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Late at night.
When Elisha went to the portal, the people who had been waiting bowed their heads.
The Zelot Knights!
To be able to stand face to face with the members of the emperor’s secret knights with their weapons still sheathed. Once again, she felt she was living a different life than before.
“We’re moving.”
Elisha nodded at the courteous knights.
The knights were not dressed in uniforms but in plain, thick fabrics like travelers do, and she wore women’s trousers that had become popular across the continent beyond the empire because of herself.
The top was a shirt for warmth, a jacket of the same color as the pants, and on top of it was a black cape sent by the emperor.
Rohan and the 1st Order were colleagues with whom she had shared risks, so they might work better together if they moved together compared to the Zelot Knights. However, they had been too famous as of late.
Even if only a few seats were vacant, there was a high probability that someone would notice that there was a problem within Barossa.
At present, the West seemed to be passing through seemingly chaos, but a fierce battle under the water was in full swing.
The more people knew about it; the more dangerous the situation would become because there was such coveted prey that anyone would want to intervene somehow once they found out.
Elisha watched the portal open with the Zelot Knights.
***
On the outskirts of Bauer territory, near the neighboring Cherin’s lord’s residence, a man was looking around and trying to enter a dark alley when someone snatched his back.
“Hiiy!”
When the man freaked out, the knight widened his eyes.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“W-Well, why did you surprise me?”
“Is it my fault now? You were roaming the alleys like a rat.”
“I live here, so of course…”
“Why are you talking back?”
The knight of Cherin territory was very annoyed as he was suddenly ordered to search the slums to find a strange group of a woman and child.
Just as the knight pointed at the man and tried to wave his hand, his colleague Paul approached and stopped him.
“Stop it. It’s someone I know.”
Then Paul greeted the man.
“Look. Isn’t it Charles?”
“Huh? Knight Paul!”
Charles responded to the knight Paul with a smile. Once, when he had had an argument with some scoundrels and had been taken to the guards, he was released with Paul’s help.
Paul sided with Charles as he recalled the memory.
“He’s a native here. He’s got nothing to do with outsiders.”
As his colleague, Paul, said so, the knight holding Charles’ neck relaxed his hand. He felt terrible about being stopped, so he spat, and his face wrinkled even more.
Paul waved his hand to Charles, meaning Don’t get into trouble and disappear quickly. Charles hesitated, then took a pocket out of his sleeve and offered it politely.
“What is this?”
“Shouldn’t we thank the knights working hard for the territory?”
The sullen Charles spared no money, knowing he would have suffered if he had been unlucky.
“Hmm, something like this.”
Paul took it in stealthily and shook it from side to side in front of his colleague. Then, he made a circle with his hand and bent his wrist upward.
The other person’s face straightened as he pretended to buy a drink. Paul, who was more generous in his pocket, warned Charles.
“Don’t just wander around. Everyone’s in a bad mood these days.”
“I came out for a while because I had something to do. I should’ve stayed, now that I think about it. I’ll be careful now.”
Charles hurriedly disappeared into the dark alley. The remaining knights opened the pocket, and their eyes widened bigger than expected.
Charles made his way through the twisted road without getting lost and stood in front of a shabby building.
This building was old enough that it wouldn’t be strange if it collapsed, but all the surrounding buildings were in this condition, so it didn’t look perilous.
Charles knocked on the door three times and went inside. He passed by the first floor, but when he was about to head to the next floor, something flew before him, forcing him to stop.
Shh!
Goosebumps rose, caused by the back of the sword placed around his neck.
“It’s me.”
“Why are you so late?”
Ash asked, and Charles answered.
“There are a lot of people scouring the slums. The inspection has been strengthened, and it took several times to get confirmation.”
“Don’t tell me Baron Cherin has anything to do with the duke.”
“No, but he’s close to Count Dout.”
“Right.”
Ash retrieved his sword and clicked his tongue. Dout County was the home of Anne, the duke’s first daughter-in-law.
Although Dout County was a famous family in the West, they couldn’t have known everything within their reach. The duke seemed to have gathered strength from all sides because he couldn’t do it himself.
This was why the hunt began not secretly but openly.
“We shouldn’t have come this way.”
As Ash regretted, an answer came from the next floor.
“You’ve got a chance to escape only because you came this way, haven’t you?”
As Ash and Charles finished climbing the stairs, they saw Vera and Benjamin leaning against the wall opposite the floor and a masked woman who had come to join them. The woman who introduced herself as ‘Rosie’ continued.
“If you had taken the escape route from the Bauer territory in a different direction, you would have met the duke knights.”
If so, the escape would’ve failed, and the two of them, except for Benjamin, would’ve already become cold bodies on the floor.
No matter how sloppy those people were, they were knights of noble families, and there was a huge difference in the number, so the people above still entrusted this matter to them even as they wondered if they could do things properly.
If the owner were incompetent at a low position, no matter how tight they tried to establish boundaries, there would be a hole somehow.
It sounded right, but Ash disagreed. Ash only found out that the woman who had joined them was the woman Madam Vera had been looking for, but he still couldn’t believe her.
It had been unpleasant to be beaten up when he had visited the headquarters of Heron group’s branch at Bauer territory. And the person who had come to meet him later, who had called themself the henchman of Head Rosie and asked Ash to go with them, had also been suspicious.
Still, he had followed because there had been no other way. But after a night’s sleep in the bizarre, contrary to the seemingly ordinary mansion, Ash was shocked to find they were in the Silver group, which had nothing to do with the Heron group.
