Episode 110. ceryl (3)

“Junior, Princess Seryl has arrived! You have to get up now!”

“You arrived much earlier than expected. It would take nine hours by train from the imperial palace to this place.”

“It must have been around here, not in the imperial palace. Seeing that they came by carriage, not by train.”

“Maybe it was to respond quickly to an unexpected situation. It’s meticulous.”

The night was long, but the sleep we were granted was short.

In the guest room, where the soaked robes and the carpet soaked with fallen rainwater were still damp, the fatigued members of the association were sleeping like corpses on the couch or carpet.

I was woken up at once by Dana’s urgent voice, who had been on night watch, and I looked out through the gap in the curtains with her.

The guardian knight standing at the front of the ranks shouted to everyone who should have greeted Seril and the others.

“Speak quietly in front of the first star of the empire!”

Passing the road opened on both sides by the imperial knights who watched us last night.

In the midst of twenty guard knights lined up, eight white horses pulled three chariots imbued with numerous protective spells.

“I brought three wagons. If you’re a princess, you’ll have to take care of your image, so can I openly do suspicious things like that?”

Dana, who was making a fuss about the wagon, saying that she must have loaded troops or weapons to attack us, and told her what Meriel had tipped off.

“… They say that when the imperial family goes on a march, they deliberately accompany empty wagons. This is to ensure that enemies attempting an ambush do not know which wagon to aim for.”

Of course, from the point of view of being hostile to Seryl, I never thought that it would be an empty carriage like Dana said.

“Only the guardian knights are twenty… . Considering that there were four guardian knights beside Princess Frill, they are definitely treated differently.”

“No matter how Seril is, even those knights can’t move on their own, right? They are the ones who only keep the safety of the princess without the emperor’s orders.”

“I will. He must have hidden an enlisted soldier somewhere.”

“Well. It may have come in hidden in the other wagons.”

Since dawn, when the rain-soaked forest was not yet dry, the scholars who had waited for Seril in the cold wind bowed their heads toward the wagons.

Meriel, who approached us as we held our breath, quietly pulled back the curtains to cover the windows and gave advice.

“be careful. Looking down at the wagons in which the imperial family is riding is the death penalty under imperial law.”

Leaving behind Dana, who grumbled that she couldn’t even look at her, Mel, who had finally come to her senses from the noise outside, hurriedly woke up the other crew members.

The wardens who had been standing guard in the forest returned to their cabins.

“Failed to check the interior of the wagons entering the research complex. It seems that the screen is enchanted with the same magic as the barrier that covered this area. I’ve given instructions to track down as far as possible to find out what’s inside… . We will be in touch before taking action.”

“All right. However, please make sure to convey the message that survival is the top priority. Power loss beyond this is catastrophic.”

During the battle with Fang, Rewen, who suffered a serious injury to his left arm, stood in the lead and reported to me, and Mel followed suit and spoke to Dana.

“In five minutes the carriage will arrive in front of the hotel. I think we should go down as well.”

“… Let’s go down first.”

* * *

The moment the three carriages arrived in front of the hotel, Kegar, wearing a red robe, knelt down to represent everyone in the research complex.

“Meet the first princess.”

Let’s take the extreme example of Kegar throwing his robes to the ground and losing any authority in the presence of royalty.

Seryl’s voice confirming this echoed from inside the carriage.

“I commend the courage of the scholars and imperial knights who saved the laboratory from the corrupted vampires.”

“… It is too much praise.”

“Also, the responsibility for not protecting the two Kiruna professors who were sacrificed by the Dipels belongs to me as the organizer of this event. I will fully compensate the families of the victims with my own money.”

Me, Dana, and Mel, who had to show respect to the princess at least in a formal way, stared down at the floor with their faces stiff among the scholars and professors.

I wanted to argue and ask if that was nonsense, but now everyone in here is under Seril’s power… . Even if we protested, no one would listen to us.

‘… We are inferior in numbers and political standing. Now, the first step is to carefully watch how the opponent will move.’

Still not showing up in the carriage, Seryl continued to tell everyone.

“The Dipels who brutally bit them were burned, but that alone cannot cover the souls of the victims and reassure the survivors.”

“… .”

“As the princess, in order to answer the awe you send me, I will uncover the truth of the tragedy that took place here.”

I kept a poker face and listened to Cheryl’s words.

“To accept the report of a large-scale raid by accidental Dipels on this festival, which the magicians of the Empire are most interested in, would be deception and coercion to maintain peace with the vampires. From now on, Kegar, I will take control of this place and reveal the truth behind the raid.”

“I just want to thank you for relieving me of a heavy burden.”

“Kegar, I will head right to the scene of the incident, so assist me from now on. The Imperial Knights remain here to thoroughly control the floating population. Please do not let anyone leave the hotel while I tour the site.”

