Volume 3 Chapter 5: To the Royal Capital

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Author: 夜州 (Yashu)

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It was now the next day, and the time for them to head to the royal capital had come.

They managed to get to eat breakfast together with Hinata, who, unlike the night before, didn’t show any facial expressions at all, simply nodding along to the others’ talking.

Unlike Cain, who knew about the situation and thus didn’t really mind, Ragnaf was quite worried about her.

Asking her whether he had made some blunder for her to be in such a bad mood, Ragnaf continued talking to the Saint even while starting to worry about every single little thing he said and did.

As Cain had now become concerned about Rangaf, he joined in the conversation.

“Saint-sama, have you ever been to foreign countries other that the Kingdom of Esfort?”

Completely unlike when she was talking to Ragnaf, she immediately responded, smiling.

“Cain-sama, coming here to the Kingdom of Esfort is my first time in a different country. A divine commandment from the god selected this country for me to come to. And thanks to that, I got to mee– –”

“I-is that so. I have never been outside this country either, so someday I want to go on a trip through lots of countries. Well, I am the lord of a territory though, so it won’t be that easy…”

Cain answered, interrupting Hinata, as he could feel the jealousy in Ragnaf’s gaze on him becoming stronger by the second, because she had replied to Cain smiling, and had spoken way more than to Ragnaf.

And, with that tension floating around in the air, they finished eating and started getting things ready for their departure to the royal capital. Cain put all of his luggage away in his [Item Box], so he was empty-handed, but Silk, including all her clothes, had quite a large amount of luggage. When Cain had asked her ‘Should I carry those for you in my [Item Box]?’, he was resolutely denied. As expected, as she was a girl, it might have been a bit embarrassing for her.

As Ragnaf was staying behind and seeing them off, the carriage Cain and Silk were going to ride in was now in front, with Hinata’s carriage behind them.

Before they had departed, Silk had asked ‘How about going in the same carriage as the Saint-sama?’, but before Hinata could even reply, the captain of her bodyguards had stepped forwards, indicating his intention to refuse. Of course, he was stamping out any possibilities of Hinata getting to speak to them in private in the carriage.

Hinata’s gaze followed Cain away, but there was nothing she herself could do.

With a carriage filled to the brim with ingredients from the Silbesta territory at the very back, they slowly left Silbesta.

Ragnaf accompanied them all the way to the town’s entrance to see them off, as he was quite the zealous believer.

For the next two days, the carriages would be on their way to the royal capital.

Thinking about what Hinata had told him, Cain knew that he would have to stay alert while they were on the move.

While in a fight, with his inhuman status, Cain would have no problems, he still fell deep in thought, considering what kind of other moves the pope’s faction had, and what tricks they might play.

It had now been three hours since they had left the town, and the sun had already risen high in the sky. So, in order to prepare lunch, the carriages stopped a little away from the highway, and the servants all started moving around busily.

As Cain appraised the ingredients, one of them turned out to contain poison.

“What’s this ingredient?”

Cain asked one of the servants, but he didn’t know anything about the ingredients, and just tilted his head in confusion.

Cain picked up the smoked meat and laid it down on the ground, then suddenly burned it with magic. The ingredients turned to charcoal in an instant at the pale blue, high-temperature flames.

The servants, while surprised that he had suddenly used magic and burned the ingredients, couldn’t say anything about the actions of the head of a noble family, so they simply started cooking with the remaining ingredients.

When he went back to Silk, Cain’s strange behaviour made her pose a question.

“Cain-kun, what was that? We don’t have enough meat for you to go around just burning it…”

“Silk, you got a minute? I’ve got to talk to you about something.”

Distancing themselves from the captain, Cain whispered into her ear.

“Those ingredients, they were poisonous. I used appraisal on them, so there’s no mistake about it. Someone is targeting our group.”

