“Princess Christina! Please refrain from such provoking actions!”

“He’s the one at fault! This is treason!”

“The boy doesn’t know that you’re royalty. We need to figure out what happened first.”

“Then hurry up and arrest him!” Christina screamed angrily, making Vanessa sigh tiredly.

“You heard her. You... Rio, was it? You’re coming to the castle with us.”

“No,” Rio declined, shaking his head.

“This isn’t a request. It’s an order. You have no right to refuse,” Vanessa said, moving the sword pointed at Rio’s neck closer.

The tip of the blade was mere millimeters away from his skin, but Rio looked into Vanessa eyes without fear. Vanessa stared back into Rio’s eyes as Christina, Celia, and Roanna watched on silently, sensing the tension in the air. Silence continued between them for a moment; in that time, Vanessa pondered in her head:

Is this boy really a child?

She was astonished by Rio nerves. A regular child might have thrown an angry tantrum, burst into tears, or groveled for their life. That would have been a normal reaction. Yet while Rio was rebellious, the way he was looking at the clearly advantageous Vanessa was bordering on serenity. A strange chill traveled down Vanessa’s spine.

“All I did was save that unconscious girl over there. You can ask her when she wakes up.”

“No. I want to hear what you know directly from your mouth.”

Vanessa immediately rejected Rio’s suggestion. Rio determined that arguing any more than this wouldn’t benefit him. Vanessa would only use her authority and strength to forcefully take him to the castle instead. He did have the option of using the power he learned earlier to counterattack them and flee, but there was no guarantee he would win against them, and they already knew his face. Rio would truly become a criminal if he did that, since his opponents were royalty and nobility. That would be the worst possible move he could make...

Rio prepared himself.

“...Just to talk, right?”

“Yeah. If we find that you’re innocent, we’ll release you. Nothing bad will happen. You can tell us the gist of it while we move.”

And that was how a mere orphan like Rio was brought from the slums of the capital to the castle in the center.

Then, several minutes later...

Around the same time that Rio was arriving at the castle, the official search party dispatched by the castle closed in on the crime scene at the wooden shack.

...As did the residents of the slums and other noisy onlookers.

“Sir Alfred! We’ve found someone that’s still alive,” a man clad in the knight’s uniform of the Royal Guard exclaimed as he burst out of the wooden shack.

“Arrest him and bring him here. He could be one of the kidnappers.”

Alfred Emerle — a man in his late twenties — ordered. He wore an extravagant cloak over the top of his knight’s uniform. A certain individual watched this conversation unfold while remaining hidden among the onlookers. They wore a black robe covering his whole body, hiding their appearance, age, and gender.

Just then, the captured suspect was dragged out of the shack. It was the man who had attacked Rio earlier. His mask had been removed, revealing his true face underneath. He was awake, but grimacing in pain from the damage he’d received in the fight earlier.

“This... might be bad,” the robed figured muttered after seeing the state of the man.

Judging from the voice, the person was male. His expression was hidden under the darkness of his hood, but the tone of his voice showed no panic, despite his words.

“...It can’t be helped.”

With a small sigh, the man took out a jewel from his breast pocket and crushed it between his fingers without hesitation.

Then...

“...Ah... gah!”

As soon as the gem crumbled to pieces, the restrained man cried out in pain. His body gave a single shudder before he dropped dead.

“H-Hey!”

The knight supporting the man panicked.

“What’s wrong?” Alfred asked, noticing that something was wrong.

“H-He’s dead.” The knight confirmed the man’s condition before informing him.

“What?” Alfred said, raising his eyebrows.

Hidden among the onlookers, the robed man looked on in satisfaction.

“Perfect timing. Mission accomplished... time to go home.”

And with those words, he left the scene.