Passing through the gates, the group hurriedly left the ramparts.
　About ten minutes later, a group of cavalrymen were there.


　Mr. Rosward, it's Alice. We have successfully rescued you. There are thirty men.
　

　Rosward scratched his head.
　Rosward's mission was to get the escaped senators and their families safely to King Rosais' country.

　He brought with him thirty of his best and brightest and twenty horses to transport the senators.

　There is a group of city-states between King Rosais' kingdom and Lesad.
　Although this group of city-states is entirely dependent on Rezad, there are a few countries that are not so much in favor of the Land of King Los Angeles as they are afraid of it.

　Those countries were told beforehand that thirty horsemen and twenty horses would pass through, and they came across the barrier.
　The truth is that it's best to go to meet them with a large army.......too many troops would irritate the city-states and their actions would be easily supplemented.

　The last-minute numbers were thirty and twenty heads.

　''Senators. I am Captain of the Kingsguard, Rosward Calpurnius. We will now move to the forest a short distance away. .........We only have twenty horses, so would the two of you who are lighter in weight be willing to ride with each other?

　The senators nodded silently.
　'It's a lot better to have a horse.






　'I've destroyed the evidence, Mr. Rosward,'
　Thank you, Seo-yeon.

　Rosward bows to Sooyoung.
　So-young and the other five spellcasters came to remove the smell, footprints and spellcasting traces so that they wouldn't be tracked by Rezad's spellcasters.

　By the way, the five of them had infiltrated Rezad before Rosward and the others, so they owned a separate horse.

　''Then I will now explain the escape route.

　Rosward looked around at the nervous-looking councilors.
　This was in the woods near Rezad.

　The only light is a small campfire.

　'From King Rosais' country to Rezad, if we take the shortest route and fly our cavalry as fast as we can, we can reach it in two days. But that is impossible.

　The shortest route would involve passing through a city-state hostile to King Rosais' country.
　We cannot take such a risk.
　It would also be impossible to fly at full speed as long as there were two people on board.

　In the first place, the senators are not combatants.
　It is impossible for them to do the same thing as Rosward and the others.


　If they moved carefully through the detours, it would take that much more effort to move.

　'We've already contacted the city-states we plan to pass through. It will probably take........five days.
　We're the rescuers. I have no complaints. Master Rosward has given me his instructions.

　Ains bowed deeply.
　Rosward looked relieved that the senators accepted him with open arms.

　But he quickly tightened his expression.

　'Then I'll put out the fire now. Don't worry, we'll keep an eye on it to make sure no wolves come. Just in case it's a simple thing, but we've prepared bedding for you. ........You may not be able to sleep, but please let your body get some rest.







　The morning after the arson attack, the council in Rezad was in great disarray.

　The fire was successfully extinguished.
　But the political prisoners had escaped.

　The ringleaders have yet to be found.
　In all likelihood, it was King Losey's government who pulled it off.

　The solution to this problem in the Senate is...

　'Mr. Speaker!　You're the one who sent the guards out to put out the fire and this is what happened!　It's your fault!
　'What do you mean!　If I hadn't gathered my mercenaries to put out the fire, Rezad would be on fire right now!　I'm certainly responsible for it, but I'm not the only one!

　It wasn't discussed.

　Now we are in the middle of a blame game.

　It is impossible to divide Rezad's legislators into two groups: pro-Lossies and anti-Lossies.
　This is because both the pro-Locaissez and anti-Locaissez factions are simply gathering for their own interests.

　It is a relationship that drags them down whenever there is a gap.

　'Aren't the merchants responsible for hiring those mercenaries in the first place?
　'No, since you allowed them to enter the country, the people in charge of border and wall security must be responsible for it!

　In the end, the day passed with only the blame to go around.







　Meanwhile, Alexios had left such a council alone and started his own investigation.
　His beloved wife, Melia, was with him.

　'What I'm curious about is how they got through the West Gate. There were more than fifteen soldiers at the West Gate at the time. To neutralize them in an instant, without leaving a single one of them behind, would be difficult even with three times as many troops.''

　The fifteen soldiers don't have to win over the attackers.
　They just need to survive and call for help.

　It was a new moon then.
　The huge moon, which usually illuminates the earth brightly, was nonexistent.

