The Case of the Royal Family

.-

-.

"Oh hi, Alan. How have you been? Please allow me to address your questions in order:

"First off – we are Adventurers. We had an adventure. That's what we Do.

"Second, we left at just after sunrise. So… what, five hours?

"Third, and…? So? How is that relevant to me? I'm an Adventurer, not a Soldier. I'm not sworn to anyone's service."

He answered blandly "The king has been poisoned and is near death."

I winced. "Oooh. That is SUPER relevant then. Wait. Am… am I a suspect?"

Micah immediately dived for cover under the counter. Alan scowled at me. "Do you have a guilty conscience? Bah. Whatever. No, we have the suspects already in hand. The whole castle is in lock-down. No one goes in or out, but the Duke ordered me to get you in a hurry anyway."

"How long has it been? Did you ride here from Alephis, or… did you put down a teleport circle inside the inn?"

"I got here just a couple of hours ago, yeah." Alan gestured behind him, and a glowing purple spell circle appear in the middle of the room. "Charlotte nagged me into putting down a [Portal] endpoint last time we were here. Her crazy decision turned out to be good in the end."

I nodded. "Well, even though I'm not a Belfastian citizen, it's still to everyone's best interests to help. Elze, Linze, Yae. You want to come along?"

"The fewer people that know about this, the better," Alan warned. "You all here know about because I told you, but if you bring anyone else along that's more people that other people will know that they know about it. If the king dies… none of you are ready for how this will explode through the kingdom. Those who are there when the king dies, ignorant people might think they're involved, you know?"

"I might need an assistant, you know?"

"While you're dithering around here, a little girl is watching her uncle die in front of her, you know?"

I grit my teeth. "Ugh. You sure know how to SUPER MOTIVATE someone. I didn't teach Sue that Triage spell [Homo Stasis] for this." I turned to the girls and said "I've got to go. I'll try to get back with news as soon as possible."

Linze clasped her hands together and cried out "Take care, Mister Zah!"

"All right, let's [Boom Tube] out of here-"

"You blow a [Boom Tube] into the palace, everyone's going to think it's under attack. Just… get in the circle."

-.

.-

You know how Portkeys in Harry Potter was describe as being dragged through unfathomable space via your navel? Instantaneous transport via [Portal] was unpleasant like that. [Boom Tube] was a tunnel that you could walk or even roll through. I mentioned how much I preferred that experience.

"It's perfect for a showoff like you, but some of us have real work to do that need some discretion," Alan sneered as we rushed up towards the king's bedroom.

As we ran through a second floor landing, we came across a plump man with a toad-like face pacing across the hallway. His beady eyes narrowed even further upon seeing us. "You there! Where do you think you're going?"

"Count Balza. You know me. I'm with the Royal Guards. Please excuse us, we have urgent business."

"Tch. Maybe. But who are you bringing to His Majesty's side? We have it bad enough that the filthy animals have tried to kill our king, this is no time to bring in suspicious people!"

Alan gave him a look that all but stated /'You're the suspicious one!'/ Instead he just said "Please move out of the way, milord. I am on orders from the his Majesty's brother, the Duke Ortlinde." He was very careful not to mention my name, though given how eye-catching was my outfit this anonymity would not last anyway.

The Count gave us a wide repulsive smile. "Heh heh heh. That Duke is far too sympathetic to the likes of things like a beastman. If word of this gets out, and the beast doesn't get her head chopped off and sent back to Mismede, I wonder what the other nobles will think?"

Alan grit his teeth.

"Oh, wait. It's not him that's next in line for the throne, isn't it? It's our poor sweet little Princess Yumina. Heh heh heh. I wonder what that sweet young thing will have to do to get the support of the nobles behind her. A good war needs a strong leader… a real man!"

"Let's go. Ignore him."

"Heh heh heh…!" his mocking laughter followed us as we rushed past him towards the stairs.

-.

.-

"Who the heck was that?" I asked as we neared the King's Bedroom.

"Don't worry about it. Just focus on healing His Majesty. If he dies, that's only when his ilk gets any importance. We're putting the kingdom's fate in your hands, Sir Zah." Alan scowled with worry.

He paused near the door and waved me to continue. "Go on. I have work to do, we have to make sure no news gets out, and no one gets to escape. I need to go check that they haven't been… mistreating… the Mismede ambassador. If they can make it seem like she tried to escape, the guards will kill her and we get that war anyway."

