Chapter 53: Chapter 53

“Princess?”

At Shan’s question, the spiders in the garden moved nimbly and formed new letters.

In the shape of the word ‘Yes’.

Had anyone witnessed that scene, they would have been horrified.

Dozens of spiders moving to spell out words… what a terrifying and ghastly sight that would be!

At magic that seemed straight out of a storybook wicked witch’s repertoire, Shan felt intense curiosity rather than fear.

“……Don’t tell me you turned into a spider?”

[No.]

For some reason, the spiders tapped their legs rapidly, looking as though she were indignant.

[I’m controlling them.]

“There’s magic like that too……”

After marveling at it for a moment, Shan looked around as a sudden thought struck him.

Come to think of it, it certainly hadn’t been that way at first, but at some point, spiderwebs had become unusually abundant around the Weavers mansion.

He had even heard the servants grumbling about it a few times.

Combined with Princess Cheryn’s eerily exceptional intelligence-gathering skills shown thus far.

“Have you been spying on this place using spiders all this time?”

At Shan’s question, the spiders instantly stopped tapping their legs.

Then, after a long while passed, they moved slowly to form letters.

[I’m sorry.]

“……Well, it would be better to talk about that in person. So, where are you speaking from?”

[The Blue Palace.]

[I’m trapped in the tower.]

“Even if you say the Blue Palace…… I don’t know where that is.”

[The Queen’s residence.]

Though he didn’t know the exact details, it seemed Cheryn was trapped inside the royal palace.

Judging by her asking to be rescued, she appeared to be unable to come out on her own.

Right then, the stableman opened the door from afar and peeked toward the garden, asking.

“Young master, did you happen to call for me?”

It seemed he had heard Shan talking to himself.

“No, it’s nothing.”

“The weather is cold. I’ll stoke the fire in the fireplace a bit more, so please come inside when you’re done getting fresh air.”

Once the stableman went back inside, Shan turned his gaze back to Cheryn’s spiders.

“So, you’re trapped inside the royal palace and want me to get you out, right?”

[That’s right.]

“Since it’s nighttime, I can go right away. Just wait a little while.”

Scaling the royal palace wall wouldn’t be difficult in the dark of night.

As he stood up with full confidence, Shan paused upon realizing that the spiders were spelling out an unexpected sentence.

[No.]

[Anti-assassination defenses.]

[You will definitely be caught.]

“Is it magical in nature?”

[Both magic and miracles.]

[They are even stricter at night.]

“Mmm……”

Shan recalled when he had entered Count of Palles’s mansion, which Cheryn had used as a villa in the past.

If it were indeed heavily laid with things similar to magic traps, even he would find it impossible to slip in easily.

The moment he was caught, he would be surrounded by royal knights and guards and killed……

When he looked at them as if asking what he should do then, the spiders moved once again and wrote text.

[I have a plan.]

[Go to my villa.]

By the time they communicated that much, the spiders controlled by Cheryn staggered, seemingly quite exhausted.

Continuously moving to form letters seemed to be a fairly tiring task.

Watching this quietly, Shan picked up one of the larger spiders among them and placed it on his palm after taking off his leather glove.

“Princess, try writing on my finger. With your legs.”

[Like this?]

“Yes, that’s right. I can roughly get the feel of it.”

[You can feel a spider writing on your hand?]

For an ordinary person, it would have been impossible, but his sensitive senses caught even the touch of the spider’s legs moving across the calluses on his hand.

Sensing her flabbergast from the other side through the letters alone, Shan chuckled to himself without realizing it.

“This is much better than having the spiders write out words. So, what is the plan? Once I go to the villa?”

*

After hearing the detailed explanation from Cheryn, Shan entered the mansion and requested a few items from the stableman.

“A water canteen and…… food, sir?”

“Is that possible?”

“Yes. I have a bit prepared for emergencies, so it won’t be difficult. The market is slowly reopening as well.”

He wore a look of curiosity as to why food and a water canteen were suddenly needed, but he did not ask.

For not questioning a superior’s orders was also a requirement of a fine servant.

Moments later, Shan wrapped a few pieces of prepared bread and the water canteen in a wrapping cloth, tied it up, and left the Weavers mansion just like that.

As he walked along the familiar path, it did not take long before Count of Palles’s mansion, which Cheryn often used as a villa, came into view.