　In the darkness, it was nearly impossible to hit a stone, spear or arrow.
　It would be extremely difficult to kill an enemy who was fleeing with his back to the city without escaping.

　But the raiders would not allow even that.

　'I took my cavalry and headed for the north gate. Since it's impossible to escape unseen, it's better to escape with more men. That's the best way. However, the enemy didn't take that approach and succeeded in escaping. ........In other words, the enemy is a very capable person.

　Every body was either stabbed in the back or strangled to death. A troublesome assassin a sorcerer skilled in secrecy or in possession of a covert spell or a covert blessing King Armes had quite a few great pieces in his possession.

　Melia muttered as she took stock of the location of the attack.
　So far, few clues have been found.

　I used the dog's nose to examine it, but it was all drowned out by the curse.

　'If there was a hair or even a piece of skin that fell off, I could have cursed it with a spell. There isn't a single fingerprint left. The enemy spellcaster is pretty good too.

　'When a spell search is impossible, you're going to have to guess and search on your own. Utterly tedious....

　Alexios sighed and straddled his horse.

　Alexios and Melia are led by fifty Rezad cavalry and six hired spellcasters.

　Normally, they should be searching with a large group of people, but right now the Rezad council isn't functioning properly.

　The employers of the mercenaries are too busy shoving the blame on each other to have time to lead the search.

　However, they didn't delegate full authority to the foreigner Alexios, so Alexios couldn't move a single soldier.

　But he couldn't leave them alone, so Alexios asked the mercenaries to work for him without pay.

　Alexios called out to them, and these mercenaries answered his call.
　They are the ones who have done me a personal favor by marveling at Alexios' military tactics.

　Hence, they are helping me without compensation.

　Not all mercenaries do nothing but work.

　They also do service overtime if a good boss orders it.

　If I'm a raider I'm going to lie low and collect my men who have escaped. .... and there is only one place to lay down our men near Rezad.

　The forest.

　Alexios and Melia looked at each other and grinned at each other.






　'Hmmm ... there are traces of an encampment.

　Alexios looks around at the slightly open space in the forest.
　At first glance it appears to be empty.

　But Alexios's eyes certainly caught the evidence.

　'The grass here is trampled. And the bark of this tree, it's scuffed up. Someone has been sleeping with their back to this tree, haven't they?
　Look, Alec. On closer inspection, there are fire trails. It's well hidden but there's no doubt about it. And as far as I can tell from the witchcraft I'd say half a day ago.

　In other words, the raiders spent the night here and moved on in the morning.

　'Where they are now-if they're moving on foot, it's not too late to catch up with them. But if they're traveling on horseback, it will be extremely difficult to catch up with them now.

　There is evidence that there are horses in the area, but their numbers are unknown.
　Not knowing how fast they are moving makes the search a bit more difficult.

　'It's just ... I think there are only a few routes the enemy can travel. As far as I can see after this encampment, it's quite a large number of people. It's impossible to cross the border with that many. They'd have to go through a customs post. Then we can only go through the barrier in the pro-Rosaisian cities.
　So there are two routes. Two: westbound and eastbound. The westbound one is closer, but you'll have to cross the borders of the anti-Lossies city-state several times. On the other hand, the eastbound route is safer, but it's a long way.

　Alexios sighed.
　'At present, it's difficult to get information to locate the enemy.

　''Let's fly the hawk first. If we search around these two routes, we should be able to find them. ........Though we'll need permission from the council to cross the border.

　It's useless if we can't go out and catch them when we find them.
　And for that to happen, we need permission from the council and the blame game needs to stop.

　'Huh........Pofenia's parliament was terrible, but Rezad is as bad as the rest of them. I'm beginning to think lately that democracy is a flawed political system. ...I envy King Rosais' country.

　In a monarchy, it doesn't matter what the will of the people, power struggles, or power relations are.
　The king's blackmail would stop the situation.

　If a country with a good king and a democracy with a disunity of will fought each other, the country with a good king would always win.

　They can continue to be the first to win.

　In a democracy, a democracy has to hold long meetings to reach a conclusion, while a monarchy can start a war at the king's behest or at his mood.

　"I suppose it's better than the birth of a foolish king. Alec. As long as it's a democracy, the worst won't occur.
　Well, yes, but that doesn't mean you can't do the next worst thing over and over again.

　They cowered their shoulders.