TLN: No credits belong to me. All credits go to Patora Fuyuhara and his publishing company.

# 440 The Underground Passage, and the Nokia Royal Palace.

　A group of twelve people, only women, are on the night road while holding their breaths.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is moonlight tonight and it is not so dark. However, if they are not careful, they may stray off of the path.

The girls could easily sneak into the royal mine north of the royal capital of Nokia. In the first place, this mine has exhausted the remarkable ore it produced and is almost unused. There is also the lack of guards, since it is nighttime.

"This is it. There should be an entrance to the ruins that leads to the basement of the royal palace."

As everyone followed Princess Paffia's guidance, they saw something like a tunnel that pierced through a rock and was solidified by earth magic in a corner of the mine.

The height of the tunnel is about 3 meters and extends down to the ground. Naturally, the farther in you look, the more it is pitch black and you can't see anything.

"[Come with light, small lights, lights!]" (TLN: I will not edit the magic spell chants since they don’t have any correct way to be said.)

Linze creates a small ball of light in the palm of her hand. Relying on the light, she went down a bumpy but gentle path that went downhill and came out to a slightly wider area of the mine.

The road is now split into a junction, continuing to the left and right. Paffia's foot stopped just at that intersection.

"It's supposed to be here ...there should be an underground passage ahead. It seems that you can't enter from this side."

"Are you sure there is a passage ahead? You can only see it as an ordinary rock wall ..."

Yae murmured while touching the rock wall. Similarly, Leen touches the rock wall and hits it.

"I don't think this wall is an illusion like one that [Mirage] casts. I wonder if it's dug in normally."

"There is a magic stone that reacts to the magical power of a member of the royal family in the passage over there, and that is the key, and the door here opens ..."

"Oh, I see. You're using earth magic."

As soon as Leen was convinced, she nodded a little. Since ancient times, earth magic traps and gimmicks have been common in these underground ruins and dungeons. This is probably one of them.

"What do you do? Crush it?"

"Should I blow it away with [Explosion]?"

The hotheaded sister, Elze, was thinking of destroying the wall using her fists, and the calm sister, Linze, was thinking of using magic .. Both want to destroy the rock wall that is in their way…  is it because they are twins and have similar thoughts?

"It might be a bad idea to break the wall here. It will leave a mark that shows that someone has invaded the castle."

As Yumina replied with a bitter smile at the twins' actions, Sakura picked up a stone at her feet and began to hit the rock wall. Su calls out with a suspicious expression.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm hitting a rock"

"No, you can see that by looking at it ..."

"There is a difference in the sound that resonates. The thickness is less than fifty centimeters. In this case, I can use magic to go to the other side. [Teleport]."

Sakura disappeared saying that.

"Ah!"

While everyone except Grandma Tokie was surprised, Sakura reappeared in her original place a few seconds later.

"It's okay. There's a dungeon passage ahead. There seems to be no restrictions, so I can jump with two people at a time."

"Owa, Sakura-san!?"

"Sakura-san!?"

“[Teleport]"

Shun! Sakura pulled Yae and Hilda towards her and disappeared again. She chose them first in case something happened to the transfer destination.

She then came back and took Lean and Lou's hands this time and moved again.

Paffia and Lithia, Yumina and Su, Elze and Linde, and then Sakura moved everyone to the other side of the wall one after another. Grandma Tokie moved by herself.

"……I'm exhausted"

Even though she said that, Sakura’s face doesn’t look like it is tired. In fact, it doesn’t contain any tiredness at all.

The magical power consumed by [Teleport] is determined by the distance. Everyone knew that the teleportation, which was less than a meter away, hadn’t consumed much of Sakura’s magical power. Sakura's "tired" remark is probably talking about the mental fatigue that comes from the finessed control of the coordinates to this side of the boulder.

"Hmm. It certainly feels like a dungeon created in ruins."

Su looks around and gives her impressions. Earth-type magic stones were embedded in the dead-end wall. The rock wall will open when magical power is applied to it.

