A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 103
Chapter 103
* * *
“Catch the intruders!”
At Reginald’s shout, a finely honed blade fell from above Raul’s head.
Raul barely avoided the blade and drew the sword hanging at his waist.
“Enzo! Watch my back!”
Not far away, Enzo shoved away the soldier he had been dealing with.
Rolling low across the ground, he came in behind Raul.
“We need to stall for time.”
At his urgent words, Raul nodded.
When she turned her head, she saw Astie still rummaging through the pile of hay inside the stable.
Beyond the knights, Reginald shouted in a furious voice.
“What are you all doing! Capture them at once!”
The knights could be seen hesitating.
But Reginald looked over those soldiers as if they were pathetic and began yelling.
“Don’t just stand there staring blankly, spread out! Capture the bastard who did this to me first!”
“Y, yes!”
The knights hurriedly split into several groups.
One of them rushed Raul and Enzo, and the rest ran past them toward the stable.
Seeing a soldier brush past him, Raul shouted urgently.
“Sir Basto!”
Basto, standing in front of the stable, nodded.
He took a small dagger from his pocket and threw it to Veil.
“Veil!”
Veil caught the dagger in the hand that was less injured.
After lightly spinning the blade once in his hand with a tense expression, he lowered his stance.
And at once began dealing with the soldiers charging straight at him.
“S, surrender peac… urk!”
Veil first hooked the ankle of the knight running at the front and knocked him down.
And before the man had even finished falling, he immediately struck the second soldier on the back of the neck with the flat of the blade.
But as he dodged the spear the third soldier swung, he finally let out a groan.
“I can’t last long! I’m injured!”
At those words, Basto, who had just begun fighting, looked back at Veil.
“Hold out just a little longer!”
Basto too was likewise surrounded by soldiers.
And he was even dealing with them barehanded, without a proper weapon.
Gritting his teeth, Basto drove his fists one after another into the soldiers rushing him.
‘If I’d known this would happen, I would have brought the war hammer.’
The truth was, what they had meant to do was secretly get Veil out.
Not fight a full frontal battle against Reginald’s army like this.
Basto recalled the situation from a few minutes earlier.
‘The will!’
When he first heard those words, he had been bewildered.
The will?
Naturally so, because in this situation there was only one object that could be called a will.
The missing testament said to have been left by Adeline’s father, the former lord.
But there was a problem.
‘This is no time to leisurely inspect some will.’
Of course, it did clearly state Adeline’s legitimacy as lord.
But even if they found that will now, there was nothing they could do with it immediately, was there?
Reginald and the soldiers were already rushing the stable with drawn swords.
So, though only for a brief moment, Basto thought about it.
‘Should I just hoist Tie onto my back and run?’
Even if they heard resentment later, everyone would at least be safe for the moment.
But then.
‘Ahem! There is something… I feel like I ought to say now.’
Glancing toward the soldiers swarming in, Veil turned his head toward Basto.
Then, somehow watching Basto’s expression, he whispered.
‘They took my mercenary identification. Turns out… they searched my body a lot more thoroughly than I expected.’
Veil then showed the empty inner breast pocket of his clothing.
That was the place where Veil normally kept his mercenary identification.
It had clearly been taken by the soldiers, and was now empty.
Only then did a short groan escape Basto’s mouth.
At last he pressed a hand to his throbbing forehead.
Then he snapped his eyes open and gave orders to Raul and Enzo.
‘Hold them off! Buy time until Tie finds the item!’
The fact that Veil’s mercenary identification had been taken.
That meant Agabert had already run into serious trouble.
There was a high probability that Reginald had already prepared to raise an objection to the imperial household.
Then it would only be a matter of time before Agabert was issued an imperial capital exile order.
It meant that escaping safely from here would not solve anything.
‘Then there is only one answer left.’
The only way to overturn the situation, and the only way to enter the center of the imperial capital safely as planned.
That was to prove that Reginald had unjustly usurped the position of lord.
If Reginald’s treason were proven, then Veil’s assault would be justified as well.
‘Adeline! Go with Tie and find the will!’
At Basto’s words, Adeline, standing frozen near the fence, was still for a moment with confused eyes.
But then she rushed headlong into the stable.
“Hah, huff! Basto! I can’t… any….”
At that moment, Veil’s groan from the front scattered Basto’s thoughts.
Veil was visibly staggering, as though the strength had left his legs.
“Hold out just a little longer!”
Basto shouted.
He hurriedly looked around, then picked up a blunted spear lying nearby.
He intended to use it to shove away the soldiers gathered there all at once and go to Veil, but
“Where do you think you’re going.”
Suddenly, a huge soldier about Basto’s own size blocked his path.
“Capture him!”
At the knight’s order, the soldiers around them began slowly tightening the encirclement.
It was when a liquid that might have been blood or something else trickled down Basto’s forehead.
[Hah, this is why humans.]
With a pinging sound, something like a clear glass membrane formed around them.
When Basto looked up, he saw Lucarion floating in the air, wreathed in black smoke.
Having returned to the form of a young dragon, he still wore without fuss the device Velugon had made for him.
His vivid red eyes looked at Basto and Veil.
[Let me say this first. I’m not helping because I like you. I’m helping because of Tie.]
Veil and Basto’s eyes grew wide.
At that moment, Reginald’s voice came from not far away.
“Wife! Break that barrier at once!”
Furious, he was pointing at Lucarion’s barrier.
“Hurry! You said barrier breaking was your specialty!”
At that, the slender woman standing beside Reginald hardened her expression.
It was Lecia, Reginald’s wife and the magician they had heard about.
He glared at Lucarion, then began gathering her own mana into the air.
But it was useless.
“Wh, what? Why is nothing happening at all?”
Lecia’s condensed mana could not leave even the tiniest scratch on Lucarion’s barrier.
As if he had expected no less, Lucarion curled up one corner of his mouth.
Lecia’s brows narrowed.
* * *
Meanwhile, inside the stable.
“Are you sure this really is the place?”
Adeline, who had been watching the situation outside, asked.
Wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead, Tie nodded.
“Yees!”
But even after they had removed all the piled-up hay, there was still not the slightest sign of the will.
All that remained was the hard dirt floor packed with stones.
“This won’t do. Come out of there, Tie.”
At last Adeline stepped in front of Tie, as though she had made some decision.
She rolled up her sleeves, then began digging into the soil with her bare hands.
It was while Tie was looking at Adeline with a startled face.
Thud.
“Waaah!”
Someone who had approached without a sound roughly lifted Tie by the back of the neck.
When the child turned around, her face went white.
“You damned little intruder!”
The one holding Tie by the collar was one of the soldiers who had been unconscious in the stable.
“Astie!”
Only belatedly grasping the situation, Adeline rose to her feet.
But it was already too late.
“You’re next!”
When the knight shoved her with the arm in the gauntlet, Adeline lost her balance and fell into the corner.
“Kill them! Capture and kill even one of them quickly, I said!”
As Reginald shouted from outside, the soldier turned a chilling gaze toward Astie.
[…How dare you.]
Suddenly damp air swept through, and a huge shadow fell over the soldier.
The soldier faltered and raised his head.
[Whose sacred personage do you think you’re laying your hands on right now?]
Ppuppu, who had somehow grown gigantic, was looking down at the soldier while pouring out bright red smoke around himself.