Chapter 507: Catherine De Lafayette (1/2)
“L-Lady Catherine!”
All six soldiers saluted immediately. It seemed that this old lady was someone very important.
“Someone has attacked my carriage, causing my coachman to fall and my horse to begin a rampage out of fear. That someone is what you need to be looking for!”
“Yes Ma’am!”
The captain gave instructions to his subordinates, saluted the woman who seemed to be called “Catherine”, and had three of his men go in the direction where the carriage had come from.
The remaining two soldiers looked at the still fainted horse.
“Lady Catherine, what would you have us do?”
“Should we prepare another horse to replace this one? Or should we send notice to your manor?”
But her answer took the soldiers by surprise.
“Oh, no need for that. I’ll walk the rest of the way. Please bring my carriage to the manor once the horse has regained consciousness.”
“Huh? …Yes, Ma’am.”
After throwing a sidelong glance at the soldiers, Catherine turned towards Jin and bowed in gratitude.
“Thank you very much. I see you hail from the Shouro Empire? My name is Catherine De Lafayette. I’m a former duchess in these lands.”
“My name is Jin Nidou. I’m a knight from the Shouro Empire.”
“I’m his sister, Elsa.”
Then, Jin introduced Reiko and Edgar as their Automata, and Shion and Lucas as their friends.
“My, my, what wonderful Automata you have there. I’d expected as much from someone from the Shouro Empire. …Have you come to this country as a tourist?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I see. Where are you staying?”
Jin recalled the name of the hotel.
“Um, ‘Hotel Lunor’.”
“Oh, what a nice choice. You have quite the expert eye. I’d like to repay you for helping me. If that’s okay with you, would you like to join me for dinner tonight?”
After a brief moment of hesitation, Jin decided to accept her invitation.
“Of course. Thank you very much.”
“Then I’ll send a carriage to pick you up at the hotel at 5 PM. Please bring your friends. I’ll be waiting.”
After that, the former duchess Catherine smiled and asked the soldiers to accompany her on her way back to her manor.
One of them would walk with her while the other one stayed behind to take care of the carriage.
“Elsa, can you heal the horse?”
“…I can try. ‘Heilung’.”
The spell “Heilung” basically worked by maximizing its target’s own healing ability. As a result, it would be effective on horses as well.
The horse opened its eyes wide and got back up as if nothing had happened.
“My, my, impressive! Miss Elsa, thank you very much!”
Catherine thanked her while the soldiers stood there in complete awe.
“I’ll be seeing you all later then.”
As they had started to draw in more and more attention from curious onlookers, Jin and his friends decided to leave.
“Brother Jin, do you think that person…?”
“Yeah. She seems to be quite influential, so I thought maybe we can get some good information from her.”
“I see, that’s very smart of you, Jin!”
“…”
After having such conversations, Jin and the others resumed their mission to gather information.
＊ ＊ ＊
By 3 PM, Jin and the others had returned to “Hotel Lunor”.
It was a little bit too early, but Jin had determined that it was very unlikely that they would get any significant piece of information by asking around for the time being.
“I mean, it’s probably going to be better to see what the former duchess can tell us anyway.”
“I agree. She seemed to be a decent person.”
The party washed away their sweat from having walked around town, and changed their clothes to refresh themselves.
The Covert Units that had been left in the room confirmed that their luggage had not been inspected nor tampered with.
“Listen, Shion, please leave the talking to me and Elsa. You guys don’t know the customs of this place.”
“Got it, Jin. I’ll be playing the ladylike role again. Lucas, you can’t say a word unless I say it’s okay.”
“Y-Young lady…”
“I know how much you care about me, but others may not be so understanding. I realized this after our first negotiations with Jin. I need you to be quiet. Okay?”