Chapter Chapter 110: 12. It’s not over til it’s over (8) (1/2)

RATH 110

TL: Eevee

12. It’s not over til it’s over (8)

Her happy smiling appearance disturbed me immensely.

She smiled at me, in a way that If this had been the imperial palace, the maids and butlers would be cowering in the corner and shivering in fear, and the soldiers and knights would be on full alert ready to mobilise at any time,

“It’s really been a long time, hasn’t it, Ast?”

How should I respond here.

Should I also say that it’s been a long time?

Or that it was nice to see her again?

Or should I try saying that she’d gotten the wrong person, and I wasn’t Ast?

Just what should I say so that I could deal with the aftermath of that choice?

No, before that……`

“How did you get in here?”

She could not have investigated for a long period of time like Sia had.

The escape routes at the organization were ones that I had spent over 10 years to elaborately craft out, but this was a new one that wasn’t even a year old!

How could she have discovered this piping fresh escape tunnel?

“I assigned people to the dwarves, no, just about every non-human that knew you. You do not trust humans, but you trust non-humans very well.”

That’s true.

Humans are animals of betrayal, but elves, dwarves and the non-human races do not betray you.

It was just that they had a long history of being betrayed by humans, but once you had their trust, as long as you retained it they would keep their word with you to their graves.

And yet she managed to use that trust and put shadows onto them!

“Putting spies onto elves and dwarves without them realising, was that actually possible?”

“I had a bit of a hard time. It was an achievement created by mobilising all of the empire’s intelligence agencies, after all.”

Although she said it as if it were nothing, that basically meant she had every single secret agent in the empire mobilied all for the single purpose of capturing me.

She wasted that much manpower just to try and catch me!

A month’s salary of a skilled agent costs more than the entire monthly earnings of a rural barony!

Just how much had invested into this!

“Is that not a waste of manpower?”

“It’s alright. The empire’s paying their salaries very well.”

“Isn’t that salary the taxes of the imperial citizens?”

“Mm, nope. The empire’s finances have been pretty good lately. You know too, don’t you? We beat up Howling last year.”

I knew. That was my old workplace.

And the place the woman in front of me ordered the Crown Prince to blow to kingdom come!

“It turned out Howling had quite a bit of money on them?”

When she smiled brightly again, ten knights appeared at light speed and took up guard positions around her.

“Hm? You didn’t have to come out yet?”

The princess tilted her head on seeing their blanched faces, and the knight that seemed to be their leader shivered and said.

“Y, you said you would give us the signal to come out……”

“I hadn’t given you the signal yet?”

“That… Your Highness smiled… so we unconsciously……”

Ahh. It seemed the imperial court was still the same as ever.

Well, no wonder.

Whenever that princess who normally went around with either a deadpan or a scowl actually smiled, many incidents and crises erupted out.

“…Really, now?”

The imperial princess made a dissatisfied scowl.

“Whew…”

And her knights all collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

“Really, what did I ever do.”

What did you ever do. Consider how you caused a bloodbath every time you laughed.

“Awhew, people have been treating me weirdly ever since you left me, Ast? At least people treated me like a normal person while you were here.”

Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?

“Your Highness? Did you just say that Your Highness was treated like a normal person thanks to me?”

“Why do you look so surprised when you’re just stating the obvious?”

Why?

“Your Highness! How could you say such a thing to the last normal person who served you!”

“Hm? What? The person officially named by the imperial court as the maddest dog in the entire empire was you?”

This discussion is going on parallel lines.

At moments like this the best way is confirmation by a third party.

“You over there, who is the right one?”

“Huh?”

I turned to the side slightly and asked the knight who had spoken to the princess just now.

I’d seen some of the others around her before, but this was the first time I’d seen this particular knight.

Well, ten years had passed since my time at the imperial palace, so it wouldn’t be weird for there to have been a change of guard.

“I, I wasn’t there at the time so……”

“But you have heard the rumours about Ast. It wasn’t just one or two incidents that this man caused.”

When he avoided my gaze to refuse to answer, the princess pressured him.

Faced directly by the princess, the knight glanced over at me resentfully until he couldn’t hold out against the imperial princess’s pressure and bowed his head.

“From what I heard from my seniors, Sir Ast was the maddest dog in the entire empire.”

This is a conspiracy!

“See?”

This was definitely a conspiracy.

The senior who told knight about me definitely had a bone to pick with me.

For example, one whose achievements I stole… or not.

If anything, I gave them achievements, I never stole any of them.

Then someone who was jealous of my closeness to the princess… or not.

Only those outside the imperial court would ever be jealous, anyone who’d ever experienced life on the inside and knew everything worth knowing would never feel jealous.

Then, what was it?

What was the reason people were spreading such misinformation about me!

“Your Highness, that person is one of your knights. It is natural that your knight would side with Your Highness. Taking that person’s word to validate Your Highness’s argument is fundamentally flawed.”

“Isn’t the one with flawed logic the one who brought up the question first and proclaims it invalid the moment their begins to fall apart? And……”

Slam!

-Uwiiit! Izza fail, owner!

“Your tricks as you talk to buy time.”

With a wave of the imperial princess’s hand, a section of the wall was destroyed.

And so was a part of the metal bat, stretched thinner than a thread!

“Do you think I’m going to lose you again?”

As she smiled radiantly, she swung her hands a few more times and the area the metal bat had been in just now was swamped by a storm of aura blades.

-Uwiiiit! I’m gonna die! Dat’s scawy! Owner stop her!

There was no way this thing would die unless it was completely melted down, but my escape attempt ended in failure.

But on that note, what the hell was that letting off sword aura waves just by waving your hand?

I knew she became a swordsmaster ages ago, but she wasn’t on this level!

-Uweeeee! I nearwy got my hair snipped off! Thank goodness I got it all!

The metal bat whined as it returned to my hand.

Damn it, I didn’t expect my perfect tactic of a stealth ambush through the shape of a string to end this pathetically.

“Before that head of yours gets any new funny ideas… should I cut off a leg to start?”