Chapter 29

Perhaps I overdid it a bit.

Lazette glanced around, her eyes darting from the shadows gathered around the lord's mansion to the alley corner.

The rendezvous point with Sola is the back gate. The main gate is generally only used by nobles and high-ranking clergy, so it's natural.

The problem is that Geist knows this and has gathered his pawns at the back gate.

"How many are there?"

Luly asks Sania. Removing the cloth from her head and revealing her beast ears, Sania, who had been searching the surroundings, points to the back gate.

"Five in front of the gate, three on the side streets, and about thirteen coming this way..."

"Even if you ask me..."

Luly chuckles at the puzzled Sania.

While observing the two who seem at ease, Lazette was thinking of a way to slip into the back gate.

She still has one fire bottle left.

If she detonates it in front of the back gate, there's a possibility she'll be caught by the lord's army guarding it, but given the circumstances of her becoming Sola's attendant, she would probably only be questioned.

However, the children and Cole can't afford that.

"The three guards are troublesome. Cole, do you feel like going over there and hitting them?"

"No way! Don't always make me draw the short straw!"

If Cole were to hit the lord's guards, he could easily be treated as a traitor. The lord's army would joyfully arrest and sell him to slave traders.

Even if it weren't Cole, it's a proposal that would be firmly rejected. Lazette, who was joking, wasn't expecting anything.

At that moment, Sania suddenly looked in the opposite direction of the back gate.

"Shalina and Geist's voices are getting closer."

Lazette smiled. Her smile was exactly like Sola's when she had a mischievous idea.

"Finally, they're here. Just as Sola planned."

Cole, intuiting that the plan was anything but good, sympathized with the second deacon he had never met.

Lazette took out a glass bottle and set it on fire.

On the other side of the road, Geist and his group appeared. In addition to Shalina, there were two burly men who looked like mercenaries.

They were believers of the church that Geist had brought as guards. Against ordinary adults, even five of them would likely be overwhelmed.

Geist's pawns, who had been watching the back gate, noticed their employer and bowed slightly.

—That was a momentary lapse.

"Run!"

The moment Lazette shouted, Sania and Luly dashed out onto the road and ran toward the back gate. Lazette followed closely behind, and Cole, who was slow to react, stumbled as he chased after them.

Geist, realizing that the ones who had appeared from the alley were Lazette and the others, immediately gave orders to his pawns at the back gate.

"Any one of them will do! Catch that child!"

Lazette threw the glass bottle at Geist to delay him and turned to face the men targeting Sania and Luly.

Sania, utilizing her superior athletic abilities as a beastkin and taking advantage of her small size, slipped past the men's hands, but Luly, blocked by the men, stopped in her tracks.

A man reached out to grab Luly. Just as his fingertips were about to touch her, Lazette kicked him from the side and threw a flint at his face.

Luly slipped past the man, who had raised his arms to protect his face. Cole, who had been lagging behind, almost got caught but managed to hit the man's temple with a wild swing and escaped.

The four of them ran down the road leading to the back gate.

The guards, confused by the unfolding scene, couldn't let unidentified children running toward the mansion pass, so they stood in front of the back gate.

"Stop!"

The guard, who had thrust his spear forward and given the order, made Sania, who was leading the group, flinch and slow down.

"—They're my friends. Let them in."

The guard, who had turned around in deeper confusion at the voice from behind, saw a young boy.

"Master Sola!?"

"Move your spear quickly. Can't you hear, you dimwit?"

Sola, swinging his arm horizontally and showing his frustration, ordered the guard.

The guard, confused and hesitant, reluctantly raised the tip of his spear.

"Yeah, that's it. Thanks for your hard work with the guard duty."

The guard, who was skeptical of the sarcasm in Sola's words, couldn't see through Sola's carefree smile and took his words at face value.

"Sania, Luly, good job. Welcome back, Lazette and Cole."

Shifting his gaze from the guards, Sola called out to the girls who were slipping through the back gate one by one.

The four, exhausted from their all-out sprint, were panting on their knees in the back courtyard.

Seeing this, the three guards concluded that the danger had passed and turned to face the road leading to the back gate, raising their spears. In front of them were Geist, Shalina, and twenty-five of Geist's pawns, making a total of twenty-seven people.

One of the guards, aware of the numerical disadvantage, swallowed hard, and Geist stopped him from going to the guardhouse to call for reinforcements.

"I apologize for the disturbance. I am Geist, a second deacon of the church."

He held up a reaction stone to his eye level as proof. Hearing "second deacon," the guard visibly relaxed.

Geist, noticing this, pretended to empathize and eased the tension.

"Rather than me, please capture that maid."

"Which maid... Lazette?"

The guard, following the direction of Geist's piercing gaze, asked.

Geist nodded seriously and, as if just noticing, looked at Sola with shock.

"Heir! Please step away from that woman immediately!!"

The guards exchanged glances at Geist's panicked appearance.

Sola, looking back and forth between Geist and Lazette, tilted her head.

"Why?"

"That woman is a dangerous mage who can start fires. She must be captured and executed in the name of the gods."

The guard, finally understanding the seriousness of the situation, turned pale and tightened his grip on his spear. If he had let a dangerous person into the grounds, he would be punished.

He needed to resolve the situation and cover it up before the heir, Sola, was injured, or his own life would be in danger.

Geist, reading the guard's thoughts, was confident of victory. All he needed to do was negotiate with the guard, take custody of Lazette and the children in exchange for keeping this matter quiet.

What Geist wanted was Lazette. He intended to monopolize her next invention, which would produce ogalite, and gain even more profit.

"Are you going to kill her because she can start fires?"

Sola, feigning ignorance, asked further.

Geist maintained his act of being anxious.

"Yes. Come here quickly."

Geist, spreading his arms as if to welcome Sola, looked at her with a puzzled expression.

"Is this what you mean by fire?"

Sola, who had somehow produced a glass bottle, quickly lit it.

Before Geist could grasp the situation, the glass bottle Sola threw into the back courtyard exploded.

The flames spread and flickered in the wind, and Sola slowly turned to face Geist.

The church side, believing that the heir had used magic, stared with their mouths agape in shock, and Sola looked at Geist with a freezing gaze.

The glass bottle thrown by the three-year-old child spread flames.

It took a considerable amount of time to understand what had just happened in front of their eyes.

"The heir is a mage..."

One of Geist's guards, confused, muttered aloud, and Sola mocked him for a moment.

"Capture that man. He's a traitor."