* * *

“It must have smelled very disgusting.”

“From Seryl?”

“yes. If it wasn’t for that screen, I would have been able to see what was around me… .”

Seryl’s carriage, which had left for the forest a long time ago, had become a dot and disappeared, and I asked Meriel, who was looking at it with anxious eyes.

“If it’s a stench that only you can feel, isn’t it from demons? The ghosts of the people I’ve killed so far are sticking to me.”

“If that’s the case, you can ask the priest or the Lang tribe to take it off. You can sprinkle holy water… . If the ghosts were attached to that level, would ordinary people go crazy in a few days? But, why would the princess do that?”

“That’s right, it shouldn’t be difficult to obtain holy water.”

“… Suspicious.”

I let Meriel organize her thoughts and looked closer to the hotel.

“… Isn’t it hot?”

Imperial knights were watching the hotel regardless of the sunlight reflected on the windows.

‘The boundaries are tight. The wardens chasing the wagon have to figure out what Seril is up to so we can plan it later.’

Since the emperor directly entrusted Seril with investigating the Dipel raid, the imperial knights regarded her orders as those of the emperor and faithfully followed them.

If Cheryl gave an order to kill me or Dana for no reason, I might disobey, but otherwise, it seemed to me that there was no reason why I couldn’t comply.

‘By tying our feet like this, what the hell is Seryl planning to do?’

When I think about what I said as soon as I arrived here… . It seemed like they were trying to blame the vampires for the actions of Kegar’s test subjects.

Certainly, due to the exponential increase in the occurrence of Diffel, vampires were in a difficult situation to counter the Empire’s political offensive.

However, even so… . In order to claim that the vampires did their fault, they needed evidence to prove the fact.

The same goes for us.

Even if you expose the theory of mana reduction that you risked your life to find out, if you just make absurd claims without obtaining conclusive evidence for this… . There was a high probability that it would fall out due to political headwinds.

‘Luwen said that even vampires distrust each other… . In this situation, if Seryl can tamper with the evidence… . It will be even more difficult to gain trust from humans.’

The Emperor, who is very cautious about the heterogeneous issue, would not hold the vampires accountable for this situation or equate them with Dipel.

In other words, it could be expected that Seryl came to the scene immediately after the incident was to make fabrication evidence that the vampires were involved in this raid.

‘how?’

The first thing that came to my mind was to make the bodies of the Dippels look like those of vampires, but it felt too flimsy to be a piece of evidence to be presented to the emperor.

‘then… .’

Then, with an urgent voice, Mel came running with the receiver.

“professor! The wardens have discovered the enemy’s plans!”

* * *

While the Imperial Knights surrounding the hotel are tying up Ian’s party.

Kegar, with Cheryl’s chariot, stood in front of the wreckage where Fang and the Wardens had fought.

Trees that collapsed in a row along the path of Fang’s charge and huge fingernail marks carved on the rock told us the urgent battle situation at the time.

Kegar is assessing the destructive power and evaluating the combat power of the wardens.

“You mean the vampire wardens defeated this monster?”

“It was not a one-sided battle. Although Fang was defeated, it seems that the power of the Wardens has also greatly diminished.”

“Have you grasped the situation of the damage?”

“Out of seven platoon members, two are dead and two seriously injured.”

Seryl’s pupils widened as she slightly opened the screen that even vampires and dragons couldn’t see through.

“Did you say Dipeln? Whoa… . If all their destructive power is like this… . Interesting. How many are left now?”

“… There is only one individual left, but with that specimen, the number of Dipeln can continue to increase.”

“What principle?”

Kegar said calmly, not paying a glance to the butterflies that flew slowly around the wreckage.

“… The specimen is the world’s only congenital Dipeln. Since my blood mana structure is designed to reject the guardian spirit, I have not been blessed by Esca since I was born.”

“The blood of that test subject is the core of mana reduction theory research. Where are you now?”

“As you said, it’s an important entity, so it’s being protected in my private room.”

“They say that beasts can think rationally, but I don’t think there will be a vampiric lust turning their eyes to bite their masters.”

“There has never been anything like that before.”

Perhaps Rane was enduring hunger by now, reading the mana reduction theory research materials she had arranged in the corner of her private room.

With that thought in mind, Kegar spoke to Seril.

“It is said that the vampirism can be suppressed to some extent, but the fact that Dipellen can survive only by drinking the blood of humans or other races remains unchanged, so how about handing over the remaining corpses to Rane this time?”

“What, are you going to do that? One corpse will suffice.”

After reviewing the details of the plan once again with Kegar, Seryl immediately gave orders to the human hunters gathered in the carriage on the left.

“Pale. Anything is good. Find traces of the guards who infiltrated this place without permission from the imperial family.”