As soon as he found out what’s inside the sack, Lord Weller is shocked into silence. Even he couldn’t have expected something like this would happen.

“I really shouldn’t have asked…”

He pulls his fringe upwards, his hand, calloused from his time with a sword, touching the scar on his right eyebrow. This is my first time seeing his ‘how on earth could this be’ expression.

“Josak, weren’t you with him? How could this happen?”

Conrad glares at Josak hard, and the latter hides behind me,

“You promised, Young Master, explain for me please.”

“Mn, anyway—This wasn’t Gurrier’s decision, it was mine.”

Before he hears me out completely, Conrad does something surprising.

He opens the sack to certain extent, stuffs something into Saralegui’s mouth before he can make a sound, and then re-ties the part he opened tightly.

“C-Conrad?”

For someone like him, who was always steady in his actions and a supporter of human rights, this is really an unbelievable act of violence.

I’m petrified because I thought he flew off the handle, but Conrad replies me with his usual good-looking, nice guy smile, only his eyes aren’t smiling.

“Just pretend this never happened.”

“How can I? I was the one who asked Josak to do this, because Sara knows where Jason and Freddy are.”

“Even so, we can’t let them know.”

Conrad looks past my shoulder to Venera and her companions. A shadow flits across those silver-s.h.i.+ning eyes.

“He looks no different from Yels.h.i.+, and not many people know Yels.h.i.+’s older twin brother is here to visit. More importantly, if he remembers what they look like and this location, we may bring them trouble.”

He’s right.

Maybe Yels.h.i.+ heard of this underground city that was destroyed by the previous emperors before, but the current ruling party probably doesn’t know the names and faces of the people here. Especially the ones helping from inside the city, they’re dead if Sara sees them. Not only won’t they work as spies anymore, their very lives may be in danger.

If Hazel’s words are true, then the person who attacked Sara, isn’t one of hers.

From the very start, most people thought the one sitting on the portable VIP seat is Yels.h.i.+. So the target wasn’t Saralegui, but His Majesty Yels.h.i.+. This is a bona fide botched a.s.sa.s.sination attempt.

She and her protest companions never wished to solve this with violence. They can’t imagine the country’s systems changing drastically just with an emperor’s death, so they would rather let the world know their suffering and wait for the interference of international forces. If there are people among them who want to resolve it with violence, they probably wouldn’t send boats out to a paradise they never know they can reach, and instead would use the sheer numbers of the slaves and start an armed revolution.

Although it sounds b.l.o.o.d.y saying this, but farming tools can become weapons too.

Hazel’s explanation makes a lot of sense and sounds trustworthy, but after that reply she added an interesting line,

“Looks like the target is either the older brother or the younger.”

I’m not sure either.

We’ve returned to the underground pa.s.sage Hazel brought us through yesterday, and by the time we walked about half of it and confirmed that our pursuers have been thrown off, we finally heave a sigh of relief. As for the three people who dodged the bullet by a hair, they’re hugged by each of their companions in turn, not at all bothering to hide their happy tears.

Although those two children aren’t here, we still wave away the disappointment in our minds and sincerely wish those who were saved, happy to have helped.

But at the same time it feels like we brought back a new fuse.

“In that case, we just have to get the relevant information out of him, then leave him together the sack somewhere… Really.”

He sighs as he suggests the method that sounds like disposing non-burnable garbage,

“Really, you guys actually kidnapped the king of a country, and stuffed him in a sack.”

If it was Günter, he would definitely have started squirting Gun-juices and howling left and right. A smile starts slowly at the edges of Conrad’s mouth, and he ends up laughing, forcing down the sound in his throat.

“B-but you’ve gotten gutsier with these things, huh.”

“Don’t laugh, I’m very serious here.”

“Sorry, but—”

At the end he finally laughs out loud, bending over. I know it’s been a long time since he laughed like this, so happy I could make him laugh.

“How could you. The one who stuffed him in there wasn’t me, it was Gurrier, y’know!”

