Chapter 296: ~Chapter 93~ Part 2

"[It's cold in here.]"

Rabom sounded almost absent-minded as he propped the Gorgon Knight against the wall. I had to agree with him, but I also had a question: why was the warehouse so warm, considering it's the middle of December, and they only had a single camp stove in there?

It was a rhetorical question, of course, as I was sure it had to do with that thing starting with 'n' and ending with 'arrative convenience', but I would've preferred some consistency. At least it only mildly bothered me, thanks to my gear, but I imagined the Fauns were getting quite chilly already.

"We have electricity, so I'll bring a couple of infrared heaters over later," I noted as I looked around the room. The last time I'd been here, this was where Mike was being held captive, but after the Magi took over the place, it had been scoured clean of everything, leaving only the four blank walls.

"[Hey, boss? I found a couple of chairs!]" Karukk's excited yell made the very, very slowly moving Knight on the floor let out a surprised squeak, but a moment later he resumed his attempts to bore a hole into my helmet with the power of his glare alone. Needless to say, it didn't do much.

"What are you planning to do to us, traitor?" Raven Boy hissed at me, finally realizing that I'm not going to talk to him first just because he was glowering at me, and I shrugged.

"I'll have you sit down first, I suppose," I said, and took two of the dozen or so chairs Karukk was carrying on his shoulder. I set them down next to each other, facing away from the door, and then gestured for the Fauns to get the two guests into position.

Raven Boy wasn't particularly difficult in this regard, as Rabom could simply set him down onto the left chair and be done with it, but Morgana was still too rigid. In retrospect, I might've overdone it a little when I fiddled with the enchantments on her gear, but there was no sense crying over spilled milk.

Rabom was still busy getting the young Knight into position, moving his limbs around like he was a mannequin, so I gestured for Pip to carry our other guest over. There were some appearances to be upheld here, so once she was roughly in position, I extended a phantom limb and simultaneously said, "We can't have a conversation while you're like that, so for the time being, you're allowed to move again." Saying so, I pushed and pulled a couple of metaphysical levers in her armor, then sternly added, "Don't get any funny ideas."

The Gorgon lady stumbled for a moment as she suddenly regained control over her movements, but quickly regained her balance, and once our eyes met, she plopped down onto her seat without uttering a single sound.

"Now then, how about we have a nice, friendly chat, like the adults we are." I purposefully glanced at Raven Boy, and corrected myself. "Most of us are."

"Stop looking down on me!" he growled back, and I couldn't help but shake my head at his bravado.

"Give me a reason not to. Also, it's not like I have much of a choice in the matter. I don't have a place to sit, so I'm unfortunately forced to look down when talking to you. That's just how it wo—" Just as I was about to finish heckling him, I felt something touch the back of my leg, and when I looked over my shoulder, I found Karukk gently placing a chair behind me.  "I didn't say that to... Oh, never mind."

Sitting down, I said a curt thanks to the grinning Faun. In the meantime, Morgana was already in the process of unbuckling the straps of her helmet, and I followed her example. The two of us took off our headgear more or less at the same time, and so I could finally take a good look at her face.

She was younger than expected, probably in her late thirties or early forties at most, with lean, attractive features and dark hair with a slight greenish tint woven into a bun at the back of her head. Fittingly, her most striking feature was her piercing pair of amethyst eyes under thin eyebrows, currently drawn into an uneasy frown.

"Before we discuss anything else, I have a question," she said in a level voice, and while my first instinct was to shoot her down and maintain my grip on the conversation, after a second thought, I gestured for her to go ahead.

Based on her earlier behavior, she was at least decently reasonable, and if their earlier interaction was to be believed, she was in the dark about Judy's attempted kidnapping and therefore mostly innocent. Considering all that, I figured there was no reason to completely antagonize her yet.

"Sure, be my guest."

"I already am," she answered a touch flatly before looking me in the eye and asking, "Are you Bel of the Abyss?"

That.. definitely threw me on a loop, and I honestly regretted taking off my helmet too early. That way I wouldn't have had to focus so much on maintaining a poker face.

"What gave you that idea?" I asked back with an amused smile, trying to play it off as a funny misunderstanding, but she remained entirely serious.

"Similar build, movements, and a complete lack of fear-response. You broke out of my Gorgon's Gaze the same way as well. Also, you referred to this island as 'yours', just as Bel of the Abyss did."

"... So, circumstantial evidence." I sighed and continued with, "Let's say that I'm Bel. Why would I tell you? And why would you even ask? The information doesn't help you, and even if you were right, by accusing me to my face, you'd be just asking to be silenced."

Completely unfazed by my rebuttal, she simply pointed at my waist.

"You have Caledfwlch," she stated dryly, eliciting a confused "What?" from Raven Boy. We both ignored him.

"Is it just me, or are you unusually observant," I muttered as I unhooked Cal from my belt and held them out in front of me. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I have."

"Impossible!" Raven Boy protested loudly, and if not for him still being restrained by his equipment, I was sure he'd have jumped to his feet for emphasis. "It must be a trick! There's no way the Kingmaker approves of him!"

