CHAPTER XXVI.
Leila watched the Sacred Tree grow smaller and smaller with the distance with her older sister sleeping on her lap.
Fleeing the country wasn't her first choice, but once again Serge and Emile ignored her!
Now they have departed towards Holfort with a ship loaded with powerful knight armors and a corpse in the fridge…
The plan was to blame Loic's murder on someone in the kingdom, preferably the Villainess husband so Serge could justify killing the man to prove Emile wrong!
Because of course, the way to escape murder is more murder!
If this was her previous life they would have to… well, she has no idea what to do in her old life to kill someone and get away with it!
It didn't really matter right now, it could even prove to be the right choice considering that the war between the kingdom and the principality should be starting soon, and she would have two high profile witnesses backing her up this time.
How did her life become this web of lies and death?
0x0x0x0
It was a peaceful night, she was able to comfortably sleep alongside Jilk, it was the first time she allowed him to have a turn after all the events of the Tourney.
The sun was about to rise and she would start a wonderful new day as Holfort's Saintess with her five handsome lovers and her dedicated elf personal servant.
However the earth started to shake, a familiar yet unfamiliar sensation she experienced for the first time in her second life, floating islands do not have tectonic plates to collide and create quakes so this was a novel experience… somewhat, since Japan trembled all the time and their buildings were constructed with that fact in mind and had designs to withstand the common occurrence.
However, quakes were not something unknown to the people of this world.
"DAMINT!" that woke up Jilk instantly, and he wasn't happy.
They were supposed to have at least three months before they sent the military to clear the Capital's dungeon Final Boss!
That's right, quakes were produced by the defeat of a large dungeon's Final Boss.
It was a common practice to send the army to clear the dungeon every four years to obtain the precious resources that would accumulate in the time in between raids.
Her five lovers and her were training hard to be able to do it with just the seven of them and obtain the gold, some rarer minerals and the precious magic stones used to power about everything in this world.
They would have acquired a fortune once they succeeded, of course, her handsome boys were only in it for the prestige since they have enough money to last them various lavish lifetimes… so they wouldn't have had any problems with her keeping it all.
Like the other times.
Jilk was getting up and dressing himself, probably to inform his foster brother Julius about the event if he wasn't awakened by the quake.
Someone had stolen the kingdom's treasure. Her treasure!
She hastily put on a robe and accompanied him to the common area they liked to use; in their path various other students were also getting out of their rooms, all of them curious or furious.
Some of them liked to pretend they would be the ones to reach the very bottom of the dungeon and claim the treasure for themselves… fools.
It was a nightmare journey to hell she only saw completed in youtube videos by pro players she had no hope to complete with her stiff hands in her other life.
She only believed she could do it this time because in her own estimations her handsome boys were strong enough to complete it easily, after hundreds of hours of training Marie believed they had finally surpassed the endgame stats they needed to complete the game and get her the good ending she yearned for.
Once they arrived her other five boys, Kyle included, were waiting for them.
"So you all felt it too?" Jilk asked without even bothering to greet their friends.
"We waited too long!" a dejected Greg wailed while glaring at Chris, Greg was the one pushing for the dungeon dive the most, he was the one with the idea and the one in the most hurry and Chris was the one who pushed the idea they needed to prepare more, to train more.
She agreed with Chris' sensible argument and they decided they would do it sometime in two months from today, three months back then. She was more than a little afraid of the monsters down there.
But now…
"Anyone can pay the fee and go as deep as they want…" Brad said neutrally before looking at Greg "but no private party has defeated Sheeptard in over a hundred years, it's been the army every time, and we knew when they were going to go for him there was no rush!"
The purple haired boy has always favored Chris over Greg among his friends and the in-fighters of their party had a rather childish rivalry that tended to go out of hand if they are left to their own devices.
"Brad is right, Greg, what is important now is who got those resources!" Julius said energetically.
The kingdom was in need of every DIa they could get their hands on for obvious reasons, and even she was planning to part with half the treasure to help with the oncoming war effort!
"The name should be in the registers of the entrance" Chris said calmly, everytime an adult adventurer enters the dungeon they have to identify themselves, pay a small fee and give up part of their loot as tax to the kingdom.
