Chapter 19: The Disappearance
Upon hearing that there was a series of small fires in the town, at the base of the castle, Jade headed for the royal office. Given the intermittent pattern of these fires, there seemed to be only one conclusion—someone was perpetrating them. In order to investigate the cause of these crimes and stop the arsonist responsible, Jade quickly sent a fleet of soldiers into the castle town.
As Jade finished delivering his orders, Ruri popped into his mind. He had allowed someone to assault her despite being right next to her. Although he never would have expected anyone would attack Ruri while she was a cat, he still felt the frustration bubbling from within, frustration toward himself for being unable to protect her—along with rage toward Azelda for kicking Ruri in her adorable cat form.
“Claus, begin preparations to return the Cerulandians back to their nation,” Jade ordered.
“Are you sure about that, Your Majesty?” Claus asked. “It appears the assailant from the Church of God’s Light has yet to be caught.”
“That’s Cerulanda’s matter, not ours. A matter, mind you, they would have had to solve in Cerulanda had the Beloved not requested to come here in the first place. Also, Lord Kotaro has stripped that girl of her Beloved powers. We don’t need to show pity for someone who hurt Ruri. Ship them off,” Jade declared in a stern tone.
Claus grinned awkwardly. “As you command. However, Cerulanda might try to blame us for their Beloved losing her powers.”
“If they do, then kindly give them a lesson on how terrifying dragonkin can truly be,” Jade said, a sharp glint in his eyes.
“Indeed, that I shall.”
Jade felt like a load had been lifted off his shoulders—things could finally start going back to normal. Azelda’s selfishness had been a problem on its own, but one of her followers had been talking to Ruri several times as of late, which also served as a reason to kick the Beloved and her party out post haste. Jade’s instincts were telling him it was likely Azelda would come after Ruri once she found out she lost her Beloved powers; he wanted them all out of the kingdom before that happened. Cerulanda might try to voice their objections, but it all boiled down to the dynamic of both nations—big versus small. The only reason they’d accepted Azelda’s request was because she was a Beloved. Now that this small nation had lost their one bargaining chip, any grievance they aired would simply fall on deaf ears.
That aside, there was the matter with the intermittent fires. Several timer-based magical devices serving as igniters had been located all over town. Retrieving them all would require a considerable amount of time, but at least they wouldn’t cause any major damage since the devices were only strong enough to set off small fires anyway.
“What in the world could all this mean?” Jade wondered, contemplating if the fires were started for the thrill of the crime or for some other reason.
He then added, “I want heightened security around the Beloveds for insurance.” Between the Reapers possibly being in town and the Church of God’s Light organizing the attacks on Azelda and Celestine, Jade had two very big causes for concern.
“Does that go for the Cerulandian Beloved as well?” Finn asked earnestly.
After some short deliberation, Jade decided that he couldn’t wittingly expose a guest from another nation to danger. “Yes, see to it,” he instructed Finn.
However, it wasn’t long before Joshua came rushing into the office. “Your Majesty, I have news!”
“What is it?”
“Intel from the person who reported about the Reapers before has allowed us to find their base of operations in town!”
“You found it?!” Jade asked, eyes wide.
The guild of assassins on everyone’s watch list. How many members did they have? Who was their leader? Where were they from? No one knew anything about them, shrouding them in mystery. Now there were reports that their base of operations in the Nation of the Dragon King had been found. Although Jade doubted how simply this elusive shadow organization was found, he had no time to sit and ponder. If they were the ones behind the arson, then they needed to apprehend them as soon as possible before they caused an even bigger incident.
“Take the troops and seize their base,” Jade ordered.
“But, with the heightened security on the Beloveds, in addition to the fires, we’ll be shorthanded...” Claus trailed off, looking troubled.
“Aah, yes, I had almost forgotten...” Jade said, exasperatedly tapping his temple with his finger.
Dragonkin were quick to jump into a fight. The sight of fire apparently got their blood running, so many of them were stepping over one another to go down into town. There were other non-dragonkin troops, but since no one was sure how powerful the Reapers actually were, Jade wanted to send in the dragonkin because of their superior combat prowess.
“Bring back the dragonkin on the fire and send our other troops. Once they get back, have them storm the base.”
“Right away,” replied Finn. He immediately sent out the order for all of the dragonkin troops in town to return to the castle.
However, that was when they ran into another problem. “Your Majesty, all of the dragonkin soldiers have fallen ill,” Finn reported.
“They’ve what?” Jade asked in surprise.
“From what we’ve found, it seems the dinner in the dragonkin cafeteria was poisoned. The men who were away and on duty are all fine, however...” They took breaks in alternating shifts, meaning every soldier that went on break first was affected.
“What does security look like? Are the soldiers all right?” asked Jade.
“Yes. Dragonkin are sturdy, so I’m told they’re in no mortal danger,” Finn replied.
“Has the culprit been found?”
“No. While we believe this chain of disturbances was far too intentional to be coincidental, we cannot figure out who it was, what they’re after, or how they managed to slip in.”