"{He is correct, young knight.}"

"Oh, stop moping, you big baby," I responded with a roll of my eyes. "I only told you to stay silent during the battle, because I didn't need any distractions."

"{I exist to give advice to my wielder, both in and out of battle! You have denied my reason of existence!}"

"No, I didn't." Cal didn't respond, and the two Knights were giving me strange looks, so I whispered, "If I apologize, will you stop sulking?"

"{I'm not sulking!}"

"Fine, you're not. We are kind of in the middle of something right now, so I'll make it up for your later. I'll even make you a cool scabbard and everything, okay?"

The sword in my hand stayed stubbornly silent, but as for the two in front of me, Raven Boy somehow managed to barely lift a hand and pointed a finger in my general direction.

"Did you think we would believe you just because of some kind of moronic charade like that?"

"Charade? Do you mean my disagreement with Cal?"

"Yes!"

"… Maybe it's because it's late and I'm tired, but I seriously can't connect the dots. Can you explain the problem in detail?"

He glared at me like he was thinking I made fun of him, and declared, "Swords can't talk!"

Normally this would've been the point where we had a beat of awkward silence to accentuate the moment, but it was ruined by Pip in the back failing to stifle his snickers. As such, I sighed and raised Cal to eye level.

"You just denied poor Cal's reason of existence. How cruel of you. This is definitely the darkest of times."

"{… the darkest of— Hey! I was about to say that!}"

This time I was the one who chuckled and casually pointed the sword in my hand at the guy.

"For your interest, Cal can certainly talk. Furthermore, the little girl who beat you up used to be a talking sword as well. They're not even that uncommon, really."

"Little girl?" Morgana repeated after me, sending a sideways glance at the very slowly squirming Raven Boy. "I was under the impression you were ambushed by several armed ruffians."

"Nah, just my girlfriend's bodyguard, plus her father. If it makes you feel any better, one of them is a fox-girl ninja, while the other is a police officer with a shotgun." Since I suddenly reminded myself, I pointedly cleared my throat and added, "Speaking of which, I still have to go back and explain to my future in-laws what a lad dressed in medieval armour was doing breaking into their daughter's room in the middle of the night, so how about we get this discussion rolling?"

"I agree," Morgana responded without missing a beat, but then she looked at Raven Boy again. "After this, we're going to have a long talk as well. Your mother didn't leave you in my care for you to get up things like that."

He didn't answer, only gritted his teeth. Morgana exhaled a soft huff and looked me in the eye again, so I said, "I believe before we went off-topic, we were discussing how holding Cal has somehow justified your accusing me of being Bel."

"It's entirely reasonable," she replied without batting an eye. "If you are holding Caledfwlch, it means you are found worthy. If that is so, you are now the King of Knights approved by the Kingmaker, which means you wouldn't cause any harm to us."

"… That's a lot of assumptions you'd made just now."

"I also have another reason," she interjected, and before I could respond, she also pointed at me. "You have Penelope's treasured unicorn horn. She absolutely wouldn't let anyone have it unless they had her complete trust. She's also living with you and attending your school, which she wouldn't do if Arnwald and the others were in danger. That tells me they must be safe, and since you are now the King of this generation, they must be working with you. This would mean that, despite the rumors of being engaged to the Dracis heiress, you hold no hostility towards the Brotherhood, therefore asking you about your connection to Bel of the Abyss should be entirely safe."

It was only when she finished that I realized my mouth was hanging open, so I forcefully closed it and began massaging my temple with my free hand.

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"That was a completely disjointed mess of reasoning with little through-line, but the most annoying thing about is that you are mostly correct," I grumbled, but I couldn't leave it at that, so added, "However, I actually do have quite a bit of enmity towards you after your little kidnapping stunt."

"That was Agravain's doing in its entirety. Feel free to discipline him."

"Auntie…"

Pretending that she didn't hear her nephew's moan, she crossed her arms and continued musing.

"I presume you have chosen to adopt the Bel identity to sow discord among our enemies. I have to admit, the way you disappeared and reappeared repeatedly was both fascinating and frightening. How did you do it? Is it a power granted by the Kingmaker? Is it also how you can control these Fauns?"

"Hold on! Since when did we conclude I was Bel?"

"You didn't deny it, so I took it as a given," she answered me dead seriously before continuing on where she left off. "I'm also curious about how you deflected the Feilong elder's breath attack with your bare hand. Was it a defensive technique? Or maybe an artifact?"

By this point, I graduated from temple massaging and moved on to full-fledged facepalming.

"{Face it, young knight; she completely figured you out.}"

"No, she didn't," I whispered back at Cal's comment. "She just made a bunch of logical leaps that coincidentally let her land on the truth. It's not the same."

Morgana stopped talking, probably thinking I was addressing her, and after some consideration, I sighed in defeat.

"Fine, you got me. I'm Bel," I said just a touch wearily. "Unfortunately, the fact you figured it out puts us into a bit of a predicament."

"What is the problem?"

"You see, this was a secret I've kept from the others, and I can't risk you accidentally revealing it to them just yet. That means I'm afraid I'll have to keep you in custody for now."

