Chapter 77 : The ambitions of the house of Elfodoras (Elfdras)

Hidden in the Sea of Trees of Trent Retta, there is a huge building that looks like a log house with overhanging vines. Located in the capital of Rinval, in a room of this great house, a woman who was the head of this house was exhaling a depressed sigh.

“Haiz….”

“My lady, why are you sighing?”
“You shouldn’t. To sigh, it will turn to misfortune you know?”

The attendants beside her were her childhood friends. Ever since she began to live in the capital, Welsh and Livona, these 2 people took care of her like usual.

The predecessor, Earl Elfodoras was hiding out in the region, aiming to control Trent Rietta, for 3 years he had created the underworld organisation called “Wind Edge”. In the beginning, as the boss of the dark merchants, he pioneered a commercial fleet escort, worked out new distributions, and was barely scraping along.

That was until a certain Nossentes research group, which wanted to raise money to continue their research on modded magical beast, commissioned them. Since then the activities of the dark merchants began to look more like those of a gang of bandits. Thus the current head was not happy about it.

Valerie had been thinking about it recently. Her father who went insane in his late years.

“~~the meaning of life is the struggles of the people! A world without struggle is a dead world! ~~”

A fool struggling to reclaim back the light of a fallen Trent Rietta, he tried to conduct a speech to the clan just a few days before Earl Elfodoras died, as it got closer to the raising of action he fell ill.

With the loss of their leader, the Wind Edge was at risk of being disband, up until now the Elfodoras family, which was supported by the Big Three, were waiting for Lady Valerie to become the successor, and to put the whole family in order.

Thereafter, the heads of the Big Three will respectively take the position of the internal affairs officer, financial officer and military officer and take charge of the organisation.

Thus from the side, the daughter of Earl Elfodoras will only be the successor in name and she will have almost no say as all the powers lies in the Big Three that are commissioned at the helm of the organisation.

Many of the people had been suffering from the current thief-like way that the organisation was being run; they had tried to appealed to Valerie for a reform, but with Fortress as the manager, he always changed the way he was dealing with her while giving a response like an unreasonable child.

“Ha….what am I doing here?”

“Erm, isn’t it because while the lady wasn’t around~ the organisation was falling apart?”

“Aren’t the 3 officers doing fine even without me around?”
“To move people, sometimes a symbol is necessary.”

Livona nonchalantly appeared from somewhere unknown, with an outward appearance, a relaxed voice without twisting her words and replying a “normal answer”, in contrast to her, Welsh had a cranky and serious atmosphere without trying to conceal anything and replying in his own way.

Valerie herself was self-aware, that now whatever answers she gave will not cause any harm.

“That said, what do you need me for~~”

“Ojou-SAMA~~!”

Valerie began resting her chins on top of her hands as she grumbled like usual, suddenly an artless youth rushes into the room as he forcefully swung opened the door. The young man with a black bracelet, kicked the nearby chair and ran up right in front of Valerie whose elbow was on the table.

“Odo, didn’t I always warn you about entering the room quietly?”
“Ahhh sorry! However, I have to inform ojou-sama about something quickly!”

Welsh looked at Odo in disappointment as he puts away the chair, while Valerie was smiling happily with Odo’s apology.

------

“A messenger of God?”
“!”

「神の使いだって？」

「らしっす！」

From the details of the story that Odo had brought back, Fonclanc had gotten their hands on the Messenger of God who could lead the world as the supreme leader.

Yet again he seem to pick up some shady rumors and brought it to Valerie, Odo seems to had gotten this from one of his dark merchant client who was an influential noble of Fonclanc, he explained that in order to attract the client he had not given any rare items or treasure trove information.

“I heard this from the guy working as a treasurer in financial office managing the commercial fleet, so there shouldn’t be any error!”

“Is Odo really not teasing me?”

“Treasurer…. Airzah-dono views information with great importance, I will not forgive you for spreading lies and rumors in the organization.”

“There are grounds for this right?”

When it comes to Fonclanc, nowadays it is often thought that the Darkness God Corps is famed to be the strongest unit. Just recently they had came to Trent Rietta to participate in the magical beast investigation.

“Whether it really is the god’s messenger or not be that as it may, recently Fonclanc’s appearance seems to be interesting.”

“So are you going? To Fonclanc?”

“I will, once the military officer is back.”

