He waited for night to fall.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Nebulis palace, market in front of the gates.
The night wore on, and the lights of the shopping district flickered off one by one. The once-bustling road was now peppered by a few stragglers trying to make their way home.
And in that quiet…
“! You!”
“Salingeeer!”
Out in the open, in the middle of the main road, Salinger took down two patrolling officers.
The pair fell face up on the ground.
He hadn’t been on the winning side in so long, he had almost forgotten what it felt like. These days, it had always been him on the ground and Mira looming over him.
“……Salinger! So you’ve finally shown yourself!”
“So this is how you’ve been assaulting people…”
“You say some funny things,” he said.
He held one officer beneath his foot as he crouched toward the other, getting close enough to nearly touch foreheads with him.
“Do you have buttons for eyes? Can you not question the plot? Are you just third-rate actors who can only faithfully follow the script?”
“What are you talking about?”
“What if someone else is behind these attacks you’ve accused me of?”
“Ha!” The man he stepped on snorted. “Are you finally afraid, Salinger? Everyone knows you’re after the queen. You won’t be able to take advantage of the party!”
“What?”
Something was wrong.
Normally, he would have ignored the nonsense rattled off by weaklings.
……I’m after the queen?
……How is he so certain?
Since he had a history of stealing astral powers, it would be reasonable to assume he would target the royal family.
But why had they concluded he was after the queen, out of the entire royal family?
……I’m after the astral powers of the strongest members of the royal family.
……That’s why I’ve been fighting Mira.
It was almost as though…
Almost as though someone had convinced the police officers that Salinger was specifically after the queen.
……And the party? Do they mean a banquet or a ball at the palace?
……Why are they so sure I’d come during a party?
✦ ✦ ✦
So that was it.
✦ ✦ ✦
The Hydra’s plan was to go after the queen during the next party.
They were going to frame Salinger for the attempt on her life.
And they had already spread false intelligence around the castle—that he would strike during the next party.
“Aren’t the Hydra clever…?”
So what would he do now?
The first option he had was likely to leave the central state, just as Mira had warned him to.
He didn’t care whether the queen’s life was in danger.
But…
✦ ✦ ✦
What would happen to Mira if she was at the palace?
✦ ✦ ✦
The queen was not the only one they were after.
Mira probably had not even considered the possibility.
“But she’s just a little girl…”
Mira was too young.
Though she had survived many battles, she was too innocent to comprehend the dark politics surrounding the throne. And she had no way of knowing about this.
“So then, Hydra…”
He gritted his teeth and turned around. The two collapsed guards at his feet were completely gone from his mind.
He looked up at the glittering palace.
Then Salinger howled into the night, “Who gave you the permission to lay a hand on Mira?!”