Unlike the other nobles’ mansions in the area, this place was in ruins, as if it had been raided by rioters.

It was likely because there were no knights stationed here.

“Not even the servants remain.”

[They must have all fled. It can’t be helped. As their master, I wasn’t in a position to protect them.]

The spider clinging to the nape of his neck wrote small letters with its front legs.

Stepping through the broken main gate, Shan clicked his tongue upon seeing the desolate sight of all the household furnishings inside the mansion having vanished.

Even the portrait of her mother, Queen Aste, which had been in the princess’s bedroom, was gone.

Guided by Cheryn, he scraped his fingernail across the bedroom floor (where the bed originally stood) and felt a section with slight unevenness.

After tapping and scratching that area a few times with his fingernail, a pullable handle popped up.

“Oh…… fascinating. Is this magic too?”

[It’s a mechanical device. The mechanism is different, but in terms of direction, it’s the same as magic. Especially in that introducing the correct process yields the correct result.]

Feeling the letters written on his neck in a somewhat boastful tone, Shan checked the items retrieved from inside the secret space.

Inside were a small dagger, a few items presumed to be magical catalysts, and several types of wigs and clothing.

“There are a lot.”

[I prepared them to disguise myself when needed. I thought they would become useless since I couldn’t even leave the palace, but to think they would be used like this.]

“Mmm, I’ve never worn women’s clothes before.”

[Don’t worry. I’ll teach you how to wear them.]

On the spot, Shan took out and put on the clothes Cheryn pointed out while receiving her advice.

The maid outfit, featuring a black shirt, a frilled white apron, and a cap, was somewhat large on Shan.

It was likely because it had been made to fit Cheryn’s physique.

Sensing this, she wrote on his neck.

[It seems you’ll need to stuff a lot of cloth into the chest area. And the hips too. Tear up some of the other clothes and use them.]

A moment later, a maid with blonde hair and green eyes was completed.

Though a bit tall for a girl and with somewhat broad shoulders, thanks to his youthful appearance where gender was not yet distinctly apparent, he looked quite believable at first glance.

Tying back the wig, Shan muttered with an awkward expression.

“Will people really be fooled by this?”

[You’re actually quite cute, aren’t you? Unless something unusual happens, you won’t be caught.]

At Cheryn’s confident answer, Shan could not help but let out a soft sigh.

Seeing this, Cheryn wrote again.

[I’m sorry.]

“Why?”

[Because of me, you ended up cross-dressing.]

In truth, demanding such a thing of an honorable knight was something where it would not be strange if he flared up in anger and revoked his oath of fealty on the spot.

However, Shan shrugged his shoulders as if to say it was nothing to get upset over.

“It’s fine. More importantly, let’s move on to the next step right away.”

[Okay.]

Shan organized only the necessary items among those Cheryn had prepared, placed them in the pouch containing the water and bread, and tied it to his thigh.

Fortunately, thanks to the maid outfit’s skirt being quite voluminous, it didn’t really show from the outside.

“Mmm.”

[Why?]

“It’s my first time wearing a skirt, and it feels a bit strange. Since my thighs rub against each other, it feels like I’m wearing nothing at all.”

[You don’t need to tell me things like that.]

Along with the exasperated words, the spider stopped writing and clung tightly to his neck.

Leaving the mansion, Shan, clad in the maid uniform, crossed the capital in the dark of night and approached the royal palace.

It did not take very long to reach a secluded alleyway near the main gate of the royal palace.

After pausing and listening for about a minute to check if anyone was nearby, Cheryn issued instructions.

[Here. Press the third brick from the top and fifteenth from the right firmly, and when it pops out, pull it.]

When he did as instructed, a rumbling sound echoed from inside the wall, and a door opened.

At the scene that was truly like magic, Shan uttered an exclamation of admiration.

“Is this a mechanical device too?”

[Half of it is magic. There are quite a few secret passages like this in the Pendia Royal Castle. Most of them are already under surveillance, but fortunately, Conrad doesn’t seem to know about this one.]

The sound of the door opening was not very loud, but since it was a quiet night and just in case, Shan immediately entered the passage and closed the door.

Inside the secret passage, perhaps because it was not well maintained, it was heavily covered in spiderwebs and filled with dust.

After all, if there were someone periodically maintaining a place like this, its secret would have been exposed long ago.

Shan brushed away the spiderwebs with his hand so his clothes wouldn’t get dirty and stepped deeper into the passage.