The underground passage was similar to a dungeon on a remote island owned by Brunhild. The stone wall and the floor were apparently artifacts made of earth magic. Even if it wasn't illuminated by Linze's [light], a faint light emitted from the stone.

"Did the creator of these ruins and passage synthesize light magic with earth magic onto these magic stones ...?"

"Synthetic magic. I think it was a way of casting magic back in the olden times."

Linze and Leen consider those thoughts while touching the stone wall. The underground passage stretched straight ahead and abruptly turned to the right.

With Yae and Hilda at the front leading everyone, the group of females and a stuffed bear proceed steadily through the stone passage. The width and height of the passage is a square of about 4 meters, and it is not wide enough to swing weapons.

Yumina asks Princess Paffia, who walks ahead.

"This underground passage was originally a dungeon in the ruins, wasn’t it?"

"To be exact, it's a part of the dungeon. There's an entrance from the basement of the royal palace into the dungeon in the ruins."

"The dungeon and the royal palace are connected ...? Is it okay? Monsters and the like may enter the royal palace ..."

"It's okay. There are many barriers on the royal palace’s side that keep monsters away. Monsters appear in this passage, but only weak monsters such as slimes."

Is that alright? Yumina, Elze, Linze, and Yae suddenly stop their movements at Paffia’s words, and smile creepy smiles.

"Let's crush slimes as soon as we find them ..."

"Yeah. Thoroughly ..."

"A slime is ..."

"... a deadly enemy ..."

The eyes of the four people who muttered these words were completely set.

The four of them once had a terrible experience with slimes and have hated slimes ever since.

Princess Paffia, who did not know such a situation, suddenly withdrew with a laugh at the four people whose atmosphere changed.

"Oh, a slime."

"[Penetrate through ice, freezing needles, ice needles!]"

As soon as Su finds the green slime in front of her, Linze shoots an ice needle. The slime, which turned into a hedgehog in a blink of an eye, was pierced in its core on the spot and was quickly wiped out.

"I'm scared ..."

"Green slimes are a woman's enemy. Think of it just like how Kanaza is a woman’s enemy."

"A woman’s enemy?"

"Green slimes like to eat textiles such as clothes. They are a natural enemy for female adventurers."

Leen explained to Su, who twists her neck in confusion. When she took in that knowledge, Su nodded and rushed to everyone who had been walking ahead.

Then, although there were some hurdles, such as stairs, Yumina and her friends proceeded on the road to the royal palace with almost no delays.

One of the reasons is that Princess Paffia remembered this path well.

Her sister Rafia, who had been worried about an invasion happening, had drilled the procedures and the path into Paffia’s mind. She wouldn't have expected it to be an invasion route to defeat Kanaza, not an escape route.

"It's a fork ..."

"Um ... the left. Let’s go in that direction."

The reason for the delay in replying to Hilda, who leads the way, is that the directions she learned are reversed. Following Paffia's instructions, everyone turned to the left branch of the fork in the road.

"We’ve already been travelling for quite a long time, and have advanced quite far into the tunnel..."

"Just a little bit more time…… we’ll soon reach the basement of the palace."

"Yes, right ... Then we should proceed carefully from here on, right?"

Linze, who is tired from walking for so long, listens to Paffia's answer and regains her spirit. Certainly, monsters such as slime have stopped appearing as well. The influence of the barriers put on the royal palace may have already begun to show.

After a while, Yae and Hilda, who were leading the way, stopped.

"What happened?"

Lou, who was behind her, looked forward over Yae's shoulder. There was a staircase in front of the girls, but it hit the ceiling on the way and disappeared.

"Is it the end point?"

After climbing the stairs, Yae knocks on the ceiling with her fist.

"The sound is hollow. The ceiling is most likely thin."

When Yae examined the ceiling in response to the voice from Sakura, there was a slight seam in the square. Paffia, who was in the back, starts to talk.

"It should lead to a room in the royal palace that is no longer in use."

"I see. Then I should lift this up? ... Funu!"

When Yae pushed up against the ceiling and put some effort into it, the square stone slipped slightly and lifted up. However, even though it was thin, a stone is still a stone. It was quite heavy, and Yae tried to lift it with her face bright red, but she couldn't lift it.

