“Our kingdom is in great trouble, please save us.”
The queen lowered her head and asked me for aid. I was expecting something of the sort, so I wasn’t that surprised. Only just a little bit. Aria wasn’t surprised so I assumed she already knew about it.
It is just as I expected, that old man didn’t send me here to save them from just that overgrown lizard.
I thought. My expression which was a little changed from before returned to normal. I needed more information before making a decision about it. I wasn’t going to play the part the supreme god expected without enough reason. I always chose what I want to do after getting enough information even in my previous life on Earth, and I was going to do the same in this world.
“Please raise your head and tell me more. I can’t make a proper decision without enough information. What do you want me to save you from?”
Not wasting any time, I asked and the tale began. The queen had a sorrowful face as she explained what had happened. And what was about to happen in the next few months.
According to the queen, The king used to have an older brother back in the day but because of his temper and sadistic tendencies as well as his extreme racism, the previous king appointed the younger brother as king. The older brother was given the title of duke and given a territory to govern. Instead of being grateful for that and governing his territory, he wanted the whole kingdom. He amassed an army and hired a lot of adventurers to sack the capital and take the throne for himself. This tells me the light novel cliche of adventurers guild is real in this world. Anyway, back to the story. He couldn’t win but he did commit patricide. He killed his own father who fought for his younger child but was caught and the rebellion was suppressed. One of his family members managed to escape. Namely, his son, Alex. He changed his name and started living as an adventurer in the countryside. Nobody knew where he was. He came back after he became a successful adventurer and married the prime minister’s third daughter. His name was now Asil, a commoner. But since there is no law against marriage between commoners and nobility if both are in love with each other, their marriage was approved. By the way, the reason for the free marriage law is actually pretty interesting. It is because children borne of love have better magical prowess than ones borne of arranged marriages. Naturally, marriage is seen as a more sacred thing than it is on earth. After that, he included the prime minister in his plans and they decided to replace the king and to take the throne for themselves. The first method they chose was, to get married to the oldest child, the daughter. For that, the candidate they chose was the prime minister’s own second son. Who is a very stupid creature and will dance in their palms, but the princess refused the marriage. The king was given slow-acting poison in his food that made him sick and nobody knows the cure. The only other member of the royal family, the prince is only 4 years old and according to the rules set up by the founding king, cannot inherit the throne. So the prime minister advised the princess to get married and inherit the throne. But because the princess refused, he (the PM) had her exiled from the royal family claiming she has forgotten her duty as a member of the royal family. She left the royal family and joined the royal army as a mage. She is sitting right here with us. Her name is Aria. She says she won’t marry just anyone and that she also smelled the conspiracy, even though she had just returned home after graduating from the magic academy in the neighbouring kingdom. She used everything at her disposal and found out about their plan of eventually taking the throne. She used magic to investigate. As one of the only few spirit users in the entire world, she didn’t have trouble gathering the information but unfortunately, she doesn’t have any concrete proof. Because of that, she just went and reported everything to her mother, the queen. The king was bedridden by then and the prime minister had taken control of the affairs and army, even changing the commander of the nights with Asil. His new plan is to cause unrest in the populous by claiming everything to be the king’s fault and take the throne by causing an armed rebellion. To achieve that he increased taxes, changed the law about the legal age of slavery, decreased allocated money for the development of slums and orphanages, changed the law for entering magic and knights division academy to only allow nobles to enter etc. Most of the court nobles are in his faction from the start so there is no one to stop him. The queen and Aria both had a similar dream one night where a middle-aged man told them to just visit the queen’s parent’s territory and they’ll find help on their way back. Since they both got the same dream, they took it as divine guidance and did as they were told. But excluding one good knight and one good mage, the PM assigned pretty weak people as their escorts and they were caught by the wyvern. When I saved them from the wyvern, they knew I was the one who could help them. I asked about what that man looked like in their dream and they described God as I saw him. That shitty old man definitely set this up for a long time. The mother and daughter once again bowed deeply and asked for my help.
“Hmm. Don’t worry. I am the help you were told about. I’m certain of that. I just need to figure out how to do that. But, aren’t you worried there might be a spy in your escorts and he might have heard you?”
When I said that with a light tone, their faces got a little relieved and they smiled faintly. Both of them and then the queen told me the reason not to worry about that.
“I only have affinity with demonic magic and I used one of the spells to make them all unconscious before leaving my tent. They won’t know a thing. Since none of them are particularly strong mages or knights, they couldn’t resist it.”
It was a quite practical use of magic and the PM’s plan to send the weak ones worked out in our favour. I’m guessing they’ll get attacked by people when they get closer to the capital. But I have no intention to let that happen. And if I have to help them, then I’d prefer to move without too many people.
