Chapter 13: Pursuit Through the Thorned Path

I watched the Imperial soldiers and officer-mages, and the freshly stamped agreement in turn.

The Imperial soldiers glared at us with expressions that clearly said they would never accept this.

Right, we need to run away quickly.

I put my sword to Sormanzer’s throat.

“Sormanzer. From this moment on you are Lady Ribelia’s prisoner. If you do not resist, I promise you proper treatment according to the inter-house accord.”

“That broken mage Anplus.”

Sormanzer ground his teeth.

“Born with clear blood and yet you became a knight?”

“That’s not something a mage who lost outright to a knight should be saying.”

Sormanzer glanced between my sword and his camp.

His pupils flickered this way and that.

I held out my hand to him politely and said, “Don’t try to shake me off and run. As you said, I have become a knight; I can catch up to someone like you easily.”

“If you make any strange move I’ll start by cutting off your limbs. So it would be better to follow obediently. I don’t want to be struck by lightning from your furious mages either.”

Sormanzer trembled as if humiliated.

I examined Ribelia’s broken leg.

Tears ran from my sister’s tightly shut eyes.

With a blue light, she finished recovering and kicked the chair away.

I leveled my sword at Sormanzer’s throat and slowly stepped back.

Two Imperial officer-mages clicked their tongues. ( clicked his tongue )

Could this turn into an all-out brawl?

I watched the Imperial soldiers and mages warily, feeling nervous.

The soldiers did not lower their crossbows, but the mages did not gather mana either.

Our officer-mages behaved the same.

Without any signalling, one hundred elite soldiers of the Intezeruto moved back in perfect formation.

The Imperial soldiers trailed behind at a distance of two hundred paces.

Our troops retreated down to the foot of the hill where we had camped.

The maids, servants, and a few soldiers waiting in the camp gaped, unable to follow what was happening.

“What on earth is going on?”

“Why did the Imperial army come all the way here?”

“The Young Master is holding someone.”

From a distance a wax maid ran up.

Seeing the Imperial army lined up below the hill doing nothing, she glared at me as if she’d been struck.

Ribelia ground her teeth when she saw the wax maid and ordered the two officer-mages.

“We’ll flee straight to the main house. Throw away anything unnecessary. If they chase, speed will be our life.”

The two officer-mages nodded.

“It will be a perilous retreat operation.”

“I’ll have one more adventure tale to tell the ladies at the main house.”

“And… even if word spreads that I reversed my order, ignore it.”

“Eh? Yes.”

“Orders received.”

The two officer-mages answered with a salute like commoners before blue blood.

After issuing the orders, Ribelia seemed to relax and sank onto the grass.

“Milady!”

Nearby soldiers hurried over and helped her into a chair.

It was no wonder she might faint.

That timid girl had endured an abduction, a breaking, and all manner of things.

Bringing up the rear, I was about to enter the camp with Sormanzer.

Then an Imperial officer-mage blew a horn.

He raised his hand and pointed alternately at his own eyes and at Sormanzer.

“Stay where you can be seen and don’t go far, they request. Anplus. Will you allow it?”

Sormanzer asked weakly.

I called a soldier to bring two chairs to this spot.

“Bring water! Freeze it now.”

“Leave the tent and only take blankets! We must lighten the load!”

“Eh, Lady Ribelia is supposedly departing tomorrow morning…”

“Who’s spouting that nonsense!”

Soldiers ran about hauling baggage.

“Wouldn’t it be heavy to carry that sword?” Sormanzer said casually as he passed.

“The cat worries about the mouse.”

I retorted reflexively with a sneer.

“That’s still worrying.”

Sormanzer smiled like an adult.

Even with my sword pointed at him, he flopped into a chair as if he’d entered a parlor.

His relaxed air loosened my mouth as well.

“I grew up watching a lot of magic at the main house. With one blast of your magic, this whole camp and those carriages would be blown away. Don’t let your guard down.”

“Knowing that, you still became a knight?”

Sormanzer opened his pale eyes coolly and continued, “If I were you I’d have become the house administrator or magistrate. You don’t have to stand on the battlefield to be a respected noble.”

I shook my head.