“Haiz we have a shortage of manpower especially on the escorts and you want to bring a bunch. The attendants you have should be enough.”

It’s not like he would do anything. Rather than been stuffed in the house listening to idle complaints, Valerie decided to go out and visit Fonclanc. Her aim to see whether the messenger of god that Odo had told her about existed.

“Then there is no choice let’s immediately depart!”
“I’ll prepare immediately!”

“You will be house-sitting.”

“Ehhhh~~!”

Knowing that they couldn’t change their mistress heart, they immediately began preparations for the trip. Being appointed as caretaker as they left the room, Odo was pleading, “Please take me along.”

“NO, right now is a bad time. There is probably strong criticism against the Artless.”

“Is it concerning Gazzetta?”

“There is that too, originally Fonclanc was strict about their social position.”

Since childhood, Valerie was familiar with the people around her, even her wariness is thin against normal divine art users and even an Artless like Odo. Valerie was brought up within this sheltered community, thus she had never lent a hand to a slave like Odo or even went out to see the world.

After Gazzetta overthrew the country, Nossentes’s former inhabitants fled to the neighboring countries and the hostilities and resentments from the past still ran fairly deep. There is a risk in meddling with the slave partner of an outsider when it comes to the slave bracelets. So normally anyone would want to act as inconspicuous as possible.

“Furthermore, if you were to come along the food supplies will finish faster.”

“Ah, I am aware of that too.”

Odo scratched his head and bashfully retorted against Valerie. When she was young her father had brought Odo to her and he had specifically make a clear distinction that he was a slave, but Valerie made him a friend and kinda like a familial existence.  

“Well then, I will head over to internal affairs for awhile, I entrust the preparation of the luggages to you.”

“Yes.”

Leaving the preparations for the trip to Odo, Valerie headed for the Fortress’s internal affairs offices to report on her trip to Fonclanc.

------

On the evening of the day Valerie was departing, the financial officer Airzah came to visit the office of internal affairs in regards to today’s meeting, after affirming that the military officer wasn’t around they began the talks.

“Finally it will begin whether to call it god or not, is that thing ready to be released?”

“My goodness, this shouldn’t be heard by the military officer.”

The three officers were supposed to have a meeting debating the policy of the present and the future of the organisation, but since the military officer Benefost was currently tied down with the replacing of the soldiers lost while investigating the magical beast facility, the two of them continued on without him.

With a strong sense of duty and his loyalty towards the previous head Earl Elfodoras, he seems to differ from the current head Valerie’s ideas and respect, Fortress was maintaining the organisation which was the Earl’s realisation, Airzah believed that money would allow one to control the world, thus they are thinking to first expand the organisation.

“Most of the members of the organisation are aligned with us. What about the gathering of the magical beast unit, I believe it’s a suitable time?”

About hiring the mercenaries that had gathered in Driadria, Airzuha began explaining that an essential amount of force is required to take Rinval while Fortress smiled wryly and replied, “shouldn’t that be the military officer’s job?”

“There were no other choices, we can’t really rely on that no foresight, trying to be a heroic military officer that keeps harping on loyalty, do you think I need unnecessary trouble?”

The current state was just right, as more than half of Trent Rietta’s army was stationed along the upper and lower parts of the highway, due to that the capital Rinval was currently undermanned. Thus, Airzah emphasized that now is a good chance to attack while Fortress on the other hand began envisioning about the strategies.

Fonclanc, Blue Garden, Gazzetta, Trent Rietta, the results of the simulation of each of their present and future movement ended with an image of profound success. Lady Valerie’s trip to Fonclanc this time will contribute to the factor of success.

“Well then, Valerie ojou-sama’s first step as the leader of the “Wind Edge” will be a distraction flower.”

“Ohh! Finally, we are standing on the same page.”

GA officer Fortress stood up as the Financial officer Airzah expressed a voice of delight. As the heiress of the Wind edge founded by Earl Elfodoras, they were taken by surprise as they believe that Valerie rise to action was to go to Fonclanc.

After the loss of their leader, the three officers had continued the activities of the organisation and since it was the earnest desire of the late Earl and his daughter to save the capital Rinval from dying, thus Fortress began to think through the different planned scenarios.

“I see, if we set the plan in motion like that then she and Benefost will also be of use to us? That is quite a strategy.”