“That’s lovely. How long will they be like that?” I asked.
“I spent enough mana for the spell to last until morning.” The queen immediately replied.
“Can you extend that timing?”
“I can do that for about a few more days. If that’s what you need.”
“Awesome. Make it so they don’t wake up for three days and I’ll see what I can do to help you.”
As soon as I said that, their smile deepened a little like their burden was lifted. But there were also signs of confusion on their faces. That’s quite an elaborate expression they got there.
“What purpose will making them stay unconscious for so long serve? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Aria, who was silent for so long opened her mouth with a question. well, let me tell them the plan going forward.
“We’ll leave them here, of course! When doing dangerous things, it’s better to have as little amount of people as possible. Plus, I’m not much of a people person. It’ll be helpful if we can get a little headstart before they start searching for us, so they have to be asleep for three days. That is assuming the barrier surrounding us is strong enough to repel animals normal for our surroundings.”
“That won’t be a problem. That wyvern was an abnormality, the monsters that usually appear around this road are mostly goblins, kobolds, orcs and the like. They won’t be able to get close to the barrier. On top of that, the residue of mana that shot out during and after the battle with the wyvern will make them stay away from this place for a few days as their instinct will tell them there is danger here.”
The queen knows a lot about monsters and mana. Maybe, it’s to be expected, since she is a queen and all. But, monsters stay away from concentrated mana, huh? pretty convenient.
“Awesome. Leave the valuables and heavy stuff behind. Change into clothes suited for commoners or something as close to that as possible. We’ll leave as soon as you are ready. Take a map though, it wouldn’t be funny if I got lost on my first journey in this world. Check up on the barrier one last time before we leave.”
They did as I told them and got ready to depart in a matter of few tens of minutes. The queen was wearing something less conspicuous than before but depending on the lifestyle of towns, this might still be more luxurious than most commoners. I never noticed before but she has an excellent figure for a mother of 15 year old. And said 15-year-old is wearing clothes that look like magic-focused adventurers from fantasy animes. That dark green robe suits her well and it’s a hundred times better than the robe she was wearing earlier. There is a hood attached to the robe, but it’s left hanging behind her head. It should be enchanted, maybe! This one is a little smaller than the one she was wearing before as her modest breasts are creating more of a bulge than previously and her legs are a little bit more visible than they were before. I say modest but from my perspective, they are the perfect size. Big enough to fit in my hands but not so big as to spill out of my hands if I tried to grab them. What am I thinking, She might think I’m a pervert if she found out what I’m thinking. The queen also took off all of her ornaments except a wedding ring and a neckless that she was wearing. And we departed.
The road is in the middle of the forest and since the queen can use physical enhancement magic and Aria can use wind manipulation, we are running. It’s absurd how they can run in those clothes. I can keep up with them without breaking a sweat without using magic. It’s been a quite silent ride since we left, and the moonlight is quite bright because it is close to a full moon. The moon is bigger than the one on Earth. After we left, we encountered four weird green wolfs with single horns on their head but Aria took care of them with magic and she stored their corpses in magic storage. Still seems ridiculous from my common sense. I decided to break the silence a few minutes after we left the place.
“We’re running quite fast, how long till we reach the nearest town?”
the queen answered,
“At this speed, we should reach in the early afternoon if we don’t take a rest in between.”
“We’re using magic so, we’re fine but are you okay?”
And Aria asked me.
“I’m alright, my body feels lighter than ever.”
I answered her question and the queen looks like she wants to ask something so I encourage her.
“Queen-sama, do you want to say something? It looks like you’re holding it in. It’ll be better to talk than just running in silence.”
“Is it okay? It’s quite a personal question.”
“It’s fine, ask away. I won’t lie, so I’ll just not answer if it’s something I don’t want to talk about though.”
“In that case, Who are you? you can run without magic at this speed while maintaining the same expression and breathing pattern. Which country did you come from? Your name is also unusual, Kaminaga. Never heard anything similar except the same name in Legend of a Hero from a long time ago. Are you somehow related to that hero? And the way you appeared before us was also unheard of, I felt a different kind of power from that light. And you said the first journey so did you never leave the town where you were born?”
She showered me with questions, now what should I do and how much should I tell her? Being honest can lead to trouble if it spread around too much, but it’ll be easier to ask about things I don’t know and to learn the common sense of this world. It’ll also be easier to ask for help in learning magic. I also want to confirm the laws of physics and fundamental constants in this world, that can be useful in creating weapons in case something absurd happens which I’m almost sure it will. I also have to learn about the terrain and countries in this world if I want to travel and I can get accurate information from them, they’re royalty. Yep. Sounds good, let’s spill the beans.