Jade’s brow tensed. Who in the world could have mixed poison in the food? If someone had infiltrated the castle all the way to the dragonkin soldiers’ mess hall in sector five, then they had a huge problem on their hands.
“Claus, go see that Ruri and the other Beloveds are safe.”
“At once.”
Claus checked right away and reported that Ruri had already eaten dinner and Celestine and Azelda were safely in their rooms. It seemed as though Ruri’s meal was perfectly fine.
“What shall we do? We could add to the Beloveds’ security and investigate the Reaper’s base, but we will be short of hands,” proposed Claus. They had more than enough non-dragonkin soldiers, but it was better to have dragonkin for the security detail and for storming the Reaper’s base.
“We can’t afford to take away security from the Beloveds,” answered Jade.
Claus nodded. “That is true.”
That being said, they couldn’t let the Reapers go unchecked. After pondering that to himself, Jade headed toward his quarters. There he found Kotaro sitting in front of the door like a guard dog with Rin sitting atop him.
“Has Ruri already retired?” Jade asked.
“Yes, she went into the room a moment ago,” answered Kotaro.
“Lord Kotaro, I’d like to ask something of you...”
“That being?”
“Due to so many problems arising all at once, we are short on available soldiers. I’d like to take some from Ruri’s security detail, but would that be all right by you?” Jade had decided that it shouldn’t matter if he pulled some of Ruri’s security detail since she had so many supreme-level spirits attending her.
“Yes, that is fine. I will place more spirits and tighten defenses around Ruri to compensate. Also, my barrier is in place around the room. There is no possible way anyone could get in.”
Jade was relieved to hear about all the extra precautions. “Thank you very much. I leave Ruri to your capable hands.”
With Ruri’s security left to Kotaro and the other spirits, Jade proceeded to pull the soldiers on guard duty and put them into the unit headed for the Reaper’s base. As such, Joshua and his team stormed the base, but by the time they got there, it was already cleared out. There were traces of recent habitation, but there wasn’t a single item left in the place. It made Joshua doubt whether they were duped by a false tip, so he left a handful of soldiers in case the Reapers came back and returned to the castle himself.
Jade ordered Joshua to investigate the matter once again and then decided to take the day off—and what a day off it ended up becoming.
Once he returned to his quarters, he found the door to his room open. Inside stood Kotaro and Rin, both looking panicked and enraged.
“What happened here?” Jade asked.
“Ruri’s gone!” Kotaro replied loudly.
“‘Gone’? What do you mean by...”
“Her presence suddenly vanished. And once we entered the room, she was nowhere to be seen,” Kotaro elaborated.
Jade dashed over to the bed, an uncontrollable sense of dread coming over him. “Ruri?!” he called, tearing back the sheets only to be met with the linen on the other side. Panicked, Jade searched every room in his quarters—the wardrobe, the bathroom, the toilet—but Ruri wasn’t in any of them. He could feel his heart practically beating out of his chest.
“Ruri...”
Kotaro added, “I was in front of the door the whole time, but Ruri didn’t step foot outside.”
“The only other place someone could get out is the window...” Jade trailed off as he went to check the window to make sure. Kotaro and Rin followed after him.
He opened the window and stepped out on the terrace, but there was no trace of anyone there.
Kotaro looked outside and called out, “Did any of you see Ruri?”
The spirits who were outside responded.
“We didn’t~” said one.
“Yeah, we were out here the whole time, and no one came in or out of the room,” said another.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary?” Kotaro asked.
“Nope.”
Kotaro and Rin were covering the door and the spirits were covering outside the window. Neither of them saw Ruri leave. In which case, it begged the question—where did she vanish off to?
“Did you really not see Ruri?! Maybe you overlooked...”
“No way. If Ruri left, we’d have known,” the spirit answered back.
“...What’s the meaning of this?” Asked Jade.
Ruri had abruptly disappeared, and it wasn’t of her own volition seeing as how she wouldn’t need to hide from the spirits if she wanted to go out. If someone had taken her away instead, then who and why? The two likely suspects then were the Reapers and the Church of God’s Light. If either one had kidnapped Ruri, then she was in danger. However, if it was the Church of God’s Light, then the spirits would have run off like with Celestine and Azelda.
“No Spirit Slayer was used either?” Jade asked the spirits who had been outside.
However, they shook their heads in response.
“Nope, none at all.”
“I didn’t feel anything~”
“So, it’s not the Church of God’s Light? In that case...” Jade thought that perhaps the culprit warded away the spirits and kidnapped Ruri while they had the chance, but the spirits said they had remained on the scene the entire time. How could they have kidnapped Ruri while she was surrounded by spirits at all times?
“I had a barrier around the perimeter in the first place. Be it the window or the door, if anyone tried to get in, I would know,” Kotaro said.
“Then, how...?”
Jade soon sent out an order to search every sector of the castle, but they found neither hide nor hair of Ruri.
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