“A conclusion that I have thought about before. Now the problem is under what conditions and timing we should use them?”

Financial and war potential, the absolute superiority of the magical beast to be put into practical use. The intervention of a great country, Fonclanc and the checking of the existences of Gazzetta. There is a need to assess the requirements of the current situation, if they were to acquire everything.

　

“About the absence of Valerie ojou-sama, who’s gonna~~explain it to the military officer!”

“!”

Sfx*gatan the sound of footsteps from the hallway moved past the office. Causing the door to creak slightly open. As they tried to use wind arts to sense the presence of divine arts, but after confirming Fortress believed that the shadow that had fled was an artless. In this place, the only artless was Odo who is Valerie’s slave.

“Ojou-sama’s slave must have heard the conversation just now.”

“I’ll get my man to track him!”

“Well then, please get to it quickly. I will prepare the assassins for an emergency.”

Airzah immediately called upon his escorts and gave the order to kill the runaway artless on sight. There were those who knew about Odo as they began showing signs of hesitation as it would cause discord with lady Valerie.”

‘That artless slave has a habit to interfere with Ojou-sama’, they came up with this as an excuse.

“Life is a struggle. My master, your daughter had brilliantly began to sow the seeds of strife. Everything is set into motion…..”

Deep down, Fortress gave praise to the Earl, although his expression seems calm, the simple plans began moving.

------

Fyolnar ~  10th day of the Water month ~

On that day, the palace knights were having outdoor training, they were having an performance test on the Darkness God Corp’s equipment which was the small type vehicles.

They had created a motorcycle chassis through the various experiment to house a more powerful motor unit which could carry two people. The seat was a saddle lined up from the front to the back.

They had also installed a suspension system, but due to the cheap material, the ride still wasn’t as good on rough roads.

“oohhh~toto! Turn around ~~”
“Ohhh this is great! It feels pretty good~!”

Throttling away on the training fields, Yuusuke and Fonke were both on the bike which did a power slide when he turned on the set course.

The performance test was a great success as it ran close to the speed and as stable as Violet’s prototype powered car. The speed was around 25 km/hr.

Though it still isn’t enough to replace carriages, it would still be useful when navigating in places like the underground passageway of the magical beast facility.

“Faster faster let me ride on it too~~!”

“Wait a moment, we are going to custom make Violet’s one.”

“EH~, after showing me such a nice toy, I won’t be able to wait.”

“Uwa er Princess, wait, ouch ouch ouch”

After Yuusuke returned from going two rounds around the training course, Violet came jumping towards the small type vehicle. Seeing Fonke’s amusing face after being kicked off the bike, Aisha and the rest began to laugh.

“Well then let’s go! I want to try what you did just now.”

“Alright since there is no choice.”

Violet who was behind Yuusuke began grabbing his waist tightly while singing “run~run”. Yuusuke wore a wry smile as he drove the bike carefully. During the experiment with Fonke, wind art movement assist could be seen in use.

Without the wind art assist it became a touch unstable, thus prioritizing Violet’s safety first he drove with caution as he continued with the moving experiments since the tomboyish princess didn’t seem to want to stop as it was still quite some time before Krielov would come to pick her up.

“ooo(exclaim), finally it became a little quiet.”

“Fufu, Princess Violet seems to be satisfied.”

“Thanks for your work, Captain.”

After the training was over, thinking that she might still want to ride it, he began to create Violet’s personal vehicle, using his customization menu Yuusuke summoned the 90% completed vehicle. The materials used were mainly made out of wood.

The small type vehicle, other than the motor unit which was made out a metal fittings, the rest of the parts are made out and designed from wood type materials, and even the body frame was customize to be strong.

“O.o?  Where’s Fonke?”

“It seems like he is riding on that?”

“Captain~! I like this one better.”

Fonke seems to be able to handle the bike well on his first ride alone as he slant the chassis while cornering. Although compared to the four wheel drive the speed seems a little slower, but it can be adjusted with wind arts movement assist. Since it is easy to balance, it benefits from the blessing of movement assist.

“Hmm, since it’s compatible with tight corners. Should I let Fonke use this bike?”

In the past few days, within Volance palace, there was just a little commotion in these peaceful days. One could even take a quiet and relaxing afternoon nap, although it seemed like the calm before a storm.

~~ Three days later, an urgent message came from Trent Rietta as the peaceful days were broken.

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