Chapter Twenty-Three—A Useful Sack of Wine

Shiro was beginning to tire of this fat pig who laughed at literally anything he said, and seemed to take a particular delight in his complaints.

But he needed the man now.

“Have we come to sher misdress yet?”

“Almost there,” Shiro said. “Not much farther.”

The fat man laughed and the isekai gritted his teeth in frustration.

Not very much longer now…

As he aided the nearly naked drunkard through the dark, he almost tripped as he glanced about, taking in the palace as best he could. Without a well-drawn map of the sumptuous fortress, it could take Shiro all night to search about in all the likely places he thought he might find the lamp—and with it, Jessamine.

He had seen here not weeks ago, inside the void. She was waiting for him. If she sensed his presence, she would appear before him. He knew she would.

Smiling with satisfaction, Shiro knew that this advantage would make his search all the more easy—if ‘easy’ was a word that could ever be said of what he and his friends were now doing to get her back.

How he wished he could have tried harder to get her back when he was entering Faridoon’s manor on the river.

He narrowed his eyes, bringing his mind back to the matter at hand.

Just glancing about what portions of the palace he could see, he realized how massive the fortress was. With its many turrets and domes and colonnaded bridges. Without the advantage of a connection with Jessamine—however subtle it was—Shiro knew it could take him days, possible longer.

I don’t have that time.

As they stumbled through the darkened area, the noble Shiro supported burped in his face, his breath alcoholic and stinking. Shiro considered knocking him out and laying him to rest in some shadowed corner, but thought better of it.

He looked to his right and thought he saw a figure on the roof of a colonnaded bridge, but whatever he saw had vanished so quickly as to make him wonder if anything had been there in the first place.

But what was often a trick of the mind was in fact, true in some sense. Was there a man out there? If so, who was he, and what was he doing skulking amidst the palace like Shiro?

Perhaps its Debaku, come with our swords.

Blinking, he thought it must have just been a trick of the eye. He didn’t want to become overconfident. Even now, the samurai was terrified of failure.

That man…

One of the sultan’s Scorpion Guards would not be watching him, and it couldn’t be one of the others. They would never do something so reckless.

Shiro and his temporary patron came to the opening of a colonnaded bridge. There was light here provided by orange-yellow glow rocks set within sconces—the light defused and soft.

Beautiful.

From behind the entablature and the pillars, a guard revealed himself and put a hand forward. “You cannot pass through this way. What are you doing?”

“Oh,” Shiro said. “I apologize.”

The fat noble on his arm chuckled stupidly. “I was looking for a place to set my master down for a time. As you can see, he is quite taken with the sumptuous wines the sultan has on offer.”

“Whereshhjj yorrr mistrsh?”

“What?” the guard asked, bending to listen to the drunkard.

Shiro glanced at the fat man, then to the guard with the best feint of “do you see what I mean?” on his face.

“He is quite inebriated, master,” Shiro said.

“I see that,” the guard said, his voice deep and gruff. He wore black pantaloons and a low neckline tunic. At his hip was a curved scimitar. “But you have come the wrong way. The guest apartments are that way.” He pointed, his arm strong and muscular. “Head back and take the corridor on your left.”

“All right,” Shiro said with a nod. “I will take him there.”

“Does your master need further assistance?”

“No, no!” Shiro said, putting out a hand. “Let it not be said that the palace guards had to assist my poor master to his bed. He would be the talk of Darshuun.”

“Very well.”

“Arigatou.”

The guard frowned. “What?”

“Oh—uh—I mean, ‘thank you.’”

The guard nodded and a subtle smile came to his face. He probably thought he had misheard Shiro, thinking he too was a bit taken with the drink.

Now Shiro would have to trude back with this dead weight on his shoulder. Rolling his eyes, the isekai hastened his step at the risk of dropping the noble on the cold tiles.

With a grunt, he muttered, “Sate ikemasu, you useful sack of wine.”