Chapter 218: 116. Big Eyes -1 (Part One)
That was more powerful than I expected.
The toy dagger managed to not just pierce through the doll, but it even destroyed the shelf as well.
Some part of it was down to me injecting divinity inside her body, but this result should mostly be chalked up to Yuria’s diligent training for the past two years.
But even then, how could something like this even be possible?
Was it related to my game-like system? That couldn’t be it…
It shouldn’t be possible for me to use this sort of ability while relying on the game system. There was also the Necromancer profession’s unique nature to consider here, so yeah, it shouldn’t work at all.
Which could only mean…
“…This phenomenon is linked to this world’s laws.”
I muttered without even realising it and Yuria tilted her head after hearing my words.
It was at that moment we heard someone sobbing their eyes out.
We turned our heads and stared at the shop owner, who was currently kneeling on the ground lamenting his terrible luck while picking up the pieces of his dolls.
It was obvious that he’d be in a lot of pain after witnessing the dolls he had personally crafted get ripped to pieces.
Yuria flinched in shock and hurriedly bowed her head to apologise. “I, I’m so sorry!”
I walked up to the shop owner. “Sorry about this.”
We unintentionally ended up using his precious place of business for my little experiment.
“Although this might not be enough to cover the losses of your precious dolls, do take it.”
I placed some gold coins in the owner’s hands. This should be enough to pay for not just his wrecked shop, but also the destroyed dolls as well.
“O-oh my goodness, such a large sum of money…!”
The shop owner’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, he then began happily laughing away despite all the tear stains still visible on his cheeks.
Well, at least he looked satisfied, so it should be all good.
Yuria and I put the shop behind us and headed to the biggest merchant group in Elusha. This group offered a courier service where they delivered packages or letters for a price.
I didn’t know where it was located, so I asked Yuria to take me there.
“How did you do that earlier? I really used divinity back then, didn’t I?”
She asked me with an excited voice like a pure, still-naive child.
Honestly? I had no idea how I should go about answering her. After all, I too couldn’t explain this phenomenon.
But still, the destructive power on display was quite considerable. It was way too much to just gloss over and say everything’s alright.
If me healing someone was enough to ‘install’ divinity in them, then the degree of danger accompanying this whole thing was far too large to ignore.
Since this whole mess happened unintentionally, it now became critical in finding out whether or not I could ‘contain’ and ‘control’ this outbreak.
I mean, there was no guarantee of someone I had treated not getting drunk on their awakened power and proceeding to do all sorts disgusting, vile things.
‘Their awakened power isn’t that great in overall destructive power, so they shouldn’t be able to cause huge problems. But…’
Yuria guided me to the merchant association building.
Even during our walk over to here, I continued to glance behind me. That unknown presence was still there.
I knew it, a tail had stuck onto us.
“How can we assist you, sir?”
“I wish to write a letter and have it delivered.”
The merchant association employee guided me to an office with a friendly smile so that I could write my letter in private.
After settling down, I stared at the pen and paper resting on top of a table.
Well, here I am. I was supposed to be on a vacation, but now I had to worry about what might be happening back in the Theocratic Empire.
What I needed to do from now on was pretty simple – investigate the backgrounds of all the people that I healed and those that had received my holy water.
Checking out every single person would be impossible, but surely a handful of individuals would still stand out.
I figured using them as guinea pigs could be a good idea.
I finished writing the letter and paid to have it delivered to the Theocratic Empire.
I could only hope that the officials back in the empire would be able to conclude the investigation up to a certain degree by the time I returned home.
“Aht! You’re here.”
I exited from the merchant association building and found Yuria anxiously waiting for me. She smiled brightly in my direction.
Just as she began walking up to me, a procession of merchant carriages marched through the marketplace.
Soldiers belonging to the fiefdom of Elusha were escorting these carriages, and judging from that, I figured that the feudal lord had hired this group of merchants.
The carriages being escorted by them clunked and shook around a bit. I spied steel cages beneath the flapping fabric covers, and the things contained within were…
“…Monsters?”
That’s right, this procession of carriages were transferring ten-odd monsters.
Judging from their direction, it seemed that they were headed to the feudal lord’s castle in the centre of the fiefdom.
What were they planning to do with all these monsters? As lab rats for some curious magicians?
“Wow, there are more of them? But I saw carriages just like them yesterday,” Yuria said.
“There were more?”
“Yes. It’s like, well, several of them have been frequently coming and going from the city for the past few days.”
