“Thank you very much for making time for us today.”
“Sure. Come on in.”
It was just past noon on the day we’d arranged to have Duke Sanga over. He arrived with Albert and Primera. But instead of their usual laid-back vibe, they were acting oddly stiff and formal. They had even brought a gift. Now, that wasn’t too surprising from the duke or Primera, but Albert usually just barged in like he owned the place. For a second, I honestly thought he might be an impostor.
“So what brings you here today?” I asked. “Also, can you stop acting so formal? Albert acting so prim and proper is freaking me out.” Primera burst out laughing. “Pfft!”
Albert looked like he wanted to say something, but he held his tongue, probably out of respect for the duke. Duke Sanga sighed, but that had helped shift the mood, so everyone began to act more normally.
“I figured if I was going to ask a favor, I should show some proper decorum. But clearly that plan was doomed the moment Albert came along...” he grumbled.
“Father, don’t you think it’s a bit unfair to blame me for that?”
“Well, you do come as a package deal with Cain and Leon. When you act quiet and serious, people will start wondering if you’re a fake, or that you’re scheming to do something shady... Alternatively, they’ll think you’re just plain guilty about something.”
They all smiled at me sheepishly. Because of that, I knew I wasn’t wrong to suspect that something was off.
“Well, this request just might come across as shady, depending on how you look at it,” the duke admitted. “The truth is, we’d like you to evaluate the strength of the Gunjo City knights’ fourth brigade. Primera’s unit.”
Okay, I can see why this could seem a bit sketchy.
Up until now, the duke’s requests had all been small things like delivery jobs, food-related errands, and those sorts of things. Sometimes he’d ask me to sell Goldie’s and Silvie’s thread under the table too. But basically, they had all been things I could handle while I was out doing my own quests. They were normal, friendly favors.
But this was about assessing military capability. It would be easy to imagine other nobles catching wind of it and saying, “Hey, judge my knights next!” Even worse, this could easily rub the royal family the wrong way, especially since a lot of people already assumed they were formally backing me.
“I understand why this might seem suspicious, but we did get the king’s approval beforehand. He said it was up to you to decide,” Duke Sanga said.
Now that caught me off guard. It wasn’t like the king or queen to leave me out of the loop on something.
Then, the duke added, “This isn’t widely known, and only the king himself and a few in our house are aware, but a monster similar to Chaos appeared in my duchy.”
“What?”
I had almost shouted that, but then I remembered that Leni, our ever-observant SAR intelligence agent, might be nearby. I clamped my mouth shut and activated Detection. Leni was in the kitchen—she wasn’t eavesdropping, so we were in the clear.
“I know you probably have questions, but please let me finish. The creature was dealt with before it caused any damage.”
Our only point of reference so far was Chaos, so it was hard to tell how dangerous this one might have been. Still, it was impressive to hear that it’d been defeated with zero casualties.
“Now, I say ‘dealt with,’ but it wasn’t actually defeated,” the duke admitted. “According to some witnesses, it panicked and took some kind of drug, just like Chaos did, but instead of transforming and going berserk, it immediately started coughing up blood and collapsed. It never moved again. When they checked it over, it was already dead.”
It seemed like there wasn’t much usable data from this second case. Still, if the being had been on par with Chaos, most normal units would’ve been wiped out.
“So that’s why you want me to evaluate how strong the knights are,” I said.
Basically, he wanted to know how well the brigade would hold up if another Chaos-level threat were to appear.
“Exactly. But if we did that in an obvious way, other nobles would jump at the chance to make similar requests. If you agree to help, I do have a plan,” the duke said. “When you happen to be training with the king’s guard, I’ll ‘coincidentally’ bring the fourth brigade into the capital. Then, His Majesty and Prince Lyle will suddenly remember that the fourth brigade once caused you trouble, and they’ll invite you for a mock battle—just for laughs, of course.”
That explained why they all looked so awkward when they showed up. They were already acting like I’d agreed to this.
“I do train with the palace knights and guards now and then, so that part checks out. And if the king and Prince Lyle are the ones pushing it, it won’t look too suspicious. But what happens when the other nobles try the same thing?” I asked. “If Marquis Sammons or Margrave Haust asks, I won’t have a good reason to say no. And if it spreads to nobles I don’t know, or even worse, to other powerful ducal houses tied to the royal family, it’ll be even harder to refuse.”
I wouldn’t mind doing it for Marquis Sammons or Margrave Haust, as I knew their knights and I’d worked with them before. But beyond that? No thanks. I doubted the king could fend off every copycat request either.
“This isn’t an official royal decree. It wouldn’t even be doing someone a favor. It’d just be His Majesty and Prince Lyle getting carried away. The idea is that once the mock battle ends, Queen Maria and Prince Caesar will show up, realize what’s going on, and haul those two away.”
“So basically, it’d be like them pulling one of their usual pranks on me. You think people’ll buy that?” I asked.
“They will. That’s the whole point. His Majesty and Prince Lyle are willingly taking the fall here.”
“‘Taking the fall’? That sounds a bit dramatic, don’t you think? I mean, it’s all staged.”
I figured the duke had just chosen his words poorly, but no. Albert and Primera looked pained too.
“No, um... Queen Maria and Prince Caesar made it clear that we should keep this quiet. They’ve been looking for a chance to make those two reflect on their usual antics, so this plan lined up perfectly.”
When I asked if they were really allowed to discuss that, I was told that the duke had been given permission to...just as long as I didn’t say anything to the king or the prince.
“Well, if that’s the case, I don’t mind. But what about the reward?” I asked.
“The royal family will pay you a kind of nuisance fee. Technically, it’s coming from both the royal family and House Sanga, but if the ducal house pays you directly, it’ll look staged. That’s why we’re handling it this way.”
Honestly, I didn’t mind. All this really meant was that my usual training partners would be swapped out for a day. If the royal family and the ducal house were taking care of the headache, that was fine by me. It’d just be a slightly different training session with a bonus paycheck attached. Nothing to complain about there.
“So when is this happening?” I asked.
“You’ll accept? Thank you! The Gunjo knights will be ready anytime, but we’ll still need to coordinate with the king’s guard and the palace knights, so the earliest it could happen would be the day after tomorrow. It shouldn’t take more than ten days at the most to arrange it. We’ll send word the day before everything’s set.”
Since this was an unofficial request, there were no contracts or paperwork—it was just a verbal agreement about the conditions and payment. I wasn’t worried, though. If the king and the duke were giving me their word, that’d be good enough for me.
“Something you said caught my attention... You mentioned stationing them in the capital as private troops. Does that mean Primera’s going to live here now?” I asked.
She was the captain of her brigade, and if they were being posted in the capital, that would mean she’d be relocating too.
“Not permanently, but yes, she’ll be spending more time here than before,” the duke answered. “The Gunjo knights have had a surge in recruits over the past few years. We’re actually reaching a point where we have more people than we can reasonably manage. Primera will be based here, and we’ll create a liaison unit, which will travel between towns in our domain and the capital. Since many of Primera’s subordinates are from noble families, their identities are well-documented. That makes it easier to get them through checkpoints when delivering sensitive intel.”
“Oh, so that’s why you want their strength evaluated.”
Now that another creature like Chaos had appeared, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume a third might show up. It made sense to have couriers prepared for emergencies. But if one of them were to run into a monster like that, they’d need to be strong enough to escape, or at least stall it. This was likely a way to determine if they had that kind of strength. And that kind of intel was something the royal family would want too. It could even be an excuse to get a peek at the duke’s own resources.