"Everything should go smoothly until the Songstress Contest tomorrow."
Helmios had asked how things were going in Prostia, so Allen told him everything that happened.
He was also using Merus and the Wraith summons to send most news.
Allen had left Peromus a little before lunch to come here.
The Songstress Contest was one day away, so everyone in the palace and the city were busy.
Rosalina's outfit for her performance was also decided yesterday.
Allen had used the records from past years to analyze the Sacred Fish Makris' tastes.
He explained the patterns he found to Cecile and Sophie, and then had them help with picking clothes through the Bird F summon's Awakened Skill [Messenger].
That could send visual information too, allowing Cecile and Sophie to monitor things remotely.
Shea had also been excited to help, but somehow all her suggestions seemed to favor rowdy movements.
Cecile and Sophie were slightly bothered, but with the help of Princess Rapsonile they put things back on track.
Shea had come with them to Prostia in an attempt to gain her spot as the next Beast King.
Somehow Allen, Peromus, and Luck were doing all the heavy lifting, so she was starting to get desperate to help.
"That sounds kinda nice. Is there a way for us to go watch too?"
Rosetta, her outfit leaving her navel completely exposed, leaned on Allen's shoulder and spoke with an overly familiar voice.
"Sure, do you all want to go tomorrow then?"
(I doubt I could get hundreds of people there, but one or two dozen should be able to sneak into the crowd.)
Allen had the ability of ignoring Rosetta's actions.
Using the Fish A summon's Awakened Skill [Mimic], he could turn everyone there into mermen.
"That sounds nice. If it's possible, then I really want to go too."
The other females in Helmios' party were also interested.
Essentially all females knew and loved the Tale of Prostia Empire.
Helmios also felt like it could be a nice way to take a break from all the training.
"I can't secure special seats for you though. And you should be prepared to flee if anything happens."
As mermen, Allen felt like they would be able to escape simply by jumping off the crystal flower's style.
"That's a bit scary."
Allen's words might have sounded like a joke, but Helmios knew he was being serious.
Allen had also successfully forged a participation pass so Rosalina could enter.
The event's participants were controlled by their passes, and a magic device that read them.
It was a similar system to adventurer cards.
As an S Rank adventurer, Allen was familiar with how adventurer cards worked and the theory behind them, so he quickly came up with an idea to make Rosalina participate in the event.
There was a time when the servants of the palace were not looking at the magic device there.
He secretly took the magic device to Larappa in Heavy User Island, letting her quickly work on it.
There he registered Rosalina's fake participant's pass number as a real one.
That should solve any issues with her getting into the event, but it was a rather simplistic forgery, so just a bit of investigation would reveal the truth.
If she won, the officials in the palace in charge of the event would likely look into her, and notice the inconsistencies in her participation.
It could become a mess amongst those watching the event, but anyone who won would receive the Sacred Beads directly from the Sacred Fish Makris.
Once Rosalina had the beads, she would flee from there before she was caught.
There was no penalty for those caught participating illegally if they won, and apparently there had been many cases of that happening in the past.
Allen was hoping that Peromus would obtain a Sacred Bead for Fiona this way.
If this plan failed, Allen would have to start thinking of a different method.
Maybe it would be possible to swim up to the Sacred Fish Makris swimming over the city that day, and ask him directly for one.
"Allen."
While Allen spoke about the event, Lud approached him.
(Hm? Did his investigation produce any results yet?)
Lud's face looked like there was something he wanted to say.
He sat down in front of Allen.
"General Lud, how did it go? Were you able to find anything about Sinorom?"
"The merman you're looking for wasn't present."
"I see."
Half a month ago, Princess Rapsonile had told them that Sinorom looked suspicious.
That made Allen want to know exactly who Sinorom was, and what he was doing in the palace.
But even though Sinorom was supposed to have been in the palace for more than a year, there was no information about him other than him being an advisor for Ignomas.
No one seemed to know where he had come from.
There were no records about his parents or relatives.
He simply seemed to appear at Ignomas side one day.
All his actions seemed untraceable, and the lack of information itself seemed suspicious.
It was so weird that Allen began to wonder if he had been with Bek too.
He began to suspect it had been Sinorom who convinced Bek to stage a coup.
While he worked on forging Rosalina's participant's pass, he also asked Lud, who had been part of the Beast King's guard for a long time, whether he knew anything about Sinorom.
But Lud did not know anything at all.
He had been with Shea for more than the last five years, so he was not so up to date with matters in the palace as before.
Not to mention he had left around two years ago with Shea to hunt the Evil Cult.
But Lud did have many friends and acquaintances in the palace.
So he asked some of Bek's men, who had been captured, if they knew of an elderly merman named Sinorom.
(He wasn't there then. I really thought that was a good hunch though. Hm?)
Lud said that a merman named Sinorom was not present.
But he still seemed to have something else to say.
Allen looked at him, telling him to speak if there was something he needed to know.
"There was a suspicious old person with Bek."
"Hm? Not a merman though?"
Allen was confused, since that seemed to contradict what Lud had said moments before.
"There was no merman. That old person was a beastman. His name was apparently Sino."
There had been an elderly beastman named Sino next to Bek, helping him with the coup.
He would appear randomly, approach Bek, and seemingly tell him something or another.