“Then why do you want to stand on the battlefield? You must know your lineage cannot surpass the direct silver-haired royal line.”

Sormanzer made a face as if he’d been hit, then chuckled.

“Yeah. The limits of lineage are my limits. I know that, yet I can’t bring myself to give up.”

I nodded.

“Me too.”

To become a knight, make feats like a mage, and be recognized as a noble.

A heady dream.

“What else can we do. I simply can’t give up.”

At my words the blond, pale-eyed half-blood royal sighed and raised both hands.

“As you say, I will do my best to fulfill my ambition. You’d better be on edge. If I escape safely, I’ll do whatever it takes to nullify this agreement.”

“Fine.”

“But I will not resist now. You may lower your sword.”

“How can I trust you?”

“You’re not killing me now, are you?”

“I’d die if I fought your sea-blue officer-mages.”

“I’d die if I fought you too,” Sormanzer said, smiling faintly at me.

At least I felt no falsehood in that expression.

I kept my tension and propped my elbow on the armrest.

I saw the wax maid and an ordinary maid lift Ribelia into the carriage.

“Lord Anplus!”

Our officer-mage called to me.

The carriage began to descend the eastern slope of the hill.

A knight ran up to me and handed over the reins of a horse.

“Go.”

I helped Sormanzer up and headed toward the Imperial troops.

Two officer-mages with extravagant wigs in sea-blue watched me.

One of them held a broken piece of Sormanzer’s foot ornament.

They found that already?

Soldiers and knights in ochre-brown cloaks watched me with a mix of hostility and envy.

I lightly shoved Sormanzer’s back and announced, “I, Anplus of the Intezeruto House, declare on behalf of the heir Ribelia that the captive has been freed.”

The two sea-blue officer-mages inclined their heads slightly toward me.

When we meet again they’ll drop lightning on me.

I vaulted onto my horse and spurred it.

One hundred elite soldiers, ten knights, and two officer-mages watched my back.

Their gazes were heavy, and also thrilling.

A forced march that only ran as fast as the horses would not fall continued for four days.

After the reclaimed plains ended, we entered a forest path again.

Our officer-mage who manipulates earth raised a thorn fence along the narrow forest road.

“It won’t block them completely, but it should buy us some time.”

I didn’t know whether the Imperial soldiers would pursue us.

But it’s our job to always prepare for the worst.

“Please let me see the lady!”

Even on the way back, peasants we passed fell prostrate and implored whenever we went through a village.

Soldiers cracked their whips and aimed crossbows to drive the peasants away.

“Move aside!”

“This is urgent! Send them all away!”

The elite troops, anxious that Imperial officer-mages might be following, hurried on perhaps beyond what was comfortable.

“Hold on even if you’re tired.”

“We don’t know when they’ll catch up.”

Before dawn, we rose and cleaned up signs of sleeping; only when night fell and it was pitch black did we prepare the camp.

Because we’d left quickly we couldn’t retrieve oil-soaked tents, so the soldiers slept each night damp from dew, but no one complained.

“Lord Anplus. We will make camp here tonight.”

“Do as you say.”

Before preparing camp, the squad leaders came up and reported the situation to me.

It was their way of showing respect.

Their treatment of me had clearly changed from before the accord.

On the march they had shown only awe toward the Young Master, but now that merged with the respect due a knight.

The soldiers reported to me and requested orders, not only to the two officer-mages.

At first I wondered if I was overstepping, glancing at the officer-mages, but they too took it for granted that I would receive reports and make decisions.

“Today’s sentries are squads 1 and 4. Squad 3 will prepare the ladies’ and officer-mages’ sleeping places and get a fire going. Squads 2 and 5 will prepare meals.”

Watching the orders progress, I gathered firewood.

A soldier approached me.

“What is it?”

“There’s a problem with a carriage wheel, reporting in.”

We had been forcing the march daily; problems were to be expected.

“Can’t it be fixed?”

There was no need to report such a minor issue to me.

“It looks worse than usual.”

The soldier lowered his voice as if he couldn’t say it here.

I followed him to the back of the carriage.

“I’ve worked as a mechanic until now and I’ve never seen a wheel broken like this.”

He pointed; one spoke was completely torn out.

