"Well?"

I look at the woman in front of me from my throne.

It's Edona, who I tasked with something.

"Yes...your majesty."

"The signal has disappeared somewhere east of Henduria port."

"And a little while later, it reappeared in the monster nation beyond the third border."

The monster nation...

And all the way beyond the third border...

We can't realistically send someone to observe her...

I guess we will have to wait till she gets out of there.

"I see."

"You may now leave."

"Thank you."

"...and please, don't task me with something so dangerous next time."

"Sorry about that..."

Edona then turns around and exits my room.

But I'm impressed.

To create a device, which can track someone after they insert their mana into it...

I'm not fully certain how it works, but Edona said something about detecting personalized mana from afar.

Which means it should be impossible to notice by the other party.

The detection range seems to reach very far as well.

As expected of the kingdom's best magic tool craftsman.

It would have been nice if Reiza were to return before the war with demons escalates...

She gave me the impression of someone, who might lend us a hand with that.

Of course, there is the danger of her turning on us but...I think the chances of that are pretty low.

She seemed to be human enough to develop attachment to people and such...

Especially the top S ranked adventurer woman who everyone calls Blizzard.

She acted almost as if Reiza was her sister...or even a daughter.

And Reiza didn't really seem bothered by it.

So as long as we don't repeat the same mistake...

As long...as we can remain friendly with her...

|= ??? =|

"So, you finally have some results?"

This time, it's Kiruat, my secret tie to the kingdom's underground information market.

"Yes, your majesty."

"Although...it might be unrelated."

"Don't mind it and tell me."

"Yes."

He pulls out some papers from his bag.

"In Nerimbick kingdom, our western neighbor, there was a certain incident."

"As you might know, there are a lot of beastman tribes living in various places there."

"And the kingdom has an unofficial or sometimes an official non-aggression agreement with most of them."

"However, about four months ago, many of the beastman villages were attacked."

"I could not find out who the perpetrator was yet, but according to my info, it's probably some illegal slave trading organization."

"The villages were raided and their inhabitants were presumably either killed or sold as slaves on black market."

"The attacked villages included three catman tribes, six wolfman tribes, twelve rabbitman tribes and one foxman tribe."

"Among the wolfman tribes, there was one black wolfman tribe..."

"...black wolfman tribe?"

"Not shadow wolfman?"

"That's right."

"My sources show, that these two races are related."

"Or rather, one is the evolution of the other."

I bring my hand to my chin as I squint my eyes.

"I see..."

"So you suspect, that Reiza originated from that village?"

"That is my theory..."

"But I can't prove it yet."

"I ordered my men to search for those enslaved black wolfmen in the kingdom's underground."

"If we manage to find one of them, they might know about Reiza."

"Mmm."

"Good work Kiruat."

"Inform me if you manage to locate one of the wolfmen."

After he places the papers on my desk, I hand over a small box filled with gold coins to him.

He takes it and checks the contents.

Then, he closes it and puts it into his pocket.

"Thank you very much, your majesty."

"I shall inform you when we make any sort of progress."

After bowing down to me, he leaves the room.

I grab the papers and skim through them while rubbing my beard.

Slave traders...huh?

Reiza never mentioned those...

I wonder why...?

|= ??? =|

After making sure the door to my room is locked, I approach one of the bookshelves near a wall.

There, I move a book to the side and reach to the back parts of the shelf.

After touching around, I finally find a switch.

I flick it down.

Then, I flick it back up while inserting it with a little bit of my mana.

It opens a tiny safe next to the bookshelf.

Just a second ago, it seemed like part of the wall, but now it's wide open.

I reach inside and pull out some dusty documents.

After wiping off the dust, I put them on the table and start searching through them.

...

After rummaging through them a bit, I find it.

It's a document titled '1313 incident'.

The year 1313...

Almost 300 years ago now.

It was the year the old royal capital Meguro Derea ceased to exist.

It all started with the appearance of a friendly ancient monster.

Its appearance was that of an ordinary young human girl.

It didn't normally have an intimidating aura either.

At first glance, you couldn't tell it apart from a normal human.

It even acted exactly like an innocent teen girl.

It admired flowers and paintings and called them 'beautiful'.

Constantly smiling and being positive.

Always friendly and cheerful...

However, that was just a facade.

Because sometimes...

The smile would turn upside down.

When the creature saw something it didn't like, it proclaimed "That's not beautiful at all.".

And following that, the 'not beautiful' thing ceased to exist.

It was a mystery what exactly it was, but the creature seemed to use some mysterious magic to get rid of things it didn't like.

The creature was first seen erasing a horde of mithril golems like they were a breeze whilst admiring a tree.

The adventurers, who were there to exterminate the golems later got to know the creature a little better.

And not too long after that, it was invited to the royal capital.

The royalty at the time plotted to bind it into a slave contract.

And that night, the capital disappeared.

No ruins, no corpses.

Where the capital once stood, was just flat ground.

Nothing remained.

However, it seems that despite all of that, there were a handful of survivors.

Well, it's wrong to call them survivors.

Rather, they were the ones who were aware of what exactly transpired, but were out of the city that night.

Among them was princess Gregoria Armundis, who later became the new queen.

And she was also the one, who wrote this document.

The monster is depicted as a human girl in her teens with silvery hair wearing a white dress.

But it wasn't a human.

It couldn't have been one.

Unfortunately, it was never confirmed exactly what species it was.

And after that incident, it went missing.

Some people speculated it died, but Gregoria didn't believe it.

Her document ends with these words:

'I'm certain the monster still roams the world.'

'For any future king or queen, please remember this.'

'If you ever encounter a friendly monster of a similar magnitude:'

'1. Do not antagonize them.'

'2. Do your best to fulfill their wishes.'

'3. Absolutely never try to force a blood contract on them.'

I close the documents with a sigh.

The history almost repeated.

We were all this close to getting annihilated.

All because of my foolish son.

...

But we were spared.

And not even because we were forgiven.

It was because we were not worth getting annihilated.

...

Either way, we were lucky.

If she comes back, we have to try our best to keep her on friendly terms.

I search through the documents again and find one titled 'Heroes'.

But right now, I need to focus on the problem at hand.

And just hope she doesn't become our enemy.

I rub my beard as I carefully study the document long into the night...

At that time, I still had no idea how important of a role she would play in this war with demons.