the continent..."

"Even though it might put you in danger?"

"I might be wrong. But even so, I felt it needed to be said..."

"Ah!"

The mysterious man cut off Chancellor Bernard's words and aimed the blade at his throat.

"Let's skip the useless talk. Dragging out the time will only make it painful for you."

The blood of the two mages dripped from the dagger.

The Chancellor swallowed hard, struggling to suppress his trembling.

"So, weren't you going to announce a device that predicts the appearance of Demons?"

"H-How did you...?"

"We have ears listening. Everywhere."

The man smirked.

The only ones who knew that fact were a few trusted scholars and his secretary.

And Ferda Valdrova.

"Ferda Valdrova!"

The Chancellor shouted as if he had suddenly realized something.

"You... are you someone sent by Regent Ferda?"

"Who knows? Do I look like someone he sent?"

"Damn it! I should have known the moment a brat that young had a look like that in his eyes...!"

Chancellor Bernard shouted indignantly.

The man chuckled instead of answering.

"Our Chancellor is cuter than I thought. This won't be as bad as I expected."

"What do you mean by that?"

"What do you think."

He pulled out a syringe and showed it.

"I mean this."

The large needle was a lethal weapon in itself.

But what terrified the Chancellor was the thick, black, tar-like liquid inside it.

"What the hell is inside that thing?"

"It's a vaccine."

"A vaccine?"

"Yes, a vaccine. A medicine that will wipe out all the masses of bacteria infesting this world."

The man placed his thumb on the plunger, preparing to inject it.

He stabbed the syringe in.

Not into Chancellor Bernard, but into himself.

"Ugh...!"

The man groaned in agony.

However, he wasn't dying.

It was a mutation—no, an evolution.

Something resembling the injected tar rose up like greasy sweat and covered his skin.

The form of the man, having finished his mutation, literally turned pitch-black.

Rather than a human, he was like a mannequin made of soft material, a new cocoon.

From within it, a red eye tore open and emitted a glow.

As his mouth opened, sharp, beast-like teeth were menacingly revealed.

"I-It can't be..."

Putting all those elements together, a single word flashed through the Chancellor's mind.

"A Demon...!"

The man had become a Demon.

"Mwahaha! Finally, His... His grace flows through this body too!"

The man fell into ecstasy as he stroked his own face.

Soaked in the pleasure of someone who had achieved their lifelong dream, the man turned his gaze back to stare at the Chancellor.

Instinctively, he foresaw his own death.

Desperate to survive somehow, he threw a question at him.

"Why would a skilled man like you... be a Demon Follower?"

Demon Followers were those with nothing to lose.

They were incomparably more vicious than typical Demon Followers.

"I too was once a knight who knew honor."

The man let out a deranged chuckle.

"But no matter how much you uphold honor, it all collapses in an instant if you serve a king who falls for the sweet talk of treacherous sycophants."

He was a fallen knight.

"So, figuring I have nothing left to lose anyway, I plan to destroy everything."

"If you become a Demon... you won't be able to operate normally in the human world, let alone on this Serdes Continent... You will become a lost soul unable to go to heaven or hell. Why do this even knowing that...?"

"That's just what you think."

The man raised his dagger and slashed Chancellor Bernard's arm.

It wasn't a deep wound, but blood continuously flowed down.

The man pressed his own hand against the wound.

Puzzled whether he was giving him the disease and then the cure, an astonishing thing happened before he could even question it.

"Mother, Marun..."

His pitch-black body was gradually taking on a flesh tone.

He wasn't simply changing color to look human; parts of his body stretched while others shrank.

In the end, he transformed into a shape very familiar to Chancellor Bernard.

It was Bernard himself.

"How is it, Chancellor? Do I look like you?"

The man, now in the guise of Bernard, smiled.

A malicious smile that he had never made once in his entire life.

"What do you intend to do with my research?"

"As expected of a Chancellor, you catch on quick, huh?"

The man tapped his own head with the dagger.

"Don't you know full well? You're supposedly making a monster appearance prediction device, so there's obviously only one thing Demons should do."

Ruin the research and make the prediction device as if it never existed.

"Y-You think I'll let you do that!?"

At the thought of losing the research he had dedicated his life to, Chancellor Bernard belatedly mustered his courage.

However, the other Bernard on the opposite side moved nimbly and grabbed him by the throat.

He slowly and powerfully strangled him.

"Keugh, keu-eugh!"

"Rest peacefully. I shall follow you to the realm of the void eventually."

Just as he was about to kill the original Chancellor Bernard,

"It's an ambush!"

The shout of the man keeping watch outside pierced through the carriage.

When the disguised Bernard turned his head to look, a battle was taking place outside.