Alan rushed away again. The guards announced my entry as 'The doctor Zah Playa'.

"Sir Zah!" both Duke Ortlinde and Sue stood up excitedly. Both of them looked a little worn out. Even Sue's eyes looked a little dark.

"Milord. Sue." Then I looked at the figure on the bed. "And this must be His Majesty. What is his condition? If even I can afford to give my team some poison resistance equipment, shouldn't he have all sorts of anti-poison magic items to prevent this sort of thing from happening?"

The Duke looked towards a rotund bald man standing near the bed. The court physician answered "His Highness does have the strongest poison protection magic available. The poison was just that strong to almost kill him before the magic could slow down or stop it."

I hissed. "Toxins that strong would almost instantly cause brain damage even if we could purge it out his body."

"That is my fear as well," the Duke added.

"Pardon my intrusion, my lords. But you are Sir Von Chara, is that right? I have heard about you from Miss Charlotte." Specifically, Charlotte had been bothering the royal doctor about his medical books, and had him verify every new thing she learned from eavesdropping on Sue's lessons. "I am Raul. Could you please tell us more about this spell… [Homo Stasis]?"

"I… I couldn't do anything!" Sue wailed. "If only… if only I studied a little harder…"

"Don't blame yourself, Sue. Even if you studied a little harder, our syllabus wouldn't have covered toxins until much later anyway. Your lessons and range of spells is supposed to turn you into a General Practitioner or Battlefield Medic. It takes very specialized knowledge to deal with venoms and toxins."

Then to the doctor, "[Homo Stasis] is exactly that – it puts humans (and humanlike beings) into stasis. Strictly speaking it's not even a medical spell, it's a [ Time ] spell. You all did very well to rush Sue to cast it. It probably stopped any further degradation from happening."

"It's that powerful?!" the doctor gasped, looking wide-eyed at me and then the little girl. "The Battlefield Medic… oh, how many lives that could save!" It would simplify triage SO MUCH if the most serious cases could be put into timestop until they could be attended to by the limited number of physicians.

I approached the stricken monarch, and noted the resemblance between him and the Duke. Compared to Alfred Ernes Belfast, who longer back hair and wider handlebrush mustache, the King had full beard and shorter cut blond hair. He looked somewhat like an Obi-wan Kenobi, I guessed. "May I?"

"Go ahead. Do whatever you can to help," said Duke Ortlinde.

"[Diagnosis.]"

/"Player, this is definitely some form of neurotoxin."/ With a sound like breaking glass, Monika appeared beside me in a full-sized hologram. /"There are no external allergic symptoms like with the venoms of snakes, stinging insects and jellyfish. It's probably more related to Batrachotoxin than anything.

/"How was it delivered?"/

The doctor flinched back from her sudden appearance. "A… a ghost? Um. No, calm down…" He then answered much more evenly "His Majesty was drinking from wine given as a gift by the ambassador to Mismede. What is… batrachotoxin?"

"It's a type of poison from golden tree frogs."

Raul began nodding. "Yes, yes, something like that was my thought too. It's poison from an animal, not a plant. It's too deadly to be otherwise."

"Some of the most poisonous creatures in the world live in the Sea of Trees south of Mismede," said the Duke. "That's what makes this so… troublesome. It is believable that of all people, it's the beastkin from Mismede who could acquire that toxin."

"Right. I'm going to need to see this poisoned wine."

Duke Ortlinde called for the guards, and after a while they brought the wine and the wineglass the King was drinking from. I blinked.

/"Wait… Player, don't you think...?"/

"Yeah."

We cast diagnostic spells and it was as we expected. "This wine isn't even poisoned. The poison was laced onto the wineglass."

The Duke looked up sharply. "Are… are you sure?! You do know what that means, right?"

"Well if I wanted to assassinate somebody, that's how I would do it." I shrugged. "It would be much simpler compared to having to infiltrate someone else's compound and switch their gifts. If the poisoned party drops the glass and it shatters, it's also nicely self-removing of any evidence."

I pointed at the Duke. "Praise whoever secured this wineglass immediately. You were all so very very lucky it didn't shatter."

"Treason!" the Duke hissed. "How dare they?! All this time… first they dared to try to touch Sue, now they are brave enough to actually try to murder their king?! Unforgivable! Tristwin! I won't let them get away with this! The streets of the capital with run red with their blood! I won't care if they think I've become a tyrant who will benefit from your death, or a puppet of Mismede – I'll purge them all!"

