Chapter 449
"Alright then. Let's hear the report."
After surprising them in various ways, I somehow managed to finish welcoming the ambassadors from the royal family and the ducal house. I'll have to ask Esmeralda to handle the接送 again tomorrow, but for now, I think it's safe to say I've done what needed to be done.
"So? What happened?"
The city was already asleep. It was the time when we'd normally be saying goodnight and getting into bed. Judeus had finally returned, and Ingrid and I listened to his story.
Amina and Nell were asleep. Esmeralda was preparing for tomorrow's round trip to the royal capital via teleportation.
"The fact that Claudia isn't here probably means she's handling things on site, I think."
And Claudia still hadn't returned to Freihait.
Judging from that situation, the attack was probably larger-scale than I thought.
"Yeah, we asked Claudia-sama to act as our representative on the救援队 and deal with the现场 commander over there. We can't exactly show our faces publicly."
If you ask whether having that guess proven right is a good thing, I'd have to say it's bad.
"Who was the opposing force?"
"At first glance, just an ordinary bandit group. But their numbers and equipment were abnormal. Members were gathered from all over the continent—north, south, east, west—and they'd been significantly强化 with skill scrolls and weapons."
"...A convenient scapegoat, in other words."
"That's about the size of it."
The attacked group wasn't the wyvern unit coming by air, but the land route group, which was easier to target.
They used carriages clearly marked with the Rendell royal family's crest, escorted by knights, yet they were attacked while moving. That means they understood who they were targeting and did it anyway, right?
"Most of the bandits were annihilated, the leader was captured. We're interrogating him, but not getting much useful information."
"Wasn't anyone watching from a distance?"
"No. If they used familiars, even we can't find them. If they used small magical beasts or insects, we really wouldn't notice."
Since they used bandits, it's unclear whether the mastermind is nobles or the Heretic Church.
"No leads on the backers, huh. But don't these guys understand the risk of attacking a royal carriage? Even if they succeeded, they'd have knights dispatched after them and face hell—that's obvious, isn't it?"
"They seemed to have gotten good weapons and powerful skills and mistakenly thought they were strong. They were pushing at first during the attack, so they probably thought they could win with that momentum."
If even the Entertainers couldn't find anything, either there was no surveillance from the start, or they were hiding it well.
They're not omniscient, after all.
"Honestly, if the attack had continued like that, it might have been pretty bad. Some knights were injured too."
"Any deaths?"
"Zero. Claudia-sama rushed there with the Garden Guards, and from then on, it was a one-sided slaughter. She just kept grabbing them and throwing them, taking down bandits left and right in no time."
The Entertainers' detection and stealth abilities are high, but since the attack site wasn't an open area but a spot along a mountain path, there were plenty of places for the enemy to hide.
If they were monitored from far away, finding them would be difficult.
"So, in the end, most of the bandits were eliminated. The ringleader was caught. It became an incident where the kingdom played a role in restoring治安."
Judeus hadn't been idle either.
He'd been running through the mountains searching for enemy traces, covered in mud.
The evidence was plain on his clothes.
"What was their goal?"
"Apparently, their plan was to abduct the Fifth Princess, demand a ransom, and skip town to another continent."
"...The fact that they thought they could do that is terrifying."
"Couldn't you do it, Liberta?"
"First, I wouldn't do something as stupid as attacking with a large group. Infiltrate without being noticed, abduct—that's the way. Not being identified is the strongest camouflage."
"Oh, scary."
That's why I responded to Judeus's joke with a half-joke of my own.
If we're talking about what's possible or not, let's just say that after completing numerous sneaking missions, there's no place in this world I can't infiltrate.
Judeus, shrugging and playing around, returned to a serious face.
"So, what do we do? I think someone's definitely pulling strings behind this. Should we investigate?"
"I'd like to, but without a lead, it'd take too long. We're also about to accept the orphans. We need manpower for that. For now, we'll wait and see on this."
As for the motive behind the attack, it's probably to destabilize our relationship with the Rendell Kingdom.
Plainly put, it's a show of force.
I sense a will opposing the Rendell King's actions.
"You sure about that? The enemy is definitely someone who doesn't like our relationship with Rendell deepening. I doubt this will be the only incident."
"Our biggest weakness is our lack of manpower. If we divert people to investigate this and another incident occurs in the meantime, we'll be caught off guard again. Besides, I can't imagine someone who invested this much scale and budget would give up after this. If they counterattack, the next timing might let us get closer to their main base."
If that's the case, this incident feels more like the work of nobles than the Heretic Church.
I can't imagine the Heretic Church's strength has recovered from the recent divine mountain attack, and I doubt the temple's pursuit has eased up.
Then, it's better to see this as the work of nobles supporting the Heretic Church.
The question is whether it's from the east or the west.
"If you think so, fine, but..."
"Sorry to burden you guys."
