Chapter 84: Sneaking Into The Capital
"How were they?"
I asked Victoria.
Yesterday, Victoria told me in hurry that Ellen"s party got caved in and the girls are trying to help them. Now it"s already dark and I summoned her because the capital is already in sight.
I hurried here because I want to help the girls. It"s not that I really want to help Ellen"s party. It"s that because Kayla and the others decided to help them, I decided to help the girls.
If the girls don"t want to help, then I won"t. It"s that simple.
After I summoned Victoria, I asked her what they were doing and how"s the situation with Ellen"s party.
The girls are doing fine. Lina is trying to help with looking for monsters with possibilities of having special ability related to vision. And Victoria is hunting monsters and caught some small monsters with good vision.
Sam is working as usual, the ghost is undoing the magic she casted, and the rest are cultivating.
I heard from Victoria that Sophie also tried to help improving my vision so she build a garden in the backyard and plant carrots with the help of Lina.
There"s a small backyard behind the building enough to build a small garden for carrots and possibly other vegetables. Although at the moment, it"s all planted with carrot"s seeds.
That"s what Victoria told me after I summoned her.
Then I asked her about the situation with Ellen"s party. There"s also a water mage among them so they won"t lack water. The air circulation is fine as long as they don"t use fire magic to burn the Oxygen. I also bring them some dirt from the outside so they can support the rubbles from burying them. The rest is up to them. If they had a quarrel or fighting among themselves, the situation will get worse." Victoria explained.
"What about good news?"
"What good news?"
"The treasures. The dungeon got caved in so no one should be able to explore it anymore."
"Oh, that! I brought out some treasure chests that I can to our house. Some of them are underneath the rubbles so I just leave them be. I told the girls to only open it once you have returned just in case some of them have traps."
"Awesome."
Last time I checked, there were no treasure chests with traps in it. But I don"t know yet if that"s still the case. It was smart of her to wait until I return.
"You"re not going to ask if there"s anyone who can save Ellen"s party?" Victoria asked.
"Hmm? I bet even if there are any, they won"t help unless they will get a huge reward. By the way, is there any reward?"
"None from the guild. Ellen"s party just destroyed a dungeon full of undiscovered treasures so their reputation is falling. Even more with their att.i.tude and pride, no one likes them."
"Right. They even refused when Kayla tried to teach them magic control."
"But Ellen has prepared about it before she explored the dungeon. You remember that loud girl you met back then? The one who asked for help because of bandits attacking her village? Her name is Jewel. And Ellen asked her to come to us in case something happened. She also prepared a reward for us."
"Nice. She"s getting smart just with one time exploring the dungeon. I guess I should help her at least."
That was why I hurried to the capital after hearing the news from Victoria yesterday.
If I go at normal pace, I should be able to arrive tomorrow evening even with fighting the monsters. But I ended up quickening my pace and arrived this evening when the capital has just closed the gates.
"I will sneak into the capital now and look for some evidence of the cult or betrayal of the kingdom. I should be able to find one and present it to the king. I think I"ll meet the king tomorrow night after collecting some evidence and found a member of the cult."
"Okay. Do you want to put on your disguise now?"
"Sure. But I"ll refrain from the name Kuro. It sounded so similar with our bald friend, Kron."
"Then what should you call yourself? Clarence?"
"That"s a stage name. And it might be found out later. Let"s have another one."
"What about Ninja?"
"What"s that mean?"
"They are someone who did covert mission. Like sneaking or even a.s.sa.s.sination. And you"re about to do covert operation so it fits you."
"Then call me Ninja when I"m in this disguise."
"Wait! Ninja doesn"t wear armor like this! I"ll change it into clothes Ninjas would wear."
Then Victoria changed into an easy to move clothes with a mask that only cover my mouth and my hair. My eyes are still visible.
"It sure does feel like something for covert operation. And it"s easy to move as well. But why is my eyes are not covered?"
"It"s not like anyone will found out about you from your eyes. Brown eyes are common after all."
"It"s not that. What if the queen ended up falling for me after seeing my charming eyes?"
"…that"s impossible. The most likely things for her in her mind is asking if this guys is a clown."