The narrow passage, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, stretched for nearly two hundred to three hundred meters.

Arriving at the exit, Shan did not leave right away but waited for a moment and conversed with Cheryn.

This was because he could not enter before daybreak anyway.

“Do you happen to know why the fight broke out?”

[Of course I know. I tried everything to stop it, so how could I not know?]

According to Cheryn’s explanation, between the two princes, the one who launched the attack first was Elvin.

The reason for it was truly absurdly because a knight under his command who had been summoned fell in love with a certain maid.

While the two went into the garden in the middle of the night to indulge their passion, an emergency call was issued, and Elvin, confirming that his direct subordinate had vanished, mistakenly thought Conrad had attacked first and ordered a counterattack.

Thus, for a reason that would cause anyone who knew the truth to burst into laughter, the civil war between the two princes began.

“What kind of foolish……”

[In truth, even without that incident, Elvin was already anxious. Because if the lords supporting Conrad achieved great merit in this ogre subjugation, his position would become even more disadvantageous. Though hearing your story, it seems to have been an unnecessary worry.]

Elvin’s surprise attack proved quite effective.

Although they were somewhat on guard, Conrad’s knights, who were relatively defenseless, suffered significant damage, and in fact, Conrad almost ended up captured by Elvin’s knights.

The one who resolved such a crisis was none other than Marquis Abel.

The kingdom’s strongest knight, wearing pajamas in the middle of the night and holding only a single sword, cut down three heavily armed knights and succeeded in escaping from the palace with Conrad.

[After losing Conrad like that, he seized control of the palace. I tried to escape around that time too, but regrettably, I was caught on the way. And in the midst of that, Kagon died as well.]

Cheryn spoke calmly of her subordinate’s death, but Shan did not miss the slight trembling of the spider’s front legs.

[And after reorganizing outside, Conrad launched a counterattack. Elvin defended fairly well by relying on the palace walls, but since he was overwhelmingly outnumbered, he ultimately couldn’t hold out and fled. Taking Father along with him.]

“It seems His Majesty the King is still alive.”

[He won’t die easily. High priests bestowed special miracles to keep that man alive.]

The problem that arose here was that Elvin fled while leaving Cheryn locked up in the tower of the Blue Palace.

Originally the queen’s residence, that place had been an ownerless space for over a dozen years after the third queen, Cheryn’s mother Aste, died and no new queen was instated.

The servants who originally cleaned the palace periodically also did not bother visiting an ownerless palace in a situation like this.

Ultimately, Cheryn was trapped in the tower, enduring day by day on the meager food and water she had, only finding someone to request rescue from when Shan arrived.

Writing lightly as if joking, she said that if he had been just a bit later, she would have died inside.

“Did you not call the people from the Magic Society? I understand you are quite close with them.”

[The Magic Society packed up and fled the very day Conrad took over the royal palace.]

Indeed, even Shan could easily imagine what fate would await the mages under the rule of Prince Conrad, a devout Old Faith believers follower.

In fact, listening to the stableman, it seemed he was planning policies such as expelling all Altoans in the capital, so it was a wise choice.

[Besides, even if that weren’t the case, those people wouldn’t have the capability to rescue me. Most of them are desk-bound scholars.]

While they conversed a bit more, the spider paused its front legs for a moment and wrote new text.

[The sun has risen. I think it’s about time you can head out.]

Hearing those words, Shan carefully opened the exit of the secret passage.

*

The location of the exit was under a statue situated in the corner of the garden in the annex southwest of the royal palace.

Emerging outside, Shan first dusted off all the dirt on his body with Cheryn’s help.

Then, moving according to her instructions, he immediately took out a broom from the annex storeroom.

[If anyone sees you passing by, pretend to be cleaning with it. Since it happens to be early winter, there are plenty of fallen leaves, so it won’t look too unnatural.]

Holding the broom as he moved along the palace hallway, Shan swept the nearby fallen left whenever soldiers or knights passed by.

Sure enough, when he did so, the soldiers merely glanced at him without showing much interest.

“It really works, this……”

[Under normal circumstances when proper royal guards are patrolling, it would never work, but currently, most of those in the royal palace are Conrad’s private troops.]

Her explanation followed that since they didn’t know what the maids working in the royal palace looked like, as long as he was dressed plausibly and sweeping with a broom, they had no choice but to let it pass for now.