Doctor Raul coughed into his fist to keep the Duke from raging out of control. "Ahem. Ahem. Perhaps before vengeance is sought, we might consider first if His Majesty can be cured?"

"Monika, would an antivenom work here?"

/"Not really. The antibodies produced from injecting small amounts of venom into cattle and then collected as a vaccine for poison resistance would only work against weaker venoms that don't kill almost instantly."/

"Sir Zah… it's… it's brain damage, right? Is there something you can do to help?"

Behind Sue, the Duke Ortilinde glared at us accusingly. Duchess Ellen was willing to wait for Sue to be able to cure her mother herself. But if we were to keep on hiding our abilities at this point, that would be unforgivable.

"Mmm. Yes. Well unlike Duchess Ellen, this only happened… what, this morning? So he would only lose half a day instead of five years of memory."

.-

-.

Thus, Monika cast [Rewind] and the King was blanketed with a bright white glow that faded away into a man with fuller cheeks and less deathly pallor.

He opened his eyes and yawned, as if waking up in the morning. He blinked. "Alfred? What are you doing here? And Sue too? Doctor Raul." And then upon noticing me, "And who is this (suspicious) person? Why are you all in my bedroom?"

A bit anticlimactic, but even TV medical drama was largely about trying to find the proper solution to an ailment, and the uncertainty if the treatment would be effective. There was also the desperation about the price and availability of treatment. None of these things were relevant to Healing magic.

And then he was informed of everything that happened in the lost hours of his day. "THOSE IMBECILES DID *WHAT?!*"

Even I winced at the raw overpowering fury in his roar.

.-

-.

"Darling!"

"Father!"

But most important things first, as soon as word could be given that the King was awake, the Queen and the Crown Princess rushed to his side. They had originally wanted to stay in the room to watch over him, but [Homo Stasis] meant he could neither wake up nor get better. Now they both flung themselves into his arms and hugged him for all their worth.

There was real warmth with them, this was not a royal family that saw each other merely as tools for prestige. King Tristwin stroked at his wife's hair as she cried into his arms, his own eyes barely able to hold back his tears.

"Oh my dear, I thought for sure that this time, I had lost you…"

"That's what I should be saying, you silly man!"

The Queen Yuel Ernea Belfast was a tall woman who looked far younger tha her years. Her blonde hair was a much lighter shade compared to the King's, the sides tied back and up to a bun, and the rest reached down in a wave past her hips. Her pale skin blushed red over her shoulders. Her pale purple bodice was cut scandalously low exposing the luscious swell of her back and breasts. She had green eyes.

The Crown Princess Yumina Ernea Belfast hugged her father's waist from the other side. She smiled in relief, taking in his warmth, and then looked up towards me. Her blond hair was much like her mother's a lighter platinum blond instead of Sue's deep corn-yellow. She was a teenager a bit older than Sue, and wore a frilly white dress with green accents. Her eyes were very noticeable, heterochromic blue in the right and green in the left.

Her gaze passed through the other people entering the room, following the huge whiskered man in the deep blue medaled military uniform. This man tromped over to me and asked "So… you are the mysterious doctor that saved His Majesty?! I am Leon Blitz, general of the Army. Please accept my thanks!" He put a fist to his chest and bowed deeply. "You need only to ask, I will do anything in my power to repay you for this great favor!"

I copied the gesture. "It is my honor to help. Don't worry about it. I am Zah Playa von Chara, and it's only lucky that the people I just so happened to be acquainted with decided to look to me first before any other solution."

He looked at the epaulets of my own outfit and its faintly military style as well. "Might I know to what order you belong, Sir Chara?"

"None. Not anymore, at least. I am an adventurer."

His thick brows narrowed in confusion. "Truly? How… odd. How would you like to become a named officer instead? We could start you off with a cavalry command. Or… ah! Perhaps it is not respectful of me to talk about rewards ahead of what His Majesty might grant. But do know that I am ready to assist in addition to that, just let me know."

I smiled thinly. "Thank you. Titles and such, I'm not interested. But it's always good to speak with other soldiers now and then. Politics is… such a messy business."

"Hah! True enough, true enough." General Blitz nodded. "Very well then, please excuse me. I also need to speak to His Majesty about the state of the castle's security." He bowed again and moved away.