He didn’t say it was the captain. If he were to blame him without any actual evidence, it would have the possibility of developing into a national problem. Of course, even if he said that Hinata had told him. If he were to be asked when they had talked, he wasn’t confident in his ability to explain it away.

“Eh!? Really!?”

Cain nodded silently, pressing his index finger to the surprised Silk’s lips.

Then, he continued on in a quite voice.

“I’ll protect you no matter what, but if something happens while I’m not present, remember to hold the necklace I gave you earlier tightly and let some of your magic power flow into it. I’ll definitely come and protect you then.”

Silk took out the necklace from under her clothes.

“Yeah, gotcha. Being saved by you, Cain-kun, is the best.”

Smiling, Silk tucked the necklace away under her clothes again.

Everyone started eating lunch as if nothing had happened. The bodyguards from the Holy Country of Marineford, including their captain, didn’t take part in the mealtime, saying they would keep an eye on the surroundings, gnawing on some jerky they had with them.

“That confirms it…”

Cain muttered in a soft voice. Then anger started welling up inside him.

They were planning on killing all the people eating together with Hinata with poison. That included Silk. Cain would have been all right, as he had resistance against poison, but the others would most likely have all died.

Cain glared at the captain from where he was sitting.

When they had finished eating, the bodyguards all returned with innocent expressions. Seeing the servants getting ready for departure as if nothing had happened, they made faces as if they had swallowed something very sour.

“Captain, did something happen?”

Cain asked the captain with an innocent expression.

“N-no, it’s nothing. There are no signs of monsters in the surroundings.”

Was all he said, before moving away from Cain.

While looking at the man’s retreating figure, Cain muttered in a small voice that nobody could hear.

“I’m definitely not letting this go the way you want…”

With the preparations for departure done, the carriages started rolling onwards. The highway ran parallel to a forest here, which was quite the opposite of devoid of monsters. But, as he could grasp the locations and movements of all the monsters using [Search], Cain knew that none of them were heading towards their group.

After the carriages had proceeded on for an hour or so, Cain noticed that the monsters in the forest had started acting strangely.

He knew that they would take a couple of minutes to get there, but Cain could feel that there were monsters heading towards them from the depths of the forest. Cain immediately gave instructions to stop the carriages.

While surprised at the sudden yelling from inside the carriage, the coachman still stopped by the roadside. Cain told Silk to stay inside the carriage, then jumped off the carriage alone.

As the carriage leading them had stopped, the following carriages also all stopped one after the other. Cain told the royal knights to get ready for battle.

“Monsters are gathering here from the forest. Get ready to fight to keep the monsters coming from the forest away from the carriages!”

At Cain’s orders, the royal knights got off their horses, and, after making sure they were tied away safely to the carriages, pulled out their swords.

The Saint’s guards grew restless as they saw the others suddenly preparing for combat.

“Captain! Monsters are approaching. Move the Saint-sama’s carriage to a safe place immediately. Everyone other than the guards too. We’ll be fighting. You people protect the Saint-sama.”

While being suspicious of Cain’s true intentions, they still evacuated the carriages and prepared for battle.

Then, five minutes later.

They could hear the sounds of the movement of a large number of things from the depths of the forest.

Cain stood at the front, with the royal knights spread out in a row behind him. As they had all seen his fighting power in his practice battles with Tifana, none of them said anything.

On the other hand, seeing a mere child standing at the front and the royal knights behind him, the Marinefordean guards whispered ‘Why is a child, not to mention him being a noble, standing at the front…’.

Then, the first monsters to exit the forest were a pack of Forest Wolves. Around twenty of them. Forest Wolves lived inside forests in packs, and they were famous for killing their prey with their agility and speed, but they usually never left their forests. Noting that fact in his head, Cain shot his magic.

[Air Blade]

He cast the magic without chanting, sending the monsters to their graves one after the other.

He was finishing off monsters left and right, but they still didn’t stop coming from the forest.