"If that's the case, please get us some replacements. We're managing to take breaks, but it's pretty tight."
"I'm thinking about it, but it's hard to find suitable people... replacements for a group with a disrobing habit."
"That's the issue?"
"Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to stick with the current you, right?"
Personality-wise, the west is more likely to do this kind of thing, but we can't rule out the east, or other dissatisfied nobles.
Knowing everything doesn't always work in your favor.
Having too much information sometimes makes judgment difficult.
To clear up that hesitation, we need on-site, raw information.
When I made a light joke to Judeus, he smiled back.
"Or maybe guys interested in cross-dressing would work? High disguise ability is actually useful for infiltrators, and watching Sharia, I can really see the advantage of being able to switch between male and female."
He plays along with the joke.
"Do you think such conveniently talented people exist?"
"Someone with a disrobing habit, can cross-dress, and is trustworthy... Do they exist?"
"If I knew someone, I'd have recruited them already."
Grateful for the atmosphere that prevents overthinking, I still feel like sighing at the accumulating tasks.
The Garden Guards are one thing, but replenishing the Entertainers is becoming urgent.
I want to staff the intelligence division with trustworthy people, which makes it difficult.
But we can't just sit on our hands.
"Once the academy gets more people, our current monitoring won't be enough, right? We can't outsource it, can we?"
"Hmm, we bring people in to train reliable ones, but that causes manpower shortages. It's a cat-and-mouse game."
I rack my brains for a solution.
There are several ways to improve this situation in my FBO knowledge.
But they all require specific trigger quests.
If it's before the original story, the events that trigger those are in the future, so I can't make them happen now.
Spirits helped solve the manpower shortage for security, but for intelligence, we can't rely on spirits.
"President! President! Emergency emergency!"
"What?"
As I'm worrying, the office window suddenly gets knocked on.
Ingrid quickly approaches the window to check, and finds a spirit there.
Seeing this, Ingrid unlocks the window and lets it in; a black shadow flies inside.
"Caught an intruder! Genjirou wants you to come!"
A dark spirit must have come as a messenger.
The sender is Genjirou.
The message is the ominous news of an intruder.
"At this timing?"
"This was the main event?"
"Possible. Attack the royal carriage to make us lower our guard, then infiltrate during that opening."
An infiltration operation using a large-scale attack as a diversion.
While I admire the boldness of stirring up vigilance and still going through with it, our security was better.
Either they were overconfident, or just idiots.
If they got caught by security, we might learn their true identities.
"Wrong opponent, trying to infiltrate Freihait with Dark-san on guard."
Even I wouldn't try infiltrating Freihait at night with a high-ranking spirit governing darkness present.
The difficulty is bugged, seriously.
At night, when darkness envelops Freihait, everything falls within the感知 domain of the dark spirit.
He probably can't cover the entire area, but the security net has no gaps.
Honestly, daytime would offer a better chance for infiltration.
Add the Garden Guards' patrols, and you get the安心感 of having the strongest primates on guard.
Even this late at night, they can respond perfectly to intruders.
"Man, overtime is evil, you know."
Glad this happened before I went to bed, I grumble. Following the dark spirit who came as a messenger, I head to the detention center on the floor with the military facilities, accompanied by Ingrid and Judeus.
"My lord, I apologize for the lateness of the hour."
"Something difficult to judge came up, right? It's fine. Genjirou is just doing his duty."
"Yes, sir."
Genjirou had a stern face, and the Garden Guards and Entertainers were on high alert.
Apparently, they caught more than one.
I sense multiple presences inside the cells.
First, I'm surprised at the gathering of forces, including Genjirou, who alone could be overkill, wondering what kind of opponent they caught. As I take in the restrained beings sitting on chairs inside the cells—
"Well, well, if it isn't the Feda tribe."
I'm surprised again.
Black people.
Skin, and also seemingly simplified eyes, teeth, nails, hair—every human part pitch black. A very distinctive tribe even in FBO.
"My lord, you know of them?"
"Yeah."
During the day, they cover their entire bodies with cloth, a distinctive tribe that doesn't show their bodies. But at night, they remove that cloth—also a nocturnal tribe.
Due to their distinctive appearance, they were misunderstood as evil beings in the past and persecuted. Because of that history, they have a distrust of non-tribe members, leading to almost no outside contact. They live hidden in mountainous areas on this continent, with the habit of immediately hiding if intruders come, and as a race, they have high stealth capabilities.
"These ones mixed into the darkness and were climbing the walls when the dark spirits spotted them. When we shone a light and tried to call out to them, they all scattered and ran."
"Ah, that won't work. These people are shy. If you suddenly shine a light and call out, they'll reflexively run away."
In FBO, they're famous as a tribe that runs away at high speed even if found.
They're said to be extremely lucky if found.
But why are the Feda tribe here?