CH 86

Chapter 86

Chapter 86 – It seems to be an infiltration of the royal castle

Even though it’s called a castle in short, it possessed a wide variety of structures depending on the purpose of each new addition, and the era they were built.

Some parts were built during times of war, and were solid boorish structures meant to be used as fortresses. Other sections were built during peace times, and focused more on an elegant appearance instead of function.

On top of possessing such knowledge, Renya receives a somewhat extremely mismatched impression once he sees the royal castle located in the centre of this Holy City.

The wall surrounding the castle was built higher than the wall around the Holy City, but with only one gate. There was also another moat surrounding the Castle Walls which was too wide for one to jump over, even though it was slightly narrower than the outer moat which was filled deeply and widely with water.

The wall has stones with a width, height and depth of 1 m piling up. With something similar to mortar plastered on them, the overall wall has become pure white.

Since it’s several meters thick, it probably has the shape of mud walls on both sides with stones in-between, Renya assumes.

At a fixed interval, there are square shaped watchtower-like structures on the castle gate. Several soldiers have the duty to stand watch there continuously.

The massive castle gate was made entirely out of iron, and heavy enough that no thought went to human operation and required a machine to have been installed for heaving it open and shut from the beginning. Once one passes the inner moat, there’s a garden continuing until the castle. Leaving that garden, one finally arrives at the entrance to the castle.

Its exterior defence looks reasonably tough, but if one talks about the castle’s main part, Renya’s information isn’t clear on the interior at all. He had the impression that he must not feel like it’s ignoring utility and putting emphasis on appearance in any way as long as he looks at it from the outside.

Just like the castle walls, the building’s walls are pure white after having been coated with something like mortar. There’s no doubt about its beauty.

However, there are many minarets with ambiguous usefulness standing out. Renya feels like there’s exceedingly many blind spots.

Furthermore, the main castle doesn’t look like it possesses installations such as slits for firing arrows while defending, and places that are filled with soldiers.

Additionally soil was piled up right below the castle for some reason. It was also a mystery why the castle’s base was at a slightly higher place than the castle walls.

Renya worries isn’t there any meaning in the castle walls?, but thanks to this, it results in parts of the the royal castle being visible from anywhere you look in the Holy City.

Basically, the installations and personnel for defence are deployed outside the main castle. Because of that the main castle itself is an otherworld-like structure, Renya concluded.

“Even if trespassing is difficult to some extent, it’s not impossible to get in, huh?” (Renya)

On top of the Holy City’s circumference being surrounded by a wall, the castle’s circumference is surrounded by an even higher castle wall. I guess quite a cowardly king is living there, he ends up judging.

The place where Renya is currently located at is on top of the roof of a minaret which boasts the tallest height within the royal castle.

Renya, who took a nap while peacefully lining up with the other two, was properly woken up by Emil after sunset.

While stifling a yawn due to his remaining drowsiness, he summoned the employee with the bell and requested the preparation of hot water and dinner for three. After he confirmed the arrival of those, Renya quietly left the inn.

He intended to say that he’s going outside to breathe some fresh air for a change of mood if he was questioned by someone, but luckily he didn’t encounter anyone and left the inn. As he tried to go to the royal castle, Renya realized he didn’t know the route to get there after all. While heading to the middle of the city through guesswork as a last resort, he decided to run along the buildings’ roofs in the same manner as the time he came to the slums.

Concealing his face again with the cloth he took out from his inventory, Renya continued running on top of a roof. As he approached the castle, Renya saw its surroundings being protected by a high castle wall and clicked his tongue slightly.

Even if I try to run around the castle’s circumference once, there won’t be any place where I can enter except the main gate. The moat’s width exceeds 20 m as well.

No matter how much Renya’s ability is surpassing that of humans, it’s not a distance he can jump across.

Renya, who pondered what he should do, takes some distance by separating from the castle temporarily, starts running with all his might in order to guarantee a plentiful approach run, and casts wind magic from the reference point of the roof’s edge towards his own back the instant he jumps off while aiming for the castle wall.

The cast spell is something called <Strong Gale> and is originally used to confine an opponent or to throw their posture off-balance with a powerful wind, but he decided to try lengthening his jump distance by blowing it against his own back.

That attempt half-succeeded and half-failed.

Renya thought it would be fine if he could jump far enough to at least cling to the castle wall, but the generated wind easily blew Renya’s body away due to the strength caused by the charged mana.

Renya’s body, which was whirled up very high in the air, quickly went beyond the castle wall and would have passed the garden to be thrown against the castle inner wall.

Renya quickly deployed the spell from the opposite direction and was able to somehow kill the momentum and perform an emergency landing on the castle’s roof.

There were a lot of other spells to use if it was only about jumping, but the reason he didn’t use those was in case of a magic sensitive barrier-like protection being deployed over the entire castle.

However, that worry was apparently pointless. The spell he cast to slow himself down activated without any kind of impediment. There’s also no sign of him having triggered something like an alarm.

Renya believes that to be careless, but if you think about it properly, something like a defence barrier and detection net deployed over the entire castle at normal times will end up costing an outrageous amount of money to maintain.

Such things very likely exist in case of emergency though, thinking that far, Renya cocks his head in contemplation all the same.

Considering it normally, the information that a suspicious character broke through the entrance gate of the Holy City should have been reported to the castle.

If there’s such a report, it won’t be odd for the castle to adopt some kind of precautionary stance.

Just what the hell is wrong with them maintaining that completely defenceless, normal state? He wonders.

There was no reason for Renya to know about it, but the soldiers present when Renya’s group broke through didn’t report it to their superior.