"Custody?" Raven Boy repeated after me, half confused and half outraged. Unfortunately for him, I was fresh out of damns to give, so I completely ignored him.

"Now that you mention it, Penny and you are in the open, but where are Arnwald, Roland, and Duncan?"

"In our secret underground base."

"You have one of those?"

"I've been busy."

"I can see that. I'm happy to hear they are safe."

"How can you believe him that easily!?" Raven Boy cut in again, and this time she actually responded.

"Leonard is the King. If he says so, then that's how it is."

"Bull—!"

"How come they didn't make contact?" She cut him off and went back to ignoring him. "The Squires couldn't find any traces of them in the city, and we didn't receive a single pigeon since we arrived on the island either."

"We are currently in the process of reforming the Brotherhood into a new organization that will keep the Draconians in check from the inside, but until I can convince the clans to accept our supervision, I have them train indoors to avoid any incidents. As for the pigeons, I'm afraid they misplaced them."

"Again?" Morgana shook her head like a disappointed elementary school teacher. "I'll have to tell Arnwald to take better care of them. Speaking of which, how is he? Is he eating well?"

"Wait, auntie! Aren't you skimming over something really important?!"

"He's fine. I have a Celestial friend who has a knack for healing magic, and after his back injury got fixed, he's been working out a lot."

"Don't ignore me!"

"Really? At his age?"

"He's not that old…" I told her a touch uncertainly, acutely aware that my yardstick for age was most likely irreparably warped by being acquainted with Brang, Ichiko, and Sebastian. "More importantly though, for this reorganization to work, I need the cooperation of the Feilongs and their influence, so I'd appreciate it if you could tell me about the deal you made with their grand elder."

The Gorgon Knight blinked a few times, but at last, she uncrossed her arms and said, "I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this reorganization and working with the wyrmbloods, but you are the King, so if you say so, that's how it's going to be."

She shrugged, and this time she linked her fingers in her lap before she began her explanation.

"The Feilong elder reached out to us during our reconnaissance of the island. We were told our brothers were captured by the Dracis, and they were held in an underground fortress hidden on the island."

That… was actually a fairly accurate description of the early affairs. How was grand elder Xinji so well-informed? Was there a spy in the Dracis mansion, I wondered?

"Since they couldn't tell us the location, they proposed a mutually beneficial agreement. During the upcoming martial arts competition, the elder's men would set up a Sealed Restricted Space. Using it, we would trap everyone in the arena, and use them as hostages to demand the release of Arnwald and the others. He also handed me a key to the anchor of the Restricted Space, but we couldn't be sure if it had any tracking of surveillance enchantments, so it's currently inside Agravain's arsenal."

"I guess you mean this?" I patted the inventory artifact, and she gave me a nod. "When were you supposed to do this whole hostage-situation plot?"

"The last day of the competition."

"And what does the grand elder get out of this?"

"He told us that he only wished for us to cause as much chaos as possible, and so long as none of the Feilongs got hurt in the process, he would ensure a safe escape route for us."

"And you took him on his word?"

"Of course not," she answered with a scoff. "It's obviously a trap, but it doesn't mean we can't take advantage of it. Of course, now that we know that the others are safe, there's no reason to go through with the attack, so our plans are completely irrelevant now."

I let out a hum and silently contemplated the situation. While hearing their side of the story didn't clear up the grand elder's goals or motivations, it at least revealed the nature of the upcoming episode, and to be honest, I wasn't too surprised. A tournament getting interrupted halfway because of some kind of incident was about as much of a cliché as the tournament itself, so I was more or less expecting something like this.

However, why did the attack have to happen on the third day in particular? It made sense in a Doylist context; tournament interruptions almost always happened either during or near the culmination of the competition, but what kind of Watsonian reasoning could explain why it had to be that day in particular? I had no idea at the moment, but I figured there had to be one. Maybe the grand elder only wanted the most powerful participants to be caught up in the event? Or maybe the more important Draconians would only gather for the finals? Or maybe it was something else entirely?

For the time being, I put this conundrum on the backburner, at least until I could ask Abram and Naoren for more details on the tournament. Let's just focus on the other dilemma at hand, namely the question of what to do with these two? With their capture, I've already derailed the presumed interruption-plot, so I figured I would have to deal with the fallout of that. Knowing the modus operandi of the presumed Narrative, it would probably throw a curveball at me later, but what choice did I have? I couldn't just let them go and have them go through the whole thing and…

…

"Actually, hold that thought. We might have some use of your ideas after all."

"We?"

My words made Morgana pucker her brows, but I was too caught up in the moment to let it bother me. Elly had been on my case about opposing the Narrative instead of trying to make it work for me, so wouldn't it be fun to subvert her expectations? I mean, just because the tournament-interruption was a tired old trope, it didn't mean there was no way to make it 'fun' and 'interesting'…

"[Uh-oh… The boss is smiling.]"

"[He must be scheming something big again…]"

I graciously ignored the peanut gallery, and once the rough outlines of a plan materialized in my head, I turned to the knightly duo in front of me and asked, "Say? How do you feel about becoming the evil henchmen for Bel of the Abyss for a day?"

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