“Ah, you did push the blame onto Gurrier after all! But it sure feels good, doesn’t it?”

The spy narrows his eyes, seeking our agreement. After all since leaving Shou s.h.i.+maron, we’ve gone through all kinds of suffering tanks to Saralegui. If I listed them all, it would probably be more than a book. Just the way I was brought to Seisakoku, is no different from a large scale kidnapping. Although the idea of “payback” is a little against my morals, but I still want to act cool and say it in English.

Revenge.

Putting it that way seems more acceptable.

Finally getting his laughter under control with tremendous effort, Conrad pokes the sack as he says,

“Those three never heard Jason and Freddy’s names before. They were all isolated in the facility nearest to the capital, it seems like they were brought here when the execution was suddenly decoded, so they’re not too clear about the people in the other facilities. But it’s not hard to imagine that the environments there are all terrible. As for what kind of situation they’re in… I really can’t say it.”

“What a hateful topic.”

I poke at the sack too, as I nod my head in reply.

“Just thinking about such little children staying in that kind of place makes me upset, hurts me. They’re about the same age as Greta, after all. Although that daughter of mine… did cause some trouble of her own.”

“Alright~~ Then shall we force this fella to spill it in place of his younger brother?”

Josak kicks the sack until it’s a distance away. Now this is a little too much.

“Don’t be like that, that’s too much. If you do that, it’s called abusing a prisoner of war. Putting aside the matters of Shou s.h.i.+maron for now, when it comes to Seisakoku, the responsibility isn’t on Sara.”

The childhood friends duo have perfectly matching looks of surprise,

“He’s the guy who tried to kill you twice!”

“But he didn’t get to kill me either time, did he?”

Although if there’s one there will always be another, maybe only G.o.d will know if he will succeed the third time. But it’s thanks to his failing twice, that reduced my low self-esteem by half. Saralegui, who received the highest quality education since young, studied how to be king, was born to be king, such a perfect young man actually couldn’t manage to kill me, the normal high school student who likes baseball, twice.

It makes me think, the king of Shou s.h.i.+maron isn’t all that impressive either, huh.

And it also proves that before tragedy strikes, no one can know if bad may turn to good by some factor.

“The only thing I can’t forgive him for is that incident with Lord von Bielefeld… Yeah, give him a kick anyway.”

I’ll leave something like that to the older brother, then.

Having escaped from the city we have nowhere else to go, so we can only camp in the red room Hazel brought us to last night. Even though the floor of the underground city is cold and hard, it’s still enough for us to rest our battle-weary bodies. After all we’re fugitives from another country, as long as we have a dry place to escape the elements, we should be grateful for their hospitality.

Thankfully it’s warmer underground than the windy surface at night, and we don’t have to worry about soldiers spotting us even if we start a fire here. All that they’ll see is little wisps of smoke from the ventilation opening quite a distance away.

After we borrowed a piece of cloth they call a sleeping bag but looks more like a carpet, the three of us lie down around the fire. Since the possibility of us being found by the soldiers is really slim, there’s no need to stand guard. For a life on the run, this is a pretty good start.

When I hear two sets rhythmic breathing beside me and confirm that Conrad and Josak are both asleep, I try my best not to wake them, moving away from where I’m supposed to sleep stealthily. Tiptoeing to the sack, Saralegui must be asleep inside, since the sack isn’t budging at all.

“…Saralegui?”

Carefully I open the sack. Who would have thought Conrad tied it pretty tightly, too.

“Sorry, you must be freezing, huh.”

I keep the sack open to the barest minimum, then stuff something that looks like a dusty carpet inside. As someone who was raised in a palace, I bet he can’t stand this kind of thing, so I’ll take this chance to add a common folk experience to his royal education. Although this has nothing to do with me, who grew up in j.a.pan: population around one million…

At the same time I took the thing stuffed in his mouth out. Hazel and the others have gone back to their respective rooms, so I don’t have to worry about them finding out what’s in the sack. And no matter how loud he yells, the sound wouldn’t reach the surface.

