Night had fallen, and the moon had risen. Having just finished a sumptuous dinner, Fernal sat wearily in his study, enjoying a maid's massage.
As the man at the helm of an empire, Fernal was exhausted.
The great nobles within the Bohemian Empire, the officials who held real power in its bureaucracy, and the imperial generals on its borders were all difficult people to deal with.
Steering a great ship was no easy task, and when that ship was old and decrepit, leaking water and letting in drafts, it was all the more taxing.
Today, for instance, Fernal had received a military report detailing a large-scale clash with the Retalia Empire's army in Hendali Border Province-and a defeat.
A clash? And they lost?
Why had it happened? Who had fought whom? How had they lost?
The army's report addressed none of those questions. All it said was, "We lost, so hurry up and send us money to cover our losses, old emperor!"
Could Fernal simply accept that without knowing what had happened?
Of course not. So the matter was far from over. Fernal needed to send an envoy to the Hendali front to investigate and inquire into the causes and course of the clash.
Fernal already suspected that the matter would ultimately come to nothing, but he had to make his position clear. He could not let the generals on the front lines act with complete impunity.
Whatever else happens, you have to hand over a scapegoat.
If you had won, I would have had nothing to say, regardless of whether you attacked first or the Retalia military ambushed you. But since you lost, you have to accept punishment.
Fernal had spent the entire day's time and energy dealing with the matter. He had been forced to negotiate with the powerful nobles in the Noble Assembly before finally persuading the minister of finance to authorize funding.
The Bohemia emperor's position was supreme, but authority without enough prestige to support it did not necessarily make his word law.
Exhausted in both body and mind, Fernal was deeply displeased when he received word that Meredith had requested an audience.
But displeased or not, business still had to be attended to. Responsibility and authority rested on his shoulders; if he abandoned the former, the latter would leave him as well.
And so Fernal summoned the Palace Steward.
"Your Majesty, we have made some headway in investigating yesterday's assassination attempt in Noble City."
As Meredith spoke, he bowed and raised the papers in his hands. A maid standing in the room hurried over to take them, then turned and passed them to Fernal.
The emperor picked up the papers and skimmed them, a trace of anger appearing on his weary face.
"There's a traitor within the Peace Dove?"
"Yes."
"Who is targeting my Peace Dove?"
"The investigation is ongoing, but we have narrowed down the likely suspects. Throughout the empire, only a handful of nobles have the means to do something like this."
Meredith paused, waiting for the emperor to digest the situation before continuing.
"The assassins who attacked the Bagnian Crown Prince died this afternoon from poisoning of an unknown origin. Clearly, they were prepared to die and had taken poison before the assassination attempt began.
"Our investigation also found that two of the assassins appeared at the Bagnian Junior Prince's side two days ago and stayed in his house..."
"A ridiculous frame-up."
Fernal scoffed, seeing straight through such a childish, obvious trick.
"Is the mastermind trying to plant a thorn in the Bagnia Crown Prince's heart, or trying to poison my opinion of him and mock my plan to support the Bagnia royal family?"
Meredith hastily lowered his head, not daring to answer that question.
"This evening, I sent men to locate and watch the Bagnian Junior Prince, but they arrived too late. He had already disappeared as well."
"Did he run, or is he dead?"
"We aren't certain yet."
"What a pity."
Fernal sighed.
"That Bagnian Musician is a mediocre man with neither ambition nor foresight. I had thought I could keep a backup ready to replace him, but now even that backup is gone..."
"Should we investigate?"
"Leave that matter alone for now."
Fernal waved a hand, rejecting Meredith's suggestion.
He was only the Bagnian Junior Prince. Whether he lived or died was of little consequence.
"The most important thing now is to root out any other unreliable elements within the Peace Dove. I don't want to see this happen again."
"Understood."
"Also, I need you to select reliable men and send them covertly to Hendali Province at once. Have them obtain intelligence on the border clash from the local Peace Dove branch. I want to know why the army went to war with Raitelia's border forces in winter, when conditions are unsuitable for fighting."
"There is definitely something wrong here."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Huh? We've already escaped Inyama?"
Sitting inside a swaying carriage, Chris poked his head out the window and looked back at the outline of Inyama's city walls as they gradually receded, puzzled.
I just got out like that? Nobody even bothered with me. Was I overthinking things and imagining I mattered more than I did?
Chris scratched his head as he pondered that rather embarrassing question.
While Chris wore a miserable expression, someone else in the caravan of over ten four-wheeled carriages and more than fifty people was practically jumping for joy.
"It's finally begun! We did it, partner!"
Behind the carriage Chris was riding in, Connie, wrapped in a cloak, suppressed her voice with immense excitement as she shared her joy with Lin Ruoyu beside her.
Lin Ruoyu remained expressionless. He could not understand Connie's excitement.
The main storyline had advanced, but the assassination mission hadn't been completed. Chris had even fled Inyama as a refugee. With such a difficult start, why was this female NPC so excited?
Players had reason to be excited. As long as they could respawn, even the hardest game storyline was no great problem.
That was why Lin Ruoyu could not understand Connie's feelings.
In fact, he was not the only one. Lin Ruoyu, who shared Chris's carriage, tilted his ear toward the voices behind them, then turned to Chris with a bitter smile.
"I'm sorry... I failed to keep my daughter in line."
Although he still did not know exactly what had happened, hearing his daughter's slightly unhinged words gave Isaac a fair idea that she must have been involved.
He knew his daughter wanted to rise above others, but he had not expected her obsession to run so deep.
Of the fifty people in the Trusted Merchant Caravan, ten were players. Among the forty-odd others, twenty were Isaac's old companions-members of his smuggling crew and brothers who had braved life and death alongside him.
Even knowing that this journey would be extremely dangerous, they had followed Isaac without hesitation.
The remaining twenty, however, were Connie's young friends.
Isaac had no idea how his daughter had won over so many young people willing to risk their lives for her and leave with her.
As a smuggler and an inadequate father, Isaac had deliberately kept his distance from his daughter for a long time, hiding their relationship from outsiders so she would not be implicated if he were caught.
He therefore truly knew little of what his daughter had been through over the years.
"She's not to blame. This is my fault."
Chris pulled his head back inside.
"Where should we go now?"
"First, we leave Inyama behind. We'll find somewhere to camp before ten. It's still peaceful within a hundred kilometers of Inyama, but beyond that area, things get dangerous. We'll have to plan the rest of our route carefully.
"As for our destination... let's go to Bagnia. Apart from Bagnia, Raitelia isn't an option. According to the traveling merchants who come to Inyama, fighting breaks out along the border between the two countries every spring."
"At our pace, we'd arrive just in time for that. It wouldn't be safe..."
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