“We have received new information and an official request from Margrave Melrose. The Rainbow Blade is to leave the country by ship to search for Her Highness the Princess.”
At Dalton’s mansion in the capital, four of the five members of the Rank 5 adventuring party Rainbow Blade—Dalton himself, Miranda, Feld, and Viro—had gathered. Their fifth and youngest member, Alia, had gone missing along with her charge, Princess Elena. The party had been planning on searching for them even without the formal request, but their leader, Dalton, had chosen to go the official route, as it would offer additional freedom as well as provide them with accurate intel and better support.
“We leave tomorrow,” Dalton declared. “Margrave Melrose’s ship should be at the port town to the east. We board it and make for Kal’Faan.”
The whereabouts of Elena and Alia, who had disappeared into a teleportation spell, were unknown. But a relative of Prime Minister Veldt Melrose had brought him confidential information as relayed by a certain girl.
She’d reportedly said:
“If the caster of a teleportation spell—be it cast through sorcery or gem—dies in the middle of the spell’s activation, its targets are likely to land partway to its destination. I have no doubts that, with that girl’s help, the princess could find her way back from anywhere. But, considering there has been no contact thus far, it seems obvious that they landed somewhere in the desert on the way to the Demonic Nation of Dais, no? I would personally begin the search in the Kal’Faan Empire and proceed from there toward Dais.”
The source of this educated guess had seemed certain that the princess and her guard were alive. She hadn’t even remotely considered that they might have died, despite this being the likeliest possibility. But if someone like her—whose mental capabilities far exceeded those of ordinary people, who knew much about both teleportation spells and gems—had no doubts that Alia and the princess would find their way back, it might very well be true.
This girl had provided such information for no reason but a desire to see Alia sooner rather than later.
Though the information on the gem used to cast the spell was speculative, it matched the conclusions reached by the Sorcerers’ Guild and the court sorcerers. While the royal family couldn’t afford to send an entire expedition abroad based on such uncertain intel, an adventuring party with no ties to royalty but with a personal interest in the matter had been commissioned and paid for directly by His Majesty the King.
At Dalton’s command, each member began to prepare. One of them, Feld, took his specialized magic-steel greatsword from his room in the mansion and flexed his fingers.
“Alia...”
To him, Alia was a reliable companion and a cute junior. Before he’d known her actual age, he’d considered her a marriage prospect as well—but now, he saw her as a sister.
Viro had told him something, albeit only after the dense Feld had noticed himself: Alia apparently carried a steel knife that Feld had once used. Feld recalled meeting an urchin in the woods along a road several years ago, while on his way to pick up this very greatsword, which he’d commissioned from Galvus.
At first, he’d mistaken the child for a monster and given chase, but upon realizing his mistake, he’d spent a little time teaching the urchin survival skills. The steel knife, used for dressing game, had been a gift from him to replace an item of the urchin’s he’d broken. It was Galvus’s work too, and the old dwarf had noticed. It had, Viro had said, been the trigger for Galvus to give that urchin a magic steel knife, claiming it was fate.
To Feld, this had been a half-forgotten memory. But Alia apparently had held on to that knife this whole time.
Now that he thought about it, perhaps that was why Alia had seemed so comfortable with him. She must’ve thought of him as trustworthy—as family, even—from the beginning. Though Viro had tried to comfort him about not noticing, saying it was inevitable since the small urchin Feld had thought was a boy had grown into a stunningly beautiful girl, Feld still felt pathetic.
The girl was like family to him, and yet there was nothing he could do to protect her.
“I’ll find you, Alia. I swear it.”
While Feld steeled his resolve, another of Alia’s mentors, whom she’d met not long after parting ways with him, was troubled.
“Now what?” Viro muttered.
Of course, he didn’t object to rushing to Alia’s rescue. She was his beloved student, and he, her respected mentor. In fact, as the person in the party who’d spent the most time with her, he’d been the one most actively gathering intel.
With heavy steps, he trudged toward the home he’d only just purchased in the royal capital. It was small compared to Dalton’s place but still considered a manor—spacious enough for a low-ranking noble to live with their family and several live-in servants.
“I’m back...”
He’d been living with a woman for several months now—a receptionist with the Adventurers’ Guild he’d known for some time. He’d fallen for her cold gaze when she’d suspected him of kidnapping a young Alia and grilled him about it. Viro had spent the next several years courting her.
Though he was still young by adventurer standards, he’d retired and accepted an invitation to join the Order of Shadows because the woman had wanted him to find stable work with steady pay.
With a notorious weakness for women and having spent money on bed warmers far too many times, Viro had been surprisingly broke for a first-rate adventurer. He’d only bought this home thanks to a loan from Dalton, and now he was completely under the thumb of his new partner.
A beautiful long-haired woman wearing a white apron emerged from deeper inside the mansion. “Oh, you’re early.”
“Yeah. Hey, Mary,” Viro replied.
Mary was still working as a receptionist, but she’d used her accumulated paid time off to stay home and put her cooking skills to use for Viro, who’d been particularly busy lately. How would she react, he wondered, when he told her that he’d be going abroad tomorrow? That he wouldn’t be back for several months? She’d be angry, no doubt. She’d glare at him.
Viro certainly didn’t mind being scorned by a beautiful, mature woman, but he didn’t like it when Mary got truly angry. No matter how gorgeous a woman was, no one was pretty enough for him to risk death by rage. Not even Alia.
But there were times when a man had to make firm decisions for a beloved student. This was one such time.
He steeled himself. “Mary, listen...”
Sweating bullets, Viro explained the situation, revealed things he’d been keeping quiet about, and told her what was to come. Mary’s warm gaze immediately dropped to below freezing.
“What?” she said.
“Wait, Mary, look, I’m her mentor, okay? I’ve gotta—”
“I know that!”
She was angry, just as he’d thought, but...not for the reasons he’d assumed. Viro had figured she would be mad that they couldn’t spend the holidays together.
“Huh?”
“You didn’t tell me about Alia! How could you?! She’s still a child! She’s only thirteen!”
“No, I know, but—”
“You giant buffoon. I’ll go cook you something, so sit tight. Then you eat, and you bring her home. Get it?”
“Mary...”
Though he should have been happy to be forgiven and at the prospect of a delicious meal, Viro ended up feeling a bit dejected at the realization that he ranked somewhere below Alia in Mary’s list of priorities.
He grudgingly wolfed down his food.