“Pwha, ha—”

“Shh—Quiet, the other two are asleep.”

I put my finger on my lips. When I approach him with the torch, Saralegui is hugging his knees tiredly, curled up like a fetus. Out of pity, I pull down the sack and free his top half.

“Saralegui—”

“Your men are just too much.”

The boy king straightens up his body, putting his thin arms on his waist.

“Kicked me real hard.”

“I apologize for that. But we… don’t have a good impression of you, you should know that, right?”

“But, that was really too much.”

He doesn’t take his own actions into account at all, just kept repeating “too much” again, then reaching out his fair fingers to pull the hair out of his face. His previously immaculate hair is all over the place. I ask him if he needs his gla.s.ses, then only I remember that his gla.s.ses aren’t for correcting his vision.

“I’ll get you back into the city as soon as possible, well, to be precise I’ll leave you somewhere near the palace, maybe even the exact middle of the fountain. Don’t worry, you’ll be found really soon. After all, a guest suddenly disappeared, and he’s the Emperor’s own older brother, too, so that should have caused a commotion. For all we know, there are already a bunch of search parties on the streets looking for you.”

“Really?”

The boy king of Shou s.h.i.+maron c.o.c.ks his head, looking lost. If it was someone who didn’t know his true nature, there’s probably a seventy percent chance his actions would awaken their maternal instinct, and that goes for men and women too.

“Even if I am a guest, I was also nearly a.s.sa.s.sinated y’know?”

“You don’t know who’s after you?”

Whenever he shakes his head, that almost-white golden hair will sway at will.

“I don’t know, I’m not that well-known in this country. I really can’t figure out who would try to a.s.sa.s.sinate me with a long-range attack that has a low success rate. If it was a political enemy from my own country, though, I could name a few right now.”

“But something like this sure is depressing…”

That’s right, Saralegui was just attacked at the war port named after him. And that man was one of his confidantes, too, even known once as the Shou s.h.i.+maron king’s loyal dog. Back then Wolfram was wearing his hooded cape, and nearly died in his place. Just thinking of that moment makes me shudder in fear.

“Maybe the person they want to kill isn’t me.”

“Eh…”

“That should make more sense, Yuuri. This is Yels.h.i.+’s country, not mine. That’s why the person who should logically be at that square and that event, is that emperor younger of mine. Besides, no one knows that I swapped places with him, and the two of us look like we were cast from the same mold anyway. Even you, who is so close to me, if I didn’t say anything, you can’t tell the difference either, right?”

“Me, c-close to you?”

I’m shocked speechless. So in Saralegui’s dictionary, a relations.h.i.+p of cruelly killing and hating each other is interpreted as ‘closeness’? What a hard to understand dictionary.

But he noticed that he may have become his brother’s scapegoat. After all, Saralegui is an egotist, so it’s impossible that he never thought of that possibility.

“Who would have thought that even Yels.h.i.+, with the way he is, has more than a few enemies himself… But it’s no wonder. After all, he is the leader of a country… Since he has so much land and so many people, if there are friends who admire him, there would surely also be enemies with something against him. Yuuri, the same goes for you, right?”

“Eh? About that, I—don’t really know—maybe, probably—”

He suddenly throws the question at me catching me off guard. More than once, Saralegui has talked to me on the conditions that we’re both kings. It’s just that his position is way too different from mine, in most situations I’m unable to be honest and agree. Even the simple fact that I have to be aware of danger from my political enemies is still something really far away for the me right now.

On the contrary, the people I consider dangerous, are Shou s.h.i.+maron and its leader.

And the person who currently tops my “Danger! People to Pay Special Attention to” list, is standing right in front of me, half his body in a sack. j.a.pan… No, most countries have a “make full use of what you have” saying, right? If I can fully make use of this pretty boy king, who looks and thinks so differently from me, to solve all the problems, then it’d be worth letting Josak carrying him all over the place.

“You’re right now thinking of how to use me, aren’t you?”

Once again, I’m lost for words.