Assailants had clashed with the Demon Followers disguised as beggars.

Those overwhelming over twenty people were merely two men.

One with brown hair and one with blond hair.

Surprised by the unexpected ambush, the man loosened his grip on Bernard's throat and asked.

"When did you get escorts?"

"Cough, cough, wh-what escorts??"

Chancellor Bernard asked back with a clueless expression.

Without even having time to hear that answer, the Demon Followers were quickly wiped out.

Those disguised as bandits were nothing but riffraff, and the two men were highly skilled knights.

"This is troublesome."

The man was genuinely worried.

If it were two mages, he could kill them instantly by ambushing them before they could chant, but facing two knights simultaneously was difficult.

The man decided to use his wits.

Namely, a diversionary tactic.

"You there! Watch out!"

He kicked the carriage door open and ran desperately.

"In there! There's a guy in there who looks exactly like me! He's trying to kill me!"

The man ran like a terrified victim.

At the same time, he tightly hid the dagger he held in a reverse grip against his forearm.

The moment they entered his range, he prepared to launch a surprise attack with his hidden dagger.

"Quickly, get rid of that thing in th-keugh...!"

The man hadn't gone far before he collapsed.

A dagger was lodged in his ankle.

It was a dagger identical to the one that had been in the brown-haired man's hand.

"Aaaagh!! What is the meaning of this!?"

There was no reply.

Instead, the brown-haired man ran over quickly and kicked Bernard's head with all his might.

SMACK!

A dizzying sound like a bone snapping.

Chancellor Bernard's body went limp.

The blond-haired man's eyes went wide as he shouted.

"Sir Zed! What are you doing to the Chancellor?!"

The man called Zed gestured with his chin toward the fallen Chancellor and said.

"That's not the Chancellor."

"What are you talking about!? It's not even a magical mimicry! Kicking him that hard would definitely k-huh?"

His fussing also stopped upon spotting Bernard coming out of the carriage belatedly.

"Why are there two Chancellors...?"

"Hah, you naive country boy. You need to develop your observation skills. Tie this guy up tight for now. I'll go fetch the real one over there."

"Uh... Understood."

Arwen bound the fake, and Zed pulled the real one out of the carriage and supported him.

"Are you unharmed?"

"Uh, yes... I'm unharmed. Are you from Regent Valdrova's...?"

"Apologies for the late introduction. I am Zed Swallow, a knight who has sworn loyalty to the Grand Duchy's territory. This naive friend here is Sir Arwen. We have been secretly surveilling and escorting you, Chancellor, under the orders of the Regent."

"The Regent's subordinates... Why are the people who stabbed me in the back helping me?"

"Pardon? I'm not sure what misunderstanding you have, but for now, we will escort you to where our Regent is."

Having been on the verge of his last breath, his head was spinning.

But Bernard had no choice.

The mages who were supposed to drive the carriage were dead, so the carriage couldn't move.

The road ahead was long, and it was too dangerous to walk alone here.

Chancellor Bernard resigned himself.

"Understood. I shall follow you."

"Alright then. Let's stop the bleeding first."

Zed lightly treated Bernard's wound, and Arwen tied the captured alternate Bernard onto the back of his horse.

They then moved out, leaving the scene of the incident as it was.

Even while riding the horse, a question lingered in Arwen's head.

"Sir Zed."

"What is it?"

"How on earth did you recognize him?"

He had been able to catch the enemy off guard because he attacked without hesitation.

But as for Arwen, he couldn't figure out the reason behind that lack of hesitation.

Zed chuckled and answered.

"There was no shine."

"... Pardon? Shine?"

"That fake bastard over there, it seems he couldn't quite replicate the Chancellor's glossy bald head."

"..."

Arwen's eyes subtly drifted over Zed's shoulder.

Chancellor Bernard's head, softly reflecting the moonlight.

"Ah."

It was ridiculous, but he couldn't say anything in response.

* * *

At the place they arrived after riding through the entire night, a carriage was waiting.

There was Regent Valdrova's carriage and a tent.

A young silver-haired maid welcomed them.

"This way."

The maid gently lifted the tent flap, and Bernard stepped inside.

A warmth different from the cold and harsh wild ground touched his skin.

The interior was several times larger than its exterior appearance suggested.

It was so cozy and well-kept that one would never think they were inside a tent.

'A subspace tent... Isn't that an incredible treasure?'

Just a single subspace pocket created using fairy dust as a medium was a treasure, but a tent was on a completely different level.

The only ones capable of possessing such a treasure were kings on the level of an empire.

Or a dragon.

He was reminded once again of the fact that this man was the spouse of a dragon.

"Welcome."

A young man with grey hair and blue eyes.

Ferda welcomed him.