Students were exempt from the fee and taxes.
"We should go check the records and get at least the names of the people who did this!" This time it was Jilk who spoke, his calm and collected voice showing more distress than he had ever displayed before.
"Yes, we should go" this was yet another event out of script, in the game, the protagonist and her love interest were the ones to clear the dungeon in the third year and she had a bad feeling about this.
They retreated to their rooms to get changed and headed for the dungeon's entrance.
It was a tense trip, many male students walked ahead and behind them in an improvised royal guard composed mostly of Viscount heirs but she even recognized a few future Counts, she could recognize Ethan Fou Robson walking a few meters ahead of her group.
The first year brat had been seen around Angelica's sister in law a lot according to Kyle.
It was suspicious of a future Count to spend so much time around the… third daughter? Second daughter? Well she was the daughter of a Baron, the reports were not clear about her place in the succession line for her House.
Especially since said Baron family was heavily suspected of sedition!
Speaking of barons, there were no poor nobles around either…
When they arrived at the Dungeon entrance they jumped ahead of the crowd and sequestered the receptionist inside her own office when she was giving explanations to the other students and the few commoners that gathered around to know who cleared the Dungeon.
The well endowed woman was frantically looking at the register, clumsily trying to flip the pages to the most recent ones.
There were always people inside the Dungeon, some adventurers would even camp in the middle rooms to maximize their profits so they didn't even have a time frame to narrow down their search.
Finally the nervous woman produced a list of the adventurers still inside the dungeon and handed it over to Jilk who read it out loud.
All of them were commoners.
"This is useless"! Greg almost shouted, "None of those names could be the ones that conquered Sheeptard!"
She took that as the opportunity to read the list herself and looked it from top to bottom, it was full of commoners without Fou or Fia on their names, parties of up to ten members all of them commoners, but near the very bottom of the list there was something interesting, just one name plus nine companions…
Who is Joan of Spring Valley?
It didn't really matter if that particular party decided to remain anonymous, but they had entered just 5 days ago… they didn't have the time to reach the Final boss in such little time, they would have to breeze through the first ninety floors to get there in such a short amount of time!
"Well, whoever it was, they should be taking the Victory Road out of there, so they will be out in about two days" Said Julius, he was right of course, she would have pointed it out herself but she couldn't have said that with a straight face.
It sounded a bit too much like pokemon, and while she loved their designs she lost her love for the games because she could never beat her older brother in their past life, he had such an underhanded way to fight, always using poison types to win by stacking the damage and then finishing off with the heavy hitter he made out of the starter of the game in turn, he managed to defeat her even if she made a team full of ground and psychic types!
So annoying!
Unlike the pokemon games, in this world the Victory road is an easy path outside the dungeon, no monsters spawn on it and it's just a straight path only available after you attain Victory.
"Probably longer" Said the receptionist, "They do have to collect, distribute and carry the loot all the way out" this was probably something she heard quite a lot about, but then she shut her mouth close as if she just noticed she contradicted the Crown Prince!
"Good point! Thank you" Julius was still happy whenever someone did not show him the full respect someone must have for his status, but this time it was something good, it calmed the receptionist.
After a while they left, this wasn't their business, at least not officially, besides, she was sure the Queen would be able to bully whoever managed to conquer the dungeon into giving the lion's share of the loot to the kingdom, so they left eager to at least know who it was.
She had a bad feeling about this.
0x0x0
Finn Luta Herring, he was not born in the Holfort Kingdom, he came here acting as the Guardian Knight of the illegitimate daughter of the emperor of his homeland.
Milialice Lux Erzeberg or Mia as she preferred to be called is also the protagonist of the third installment of a certain Otome game he watched his little sister play in his previous life, and she also happened to be an adorable person, so he decided to do everything in his power to help her when she suddenly fell ill.
He remembered that in the game Milialice was able to find a miraculous power by studying abroad in the Holfort kingdom, so he suggested it to his Majesty the Emperor.
He was shocked when the Emperor agreed easily to his proposal, but even more when he learned that he was another reincarnated person.
