2
The next morning, after having a late breakfast, Jin and his friends left Catherine’s manor.
"Please come visit me again sometime."
Catherine came out to the front door to see Jin and his friends off.
"She was a nice lady."
"Yeah."
Jin and the others were rambling on in the carriage that was taking them back to the hotel.
They had to keep their conversation very vague so as to not let the coachman hear anything he wasn’t supposed to.
It was too early to say for sure at this point, but both Jin and Elsa agreed that it seemed that their encounter with Catherine had been a virtuous one.
"So you’re meeting with that Fernand guy, right?"
Shion asked Jin.
"Yeah, he said to meet at the park in front of the hotel at noon."
The previous night, Panse and Viola had reported that Fernand didn’t show any suspicious behavior, so Jin had some expectations.
Panse and Viola could potentially bring as much information to Jin as Fernand, but since Jin didn’t know how useful Fernand could be in the future, he was set on giving him the remaining 5 gold coins to keep him as a contact.
"For now let’s just go back into the hotel and make a fresh start."
The carriage had just arrived in front of the hotel.
Jin and his friends got off the carriage. Elsa, who got off last, thanked the coachman and gave her a tip. Seeing that, Jin thought that he had expected as much.
"Hehe, she looks like a wife supporting her husband’s endeavors."
Shion murmured when she saw Elsa rushing towards Jin after he had gotten off the carriage.
It seemed that Shion’s comment hadn’t reached Jin’s ears, but Elsa had apparently heard it as her cheeks suddenly turned a bit red.
＊ ＊ ＊
After a rather early lunch at the hotel, they headed for the park.
Originally, Jin had wanted to go just with Reiko. But neither Elsa nor Shion would have that, so in the end, all of them went together.
"Oh, you’re here! Sir! Sir! Over here!"
Fernand had already arrived and was waving at Jin and his friends. He had changed his clothes from the day before and was now wearing clean, beautiful garments.
"You’re looking sharp today, huh?"
When called out by Jin, Fernand chuckled before replying.
"Hehe, I got these with the advanced payment you gave me yesterday. There are some sources that I cannot even approach if you’re wearing rags."
That was also mentioned in Panse and Viola’s report. Fernand was not lying about that.
"Hehe, I got you a big haul today. Do you think you can throw me some more coins?"
Jin decided to act a little condescendent in his answer to Fernand, who seemed extremely proud of himself.
"Well, that depends on the merchandise."
In fact, Panse and Viola -who had been sticking around him- along with Laojun and Reiko had all been able to get the same information that Fernand had, but Jin had purposely refrained from asking any of them.
"For starters, it seems that their names are Istalis and Netros."
"Okay, what else?"
The first stage had been cleared.
"It seems they have introduced themselves as ‘demons’. And since he saw no point in hearing whatever these ‘demons’ had to say, Enak’s governor Kutaga set them up
The second stage had been cleared as well. It seemed that he had actually managed to get accurate information so far.
"Also, I’ve heard that they had brought gold and Magi Crystals as gifts, but Kutaga simply slipped those into his own pocket."
And the third stage was also cleared. Fernand was speaking honestly and was not distorting the information he had found.
"So, it seems that they were taken to the royal capital to question them about where the demons are based, what they are planning, and how many troops they have."
So far, everything was consistent with the information he had heard from Catherine. Fernand was really well-informed.
"This is the problem. Even though they have them drugged, they’re still demons. They don’t know what kind of powers they have. And they don’t know if there are others coming to help them. So it seems that they’re going to take them somewhere else."
This was new information. Fernand’s supplementary explanation made sense.
"And where are they being taken…? Hehe, you’ll know as soon as I have my fee."
"…Very well."
Jin handed him 5 gold coins that he had prepared in advance. Then, he showed him another 5 gold coins…
"I’ll give you more depending on how good your information is. So talk to me."
"Hehe, you got it. The place is Genf, south of Sanjerton. There’s a prison over there."
Genf was a town about 50 kilometers south of Sanjerton, near Lake Asur, and had a prison for vicious criminals and political prisoners.
"It seems that the demons were being taken there by carriage yesterday at noon, so they should arrive tomorrow evening."
This was good information. Reiko, who would have already learned this from Panse and Viola’s report, didn’t say anything, so he wasn’t lying. Therefore, Jin gave Fernand all 5 gold coins he had in his hand.
"Oooh! This is great! What a generous aristocrat. If you ever need me in the future, all you need to do is go to that tower over there in this park."
Fernand pointed to a tower close to a sundial found in the center of the park.
"Just put something blue at its base. It could be a handkerchief or some other piece of clothing."
"Got it. I’ll keep that in mind."
"Well then, thanks for your patronage, Sir!"
Fernand bowed down and started to leave. Then, he turned around…
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The carriage is being escorted by 10 soldiers and 2 knights."
…Then he left.
(Father, it seems that he wasn’t lying. What he said matches the information that Panse and Viola got.)
(Alright.)
Jin and Reiko talked in whispers, and then decided to return to their hotel room to make a plan based on Fernand’s intel.
"Now that I know the whereabouts of Istalis and Netros, we have to think about how to rescue them."
"Can’t we just attack their guards?"
Lucas was as straightforward as ever.
"We can’t do that, Lucas. If we did, we’d only widen the gap between demons and humans even further."
"Oh, y-yeah, you’re right…"
Shion seemed to be considering the future of the relationship between the two races.
Jin didn’t yet believe that he could fully trust the demons. Or rather, he was simply being cautious.
But Jin felt that he could at least trust Shion. However, he still needed to be cautious, because trusting one demon didn’t mean he could trust all of them.
For now, his mind was set on meeting Istalis and Netros and listening to what they had to say.
"Is there a way we can rescue them without causing offense…?"
Jin was deep in thought.
In the first place, to rescue them was a bit extreme. The Frantz Kingdom was entitled to its honor as well.
"If only I could switch them for replicas…"
But that was impossible, because Jin didn’t know what Istalis and Netros looked like.
"What if they happened to die, Brother Jin?"
"Ah, that’s it!"
Jin quickly supported Elsa’s idea.
"…But how are you going to do that?"
Shion seemed anxious.
"Well, let’s see… Something like ‘Someone who hated or feared the demons attacked the guards and burned the two demons to death’."
Jin explained that their "burnt corpses" would be made by burning monster materials.
"The problem is how to make the switch without anyone noticing."
"A smokescreen?"
"No, Elsa, that has a lot of uncertain variables to that. There has to be a better way…"
"Why don’t we just kill all of the guards?"
"Lucas!"
Lucas voiced his radical opinion, and Shion protested it right away. But it still gave Jin an idea.
"Right, but what if we could make them all faint?"
They should be able to incapacitate the guards without needing to harm them by using a paralyzer.
"In that case, we should make it clear that the attacker is a human."
"And we need to determine where we’re going to strike."
Elsa and Jin began to sketch the frames of a plan. They would later have Laojun fill in the details.
"We need to think about where to and how to escape once we’ve successfully rescued them."
As she listened to Jin and Elsa discuss their plan, Shion’s face gradually became brighter. Just by hearing them, she somehow knew that they would be able to rescue her sister.
"Alright, let’s leave the rest to Laojun."
With his incredibly high thinking speed, Laojun was more suitable for adjusting details and selecting time.
Jin would be taking care of thinking about what to do after they Istalis and Netros had been rescued.
Shion didn’t know what Jin meant by "Laojun", but she was relieved to hear that they had finally come up with a plan that looked like it could actually work.