Exposing that the Princess, now seated with her father, was still staring at me. She was certainly a beautiful girl, with her mother's slim and delicate build. Her slender face and sharp features made her seem like a crystal sculpture, too unbearably precious to touch. She was the very definition of the flower of the nobility.

Well… a white crystal flower, compared to Sue who was more like a fluffy pink marshmallow. She was beautiful, but Sue was cute with these squishy cheeks that you couldn't help but to pinch and hug and protect her foreverrr!

Huh. The Princess' gaze sharpened all of a sudden.

That intense silent stare… you dare challenge me? Leaving aside how my eyes were covered and as such it would be difficult to prove that I blinked, this was an unfair stare-off. Linze had been giving me yandere eyes. Monika had been watching me sleep. I was no stranger to weird looks.

I leaned against the wall and jutted out my chin. Bring it on!

Princess Yumina's eyes narrowed slightly, and she almost blinked. Then she resumed staring.

Stare.

Staaaare.

Girl, I had a white cat with heterochromic eyes exactly like yours! I loved the heck out of that cat. Then we gave away her kittens and she ran away and never came back...

... Aw, now I just have a sad.

Staaaaaaare.

"Sir Chara!"

I blinked in surprise at the sudden shout. The King stood up, grinning, and beckoned to introduce me to his family. The Princess raised a gloved hand to hide her lips. Her eyes glittered with merry satisfaction.

Dangit.

-.

.-

The King's hands were shaking slightly as he poured himself a new safe glass of brandy. It was not fear. It was rage that shook him so. "It's not every day…" he began to whisper. "It's not every day a man gets a second chance at life." He stared powerfully at me and then at his brother. "When I heard about this young man who saved my niece's life, and then hired on as a tutor for medicine… never did I expect this.

"You have done more than just save my life. You have saved this kingdom from eating itself alive. I owe you a debt gratitude that I can't even begin to describe. Tell me what you want, and if it is at all in my power, I shall have it done. Do you want a title? There shall shortly be some titles and lands that will soon be… open for assignment."

"Ahaha…" I scratched at my cheeks, embarrassed. "Saving the kingdom twice in one day is certainly not how I expected this to go…"

"What was that?" Duke Alfred asked.

"Um. Nothing. I mean… I'm quite comfortable right now. There's really not much in my life I'd really want, you know?" I opened my arms out in a helpless shrug. "I'm already getting all the research I need with Charlotte, there's not much that can be done on that front. Adding more manpower or budget would only confuse the issue."

The King quirked an eyebrow at his brother, who merely shrugged too in answer. "Sir Zah Playa von Chara values his independence. Titles and land would just tie him down."

"And yet for such a free person, he was in the right place at the right time to save us all. This is almost a miracle." The king sighed and gestured with his wine glass. "Mere money would be an insulting way to repay this service. An open-ended favor for later… is not enough to show my appreciation right now. You see my problem here, Alfred?"

"Wait, pardon me, it's not actually MY power that healed you, you know? There's someone else you should be thanking."

/"If Player did not wish for it to happen, no one would be healed. And I have even LESS need for any riches or acclaim. Player, go accept everything in my stead."/ Monika's voice came out of the walls.

"A young man bonded to a spirit of knowledge." The King took a quick shot from his glass. "Miraculous indeed." Then he stared at me very carefully over the rim of the glass. "Showering you with gifts and my patronage… that might not be a good thing at this point, this I have just realized."

I nodded and leaned back on the chair. "It's not over after all. There's still the guilty party to punish. If they can get at you, certainly they can get at other people around you. If they dare to do this now… then they can try and try again. They only need to succeed once."

The King of Belfast grumbled like a lion. "Those bastards! They take me too lightly! If they want war, they'll have it! I won't let me try anything that will harm my family any more. Alfred! We'll mobilize the troops! It's time to carve the rot out of this country!"

The Duke Ortlinde held out his hands, almost ashamed."Ahh. Tristwin… while I was quite ready to do that when it looked like you were about to die, now that I think about it, we can't just attack everyone who has ever disagreed with us, you know?"

Nobility had its privileges but then also the duty to raise troops. A kingdom like Belfast could not afford a professional national army. Regulus was large enough to field Legions, but Belfast did not have a Napoleon to reorganize its forces.

"I have done my best to deal fairly with these people! I have tried hard to continue our father's reforms without being called Tristwin the Tyrant, as enough nobles and common folk still feared what he needed to do after seizing power from his father, and what he had to do to win the war against Regulus. These people have grown fat off my kindness, and arrogant! Examples must be made!"

