And so, by throwing around the privileges that I’d been given, I’d been granted the permission we needed to continue, and we resumed our travels along Sylvario’s roads towards the royal capital.
That was all fine and dandy, but what we saw along the road was terrible, to say the least.
“Things are kinda bleak, or should I say unsafe,” I said.
“It’s the aftereffects of the war,” a Sylvarian knight replied. “The front lines were a bit farther away, but it looks like a number of people were swept out here.”
“I see. Then we of all people can’t really complain.”
According to the Sylvarian knight, former soldiers and the like who’d gone broke and resorted to thievery were the most likely culprits behind the heavily damaged carriages left in ruins alongside the road.
If a road important enough for a princess and her entourage to use was in such poor condition, then things within Sylvario must’ve been worse than we’d thought. This was a clear visual of how bad the circumstances were, and we picked up the pace immediately at the thought of the princess’s entourage getting into some kind of trouble.
As we hurried, we would meet up with the knights that Gale had left for us as contacts in the town inns we passed through, follow the path he’d taken farther, and pick up another one. We repeated the cycle a few times before finally catching up with him in another inn town a few days later.
Yes, we caught up with him. Which meant that after all this travel, he’d found neither one of the royal family’s carriages nor anyone who’d seen one.
“My apologies, Your Excellency,” Gale said.
“Don’t worry about it. If you couldn’t find them even after looking into things, then there was nothing else you could do. But...what in the hell is going on?” I asked.
I thanked Gale for his efforts as he apologized, face downcast with humility, before tilting my head in confusion.
This was the carriage procession of a princess marrying into another nation we were talking about. The scale of it should’ve caught people’s eyes, but so far not a soul had seen even a glimpse of it, even when we’d come so far.
Things weren’t adding up. There was a chance the entourage had taken a different route, but the other options were either huge detours or really rough, so I couldn’t imagine them choosing to do that.
Then the only possibilities left are...
The moment I thought that, something flashed through my brain.
“Gale, did the townspeople you spoke to know about Her Royal Highness getting married?”
“What? Of course they... No, wait. Now that I think about it, some of them may have been shocked...?”
“Damn, it couldn’t be, could it?”
I now understood the discomfort I’d had while we were traveling along the highway—no one had welcomed their princess as she traveled to marry, or mourned that she was essentially being sent to Brigandia as a hostage. Everyone was just living, drained from the war that ruined their lives.
It was the same even when we arrived in Vestigo. If they had known that the princess was coming, they should have just thought we were coming to get her the moment they saw us show up, but they didn’t.
And now there was still a lack of acknowledgment, despite the fact that it had been more than a full week since the day she should have arrived and we’d gotten halfway to the capital from the border. It was impossible for the entourage to have come this far without someone talking about it.
In the first place, protocol would dictate that an entourage accompanying a princess to her wedding destination would send a notice to every town they passed through to make their trip smoother. But they hadn’t, which meant...
“It’s like she never even left,” I murmured.
“N-No, that can’t be true! We truly did get word that Her Royal Highness had left the capital!” one of the Sylvarian knights denied, pale as a ghost.
That’s right—if the princess really hadn’t left, then it meant that Sylvario had no intention of obeying the agreement. Brigandia would view that as Sylvario trying to pick a fight with us, which would lead to the ceasefire going up in smoke, and would force us to talk with our weapons again.
Honestly, I personally wanted to prevent that from happening, but the decision was up to Brigandia. If they told me to fight, then as a knight, I would fight.
That being said, I had become a bit fond of our Sylvarian companions; throughout our travels, they’d treated us with nothing but the proper decorum and discipline.
“If word did come that she’d left, then she probably had,” I reasoned. “But it seems like only you knights and your superiors knew, with nothing said to anyone else. If this is true, then I believe we’ll need to travel closer to the capital—no, go all the way to the capital ourselves to investigate.”
“That’s true,” the Sylvarian knight agreed. “Understood. We’ll send word ahead for you.”
“Please do... For the sake of keeping both of our nations at peace.”
As the knight heroically steeled his resolve, I gave him a firm nod back.
After all, their task involved getting permission for their former mortal enemy to gain entrance to the capital, the heart of Sylvario—there was no telling what sort of censure they’d face. Even if this situation was because of the royal family, it was, unfortunately, often irrationally treated as a different story. But even so, the war would resume if things were left as they were, and they must have decided that the trial of getting us to the capital would be better than having their comrades and populace suffer.
I myself didn’t want things to end in bloodshed once again either. While I didn’t know if I’d get back home safely—I had done a lot of damage to Sylvario during the war, after all, and here I was practically waltzing into their royal capital—quitting our investigation here would guarantee that war would start all over again. As much I didn’t want violence, I had to resign myself to the possibility.
“Let’s go! Time to get this mess under control!” I cried, getting nods back from the knights of both our countries. After all, the scene in front of our eyes made everyone absolutely determined to keep the war from restarting as it was.
With one last exchange, both sides split to do their part. But even when we arrived at the next inn town, other than the region’s lord, not a single person knew anything about the princess’s upcoming nuptials.
“At the very least, this means the Sylvarian royal family didn’t even attempt to keep up the appearance that they were celebrating this marriage,” I said.
“That’s undeniable. But if that’s true, then that would mean that they didn’t even hold any functions to say goodbye to her, wouldn’t it?” Gale asked.
Gale and I were racking our brains over the testimony we’d gathered. It was just too strange.
Normally, a princess getting married would either get a massive celebration in her honor, or a ceremony mourning her leaving, simultaneously moving the citizens’ hearts and progressing things to the next step. But neither of those happened. Neither one. It was almost as if Sylvario was trying to send her off without letting the populace know.
“Wait. I’ve barely ever even heard about Sylvario’s fourth princess, Her Royal Highness Princess Sonia...” I murmured before looking towards one of the Sylvarian knights, who was momentarily at a loss for words.
“Her Royal Highness isn’t one to be seen in public. I myself have never even seen her face,” he explained apologetically.
“I see. So I guess they were trying to keep from rocking the boat too much by choosing a relatively unknown princess to marry into Brigandia.”
That in itself would be treating us with contempt, but from their perspective, they were still fulfilling their side of the bargain. So they were treating us with contempt.
Now we’d need to go to the capital whether we found the princess or not. And if that was all we’d be reporting, then they’d have been treating us like a bunch of errand boys this whole time.
“Ahh, this is making my stomach hurt,” I accidentally let slip.
Everyone around me gave me a shocked look.
“You’re just now feeling it? We’ve all been on stomach medicine this whole time,” Gale said, exasperated, expressing what everyone was thinking.
Oh, shut it. I just have a very tough stomach thanks to all the ridiculous things His Royal Highness forces me to do.
Unable to voice my thoughts without committing a crime, I could only give a vague laugh back.