Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 85

“Magnificent, as one would expect from the Empire’s capital.”

“I bet the food is amazing too, right?”

“……”

Elica seemed visibly nervous.

All eyes were on her, a consequence of her being an Elf.

She was huddled in on herself, like a frightened rabbit, feeling the men’s lecherous gazes and the women’s jealous stares.

Some people were looking at them with discomfort.

These were the guards responsible for the capital’s security.

Their gazes towards Kang Chan and his group, wandering around in conscript uniforms, were anything but friendly.

“How did conscripts even get into the city?” one muttered.

“I’m saying.” another agreed.

Conscripts were, as the name implied, forcibly drafted individuals.

In the eyes of many, they were no different from slaves.

It was no wonder they were displeased to see such people strolling around the capital as if they owned the place.

Besides, it looked suspicious to see conscripts hanging around with stunningly beautiful women, especially an Elf.

“Damn it, is this some kind of new scam?” one of the guards wondered.

The guards speculated that they might be the illegitimate children of some high-ranking family or perhaps a royal’s eccentric whim.

However, they couldn’t shirk their duty, so they had to conduct a search first.

“We should conduct the search as politely as possible,” the senior guard instructed.

Ten guards approached Kang Chan and addressed him as respectfully as they could.

“Excuse me. We’ll need to conduct a search for a moment.”

“What’s going on?” Kang Chan asked.

“Judging by your attire, you appear to be conscripts. Is that correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“May I ask how you came to be here?”

“I’m on leave.”

“Leave, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Leave… hmm.”

*‘Leave for a conscript? What kind of nonsense is this?’* the guard thought, his annoyance growing.

“Then, could I see your leave pass?”

“Just a moment.”

Kang Chan produced a bundle of leave passes from his pocket.

The guard who received the leave pass was dumbfounded.

*‘Holy crap… what is all this? Battalion Commander, Division Commander, Corps Commander… how many are there?’*

A Corps Commander was at least a Duke [a high-ranking noble].

It was his first time seeing a leave pass from someone of Division Commander rank or higher.

*‘The seals don’t seem fake, but if he knew how serious forgery of official documents was, he wouldn’t dare to do something so childish… Just who the hell is this guy?’*

“Could you tell me your identity?” the guard asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

“Didn’t I just say? I’m a conscript…”

The guard cut Kang Chan off.

“Which kingdom and family do you belong to?”

Kang Chan was momentarily at a loss for words at the guard’s question.

He couldn’t exactly say he was Captain Kang Chan of the Red Mars Special Forces Unit under the Space Federation Army, nor could he say he was an Elven Knight from the Elven Forest.

*‘Huh… this is awkward,’* he thought.

As Kang Chan hesitated, the guard became more assertive.

“If you can’t confirm your identity, we’ll have to ask you to come with us.”

Then, Jikyon, who had been quietly observing, lost her patience.

“Hey, are you guys underestimating me because I’ve been holding back?” she snapped.

Jikyon was about to obliterate the humans who were ruining their long-awaited quality time in one fell swoop.

Sensing the surge of mana [magical energy] from Jikyon, Kang Chan blocked her path and said.

“Um, would this be enough to prove my identity?”

Kang Chan held out the comb that Edeline had given him.

The guard took the comb with a puzzled expression and examined it closely.

Soon, the guard’s eyes widened.

He had discovered the imperial seal imprinted on the comb.

“W-where did you get this?” he stammered.

“I received it directly from Princess Edeline.”

“From Princess Edeline, you say?”

“That’s right.”

The guard hesitated.

Judging by the fact that he referred to her as a princess without honorifics, he couldn’t help but think that his status must be high.

However, the comb didn’t definitively guarantee his identity, so he couldn’t stop the search.

“Then, how did you enter Bellarein [the capital city]?”

There was no way he could have passed through the checkpoint in a conscript uniform in the first place.

Unless he had entered in different attire, riding in a carriage, and changed here.

If that were the case, it would be a truly bizarre hobby.

But Kang Chan’s casual remark caused trouble.

“I entered through space warp.”

“Space warp?”

The guard’s cautious expression instantly turned cold at the mention of space warp into the heart of the Empire’s capital.

“From where, may I ask?”

“From the garrison.”

Kang Chan didn’t realize how rare space warp magic was in this world.

Having been around archmages like Jikyon and Arteon, he had come to take space warp for granted.

However, in the human world, space warp was not something one could experience so easily.

Only royals, high-ranking nobles, or wealthy merchants could occasionally use it when they were in a hurry.

That’s because mages who could perform space warp, 7th circle or higher, were highly skilled personnel.

Moreover, long-distance space warp required enormous mana, so there was an additional cost.

In addition, such large cities had space distortion fields installed, so unauthorized space warp would cost you more than ten lives [a figure of speech indicating a severe penalty].

Jikyon had casually entered because she had installed several counter-magic circles here in the past.

That was something Jikyon had created long before the Visman Empire was even founded.

The number of times Jikyon had watched human kingdoms rise in this place was too many to count on ten fingers.

It was a reminder of how long Jikyon had lived.

To have the belongings of a princess while being a conscript, and to have infiltrated the capital through space warp.

There was nothing that wasn’t suspicious.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us for a while.”

“What reason do you have for this?”

“Illegal space warp into the Empire’s capital is a serious crime. Were you not aware?”