Those who are good at strategizing must also be able to sense other people’s thoughts. For some reason, Saralegui asks me this question happily, but maybe it’s the torchlight reddening his face, causing me to misunderstand.

“You are planning to use my safe return as a condition, and rewrite that contract, aren’t you?”

“How can I use you as a hostage?”

“Don’t you want to use me as a hostage?”

His expression is one of sincere surprise. Is he someone who will follow obediently when his life is treated as an object? Or is he used to situations like this, having been raised since young as a crown prince?

“I always thought you caught me to get hold of the Seisakoku Emperor’s weakness! And there I was hoping I could see your expression of shock and panic when Yels.h.i.+ unexpectedly rejects you heartlessly at close range too!”

“What are you saying!? And after I saved you? No matter what you think, technically I still saved you, you know… Wait, you said I’ll be rejected? You are the current emperor’s own older brother, how can he heartlessly reject me?”

I have never heard of such a strange kidnapping. Of course, this isn’t a kidnapping.

“Of course he can. Especially if Mother interferes, the chances of them leaving me to die are exceptionally high. Because Mother detests me, if I were saved, it would actually go against her hopes.”

He smiles as he says “she may even feel this is a good way to get rid of a problem”, not in the slightest bit lonely.

“She wants to see you in trouble? How can that be, you’re her son!”

“Yuuri, in this world, there are still parents who treat their children heartlessly, and vice versa. That applies perfectly well to us.”

I sag my shoulders, giving up on persuading him. Just as the muscles on my neck relax, there’s a cramping pain.

“A relations.h.i.+p begotten by holding someone hostage won’t last long.”

“Is that so? If it was me, I would make it well worth it. Oh, dear…”

He touches my right hand. Instinctively I want to pull back, but can’t because he holds on to with surprising strength. Saralegui grabs my pinky and holds it up against the firelight,

“I gave this to you, you still haven’t taken it off? And I thought you chopped off your finger ages ago.”

“Don’t be full of yourself, that’s my finger you’re talking about.”

The fingernail, manicured until it looks like a cherry-colored sh.e.l.l, reaches out lightly for the intricate ring of the same color, as though wanting to confirm the surface with rose vines and quite a few suns carved into it. Gooseb.u.mps start rising on the inner side of my arm.

“Do you know what kind of thoughts Mother put into this ring?”

How would I know, it’s not like I can read the words carved inside, For all I know there’ll be a mechanism that shoots out a poisonous needle when I come close to figuring what it means. So I say what I normally saw on Mom’s mail order catalogs. Although this is different from those long-distance romances, but the emotions behind it should be the same. And though this sounds really clichéd, it’s still very moving.

“…Could it be ‘even though we’re apart, our hearts are still together’?”

“Yuuri, you’re really very cute!”

Saralegui suddenly hugs me. He was always a teenage boy with an obsession with skin contact, and even though he has a perfect target in his little brother now, it seems he still can’t change his habit of hugging others. Behind the campfire there’s the clanging of metal. It’s probably Conrad or Josak, or maybe the both of them putting their hands on their swords at the same time. He obviously heard them, but he still purposely hugs my neck, saying quietly by my ear,

“That’s a curse, y’know!”

All that waits there, is a door of endless darkness.

“On it is what Mother said. It’s a warning for me to never again approach this country, this continent, it’s an extremely powerful curse.”

“And you made me wear this kind of ring!”

I push Saralegui away hurriedly, pulling my right hand back.

“That’s why I told you to take it off.”

“You… Someone like you…”

I swallow the words that almost left my mouth, “I really shouldn’t have saved you back then”. I saved him back then with a purpose, didn’t I? In the interests of a calm conversation with him, I stay a fixed distance away from him, and sit down.

“Just like I said, I didn’t catch you to hold you hostage; neither do I want to ambush Shou s.h.i.+maron while their king is away; I don’t even want you to take you out of the equation, and talk straight to Yels.h.i.+. I need to tell you all of the above. I only want to ask you one thing.”

