Chapter 71
Maybe there was a chance.
No, with Kyle unconscious, the odds were slim, but I had to do something.
“Kyle!”
I squeezed out every bit of voice I had while being held by the knight.
“Wake up!”
Please, wake up.
“Wake up and call the monsters right now! They must be somewhere in the palace!”
This was the Center.
No matter how skilled the Royal Knights were, unless they were from the North, they would have no experience properly dealing with monsters.
If Kyle could call the monsters imprisoned nearby, we would have a fighting chance.
“Kyle, please, call them loudly—”
But—
“Tsk. Aisha. You’ve brought back nothing but wild fantasies from your trip to the North.”
Thud!
The door slammed shut along with the Duke of Pose’s voice.
The room, which had been noisy with Aisha’s struggles, fell silent the moment the door closed.
It felt as though she had been severed from the rest of the world.
A boy lay collapsed in the corner of the room. Empty bottles rolled across the floor, and black liquid was smeared everywhere like bloodstains.
‘Find Aisha.’
Kyle still lay there without moving.
The potion that had clung to his closed eyelids, his rounded cheeks, and the nose through which he struggled to breathe had already dried.
Hahaha!
The faint laughter of nobles drifted in from beyond the closed window.
‘Find Aisha.’
As the sun tilted in the sky, shifting from early lunch to afternoon, the sunlight that had illuminated the room was swallowed by shadows.
It was then.
‘Find Aisha!’
Kyle’s eyelids slowly fluttered open.
His purple eyes, staring at the ceiling, glowed in the darkness like those of a beast.
Then—
“…Aaaaah!”
A massive roar shook the building as if it were collapsing.
The sounds of laughter outside the window instantly turned into horrific screams.
“Monsters!”
The monsters Kyle had summoned had smashed through their iron cages and escaped the castle grounds.
“…Aisha.”
Kyle, who had been unconscious for a short while, had actually woken up just before Aisha was taken out.
His limbs had been frozen and his eyelids heavy, but though he couldn’t see, he had heard the general situation Aisha was in.
And there was one thing Kyle had realized.
When monsters were nearby, he could call out to them with his mind and receive a response.
As soon as he woke, Kyle issued a desperate command, and the monsters answered.
‘I want to go out. Going out.’
It was a simple, clumsy response, but it was enough.
At first, they hesitated.
Having lived in cages since they were young, the thought of escaping had never occurred to them.
But.
‘Your home is in the North. Don’t harm others; just save Aisha and go home.’
At Kyle’s explanation, he felt the monsters tremble.
At the word ‘home,’ they grew curious about the world outside the bars—a world they had never wondered about before.
“…….”
Pushing himself up while listening to the chaos outside, Kyle looked around.
Only now had the potion worn off enough for him to move his body. Those villains had already taken Aisha away.
Aisha.
My Aisha.
My precious home that I must not lose.
“I have to save Aisha.”
He slid the window open.
Unlike the North, the wind in the Center was sticky and humid.
He wanted to go home soon.
A little before Kyle woke up.
Grace remained composed after hearing the truth about Aisha’s identity from Calips. Instead.
“Find Lady Aisha. This is an order to all the close aides of the Queen’s Palace.”
She simply moved to a more secluded spot and gave orders to her personal knights.
“At the same time, block all routes leading to the city. Do not let a single person leave the capital.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
She knew the priorities of the situation.
While the fact that Lady Aisha was a spy for the Duchy of Pose was shocking, the fact that Calips himself was the one to reveal it made her decide to focus on finding Aisha first.
Calips hated the Duke of Pose. Grace felt the same.
Though she had feigned ignorance, she knew the true culprit behind the previous monster frenzy thanks to Knox.
‘And the fact that King Arzen, who was secretly jealous of Calips, was at the center of that incident.’
She closed her eyes briefly at the thought of her suffocating husband’s face.
‘No. I’ll deal with Arzen’s thoughts later. Right now, Calips must loathe the Pose spy even more than I do.’
Regardless, Calips loved Aisha.
Even without hearing it directly, it was obvious from his actions.
He hadn’t let Aisha’s feet touch the ground throughout the entire banquet.
Whenever the child stretched her neck to look around the party, a smile would naturally touch his lips as he watched her.
‘They really seemed like father and daughter.’
There must have been many ups and downs between them.
But that was their business. Grace didn’t need to hear it, nor did she have the time.
Right now, Aisha’s safety was paramount.
“Duke.”
“Yes.”
“I will ask about Lady Aisha again once this incident is over.”
“……!”
Calips’s eyes widened slowly at Grace’s swift handling of the matter.
“Thank you.”
He was giving Grace a sincere bow when—
“Two people standing together in such a secluded place!”
An exaggeratedly surprised voice rang out from the corner of the hallway.
“Grace. You’ve always been so interested in monsters; are you having a secret meeting with the hero who kills them?”
It was King Arzen.
‘The banquet hall is in the opposite direction. Why did he appear from this side?’
Grace was puzzled, but Arzen, looking back and forth between her and Calips, seemed to be forming a strange misunderstanding.
She looked at Arzen and replied calmly.
“Your Majesty. That remark is an insult to yourself, to me, and to the Duke.”
“An insult? I think you’re the one being insulting, Grace, by letting me see my woman with another man in a secluded hallway.”
However.
“Your Majesty. Have you seen Lady Aisha?”
Calips ignored Arzen’s mockery and asked quietly.
Grace wasn’t the only one who found King Arzen suspicious.
Calips, who had been silently observing him, felt the same.
“The Lady? Ah, do you mean that little blonde brat with the pigtails? I haven’t a clue.”
Naturally, Arzen shrugged and shook his head.
“You truly haven’t seen her?”
“Why are you looking for your daughter with me? I told you, I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know what my daughter looks like?”
Arzen’s steps came to an abrupt halt at Calips’s words.
“Since you did not attend the regular banquet, you shouldn’t have seen my daughter’s face even once.”
Unlike Grace, Arzen was a man ruled by emotion rather than reason.
And that tendency was clearly revealed once again.
“…A-Ah, that Lady Aisha is quite famous, you see. I simply heard what she looked like from those around me.”
Arzen’s face turned pale as he lied.
‘There’s something here.’
Calips’s gaze grew chilling as he stared at Arzen. Just as Calips was about to step toward the King—
Crash!
A sudden roar thundered nearby. And then.
“Monsters!”
“A monster has appeared!”
Amidst the screams of panicked knights, a Royal Castle knight ran toward Arzen.
“Your Majesty! It’s a monster intrusion! Monsters have suddenly appeared within the Royal Castle!”
“What? Why did they leave the cages?”
Startled, Arzen looked as if he were about to faint.
“Pardon? Cages? What do you…”
The knight, who was unaware of Arzen’s secret hobby, looked bewildered—
“How many? What species are they?”
Grace quickly took command and asked.
“There are two. They appear to be Giant Orcs.”
“Take twenty knights and evacuate the nobles and servants in the banquet hall to the annex. If they appeared within the castle, there should be enough time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And the rest of the knights are to engage the monsters. A Giant Orc’s strength is beyond human. Kill them with everything you have, or if you can’t, make sure they do not leave the castle grounds.”
“Yes!”
Just as the knight saluted and was about to leave after the swift orders.
“Your Majesty.”
A large hand suddenly blocked the knight’s path.
“Cancel that order.”
It was Calips.