"Fununununuuuuuuuu ...!"

"Yae-san? Are you able to lift it? If you can’t come down before you get too tired!"

"Buha!"

In response to Hilda’s words, Yae bends her knees, completely exhausted from trying so hard to lift the square tile of ceiling. Seeing that, it was Elze who came forward while waving her arm.

"Leave this to me. I'll lift it in one shot."

"Nuu. I'm sorry ..."

As if passing Elze the baton, Yae touches Elze on the shoulder and descends from the stairs.

Like Yae, Elze put her hand on the stone on the ceiling and exhaled.

"[Boost]!" 

Gagogo! There is a sound of the stones shifting, and the stones above Elze's head are lifted at once.

What Elze saw when she lifted the stone and stood up was a dimly lit room.

Elze lowers the lifted stone to the floor in front of her and crawls out of the hole. It wasn't until Elze turned around that she realized that she was crawling out of a fireplace.

The fireplace seems to be in an unused room, devoid of any furniture. The fireplace was also empty, with no coal nor anything else in it.

Elze carefully observed the surroundings, trying to scout them out. There was no one else around the room.

"It looks okay. Come up."

"[Block the wind, visit the silence, mute]”

Leen's magic was released from the basement to answer Elze's voice. With this, the noise in the room does not echo outside and no one hears what happens in the room.

It is a wind magic that has an effect similar to the non-attribute magic [Silence] used by Touya. [Mute] was found in Babylon's "Library".

Everyone crawls out of the fireplace one after another. Only Sakura and Grandma Tokie have yet to move.

"This is a successful invasion, isn't it?"

"What are we going to do next?"

"I'll talk to my father and my sister Refia and ask them to evacuate to somewhere safe. And Kanaza with this hand I.....!"

Paffia clasps her hand. A flame of anger swirled in her eyes.

"And where is His Majesty's room?"

"The sleeping area is in the innermost room on the third floor. Um ..." 

Paffia runs through a dimly lit room while answering Elze, heading towards the window. She then slightly opens the curtain covering the window.

"Here, you can see it from here. It's the innermost room on the third floor."

Outside of the front window where Paffia stands, a courtyard spreads out in the moonlight, and Paffia pointed to the building diagonally above the room they were in, which was also a bit to the left.

"It's surprisingly close."

"If it is possible to see it, I can probably jump there with [Teleport]."

Sakura looked into the king's sleeping quarters through the window and checked the distance. Unlike [Gate], [Teleport] does not interfere with the transfer destination, so it is not hindered by amulets. The question is whether there is anyone other than the king at the end of the jump ...

"Maybe it's okay. Even my father's confidants and maids couldn't get close to him at Kanaza's command. Only us sisters and his doctor were able to enter the room. Of course, his doctor was Kanaza's puppet. It was ... "

The fact that the attending physician is a puppet means that the king can be killed at any time. It may be that Kanaza is continuing to make the doctor act as if he’s curing the king because he’s waiting for the king's heart to weaken for some reason.

"Then, it is Paffia-san and Leen-san who will transfer with Sakura-san. If you transfer, cast [Mute] in the room."

"Yes, I understand."

Sakura takes the hands of Paffia and Leen. By the way, Paula also clung firmly to Leen's leg. Everyone made sure that they could see what was happening inside of the king’s room by huddling around the window.

“[Teleport]"

In an instant, the three move to another room. It's as dim as the previous room. The three girls seemed to have moved to the edge of the room, which had a wall behind it and a large canopy bed in front.

"[Block the wind, visit the silence, mute]"

Leen immediately activates the blocking magic. It was another person who was neither Sakura nor Paffia who responded to the action.

"Who!?"

With a rattling noise, a person who seems to have been by the bed stood up and headed towards the direction in which Leen’s chant had been chanted.

The voice did not belong to the king. It is a woman's voice. Apparently, there was another person in the room than the king who slept on the bed. Paffia jumped out besides her before Leen cast a spell to neutralize her opponent.

"Refia-onee!"

"Paffia ...? Paffia!!? You, you’re safe ...!"

