RMGCFW — Chapter 107 - Old News of the Royal Capital

"Lord Hero, are we heading out today?"

"Let me think about it. Let's rest up first."

"Lord Hero, today we..."

"Thought about it some more. Tomorrow."

"Lord Hero..."

"Tomorrow."

"Lord He—"

"Morrow."

Another day passed. Mabel lay in the inn, bored out of her mind.

These days, Banxia only came back in the mornings, to grab a meal, check in on her, and drop a few gold coins on the table for her to spend however she liked. Beyond that, the inn barely saw him.

It was exactly the kind of idle, eat-and-do-nothing life that suited Mabel just fine.

And yet she kept feeling like something was off.

"Whatever, forget it." She flung every nagging thought aside and stretched out on the bed with a contented sigh. "Days without work really are the best..."

...

"You'll win."

"Once this mission is over, you'll be free."

The conversation before departure was still fresh in the assassin's mind.

Right now, the human tasked with killing the South's strongest hero was holed up in a secret safehouse within the city of commerce.

Listening to the report a subordinate had just delivered, the assassin's brow furrowed tight.

"This guy... is he really the hero from all those rumors? The one who throws his life on the line for humanity?"

Some noble, righteous Lord Hero. Turned out the man had been soaking in a brothel for a solid week, thoroughly and completely debauched.

"Could he have sensed danger in advance and deliberately hidden himself here?" The assassin had heard that the instincts of top-tier warriors surpassed ordinary imagination, a dim, wordless awareness of looming peril.

But that didn't track.

As the kingdom's strongest assassin across all its history, the assassin was an all-around killer in virtually every respect, the one exception being a somewhat disappointing figure. Techniques to evade detection had been cultivated too. By every reasonable measure, the assassin shouldn't have been discovered ahead of time.

"The longer this drags out, the higher the chance of a leak. Tonight."

The decision came in an instant.

According to the intelligence, that man turned almost no woman away.

The assassin had never trained in those particular arts, again, the figure, but basic poisoning was well within reach. Take the antidote beforehand, close the distance to zero, let body heat and friction do the work, and the toxin would seep in on its own.

After that, even if he had poison resistance, his combat capability would be cut by more than half.

And once the distance was closed, neither his mysterious slashing technique nor his fire magic could be brought to bear.

The plan had been mapped out from start to finish. The assassin slipped quietly out the door.

Night fell before long.

A server at Nature's Embrace was knocked out and relieved of the uniform. The assassin walked toward the room at the top floor.

A knock on the door. Then a quiet kneel to one side, massaging the young man's feet while watching everything from the corner of an eye.

Banxia turned no one away, the beastfolk already in the room found nothing unusual about a new face, and went on chatting among themselves while they worked.

"Mister Adventurer, that place where flame energy converges that you asked about earlier — I know where it is."

"Let's hear it." Banxia flipped a gold coin across the room without looking up.

"It's a story passed down from my ancestors — hey, don't grab it! Lord Adventurer gave that to me!"

"You scheming little fox." The wolf girl beside her grumbled. "Passed down from your ancestors? It's just a volcano under the royal capital. Every family that claims descent from the First Hero has heard that story."

"I didn't lie. And the First Hero really is my ancestor." The fox girl curled her lip.

"All right, all right, plenty to go around." Banxia tossed out a few more coins without much concern. "Tell me about this volcano under the royal capital."

"Hehe, Mister Adventurer really is the best." The coquettish fox settled herself across the young man's lap, voice gone soft. "This is a long story.

Legend has it that a thousand years ago, when the Central Kingdom moved its capital, they chose their new site because of an underground active volcano.

The problem was, that place was where the First Hero raised flame slimes. The two sides actually came to blows over it..."

"The royal capital is still sitting on top of that volcano today, so does that mean the First Hero lost?"

"Not exactly." The wolf girl picked up the thread, relaxed about it. "According to the records, the moment the ancestor heard there was an elk in the southern forest that could speak human language, the flame slime business was dropped entirely, and the underground volcano was sold off to the nobles on the spot."

"So that's what happened..." Banxia let out a slow breath.

To think it had some connection to Lord Lia after all.

"Still, building a royal capital over an active underground volcano, weren't they afraid of an eruption?"

"Apparently, court mages from the Northern Empire a thousand years ago drew on the volcano's power to construct an immense barrier, one even the Demon King cannot breach. Most of the volcano's energy goes into sustaining the barrier, so an eruption isn't a concern."

"Barrier magic can pull off something like that?" Banxia clicked his tongue, a flicker of genuine longing crossing his eyes.

"Lord Adventurer, I, I know some gossip too!" A rabbit girl who had been watching with envy shoved the worn-out nine-tailed fox aside and planted herself in front of him.

"Oh? Let's hear it." Banxia produced a gold coin and rolled it idly across his knuckles.

The rabbit girl's eyes locked onto the coin. A slight shrink back, then, once the young man's satisfied look appeared, the voice dropped low: "It's about the royal family..."

Those words landed, and the assassin, who had just been quietly irritated about the rabbit girl cutting in, went very still and listened.

"Has Lord Adventurer ever heard of the royal family's secret art?"

"Secret art?" Banxia raised an eyebrow.

The spatial secret arts of the elven royal family were something he already knew.

"A magic that controls monsters."

"...I've heard something about it." It came back to him now.

Back in the Lova Labyrinth, inside Griffin the Dragon-Slaying Hero's memories, there had been a thought about using that very secret art to control the mythical grand monster.

"I only heard this from a few grand nobles who come to the shop regularly, so it might not be accurate," the rabbit girl added quickly. A nod from the young man, and the voice continued.

"Word is, among the younger generation of the royal family today, no one has learned the secret art anymore. The one royal bloodline who still commands it is already approaching the limit of their lifespan..."

The moment those words were out, the faces in the room shifted, just slightly.

The king in this age was, when you stripped it down, simply the largest and most powerful noble. If the royal family lacked the strength to back their position and lost this secret art as their final guarantee, abdication could be forced at any time.

"No wonder..." Banxia straightened up and eased the limp rabbit girl to one side.

She accepted the gold coin with boneless hands and flopped down contentedly to rest.

All three beastfolk were spent.

The assassin knew the moment had come.

Those words earlier had stirred a vague unease, but thinking back over the recent string of strange movements inside the royal family, it didn't feel like fabrication.

A slow breath. The assassin steadied and moved to step forward, then stopped.

The young man's eyes had shifted. The look he was giving the assassin was not the same as the one he'd given the others.

Something clenched in the assassin's chest.

Exposed?

"I, I'll serve you, my lord..." The assassin edged forward on unsteady feet. Eyes drifted, involuntarily, downward, and the assassin's confidence quietly collapsed.

Could a first time, in a body this small, really survive that?

"Whatever, human's fine," Banxia muttered, his tone unreadable, somewhere between reluctant acceptance and mild distaste.

"Um, Lord Adventurer, I'm actually feeling a little unwell all of a sudden..." Cold feet. The assassin was backing out.

There was no way to know anymore whether the plan would land first, or the body would give out first.

"You're already here, what's all this nonsense? Hurry up and take care of Lord Adventurer properly!" The poster-girl nine-tailed fox gave a firm shove from the side.

Balance gone. The assassin pitched forward.

"Hoo-o-o-o-o-o..."

➤ Next: Abandoning Darkness, Embracing Light