He c.o.c.ks his head, his expression saying ‘What~ is it?’, his uncombed hair sticking to his slender chin.

“Tell me about the two girls, Jason and Freddy. I heard that they weren’t held at a facility near the capital, right? So that you could… to me…”

I simply can’t understand what he would have those thoughts.

“So you could lure me out?”

“That’s right.”

“You overheard on the boat?”

“Uh-huh. Because you seemed very concerned about those girls, so I thought that you would show up once you heard their names, and this is faster, more practical that sending out search parties for you. And in reality… it’s exactly as I thought.”

“Aah, dammit!”

One must be careful in life. Not only must we always observe our surroundings, we must also be careful to never bring attention to ourselves, that’s the smartest means of survival. As for me, even my mind is always moving at top speed, and that’s the secret behind me being an eternal benchwarmer.

“It’s just that everything went too smoothly, which took some of the fun out of things, but still, I’m very grateful to those girls who I only know by name.”

“Please show your appreciation in your actions! I want to save them. Yels.h.i.+ should know which facility they’re in, right? Please tell me! You just have to tell me the location, I’ll get them out of there. This time I’ll go there myself. Those two must be held in some facility, it’s just that we missed it.”

“I didn’t ask for too many details.”

Maybe taken aback by my att.i.tude, Saralegui backs away from me almost imperceptibly,

“Yels.h.i.+’s men mentioned once, children and healthy young people are mostly sent to the furthest north of the continent, the facility on the other side of the desert. Because the natural environment there is harsh, even the fittest young men can’t escape. But rumor has it that the horseback tribes in that area will take those with strong houjutsu by force, and then use them as cheap labor. How scary~”

I can’t tell what scary means anymore, and who the real enemy is.

I remember Hazel mentioned the horseback tribes before too. Not only do they have land given to them by the emperor, they even use protecting the tombs as an excuse to ignore orders from the central government. It’s hard to believe that even Seisakoku, the country people call stable as a rock, doesn’t have full authority over all their land. Once I go deep into it, I find that everyone has their own problems.

“Since those two are healthy and still children, and they have strong houjutsu too, there’s a high chance they were sent to the other end of the desert, the northern part of the continent.”

The places Hazel pointed out to us did include a facility in the north. I remember the term ‘horseback tribes’ also came up at that point. Besides that, didn’t she say something else was really important? Something about tombs. Once a treasure hunter, she flew here from Earth, and ironically, found herself in the royal mausoleum or something…

She said she came with a Box.

“…It’s in the same direction, huh.”

“What? Same direction as what?”

“Nothing, Sara. Sara, thanks for telling me all this, now I can go look for those two children, thank you so much.”

To avoid him getting any more suspicious, I hastily thank him. Because no matter what, I must not let him know anything about the Boxes. It’s way too dangerous to let any Boxes in this land in the hands of the Shou s.h.i.+maron king, since he once made a terrifying mistake. Although that was the result of Maxine’s own actions, but the superior has to bear responsibility for his men’s mistakes. I cannot guarantee the same thing won’t happen again.

“Are you cold? I can bring my carpet…”

Just as I’m about to say ‘and lend it to you’, I can’t help but stop my actions and my words. Because there seems to be a ruckus in the distance. It’s a bit like the loud and firm sound of army boots on dry land. In other words, they’re footprints.

Seems like someone infiltrated the underground tunnels, and it’s not just a couple of them either, but enough to make the ground shake with sound and tremble.

“Con…”

Before I make a sound, those two are already on their feet with their swords in their hands, and immediately light up the torches. I’m extremely certain they were awake from the start.

“Is it the pursuers?”

“If it is, who are they pursuing?”

The death roll prisoners that were rescued aren’t here, and the mastermind Venera as well as translator Ajira have long since returned to their respective bases.

So the highest likelihood would be they’re after the kidnappers who took Saralegui. In this case, those kidnappers would naturally be us.

“You have a transmitter on you!?”

“Transmitter? What is that? A new crop from your country?”