He sat down and roughly exhaled. "After what they tried to do to Sushie… Alfred, just give me a name. Any name."

"Your Highness…" I spoke up slowly. "It is not the fear of intense penalty that inhibits criminals. For of course no matter the severity, criminals do not think they would ever be caught. It is the guarantee of being discovered, it is the swiftness of being punished. That is what prevents malfeasance."

"That is just what I said. I can't afford to sit on this."

A small smile crossed my lips. "You need to have this done today. By tonight, you should raid the perpetrator before anyone has the time to destroy evidence or flee with their riches."

"Yes. What is your point, Sir Zah Playa?"

"I'll be honest here, I don't care much about your political situation. But you are good people, and kidnapping children and attempted regicide crosses the line. I have a name." I raised my own little glass of amber liquid. "Count Balza."

The brothers turned to me and I explained "That's the name of the person that accosted us on the way here."

The Duke nodded. "How fortuitous. I was about to say that name as well."

I smirked as Monika replayed the conversation.

.-

.- "Heh heh heh. That Duke is far too sympathetic to the likes of things like a

.- beastman. If word of this gets out, and the beast doesn't get her head

.- chopped off and sent back to Mismede, I wonder what the other nobles

.- will think?"

.-

.- "Oh, wait. It's not him that's next in line for the throne, isn't it? It's our

.- poor sweet little Princess Yumina. Heh heh heh. I wonder what that

.- sweet young thing will have to do to get the support of the nobles

.- behind her. A good war needs a strong leader… a real man!"

.-

The brothers looked at me, and then at each other. "All right. Just from that, he has to die," said the King.

"I suppose knowing that no conversation with you can ever be truly confidential should be discomfiting, but right now I just don't really care," said the Duke. "I trust you. A more guilty person I have never seen."

And Monika whispered /"Player, consigning someone to death just because he has a loathsome personality, are you really mentally prepared for that?"/

My conscience would never be bothered by helping certain people achieve the Darwin Awards they're so moronically working so hard to claim.

"I agree, it should be largely an open and shut case." I shrugged. "He's just a mere Count though. Isn't he a little too low to benefit from this? It's so stupid to be here in the middle of the assassination plot that even I'm feeling that it's too damn obvious that I almost can't believe it.

"Can anyone REALLY be that stupid and so needy with instant gratification that'd he would risk being caught out just to see it happen with his own eyes. And then TAUNT the bereaved with 'nya nyah, you can't prove anything!'"

"Yes," said the King.

"Sure," said the Duke. "Happens all the time."

"There are a lot of cretins in the nobility," King Tristwin added.

I sighed. "What is known about Count Balza?"

"Mmm. As far as I know, he has no wife nor children. His relatives are all vigorously opposed to letting demi-humans integrate into our society…" said the Duke. His eyes narrowed as he realized the implications.

I nodded. "He's just too disposable. Looks like he's also being set up to be killed off in glorious revenge."

"But if you were not around, he… they… would have succeeded!" the king roared. "They do not test me. If after my death Alfred decided to destroy him, the other nobles would rally together rather than feel they're next. Whatever confessions we would be able to get from him, no one would trust it.

King Tristwin then sighed. "I will still destroy him though, do not doubt me on that."

Duke Ortlinde began to laugh. "In hindsight, the whole scheme is just that easy to figure out; if it's not in the wine, obvious it's in the glass. But no one will fully believe the ambassador's guilt. War will happen, if not immediately then as a response to my actions.

"If I choose not to execute the ambassador, the nobles will rebel, as they have been planning. If I do, we will have war with Mismede. Ahahaha! All of this plotting… Useless! USELESS! No one could have expected you to just appear and make everything they worked for all for nothing. Thank you again, Sir Playa. If you hadn't by chance been traveling the road at that time… ah, truly, the gods still have mercy."

I nodded, accepting the praise like a stone upon a deep pool with barely a ripple to mark its passing. "But now as you have survived, this has become a test for Your Highness. His guilt must be beyond doubt. You could use this to rally support to you instead."

"And you have an idea as to how, I suppose?" the King asked with a quirked eyebrow.

I chuckled darkly as I swirled the brandy in my wine glass. I raised it high again in a silent toast, drank deep, and then explained.

The King laughed at hearing my plan. Then he slammed his fist upon the table and hissed "I approve! Let us try that, then!"

-.

.-

AN:

2018 has been such a weird year.