It couldn’t possibly roll in this state.

It hadn’t broken while running.

“Yes. It really is strange as you say.”

I examined the broken section carefully.

The torn area was carbonized.

When I touched it with my hand it crumbled lightly.

“Was it burned to break?”

“Eh?”

“No. Can it be repaired?”

“Yes. We have spare parts and tools, so we can fix it.”

“Good. When it’s all fixed, don’t put it back on right away — bring it to me.”

“Yes. Understood.”

Seeing the iron rim of the wheel melted too, it was clear it wasn’t scorched by a casual torch.

Someone had deliberately burned it with flame magic.

Besides the officer-mages who followed Ribelia, there was only one blue-blooded person left here.

The wax maid — surely it was her.

She kept interfering with Ribelia, pushing her into danger.

Perhaps the planned test ended too easily.

This was…

Anger flared up.

Kidnapped and nearly killed and still the test was insufficient?

I bit my lip and thought.

If we wait until after an incident to solve it, it will be too late.

We must strike from our side.

I recalled what the wax maid had reacted sensitively to.

“Sentry.”

I called the soldier on sentry duty.

“Yes, Lord Anplus.”

“What happened to the thief we caught on the way?”

“Still in the baggage carriage. We’ve been guarding him tightly every day.”

“Good. I need to interrogate him. Bring him out.”

“Understood.”

Blue blood with strong regenerative power do not fear the aftereffects of torture.

To extract information from those who have no fear of permanent disability requires tremendous pain.

So the Empire’s tortures grew crueler and crueller.

Of course, I don’t know much about torture techniques.

Being a torturer isn’t a job for honored blue blood.

But that thief was a commoner.

He would have no knowledge of the nobles’ ecology.

We tied him to a chair, placed two braziers on either side, and set two nasty-looking soldiers beside me like screens.

It created a fairly convincing atmosphere.

“Please spare me.”

The thief already looked terrified, trembling like a leaf and looking at me with pitiful eyes.

I said flatly to him, “If you tell the truth you’ll be allowed to go home.”

“Yes, yes.”

“But if you lie I will find your whole family and send them to the underground prison of the manor.”

“I’ll tell everything truthfully.”

I nodded and asked, “Who passed you the crossbow?”

“We made it.”

A lie from the start.

A high-tension crossbow is a weapon that can kill blue blood, and nobles naturally paid attention that such weapons not fall into the hands of commoners.

Key parts were only made in forges managed by the main house or named branch houses.

No way such a thief could have made one.

I signaled the soldier.

He gripped the thief’s jaw with a gloved hand and forced his mouth open.

Then he pushed a thin awl into his mouth.

A torture that breaks teeth and stabs nerves.

Perhaps sensing what the soldier would do, the thief’s pupils contracted.

“No, please!”

“Then you should have told the truth.”

I answered indifferently.

The soldier raised the awl behind him to strike.

The thief shut his eyes and cried out.

“The blue blood passed us the crossbow!”

I’d guessed as much.

I waved the soldier back.

“Tell me more in detail.”

“I don’t know the details either. A blue-blooded person with wrinkles in his face gave our boss the crossbow and told us to ambush the passing carriage.”

“To ambush the carriage?”

“He said, kill them all.”

Something small but crucial was learned.

He said the man had wrinkles in his face.

Blue bloods live long.

Usually they die on the battlefield or in power struggles before they grow old.

If a line grows old, they don’t usually rise to a position to siphon off so many large crossbows — only a senior elder of a deep-blooded branch or main house would.

I frowned and pondered.

Was the thief’s ambush part of the test, or was there a traitor inside the house?

Or…

I muttered softly under my breath.

“Is the house head trying to eliminate Ribelia?”

A line from a detective novel I read in a past life came to mind.

If you rule out all the impossible things, the truth that remains is the truth.

“Lord Anplus. Have you found out anything?”

At that moment, a clear voice echoed from the previously empty woods.

The wax maid, her clothes neatly fastened, walked out among the great trees with light steps.

There had been no feeling of her approach at all.

When had she been watching me?

The soldier beside me drew a small breath.

There were scorch marks on the wax maid’s white clothes.