As he diverted the attention of those he occasionally encountered with his broom sweeping, he was able to advance toward the Blue Palace far more smoothly than expected.

When a few minutes had passed like that, Shan’s body froze upon seeing a knight approaching from the opposite side.

‘Ah……’

A middle-aged man appearing to be in his late thirties to early forties, with a striking scar on one side of his face.

The Lord Protector, Marquis Abel, walked over wearing light attire.

Beside him were two young men who appeared to be squires.

The reason he appeared here was to go to the King’s residence, the Red Palace, where Conrad was located.

Fitting for the queen’s dwelling, the Blue Palace was located right next to the Red Palace.

Of course, the distance between the two palaces was over several hundred meters.

[What are you doing? Turn around quickly!]

Snapping out of it at Cheryn’s sharp reprimand, Shan hurriedly turned his head away and swept the fallen leaves.

Yet for some reason, Marquis Abel stopped walking and quietly stared at Shan from behind.

‘What is it? Was I caught? Because I stared too much?’

Since they had once had a staring contest during the departure ceremony for the ogre subjugation, it wouldn’t be strange if he had recognized him.

Still, wearing a wig and cross-dressing, it shouldn’t be easy to recognize him at a glance……

Puzzled for only a moment, Shan realized why Marquis Abel was paying attention to him.

It was clear that sweeping the leaves ‘naturally’ according to his standard, just as usual, had drawn attention.

Shan intentionally disrupted his efficient movements and swept the left in a messy manner, just like anyone else would.

Since it was something he had done all his life back in Willow Village, it was not particularly difficult.

“What is the matter, my lord?”

“……No. It seems I misidentified someone for a moment. Never mind.”

A moment later, when Marquis Abel muttered that in response to the squire’s question and passed by, Shan inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

“I thought I was caught……”

[Let’s move quickly. We’re almost there.]

“Yes.”

Thereafter, passing by two soldiers and one knight, Shan hurried into the Blue Palace when he realized someone was pursuing him.

It was the last knight he had passed.

‘What, was I really caught this time?’

Did entering a palace where no one was supposed to be draw his attention?

Pondering what to do, Shan turned his head toward the approaching knight as if only just sensing a presence and bowed politely.

Because that would be the natural reaction of a maid.

“What business do you have here?”

“Yes, I was ordered to clean here.”

“Hmm. Is that so? Let me check something. Follow me.”

“Pardon? Ah!”

Confused for a moment as to what he meant to check, Shan was taken aback when the knight suddenly tried to embrace him.

What should he do? Should he counterattack?

The gazes of the two soldiers he had passed earlier still seemed likely to reach this way……

However, instead of dragging Shan outside the palace while embracing him, the knight stepped further inside.

He then led Shan into a secluded corner of the garden, smirking.

“Heh, starving for weeks on end is killing me. Originally I had no interest in kids like you…… Don’t go spouting useless nonsense anywhere. It’ll only be your loss. I’ll let you go once we’re done.”

Seeing him babble and thrust his hand inside his blouse, Shan could finally figure out roughly what this knight’s purpose was.

After letting out a hollow laugh in disbelief, Shan raised both hands while held by him.

Out of gratitude for naturally bringing him to a secluded place inside, he intended to at least end his life painlessly.

“Huh? What is th…”

The moment the knight grew bewildered when a bundle of cloth came out from inside instead of shapely breasts, two fists flying from the left and right struck both of his temples accurately.

At the attack imbued with strong Fighting Spirit, the knight, both sides of his head dented in, collapsed on the spot.

[Good kill.]

“Don’t mention it.”

He decided to leave the knight’s corpse thrown in the corner of the garden just as it was.

Indoors might be a different story, but this garden had been unmaintained for years, so it wouldn’t be discovered until it reeked severely.

Having smoothly dealt with his pursuer, Shan approached the tower located in the corner of the Blue Palace.

Just as he had been told, the tower door was thoroughly locked with padlocks.

With a single swing of the sword he had taken from the knight a moment ago, three padlocks were severed and fell in an instant.

Kicking open the door with a thud, Shan declared.

“I have come to pick you up, Princess.”

“You’ve come……”

From deep inside the pitch-dark tower, Cheryn replied in a weak voice.

Shan’s rough, firm hand touched her hand, which had become gaunt from hunger and dehydration.