Ninja! I"m Ninja! I feel like Victoria is just using me to fulfil her fantasy desire. But that"s okay. I mean even now I sometime tried to do things I can"t do in my past life. So I understand her well.
I climbed the city wall with the grappling hook. Although transformed into Ninja costume, she"s still made a grappling hook on my right arm attached to the costume. Is this Ninja"s equipment?
I can just run on the wall, but it will took time to reach the top and someone might be able to see me. And since I don"t want to be found out, I activate my Divine Vision only to see the surrounding area. Not to focus in one spot. At least I won"t until I reached a safe place.
And my presence detection without using Vision Divine has improved as well. But still, it"s better if I can do things faster. So I keep using the grappling hook whenever I want to reach a place I can"t reach with just my jumping power.
Good thing the grappling hook is silent. It"s because it is Victoria. If it"s a real grappling hook, I guess it will make a sound. But I have never seen one before so I don"t know if this thing exist in this world or just in Victoria"s world.
I finally reached the highest point of the capital city of Kingdom Tatrama. I"m on top of a building called library tower. It"s a tower filled with books or doc.u.ments from all around the world.
There are ten floor in this tower. From the first to the fifth are free to enter as long as you register at the entrance. Then above them, you need a special pa.s.s. With the tenth floor being only few people can pa.s.s.
Anyone thought that the top floor is reserved for the king. But that"s wrong. The king gas a special room at the bas.e.m.e.nt. With only the king himself and probably the one who managed this library knows about.
Even I thought that the highest floor is for an extremely secret information. But seeing with my Vision Divine, I can see that most of the things up to tenth floor are not really a secret. The secrets doc.u.ments are well hidden in the bas.e.m.e.nt.
I don"t know why these things are stored here if they are not really a secret. But I can guess from how some of them are old fairytale about overpowering an empire or fighting the authority.
I have read some of those stories in my past life and I know some of them are banned in the country. I guess many people with power don"t want anyone to read those things.
And what"s hidden inside the bas.e.m.e.nt are secret of this kingdom. Although I can"t read them all since this is too far away, I think that place is fine unless either the one who manage that place or the king himself is part of the cult.
The king is fine, but I don"t know the one in charge of the Library Tower. It was a secret even until the day I died.
For now, I"ll try to locate anyone suspicious. Since this is the capital, everyone is suspicious.
Are there anyone with another explosives inside their mouth?
I looked over the palace where the king resides. There, I found that the palace has a lot of hidden pa.s.sages. So I try to look for a place in the palace that can only be entered through a hidden pa.s.sage.
And I found one already. It"s a room without a window. And there are many path connecting to that room. I guess that place should be for someone in charge of protecting the king. After all, there"s a hidden pa.s.sage on the king"s chamber"s ceiling connecting to that room.
Suspicious!
Knowing that Wendy is a member of a secret agency of the king, and one of the agent ended up betraying the country and framing her, that place is something I have to check.
Hmm? There"s someone entering one of the hidden pa.s.sageway. Is he the owner of that room? I need to get closer to the palace to know what he"s hiding.
I left the Library Tower and get to the top of the palace. There, I used Vision Divine to see what he"s hiding.
I see something written on the wall that I missed before. It said "Hidden Protector"s Chamber".
He seems to be writing something. Then after finished writing, he enters another hidden pa.s.sageway toward the ceiling of the king"s chamber.
I looked at the king"s chamber and see the king is prepared to go to sleep with the queen. The queen is currently pregnant so the king rubbed the queen"s belly carefully.
I remember that the crown prince should be born around this time. So I guess it will be in a few month.
But… after her son was born, the queen fell into depression. I think I understand why after seeing it now. I"ll tell her and the king when I sneaked into their room tomorrow.
I entered the secret room while the owner is busy keeping watch of the king.
Hahaha! I found it already! An Evidence that can prove he"s a traitor of the country!
Before I forget, I tried to focus my eye to the man who"s peeking on the king.
As expected! There"s the same magical explosives inside his mouth!
After seeing everything I needed, I left the palace and the city to rest outside. I can"t have any evidence about me entering the capital.
Now I just need to think how to make a great presentation to the king after sneaking in.
How will I make a great impact and be trusted by the king? Should I practice my dialogue for tomorrow?