“The streets are empty.”
Two people were walking down the street.
Yet despite the clear sunlight announcing the start of the day, the streets were quiet.
By now, this should have been the hour when they were filled with people absorbed in their livelihoods, but such a sight was hard to find.
Even the small shops bordered by old stone walls along the edges were mostly closed.
Though few in number, there were merchants who had opened their doors now and then.
“Even the merchants who have opened their shops do not look well.”
But their faces were filled not with anticipation, but despair.
Anyone could see the atmosphere was heavy.
Reading that oppressive mood, the two continued forward cautiously.
The one who had just spoken wore leather clothes and had a sword at his waist.
Beside him was someone whose face was hidden by a hood and veil, making it impossible to see their appearance.
Even so, the one with the sword continued speaking to the person beside him.
No, rather than simple conversation, it was closer to a report.
On the surface, they looked like an ordinary adventurer party. But their destination was not the Adventurers’ Guild.
In a way, that was only natural.
“What shall we do, Princess?”
For they were not adventurers, but the princess of the Kingdom of Sale and her escort knight.
“……”
Princess Irena’s escort knight, Lennon, spoke, but Princess Irena remained silent.
Then she closed her eyes for a moment.
Yes, in the past, the streets had surely been lively and full of vitality.
Given her status, she had not walked them often, but she still remembered the scenery of those streets she had occasionally visited.
In the antique shop, objects that held all kinds of stories had waited, and the sight of the blacksmith refining weapons amid the flames of a blazing furnace had looked almost like a dance.
On the roadside in front of the shops, a wandering artist would paint his pictures, coloring the street; it had undoubtedly been a happy scene.
But the scenery now was unfamiliar.
The faces of the people were all anxious and uneasy.
As if they had no future.
While Princess Irena and her escort knight Lennon briefly stopped in place and looked around.
Someone appeared.
A being wrapped in a dark cloak.
His eyes were cold, like frigid ice.
When he appeared, the people began to stir as though the surrounding air had frozen over.
Someone trembled so violently that they suffered the humiliation of wetting their pants.
She wanted to believe it was merely needless worry, but he began to swing the whip in his hand.
“……”
Princess Irena clenched her fist as she watched the sight.
And desperate screams reached her ears.
“Please, my lord! Spare me!”
“I know nothing! Please forgive me!”
Those being lashed pleaded their innocence in voices filled with anguish. Though they begged earnestly with endless grief and tears, the man’s whipping showed no sign of stopping.
“Princess, just give me the order! I will deal with this at once!”
Beside her, Lennon called to Princess Irena at the cruel sight.
As the princess’s escort knight, if she only gave the order, he intended to do everything in his power to resolve the situation.
But Princess Irena shook her head.
“We will do nothing.”
“But, Princess…!”
Lennon tried to say something at Princess Irena’s words, but she raised a hand and stopped him.
“He is an inquisitor. If you step forward needlessly, Sir Lennon, you will only find yourself in trouble.”
The man wielding the whip was an inquisitor belonging to the White Order.
That was the reason Princess Irena could not respond directly, even as she watched her people being oppressed.
If she gave an order and blocked that man?
It might work for the moment, but fundamentally, it was not a problem that could ever be solved that way.
One wrong move, and not only Lennon but even the princess herself might fall out of the Order’s favor.
To that extent, the Kingdom of Sale was currently in the midst of chaotic times.
‘Does that mean I must simply keep watching?’
In the face of a situation where she could do nothing, Princess Irena felt her own powerlessness.
There were many reasons things had come to this.
First of all was the White Order’s obstinacy.
‘They intended this from the beginning.’
The White Order’s claim, as Princess Irena had heard it, was simple.
‘Priests and holy knights have continued to go missing in the Kingdom of Sale, so they will investigate it themselves?’
But their claim was truly absurd.
‘They went missing in the Kingdom of Sale?’
Such a thing had never happened.
Perhaps they had gone missing in the mountain range near the Kingdom of Sale.
Or perhaps an accident had occurred, and they were trying to shift responsibility onto the Kingdom of Sale.
Princess Irena’s reasoning was quite plausible.
After all, neither she nor even her father, the king, knew anything about it.
Simply put, the White Order’s claim was something that could quickly be refuted.
But the situation did not flow so easily.
‘And now this is tripping us up again.’
There was an unexpected ambush.
The nobles.
Though they belonged to the Kingdom of Sale, they were the faction that sympathized with the Order’s claim more than anyone else.
They had not supported the Order’s claim from the very beginning.
But the noble faction, who wished for the weakening of royal authority, saw the current situation as an opportunity.
Of course, Princess Irena was not simply sitting idle.
She had spoken to her father, and she had also asked for help from nobles who did not belong to the noble faction.
But not a single part of the situation improved.
In the end, she realized it.
That her own power had to be strong.
As that frustrating situation continued, she eventually put her hand to a taboo.
Demon summoning.
‘Lady Celia…’
Thus, she summoned a being by the name of Celia.
She was truly a being with tremendous power.
Borrowing that being’s strength, she had even caused discord within the noble faction.
She had manipulated the count who led the noble faction and made him cause a knife attack, but that was all.
The noble faction put forward another leader and still wished for the weakening of royal authority.
At first, she had tried to conciliate the noble faction by even mentioning development rights to the mountain range, but it had not worked.
In the end, with the noble faction’s support, the Order’s delegation entered the Kingdom of Sale, and they had been committing absurd outrages to this day.
Of course, their actions were nothing more than venting their anger.
It was all well and good that they had even gained the noble faction’s support, but the Order’s investigation had made no progress.
Naturally so.
Because priests and holy knights had never gone missing in the Kingdom of Sale to begin with.