Of course, with their help, they had been able to get out of Bauer’s territory and come to this house, but this didn’t solve anything.
Rosie, no, Rosenin sympathized with the young knight’s frustration, but the duke’s knights would have already ambushed the road to the portal in this area, and no matter how they tried, they wouldn’t have given them the portal.
Moreover, avoiding those people and moving by land was proven difficult.
“Someone will come to help you soon. Just hang in there a little bit more.”
She comforted him but to no avail. Well, Rosenin wasn’t expecting much, either. She turned her attention away from the knight and turned to the woman beside her. She was the main character in this case. A gift that needed to be wrapped well and delivered to the 2nd Consort.
When a woman she hadn’t known about had first contacted her in a hurry, saying that she had come to visit her, Rosenin had thought that one of her older brothers was playing tricks again after she had eaten up the leather business and the wine business, so she had ignored it.
But something felt strange. She’d said they had been introduced, but she hadn’t mentioned the other person’s name, only saying she came from the West.
After being told by her correspondence, she had sent a newly-hired henchman of the group to bring the party that she had chased away so as not to cause any misunderstandings, to forge their identity.
She wondered what would have happened if she had missed them then.
They were lucky because there were only a few branches where direct contact with Rosenin was possible.
After having a mana stone mine thanks to the 2nd Consort, this had become an up-to-date branch equipped with a communication room. Thanks to this, Rosenin could talk to Vera separately and hear about the current situation.
Rosenin had immediately sent someone to Barossa and came here using the portal. The portal from the West was on high alert, but who would be wary of a young woman moving alone?
It was practical to have the people in the Silver group in Bauer’s territory prepare for a move. Now, they couldn’t get out, but once the 2nd Consort was here, she would find a way somehow.
Seeing that beautiful face once more, holding her hand, asking her to show her the spirit, receiving plenty of compliments from her, and then handing the woman over to her when she needed to return to the county.
Bang! Bang!
Someone knocked on the wooden door of the porch on the first floor. Rosenin glanced at Charles, who then carefully descended.
“W-Who is it?”
Charles, who’d changed his blank face to a frightened look, asked with a trembling voice.
As if the other party couldn’t wait, the wooden door rattled this time, and the lock was pulled out. At the same time, the wooden door bounced outward and hit the outer wall.
Crack!
The old wall was crushed and grooved in the shape of a door. Several knights poked their faces through the space just before the door closed again from the rebound.
Charles swallowed. He’d acted as naturally as possible, and there had been no problems. So why?
“What kind of money do you have to live in a place like this but still own so much money that you have given my co-workers a pocket? It seems like there are a lot of conspiracies, don’t you think? We’re all the same group of knights having a hard time, so why don’t you express your sincerity?”
A middle-aged man with a sloppy look was laughing.
It was only then that Charles learned that the money he had given to please the other knights had touched the greed of the other knights.
It wasn’t because he had made a mistake but because of their greed. It was unfair that the efforts they had spent waiting here for a long time would be in vain.
Dang, dang, dang!
The knights rummaged through the first floor. Charles wanted to give them the money if he could. He was about to find another pocket and hand it to them, but one of them was walking down the stairs leading up to the second floor.
“Hehe, what’s there? Seeing your eyes turned, did you hide something good in there? Money? Alcohol? Woman?”
Those who were twisting their mouths seemed to want to do everything they could to fill their boredom after they came all the way here.
“It’s a woman, a woman. I smell it!”
The knights went up, giggling.
“Wow, what did I say!? Over there!”
The middle-aged man leading the way up the stairs stopped while talking. Then, as he stood still, his colleagues following him from the back roared.
“What is it? What is it?”
“Get out of my way. I’ll go up first and see!”
While arguing, the head of the middle-aged man in the lead fell.
Tung, tu-dung, tung!
The head bounced like a ball and rolled down an oblique slope.
Shwaaa!
Blood poured like a fountain from the cross-section where the head was cut off, and those who followed were sprayed by it.
Even then, they still hadn’t regained their senses. They were just going to eat something within a stupid slum, so what was happening?
Looking down at them from the second floor, Ash did not miss the opportunity.
Pokk!
He slammed his foot down the chest of the headless body, which was about to fall slowly.
“Hiiy!”
Kwa-dang, tang, tang!
The knights gathered in the middle of the stairs were entangled with the headless body falling from above and rolled down the stairs in a mess. The knights were already drenched in blood, and the stairs were covered in blood, so it was extremely slippery.
Soon, the lumps of people were stuck at the entrance of the stairs on the first floor. Charles, quick-witted, pulled the shaky door with both hands and closed it tightly.
“People will soon find out. There will likely be eyewitnesses who showed interest in the pockets of money coming this way…”
Ash, who slammed his sword down at those who crawled to the front door to survive, even with broken limbs, blurred out the end of his words.
“Even if it’s dangerous, we have to move.”
Rosenin said, looking down at the mess.
Charles opened the door, stuck his head out, and looked left and right in the alley. He made sure no one was there and signaled the people behind him.
Not long after, the group of people ran out of the alley. Three hours later, the bodies of the messed-up knights were found in a two-story house in a slum.
[T/N: I knew it! Rosenin you gay– HAHAHA. I have a bit of a problem understanding this chapter as well, so Ash Vera Benjamin came to Bauer to visit “Heron group branch” which is actually “Silver group branch” that is supposedly Rosenin’s as well, but Ash only realized this in the morning. Rosenin was not in Bauer at first, she came through the portal to help (and meet Elisha btw) I think that sums it up, yup]