“Something’s off here…”

Cain glared at the captain and his men who were guarding the Saint’s carriage behind him.

“One of you, go over to the guards and ask if they’re doing anything not normal. Because this is too strange.”

Cain was sending the goblins and orcs coming from the forest off one after the other, but he had already piled up a small mountain of monster corpses around him.

The royal knight who had gone to ask the Saint’s guards the question had returned.

“Cain-sama, it’s done. Apparently they were using incense to drive away monsters, but one of them was actually one that attracted them instead. I’ve disposed of it already, so it should be fine.”

This incense to drive monsters away was mostly used by merchants while they were on the road, which they went around with so that they wouldn’t get attacked by monsters. The incense to attract monsters was mostly used by adventurers to gain experience points in areas where there weren’t many monsters, but as the Kingdom of Esfort had many forests which were full of monsters, it wasn’t used in the country. If one used the incense to attract monsters in Esfort, it would turn into situations like what Cain was currently facing.

Cain nodded at the royal knight’s report, and finished off the last of the monsters. No matter how low-ranked the monsters might have been, there had been so many of them, that without Cain being there, the others would have suffered serious casualties. The battle was over in less than an hour, and eventually there were no monsters leaving the forest any more.

There was a veritable mountain of monster corpses surrounding Cain.

“It should be over now…”

When Cain turned around, it turned out the royal knights, who had done literally nothing, were completely stunned.

“We’re unnecessary here, aren’t we…”

“He cast all that magic and he’s still fine…”

“Cain-sama, he didn’t even use his sword…”

“I think I now understand what they all meant with him being stronger than the commander…”

While the royal guards were whispering to themselves like that, Cain told them to stay vigilant for a little more, and walked up to the Saint’s carriage.

The Saint’s guards backed away from him, their swords still drawn, trembling from fear at his devil-like strength.

“I’ve finished exterminating those monsters, so it’s fine now. But still, what’s with the incense, huh? We didn’t need it until now did we?”

Cain was angry that the servants had been exposed to danger, and his anger was plain to hear in his voice as he asked the questions.

“S-s-s-sorry… I thought we had been careful, but it turned out it was mixed in with the others from the Holy Country. We didn’t mean any harm, really. When we return to the Holy Country, we will, of course, appropriately deal with the inventory manager. For exposing us all to such danger.”

The captain, who had seen Cain’s demon-like combat power up close, could only answer like that, still trembling.

“– – all right. From now on, please refrain from doing unnecessary things.”

“– – but still, was it all right for you to use so much magic, Sir Cain?”

The captain asked Cain, terrified.

“That much is no big deal. However, if I hadn’t been here, the royal knights would have suffered heavy casualties. They might even have been wiped out completely. Please do understand that.”

“…got it.”

Having said what he wanted to, Cain returned to the royal knights.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting. Soo, let’s bring all these monster corpses back with us, shall we. Once we get back, they’ll turn into extra income for you knights.”

The royal knights cheered at Cain’s words. Even if the materials from the monsters were low-grade, with this many of them, they would still fetch a fair price. Cain stored them away in his [Item Box]one after the other, and in ten minutes, what had once been the mountain of monster corpses was now nowhere to be found.

The royal knights knew that Cain had an [Item Box], but the Marinefordean guards were stunned at the sight, which they were seeing for the first time.

To be able to store that huge an amount of things in their [Item Box], one had to have an equally huge amount of magical power, after all.

Not even their country’s strongest magician would have been able to do the same.

Unable to do anything, the captain frowned at Cain.

Having finished preparations, Cain gave the signal for departure, and the carriages started moving once again.

“Cain-kun, you were really cool back then against the orcs, but this time round was quite cool as well.”

Silk was excited after having witnessed Cain’s battle, and Cain scratched his head at her words, trying to hide his embarrassment.

And two days later, they arrived in the royal capital, without the captain having meddled again, perhaps because the image of Cain’s fight had remained vividly in his mind.

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