If evidence appeared, that would be the stranger thing.
Even so, the Order continued to conduct a high-intensity investigation.
And in the end, their anger even reached the common people.
As someone who hated seeing the Order’s tyranny, she wanted to break through the current situation.
So she asked Celia, whom she had summoned and contracted with, but there was only one command that came down.
「Wait quietly.」
‘Just how long am I supposed to wait!’
Naturally, various instructions, both large and small, had come down until now.
If she was told to ban entry into the Silent Mountains, she banned it, and she had unknown knights infiltrate the kingdom and secretly deploy them in the nobles’ mansions.
But no further instructions came.
All she was told was to wait quietly.
She followed that instruction well.
As a princess, there was nothing she could do directly on her own, so it was an unavoidable choice.
Yes, there must be some reason she was being told to remain still.
She comforted herself that way.
She was merely human.
Though she held the status of princess, she was only a weak human.
‘In a way, even Father is a weak human.’
The reality that even her father, who ruled the Kingdom of Sale, could do nothing against the Order made her miserable.
“…Let us return.”
Princess Irena said in a powerless voice.
For now, she could only watch as her people suffered.
Lennon, too, turned around at her command.
* * *
For the first time in a while, an alarm rang from the smartphone.
“What is it?”
- Special Mission Occurred!
It was a special mission.
As usual, I checked the details of the mission right away.
- Princess Irena’s Wandering.
- Princess Irena of the Kingdom of Sale is lamenting the current situation. Please assign her a mentor.
- Reward: Princess Irena’s loyalty greatly increases.
“What is this?”
It was a mission related to Princess Irena after a long time.
But wandering?
Was there a reason for Princess Irena to wander?
Since I did not know her inner thoughts, I had no way of knowing.
Still, I felt like I could figure out one thing.
“It must be something like noblesse oblige.”
A princess’s status probably was not light at all, so she must have her own worries as a princess.
Come to think of it, I recalled Princess Irena’s first special mission.
“Back then, it was definitely someone who desired a contract with a demon.”
At that time, I had dispatched Celia for the special mission.
As a result, I remembered having completed the special mission successfully.
But this time, too, it was a mission related to Princess Irena.
“Well, the answer is already decided.”
It would be a waste of time to worry over whom to dispatch for this mission.
Princess Irena and Celia were already acquainted.
In the end, Celia was the best fit for the mentor mentioned in the special mission.
“Go through a little trouble again this time.”
If it was Celia, she would listen well to Princess Irena’s hardships.
“This mission should be resolved easily too.”
I immediately dispatched Celia to the mission.
* * *
After ending her brief outing, Princess Irena entered her room.
And as usual, she waited quietly.
Since she never knew when Celia’s instructions would come down, waiting in her room at all times had become Princess Irena’s daily routine.
Thanks to that, various rumors had arisen about her, but to her now, they did not matter.
“……”
As she waited endlessly, she felt an alien presence behind her.
Princess Irena quickly turned around.
There was a black shadow there.
It was not her shadow, but a being like another living creature.
It was Celia’s messenger.
“You have finally come.”
Princess Irena knelt and received the paper the shadow handed her.
She immediately checked its contents.
“Finally…!”
It was an instruction to proceed in earnest to the next plan.
The time she had spent only preparing and waiting until now had been long.
At the thought that she could finally do something, Princess Irena opened her eyes wide.
But on the other hand, it was also true that she was worried.
Was she afraid of failure?
No.
She did not doubt that a plan prepared by a demon with tremendous power would go awry.
Rather, she was overflowing with certainty that it would succeed.
But Princess Irena now felt as if something was lacking.
“What could it be?”
Was it an anxiety that even if this plan succeeded, the Kingdom of Sale would not change greatly?
As she thought that, impatience and worry came before her anticipation of success.
“What should I do now?”
With a stifled heart, she murmured to herself.
And a moment later, someone answered her monologue.
“What are you hesitating over?”
The being Princess Irena had summoned and contracted with.
It was Celia.
“Is it not so very simple? You simply need to return the kingdom to normal with your own hands.”
At Celia’s words, Princess Irena shook her head.
“With my own hands…?”
There was no way she could fail to understand what Celia meant.
A mere princess was to return an entire nation to normal?
With a demon’s power, it might not be impossible, but that was not what Celia meant.
The true meaning was that she should rise to a position from which she could rule the kingdom.
However, the current king indisputably existed.
In such circumstances, if she, a princess, surpassed her father and personally ascended the throne, what would the people think?
Even if her father personally declared his intention to abdicate, the nobles’ opposition would be severe, and the kingdom’s current circumstances were not good.
“What are you hesitating over?”
But the demon’s whisper continued.
“Was that not Princess Irena’s will? It is not good to take such a long detour while leaving the simplest path untouched.”
She was right.
The current kingdom was far too weak.
For the kingdom to be weak meant that the power of the king who ruled it was weak as well.
That, in the end, meant that the princess’s own father was incompetent.
She did not want to admit it, but it was an undeniable fact.
“I will help you. You have not forgotten your promise to serve the Great One, have you?”
The Great One….
Princess Irena nodded.
“That’s… right. I remember now…!”
Thinking about it, what had she been hesitating over?
What mattered now was returning the kingdom to normal.
Only then would she gain the opportunity to serve the Great One of whom Celia spoke.
That was the condition of her contract with Celia.
“Why had I forgotten that…?”
It was strange.
Once she remembered that simple fact, the stifling feeling in her heart vanished.
Princess Irena’s heart sank into the demon’s sweet words.
Even if that place was a swamp from which she could never escape, it did not matter.
Because as a princess, and as a queen, she had a clear goal to pursue.
Those who stood in the way of that goal had to be removed.