“Hey! They’re saying it’s illegal?” Jikyon exclaimed.

“What do I care? I don’t give a damn about human laws!”

“What will you do? Will you comply peacefully?” the guard asked, his hand on his sword.

The guards pointed their swords and spears at Kang Chan and his group.

It was clear that they would use force if they didn’t comply.

Then, Jikyon, who was truly angry, shouted as if she couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Damn it! I can’t take it anymore! Just wait a moment!”

*Poof!*

Jikyon disappeared in a flash of space warp.

The remaining people were taken aback.

Kang Chan was extremely nervous, thinking that Jikyon was so angry that she was going to kill all the guards, but fortunately, Jikyon didn’t cause any trouble.

However, his eyes widened when he saw the woman Jikyon was holding when she returned.

The woman was none other than Edeline.

“E-Edeline?”

“Hey! Is that enough? Can we go now?” Jikyon demanded.

“Ah! P-Princess!”

The guards recognized Edeline at a glance and knelt down.

Edeline, flustered, could only blink at them.

She was clearly in the middle of her afternoon tea time. But suddenly, Jikyon appeared out of nowhere and brought her here.

Edeline belatedly discovered Kang Chan and blushed.

“Oh my! Kang Chan Gong [Gong is an honorific]!? H-how are you here?”

“Huh, Edeline?”

Kang Chan glared at Jikyon, the culprit, as he spoke.

Jikyon simply shrugged.

Once freed from Jikyon’s grasp, Edeline was the first to greet Jikyon in accordance with imperial etiquette.

“I, a humble girl, greet the great one.”

“Yes, it seems you’ve finally come to think about etiquette,” Jikyon said dryly.

“Yes, of course. You are a great one, after all……”

She couldn’t help but feel immense fear at the dragon’s ability to kidnap her from the Empire’s imperial palace in the blink of an eye.

The Empire’s imperial palace boasted the best magical defense in the entire human realm.

The Wiff countermeasures [likely a magical security measure] were also very densely laid out.

To come and go as if it were her own home…….

She thought that it wasn’t for nothing that dragons were called the masters of magic.

But that wasn’t an easy task, no matter how powerful a dragon was.

The reason Jikyon was able to capture Edeline so easily was that Jikyon had spent time playing in the Visman Empire in the past.

At the time, her concept was that of a notorious villainess.

She seduced the emperor and rose to the position of empress, shaking him in the palm of her hand.

Her extravagance emptied the national treasury, and countless ministers and nobles died because of her cruel nature.

The lives of the empire’s citizens were devastated by the long war with the Orcs, but her luxury and pleasure never ceased.

In that situation, a loyal subject risked his life to plead with her, saying that the people of the empire were starving to death, and begged her to stop her extravagance.

Then she retorted.

“Then why don’t they eat the dead Orcs?”

“……”

At the time, there were mountains of Orc corpses piled up on the battlefield.

The humans were collecting them and burning them or burying them in the ground.

Even so, the amount of corpses was so large that most of them were left in the fields to be eaten by wild animals or simply rot away.

That’s because the humans of the Arkandor continent didn’t eat the flesh of similar races.

Like Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs.

Jikyon’s heart ached at the sight.

Because of the foolish humans who were wasting food.

*‘If they made boiled Orc meat, how delicious would it be…….’*

Orcs were occasionally a delicacy that she, as a dragon, enjoyed.

The meat was tender, and the lean meat and fat were evenly distributed…… Anyway, she was just saying that they should eat that instead of starving to death, but her answer was recorded in history as a notorious gaffe.

She was thinking of the people, so she could have been a little wronged.

But this time, her concept was that of a villainess, so she didn’t care at all.

However, the repercussions of her words on the people of the empire were enormous.

Their empress was a person who made outrageous remarks, telling them to dig up and eat the corpses of their enemies when they were hungry.

Well, there was no need to voluntarily confess such a past.

“What is the reason you have summoned me here?” Edeline asked the guards.

“This mess happened because of the comb you gave him. You take care of it,” Jikyon said, gesturing to Kang Chan.

“Yes?”

“Get those annoying things out of my sight. You know what will happen if I take matters into my own hands, right?”

For a dragon to show this much consideration was a great act of consideration.

Who would go so far out of their way for a few ants?

They could just step on them and move on.

It was only because Kang Chan was there that Jikyon held back and went so far out of her way.

Edeline, who immediately understood the dragon’s words, hurriedly called the highest-ranking guard.

And after whispering something in his ear, the senior guard was startled and hurriedly took his subordinates and disappeared as if fleeing.

“I’ve taken care of it, Jikyon-nim [Nim is an honorific],” Edeline said, turning back to the dragon.

“Oh, you’re starting to understand me quite well.”

“By the way, what brings you here? Did you perhaps come to see me?”

“Do I look like I’ve been stabbed in the head with a knife?” Jikyon retorted.

“……”

Kang Chan, unable to watch any longer, stepped forward.

“I came on leave.”

“L-leave, you say? Now that I think about it, you really are in uniform?”

Edeline, who recognized that the uniform was issued to conscripts, wore a subtle expression.

Knowing Kang Chan’s skills well, she couldn’t understand why he was affiliated with the conscripts at all.

“But, why are you wearing such clothes?”

“My current status is that of a conscripted soldier.”

“What? A conscripted soldier? Why?”