So you dosed Frey while she was unconscious...?!
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, despite my surprise. “Frey, can you come with me to the castle? I’d like to get a grasp on the city’s situation. And I’d like the rest of you to keep hunting monsters. Use Mana Detection to make sure they’re wiped out.”
“Right. It could be disastrous if monsters were lying low somewhere in the city. I won’t leave a stone unturned,” Cocoa promised.
“Thank you,” I said.
With that, Frey and I hurried to the castle, taking out any monsters and healing any injured along the way. Of course, if the situation called for it, I told them to evacuate to my house.
“All of these monsters are weak. What’s causing this, Sharon?”
“You ask like I should know the answer...”
“You don’t?”
“Why do you always think I know everything?” I protested. “Well, I do know something that would create a similar situation...but that can’t be it. No one in their right mind would do something like that.”
“Are you sure?” Frey asked.
If my suspicions were correct, there was a culprit who’d caused the outbreak in the city intentionally—even if it was difficult to believe that someone would do such a terrible thing.
As soon as we reached the castle, Rudith found us and said, “There you are, Lottie. We found the culprit.”
“What?” Frey and I responded in unison.
“Really?” I asked.
“You might not be happy to see who it is. Would you like to meet him?” Rudith offered.
“If I can...” I said. I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to meet the culprit who’d plunged the whole city into pandemonium—and find out why and how he’d done it. After all, the culprit could have used a method different from the one I’d imagined—one I had no knowledge of.
“How is Tarte?” I asked Rudith while he led us through the castle corridors.
“She’s been a great help taking care of the injured with her generous stock of potions,” he said.
“I see.” Pride bloomed within me for my dear apprentice who’d taken the initiative in healing the injured.
“I haven’t told her about the culprit... We’re still not sure how the news will be shared with the public,” Rudith added.
“I see,” I repeated. This time, though, I only had a sick feeling in my stomach. Rudith might as well have spelled out the culprit’s name. Still, I swallowed my exasperation and wordlessly followed him to the dungeons.
Rudith gave a quick greeting to the guard at the entrance and headed to the deepest part of the dungeons, where the cells were visibly more secure than the simpler cells nearer the surface. As we arrived at the final cell, Rudith gestured to the man within. “Lottie, the man responsible for this attack...is Prince Ignacia.”
Ignacia sat shackled and gagged in the cell. I’d guessed as much from Rudith’s hints, but it was still a shock to see my suspicions confirmed. Ignacia had been the only person I could think of who would warrant both Rudith warning me about seeing him and delaying the publication of the culprit’s name. Rudith ordered a nearby guard to ungag the prince. Apparently, I was allowed to speak with him.
“Damn it! How dare you treat your crown prince this way?!” Ignacia barked, pulling against his shackles. “You! Say something!”
“What is there to say? You’ll soon be disinherited. Even if you’re lucky enough to dodge the headsman’s axe, I can only imagine how severe your sentence will be... Of course, I’m not the one who’ll decide it. So, how did you summon those monsters into the city?” Rudith’s voice was so frigid that I could see Ignacia actually begin to shake in his boots. I could hardly blame him. It was such a contrast to Rudith’s usual sunny disposition that even I was a little scared of him.
Seeing that Ignacia had clammed up, I decided to offer up my guess. “Did you use a Pandemonium?”
“H-How did you know...?!” Even if Ignacia hadn’t said anything, the look on his face would have betrayed him. Shouldn’t a royal have a better poker face? Not that I’m complaining about avoiding a full-blown interrogation of Ignacia.
“He used a what?” Rudith asked.
“It’s an item called a Pandemonium that summons monsters,” I explained. “It’s a black sphere that can fit in one hand. The number of monsters it summons is random, but their strength is determined by the level of the person who uses the item. If he only used one, it summoned an extraordinarily large number of monsters. Haven’t you heard of it?” I asked Rudith.
“Oh, that thing! It’s not something you can get your hands on easily,” Rudith said.
“That’s true,” I said, realizing how much more work it would be to figure out where Ignacia had acquired the item from. A Pandemonium was an event item, so the only way you could get your hands on one was through a special event or through a random treasure chest like we had. In this world, he would have had to buy a Pandemonium that some adventurer had acquired and sold. Maybe someone stumbled upon one in a low-level dungeon, I speculated.
“A Priestess gave it to me!” Ignacia blurted out. “The only reason I used it was to save Farblume!”
We all looked at each other, eyes gone wide at his shocking statement. “Frey...your party had a Pandemonium, right?”
“Y-Yes. Mio was holding on to it, since we didn’t need to sell it right away...”
Did Mio give it to Ignacia? The thought had crossed all of our minds, by the looks on Frey’s and Rudith’s faces. What are the odds that some other Priestess recently came into possession of a Pandemonium?
“I’m going to speak to Mio. Excuse me,” Frey said.
“O-Okay...!” After watching Frey leave, I decided to ask Ignacia why he’d used the Pandemonium—had he known what would happen? He’d claimed he’d only used it to save Farblume, which was a pathetic defense for conjuring monsters all over the city. “There are many in Blume who can’t fight off any monsters. Why did you do this, Your Highness? Did you understand what was going to happen?”
Ignacia glared at me. “Why? You have some nerve to ask when you were the one who took everything from me!”
“What?” You’re the one who took things from me, I wanted to say but swallowed my words. “What do you mean?”
“I was going to lose my right to the throne! It’s all your fault—all because you were unworthy to marry me...!” Huffing and puffing, Ignacia continued rambling. “Now Erenzi wants peace?! After hoarding Healers for so long?! I was going to take command of those monsters and seize Erenzi, to show my true power and become king! But now...”
Rudith and I were both speechless. Ignacia’s reasoning was so childish it was staggering. He was trying to take over Erenzi? To say that Ignacia had overestimated his abilities and resources would have been a gross understatement. Even before this incident, Ignacia had lacked the authority to mobilize Farblume’s knights. That was why he’d thought to make those monsters his personal army, even though there was no way to control what they did. Unless he switches to a specific job— Well, that doesn’t matter now.
Clearly trying to conceal his exasperation, Rudith asked, “How were you going to take the monsters to Zille?”
“Using the staff that controls monsters, of course! There’s something called a Monster Tamer Staff in the castle’s treasury, which would have allowed me to command those monsters at will!” Ignacia exclaimed.
“No, it wouldn’t have,” I said, the denial slipping out of my mouth. “It’s just a weapon meant for Animal Tamers, and it won’t do anything unless you already are one. Even then, the Skill is what controls the monsters, with restrictions on how,” I explained, already tired of being here. Still, I could guess that not many people in this world were Animal Tamers, which meant that few people knew about the job. That explained why Ignacia had believed he could control monsters with the staff alone.
“Now that you mention it, I was told that the knights who arrested him confiscated a staff. That must be it,” Rudith said.
“I see... Hopefully, no future royal will foolishly overestimate its abilities in the same way,” I said.
“I’ll speak to father about it.”
“Thank you.” Once my father heard of it, it wouldn’t take long for the information to reach the king. Monster Tamer Staff wasn’t valuable enough to warrant a spot in the treasury anyway—it might even be safer to throw it away to prevent further misunderstandings like this.
“What should we do, Rudy? Now that I know his motive, I have nothing more to ask him,” I said.
“Then let’s get out of here. We have better things to do than stand here and look at his ugly mug,” Rudith said.
“Wonderful.”
“What?! Wait, let me out of here! Let me out!”
Ignoring Ignacia’s screaming, I took Rudith’s arm and allowed him to lead me until we’d put the dungeons behind us.