Hmm. Since the fiefdom’s soldiers were with the carriages, there shouldn’t be any issues, but if those monsters were somehow set loose on the streets, then things would escalate pretty quickly past the level of ‘we can deal with this’.
The soldiers themselves seemed to know that as well, judging from their rather complicated expressions.
“By the way, Sir Paladin? Isn’t it, you know, uncomfortable to wear your armour the whole day?”
Yuria asked that.
I had been wearing this full-body armour whenever I roamed around outside the inn.
I simply shrugged my shoulders at her question. “No. It’s surprisingly comfortable. Talented dwarven artisans created this set, you see.”
“Dwarves? Are you referring to those short statured fairies?”
Yuria’s eyes sparkled brightly. She looked really excited while asking that.
Well, in a way, this was also considered a fated meeting, wasn’t it?
I took out a couple of grimoires written by Raphael from my item window and placed them inside Yuria’s shopping basket.
She asked in a flustered voice, “Uhm, what are these…?”
“Magic theories.”
These tomes were merely a small portion of books originally found in the monastery up north, plus some others that I found back in the imperial palace. Yuria had no way of knowing that, but she still knew that grimoires like these ones were precious and rare.
“B-but, such precious items…”
Honestly speaking, I was simply curious.
I wanted to confirm whether it was really the effect of awakening or something else at play here.
Since Yuria stayed in the church most of the time, it’d be possible to monitor her in the most optimum environment that I could think of.
It was right at that moment someone blocked our path.
“Are you Sir Allen Rufus?”
And the ones in front of us was a group of soldiers tasked with protecting Elusha fiefdom.
Yuria flinched in surprise and got flustered.
I asked them, “What is it?”
It seemed that the tail following us from earlier were these folks.
“Your other companions have already accompanied us to the castle, sir. The truth is, his lordship, the feudal lord of Elusha, has ordered us.”
“…?”
“Sir Allen Rufus. You are now under arrest for the suspicion of murdering your fellow adventurer.”
I furrowed my brows deeply at that.
**
A corpse of an adventurer, a newbie with merely a Wood-rank, was discovered last night.
Plenty of stab wounds inflicted by blades could be found on the remains, and someone apparently ‘testified’ that they saw me near the corpse or some such.
Unsurprisingly, I was thrown inside the prison.
Shackles bound my wrists and my armaments had been undone. However, I made sure to store my weapons inside my item window before anyone could take them away, so it shouldn’t be a problem later.
Hans and Alice were locked up in the same cell, waiting for my arrival.
“Ohh! You guys were here already?”
I addressed them in my usual nonchalant manner.
Hans was at the inn still studying his Alchemy when the soldiers burst inside and arrested him for the suspicion of researching forbidden ancient magic. As for Alice, she was being accused of deceiving the director of the orphanage, Sister Evelyn, and stealing valuables from the church itself.
Wowsers, what’s up with these lame trumped-up charges?
“How did this even happen?! I was this close to deciphering the secret code, you know?!”
Hans tearfully complained.
He must’ve been almost finished with deciphering the warp spell runes left behind by the Vampires. Seeing how energetic he was right now, I figured that he hadn’t been subjected to anything untoward during my absence.
That made sense, since no one would be brave enough to mess with an adventurer boasting an Eltera-rank.
I shifted my gaze to Alice and asked her, “And what about you? Are you alright?”
She looked surprised as if she didn’t expect me to ask about her wellbeing.
A faint wry smile crept up on her face as she shook her head. “I’m unhurt, your highness, but I am worried about the kids in the church. They were so frightened when the soldiers showed up. In any case, what do you think has happened?”
“Hmm, I wonder. Could it be because of me?”
“Pardon?”
That’s right. It could be because of my true identity.
The identity of not Allen Rufus, but that of Allen Olfolse.
That one reason that could explain away this nonsense was…
The royal court of Aihrance had decided to go with the path of ‘rejecting’ me.
‘That sure is going to be problematic.’
This was turning out differently from my expectations.
I deliberately went with the fake identity of an adventurer. I also chose to go with an easy-to-see-through name and acted conspicuously all the time. All of these were done in order to see what kind of a choice Aihrance’s royal court would make.
…To see whether they would ‘invite’ me over, or ‘reject’ me after discovering my true identity – that was the goal.
“What do you mean by that, your highness?”
Alice asked me that, so I was going to explain, but then…
…Someone’s loud laughter resounded – accompanied by a nose-stinging disgusting stench at the same time.
The stench was way too familiar. I shifted my gaze over to the prison’s exit way over yonder.