Apparently it was Sino's advice that made Bek's coup possible.
"Did he say something along the lines of 'You won't become Beast King at this rate. There are mermen willing to help, so just raise an army,' or something similar?"
Allen tried to guess what Sino had told Bek.
"That's it. The beastmen we captured also said they were deceived by Sino."
(Ohh, it's starting to get clearer. Still, a beastman, huh. A beastman…)
Sinorom did not appear as a merman there, but as the beastman Sino.
That meant he had some sort of ability like Allen's to change appearance.
Maybe he was changing appearances and infiltrating even more governments.
Having thought of all that, Allen turned to look at Helmios.
This was the hero and his party, who had fought the Demon King's Army for a long time.
"Have you seen any leader of the Demon King's Army that fits that description? Like a Demon General maybe? Or just some demon."
The Demon King's Army was mainly trying to take down humanity through brute force.
But Allen had learned that not everyone was a musclebrain there either, he knew that much from his conversation with Kyubel.
"I never saw a demon or Demon General called Sinorom."
Helmios had heard the entire conversation, and said that he had never heard of Sinorom.
There was very little information about the higher ranks of the Demon King's Army.
Allen already knew that from his conversations with Helmios while they cleared the S Rank Dungeon.
The Demon King's Army had been attacking for more than fifty years, but there was little useful information about them.
Allen learned the most after Merus joined his ranks.
But not even Merus knew many details about the Demon King's Army.
So in a way, Allen was not expecting Helmios to give a satisfactory answer.
He had already asked him a lot about the Demon Generals he defeated, those he could not defeat, and the demons that escaped.
Helmios had never mentioned Sinorom then.
Allen felt like that had been a nice lead, but it seemed like it was about to end at nothing again.
"Sinorom? Did you say Sinorom?"
Just when Allen was giving up, Doberg placed a hand on the eyepatch covering his lost eye, muttering that.
"Eh? Do you know anything, Doberg?"
(Oh? Does Doberg know him?)
Allen asked him, full of expectation.
"I remember seeing a demon named that before, he looked like some scientist, and walked around with some eyeball monster."
"So..?!"
Doberg's voice trailed off, not giving any more information. Allen wanted to know everything, so he urged Doberg to continue.
But Allen was left speechless.
Doberg's remaining eye was filled with murderous rage.
Allen seemed to remember such a gaze.
It was the same face Doberg made when he nearly lost a fight against Kurena in the Academy.
"I never met that scientist. Was it before the mission when you lost Classis?"
Helmios took over, asking Doberg questions.
He had trodden the line between life and death before, so he spoke calmly to Doberg.
They had fought together for a long time, but Doberg had been fighting the Demon King's Army since even before Helmios was born.
"I'll…kill him… Yes…I have…to find…"
(Hm? Did something happen between Doberg and Sinorom then? And find someone? Classis?)
During Allen's Appraisal Ceremony, he learned that the Saintess Classis had been born a commoner, and the Sword Saint Doberg was a serf.
They had actually been born in the same village, and were married.
Doberg would usually avoid talking about his past, but there was one time he told Helmios some things, and some stories.
The official story was that Doberg's wife Classis had died while fighting the Demon King's Army.
But from Doberg's reaction and words, it seemed like Classis had been abducted instead.
Doberg was already past 70 years old, but he still loved her, and he had been fighting the Demon King's Army for 50 years trying to get her back. That was his reason to keep going.
"So Classis was abducted? For what reason?"
Helmios carefully chose his words, prodding into Doberg's past, just so Allen could get the information he wanted.
"He said something about an experiment. Something about space and time. Be careful around them, or you'll get cursed."
"So that's when you lost your eye too?
"Yeah, that eyeball thing snatched it with a tentacle."
Doberg still carried an injury from the Demon King's Army, which did not heal even after a Talent Change.
According to the church, that was because of a curse, and not even a holy woman's healing powers could dispel it.
(I see. So there's a weapons researcher in the Demon King's Army too.)
When Allen participated in the war of Rosenheim, he had seen many eyeball monsters collecting information.
The eyeballs had bat wings grafted onto them, which let them fly and survey their enemy.
There seemed to be a researcher in the Demon King's Army, who could inflict never healing wounds, or create monsters that gathered information. And Sinorom was the prime suspect.
As the conversation wrapped up, Allen noticed something very important.
(That means my friends I left in the palace are in grave danger.)
He had left Cecile's group and Peromus in the same palace where Sinorom crept around.
Allen checked on the Bird G summon he left with Cecile.
Cecile, Sophie, and Shea were there, safe.
But he did not have a Bird G summon with Peromus.
He quickly sent a Fish D summon to the reference room where he had left Peromus before coming to the S Rank Dungeon.
The reference room was empty.
(Then what about Luck and the others? There they are, Luck is safe.)
He sent the Fish D summon to the place where Luck and Formar were staying, and they were safe.
Next he sent all his Fish D summons to the palace, trying to find Peromus.
"What's wrong Allen?"
Helmios noticed Allen's increasingly tense face.
"I can't find Peromus."
He did not know how else to explain the situation.
He was using three Fish D summons, expanding his search radius, but Peromus was nowhere to be found.
Peromus had vanished from the palace.