Looks like Saralegui doesn’t have anyone like the Poison Lady with him. Shou s.h.i.+maron is not a country that would invent meaningless things.

“Ahh~~ Now what do we do? We didn’t kidnap him, it’d be better to say we saved him. Although it was a bit much to stuff him in a sack, but we had no intention of holding him for ransom or holding him hostage!”

I grab my hair forcefully, pacing nervously between them. Josak on the other hand has his sword out and ready for a while now, while Conrad is carefully listening to the footsteps, trying to estimate how many of them are there.

“All we can do now is get ready for a face-on confrontation.”

“Just hold on a sec, Gurrier, this is a misunderstanding, you know? We’ve been wrongfully accused, right!? I don’t want us to have any casualties, but I’ll feel bad if they get hurt too, okay!? So that’s why I’m reacting like this, looking desperately for the best excuse!”

“How about I go talk to them?”

Sara finally can’t stand it anymore, and raises a hand.

“Just bring me to the person in charge, and I’ll help you guys explain that this is not a kidnapping, how’s that?”

“H-how are you going to explain?”

Saralegui replies nonchalantly,

“I’ll just go out on my own. I’m afraid they’ll barge in and cause danger, so you guys just stay in this room. Then at least my movements won’t be restricted like a hostage, and it’s better than sitting here in a sack, right?”

It makes sense when he puts it that way, but it’s still hard to believe anything he says. It’s very likely that he’ll throw his arms around the enemy leader as soon as he’s out there and cry, “I was kidnapped, and the way they treated me was so scary, so scary—Quick, the kidnappers are hiding in this room, quickly go and catch them.” And then hand us over to them. Don’t say it’s not possible, in fact there should be a fifty percent chance of this happening.

Even so, I still use all my strength to pull open the stone door, and then shove hard on Saralegui’s back. Harboring thoughts like ‘I’ll definitely be cheated again’, I sigh and close the door with Josak’s help. And in the end--

“Open the door! Open the door, Yuuri, I’m begging you! Open the door now!”

I hear Sarlegui’s scream, who knows what happened behind the door. He seems to be kicking the thick stone door, which won’t budge no matter how you knock on it.

“Open the door, please open the door and let me in!”

“No way. How many more times do you want to trick me before you’re happy? Hurry up and explain to them, tell them we didn’t kidnap you!”

“No! These people aren’t here to save me! Open the door, hurry up and open the door and let me in! I’m begging you, Yuuri, I’ll be killed!” I’ve been played by his acting so many times. No matter how realistic he’s acting, I can’t believe him at all. Once I open this stone door, Seisakoku soldiers will rush in like an avalanche, take defenseless old me first, then use me as a hostage so that Conrad and Josak cannot resist, finally…

“I’ll be killed, Yuuri!

I’m taken aback by the desperation in Sara’s voice, turning around to look at my left and right protectors. One of them says it’s still best to not let him in, and the other is expressionless.

The one with the poker face is Conrad, his finger on his chin as he mutters,

“The soldiers would kill the Shou s.h.i.+maron king without hesitation, the current Emperor’s own older brother Saralegui… this country, what on earth…”

And as a result I never heard what he said at the end, putting my all into pus.h.i.+ng the stone door open, because weak little Saralegui could never open it on his own. I open the door just wide enough for someone to come in, and then reach out to grab Saralegui’s slender white arm.

“Hurry!”

An odor like sulfur floats in through the cracks, exactly like the smell from earlier in the day. From the looks of things, the things chasing after us so relentlessly are more than likely the same as the ones from earlier, living things that don’t exist in this world.

“What did you see!?”

Maybe the trauma was too much, because Saralegui’s eyes are wide and his bloodless lips shaking. But annoyingly, once he holds his throat and catches his breath, he immediately turns back into regular Saralegui.

“Those aren’t humans. Those things approaching us step by step, none of them are human. Although they’re walking on their two legs, but how do I say this?”

“Their bodies are rotting?”

“Yes, that’s it!”

The moment we have to meet that new species we don’t even want to look at, is waiting for us.