From Leen's point of view, she looks like a thin girl, but it seems that she is Paffia’s sister, the First Princess Refia. 

Refia strongly embraces Paffia who jumped into her chest. It was the first reunion between the sisters in three months.

Three months ago, Kanaza made up a fake corpse and declared that Paffia was dead, but Refia didn't believe that at all. No matter how similar the corpse was to her sister, she wouldn’t mistake her sister. She’d always believed that her sister's death was nothing but a lie.

After all, when her sister was alive, she embraced an important treasure on her chest.

The moonlit first princess of Nokia, Refia, looks a lot like Paffia. (TLN: It rhymes!)

She was most likely just over the age of 20 and dressed in a white-based outfit of Nokia, and had long chestnut-colored hair, the same as Paffia’s, extending to her waist. Although not as sharp as Paffia, she seems to have a strong core. (TLN: I don’t know what this means, so I can’t edit it. If you know what it is trying to say, comment in the comments!)

"It looks like everything’s okay. I'll leave it to you to bring everyone here."

"Hmm."

Right after Sakura nodded to Leen's words, she disappeared from the room.

In less than thirty seconds, Sakura reappears with Elze and Linze, then she disappears once again. Seeing strangers appearing one after another in the king's sleeping quarters, Refia opened her eyes widely.

"Pafia ... who are these people?"

"These are the fiancées of His Majesty King of Brunhild, who is an ally."

"Huh!? Even that person who is at that age!?"

"Oh no, that's His Majesty’s grandmother ..."

When first princess Refia exclaimed her statement, Princess Paffia hurriedly corrected her. The question was natural, though.

Refia doesn’t know what to say when she sees a total of nine fiancés, excluding Tokie and Lithia, the maid of Paffia.

Since the destruction of Yulong, information on the outside world has come in, but the most talked about is the Dukedom of Brunhild, which also ( is believed to have) destroyed the evil empire of Yulong. The outstanding accomplishments of the king of Brunhild were numerous.

"Alone, he defeated a huge demon," "He led soldiers to subdue a flock of dragons," "He met the princess of Zenoas, the country of demons," "He crushed the military power of a new continent," etc. It's hard to tell which ones are truths and which are lies.

However, one of the most frequently heard rumors is that the king loves women like no other. She likes heroes, but because of Kanaza, Refia didn't have a good image of King Brunhild. (TLN: People who don’t know Touya call him King Brunhild, since, ya know, he’s the king of Brunhild.)

Unlike Kanaza, in the case of the King, he showed his intentions to properly marry his wives and evaluated the fact that he seemed to treat them really well.

"Refia, right?"

"Oh, yes"

"Sir Kanaza of your kingdom used summoned beasts in our country to aim for His Majesty's fiancée’s life. Therefore, Sir Kanaza will need to be punished... because Paffia-sama said she was in trouble, we came here to assist her. "

Yumina talks to Refia in a somewhat ridiculing tone. Refia, who heard Yumina's words, bowed deeply. It is a defeat for Kanaza after having his enemies get an ally as strong as Brunhild. There was no other ally as powerful as this one. (TLN: Though it doesn’t explicitly say it, I think that Princess Refia also knew about how Kanaza was controlling people using possession magic.)

"Thank you ...! As a Nokia princess, thank you and Brunhild ...!"

"Brunhild ... Do you want to get in the way of Kanaza-sama? You need to be punished ... punished!” (TLN: This lowkey translated as ["Brynhildr ... Do you want to get in the way of Kanaza? Forgive me ... Forgive me!”] I don’t think that “forgive me” is fitting in this situation, so I replaced it with “you need to be punished”.)

A voice that suddenly echoes from the ground echoes around the room. The room has [Mute] casted on it. In other words, the voice comes from inside the room.

"It is over there!"

The place that Yumina pointed towards was at the king’s bed. Something that looked like a white fog was coming out of the king’s mouth.

The fog gradually grew, and two pairs of golden eyes looked out towards the other people in the room. Those eyes looked the same as the ones that the Specter which rampaged in Brunhild had.