If they did, the castle’s alertness certainly would have changed into an high alert just as Renya thought. But with them being unable to believe what they saw, they intentionally kept silent due to the fear of having to take some kind of responsibility had they really reported the incident to their superior just like that.

The act of pretending to ignore a problem due to them wanting to protect their position above all else is not a praisable act for a soldier.

That alone was an indication of the low training level of the soldiers of this Holy City, but there’s no expectation for Renya to understand that either.

After trying to ponder about it for a while, Renya, who concluded that there’s no way to reach an answer no matter how long he thinks it over, abandons the thoughts concerning that and starts with another matter.

It’s about where the hero stays within this castle.

Although there was no way for him to make an educated guess from the get-go, he has several ideas about how to narrow down the conditions.

First of all, he’s probably not at a lower floor.

That’s because there are soldiers acting as guards and patrols at the lower places. At least there are people’s eyes everywhere.

Since there also exist owners of peculiar fetishes like getting aroused by being seen, it’s not something I can say with absolute confidence. But if he possesses a normal way of thinking, he will decide that it’s better to not be seen by people in case he does you-know-what during the night.

Second, there’s no doubt that it’s a room with a window, I think.

He guesses that from the fact that the other party are young women of royalty and nobility.

Even in a completely dark room devoid of any windows, it might be romantic if he laboriously relies on the light of candles. But if seen from the side of the young woman being pinned down, it’s something that lacks elegance and emotions.

By the way, these are not Renya’s views but hints from Croire.

“Since that’s how it is, she will definitely request a room with a window where moonlight flows in, or a place corresponding to that at the time she’s with him”, being told that, Renya ended up being troubled how to answer best.

Third is about him likely using a room with quite the size.

This is information from Shion.

Regarding the relevance of that point, the hero seems to already be boasting about his level of strength indicating him as hero without a doubt. That’s not true at all however, as he seems to be in a state of being a great demon king of the night, but completely unable to subjugate even a noble daughter by himself.

As it’s impossible for him alone, he’s just saying “join my party”, and every day after sunset he brings together several people in one place and holds a large nocturnal athletic meet.

Starting to ponder about stupid stuff such as I guess he won’t say something like “can you teach me what kind of games there are besides the ball-toss game and ball rolling?” on those athletic meets, Renya shakes his head in a hurry and resets his thinking.

Taking the opportunity of thinking about stupid things, Renya ends up strangely admiring I guess there are athletic meets even in a different world.

He should be able to narrow down the rooms meeting those conditions quite a bit if there’s a rough map of the castle, but there’s no way to obtain something like that concerning a royal castle that easily.

The nose of Renya, who wonders is there no other way but to peek into each and every large place housing a window, counting on vague intuition for the rest picked up a sweet scent mixed into the night wind.

“Perfume? No… it’s the scent of something.” (Renya)

It’s not something light like a scent attached to a body. It’s a sweetness that feels a lot heavier and thicker.

While it’s only a small amount, it has an intensity capable of penetrating the cloth covering his face and reaching his nose.

Furthermore, Renya’s own body perceives that scent as foreign contamination. He somehow senses that the skill took action due to its void toxification attribute.

“This is very welcome. It seems that the scent is leading over there.” (Renya)

Since it’s called Holy Kingdom for better or worse, the royalty over here probably won’t be fond of something that seems to be this bad for their bodies, even if they don’t go as far as being saints, Renya thinks.

It’s also not something that seems to be used by soldiers during their break.

In that case, the probability is extremely high that the one using it is my target.

Closing his eyes and persuading himself that it can’t be helped in this case, even while knowing that it’s something bad for his body, he sniffs the wind carrying the scent and somehow becomes aware of where it’s coming from.

Renya doesn’t want to approach the source of something that seems to harm his body, but he won’t be able to accomplish his goal without getting close to it.

While hoping that the ability of the Healthy Body skill turns everything nonpoisonous, Renya started to move in the direction of the scent he smelled.

The movement was very easy for Renya.

There’s no particular searchlight flooding in from below, and the castle itself doesn’t have too many light sources.

Moreover, as night is a time where there’s no illumination, I sure can’t imagine humans nimbly jumping from one roof to the other like acrobats, much less without a lifeline considering you will definitely lose your life if you fall due to the height.

After jumping several times, Renya discovers the window from where the scent is apparently leaking out.

Once he lands on the roof above the window without being found, he quietly peers into the window while bending himself forward over the edge of the roof.

Apparently intending to ventilate the room a little bit, the window has been opened just a little. It seems that the scent, which Renya smelled, leaks out from there.

The interior of the room he saw through the window was gloomy, but several magic light sources, which have been set up inside, are faintly illuminating the room filled with smoke. Although it was only somehow, he was able to grasp the situation inside.

There are incense burners placed all over the room, appearing to be the source of the smoke emission.

There’s a bed in the room’s centre which appears to have a lot leeway, even if several people sleep next to each other. There’s no other furniture.

Somehow Renya feels like it resembles the composition of the room in the inn he’s staying at. He has mixed feelings.

But then again he wasn’t able to judge whether the royal castle’s room was like a traditional love hotel, or it was similar to an inn’s room meant for lovers as opposed to the traditional love hotel over there.

Once he returns his consciousness towards the observation of the room’s interior after pulling himself together, he sees several figures of people scattered on the floor.

He didn’t know at all whether it was related to life and death due to looking through the window, but when he absentmindedly looks at the bodies’ contours, Renya realizes that most likely all of them are women.

And, he perceived that a couple consisting of a man and a woman was intertwined on top of the large bed in the middle of the room.

Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!