So he was here as Mia's bodyguard and to screen out those lousy love interests that would approach her as soon as she entered the academy.
Except it didn't happen, none of the boys approached her for some reason, and he was glad for it, all of them were nothing more than a bunch of worms in his eyes, undeserving of such a great person as Mia.
He worried that the events of the games have deviated too much from his knowledge, he was sure that the Saintess is also someone that reincarnated in this world and she used her knowledge to supplant the original protagonist.
But she was doing a good job strengthening the love interest so he left her alone.
The Villainess of the third game paid Mia no mind and instead focused all of her attention on some mob girl that he was sure was never mentioned even once in the plot of the original game.
Said girl is the sister-in-law of the villainess of the first installment of the game, and considering the current situation, it made a lot of sense.
The VIllainess, Angelica Fou Bartfort is probably another reincarnated person, she probably gave up on becoming Queen and chose to focus on strengthening her husband so she could preserve the script of the game and take over after the game events.
He could respect that.
But he would not allow any harm to befall his charge, and he has a powerful cheat item at his disposal to ensure that.
If necessary he would squash the rebellion himself to keep Mia safe and happy!
Why was he so sure Angelica was a reincarnated person?
Simple, the woman got her husband promoted twice in his lifetime, as if he was some kind of shonen protagonist and she was just now making her triumphant return to the academy, students belonging to her father's faction had gathered to watch her group arrive and let everyone know she was coming.
And the well known fact that the Duke's fleet is menacingly close to the capital in case the promotion ceremony is a trap to kill or capture his daughter kinda proves she is un-canonically close to her father too.
She entered the academy with the Baron, and some of her followers were driving a carriage with a huge wagon with a mesh fence full of gold, rare mineral ores, artifacts and at the very front of the carriage there was the horns of Sheeptard who was in reality a ram… judging by the fact it had Horns!, even the art concepts you get as extra content show he is a ram!
And there were another three wagons coming behind them carrying the same kind of cargo.
The loot of the dungeon is legendary, the neighboring countries pay a fortune for the almost unbreakable ores found in,,, the segmented tail of the boss.
Alchemists claimed they could brew immortality potions from Sheeptar's liver, it was too bad no one took them seriously and the liver was used instead to produce the finest liquors in the world!
Anyway, the Villainess had wielded her love interest like a pro. The man didn't look like much but he was certainly capable if they managed to clear the whole dungeon.
Soon the other reincarnated person in the academy showed up, it was Marie, the Saintess, and she was accompanied by all her captured targets. None of them looked happy as expected.
This was a huge blow against the Crown, he could see war coming on two fronts, but the domestic problem seemed to be the most troublesome one of them.
"What are you doing here Angelica?" the Crown Prince asked aggressively and then his eyes widened at the sight of the horns on her carriage "How dare you steal those from the kingdom!".
It seems very few people knew what the horns on display were meant to be, because before now no one had raised any fuss over them, but the prince and his friends certainly knew of them. From what he has been hearing, it was usually the job of the kingdom's army to clear the dungeon and retrieve the loot and treasure accumulated there, preparations were done once they confirmed the Final Boss, Sheeptard, has respawned.
Of course this left a window of time for adventurers to enter the dungeon and attempt to steal it.
And worse…
"We stole nothing, we even paid a small fortune in advance to get the tax exception your Highness," Angelica said showing a document for all to see.
"And according to the kingdom laws, this is all now property of my family!" The villainess had a smug expression plastered on her beautiful face, the same could be said about all of her party, except her husband, no way is he calling that guy beautiful, now way in hell!
But it was true, the tax exception was something he learned about a month ago, in classes, but it seemed so worthless back then, to obtain it you needed to pay what was, as the villainess said, a small fortune, it would probably exceed the gains of most regular dungeon divers usual expeditions.
But not this one, the wealth of a complete, successful raid was beyond outstanding!
The tax exemption was probably designed thinking that there was an exceedingly low number of people who would seriously try to do a complete raid, and even less people who would have a chance to succeed.
And the fact that the kingdom's army lost about half of their members every time they were assigned with the task because of how dangerous it is. It could even be said that the tax exception was designed to rip off overly ambitious adventurers.
However, the villainess succeeded in weakening her enemies while gaining additional funds for herself thanks to some of the more absurd laws of this adventurer worshiping land.
"What are you doing here anyway!" This time it was the green haired boy who spoke, from what he understands he is the lowest ranked among the Prince's entourage, however as the prince's foster brother he had an advisor job secured for his future so he has a lot of weight to throw around.
"You were exiled from the capital!" He could hear the satisfaction on the man's voice, it was a rather foolish mistake he did not expect the woman to make, and he fully expected some clever and legal excuse for her to be here.
"Always so eager to attack my family, Green Clown!" This time it was the villainess husband speaking, he could see the resentment the man had written all over his face even from his position behind the Prince's entourage "Angelica was never formally exiled!" The Baron just glared at the prince's underling with pure hatred, there must be a story behind that glare.
"How do we know that paper isn't just a forgery?!" the purple haired boy of their group asked, Finn moved closer to the prince's group, they would probably get to see that document up close soon.
The Baron got down from their carriage and walked without hesitation towards the royal group with the paper in hand, but the physically most imposing boy, the one with red hair, from the Prince's group stepped ahead to intercept him.
Undaunted, the Baron tried to walk around him but the red headed boy extended his arm to impede his advance.
The Baron just extended the document without advancing any further, the green headed one retrieved it before handing it to the prince, everyone not only kept silent, but he could swear some of the people in the crowd held their breath to not miss the Prince's reaction.
"Tsk!" wise decision because that reaction could only mean that the document was real!
Talk about taking a mile when being offered an inch!
When the red headed boy heard the Prince's "tsk" he violently pushed the Baron away in pure frustration… or he tried to!
In an instant he had his face on the hard paved floor of the academy, and he had the Baron's foot on his neck and his arm trapped in a vice grip, just a few more degrees and the arm would…
CRACK
Never mind!
"Do not you dare to touch me you stupid lordling!" There was even more silence now than a moment ago, Finn himself could barely believe what just happened, the Baron had taken down the boy in a flash!
And while they were looking at the red headed boy writhe in pain on the floor the Baron calmly walked up to the prince and snatched the document from him, turned around and walked back to his wife.
Stuned the prince did not react immediately, but a second after the Baron had shown him his back the prince started to walk to catch the Baron.
He was stopped, by a hand on his shoulder, a tall boy, nearly as big as the one suffering in the floor had stopped him.
He knew of him, despite his rather forgettable face, he was the leader of the Poor Barons group of the academy and there was something else important about him…
"Don't do it your Highness, you are surrounded!" he whispered into the Prince's ear, but he was sure everyone around him heard him!
Looking around there was indeed a great number of low ranking nobles all glaring at the Royal entourage. A young girl walked past them holding the arm of a rather handsome boy, the nonchalance of the act was stupefying!
"Big Brother Daniel, let's go Leon is waiting for us" she said prompting the future Baron to release the frozen Prince, and walk ahead with the couple up to the carriages where he greeted a young woman with a bow before helping her to board the carriage the proper way and boarding it himself, a second later the carriage turned around and left the academy in the midst of the cheers of the poor Barons.
Finley Fou Bartfort and Ethan Fou Robson,
The man who threatened the Prince was said to be engaged with the oldest Bartfort daughter!
"Greg!" Only then the other reincarnated reacted and hurried to heal the broken arm of one of her lovers. One of the finalists of the National Tourney was incapacitated in a flash by a rebel.
Finn looked at the bespectacled blue haired boy, The Champion as he asked to be called, he did not look perturbed by how easily his rival had lost, but rather satisfied…
Looking around Finn could see the lower ranked students dispersing, but the show of unity they displayed won't be forgotten.
It was worrying, at this rate the kingdom might actually be defeated and who knows what will happen to Mia and himself in the new regime.
If the worst comes to happen, he can always take his charge and bail out, no matter who gets in his way, no matter their numbers, his companion brave would make escape easy, no modern armor can compare to his cheat item!