The more he listened to the story,
the more troublesome the request of his father king was.
To tell the truth, at first, he
thought that he should just refuse the request without a hitch. After all,
Alexis is the kind of person who would refuse any request from his father, no
matter how much the father king asked him.
However, after listening to him
carefully, he told him that Avalon Dungeon is a dungeon created by an ancient
great mage.
（That means I might be able to find a
way to restore this cursed thing between my legs!）
This gave Alexis some hope, and he
agreed to go with a rare nod.
And his father king seemed to be
pleased with this and said, "Alexis has grown up a little", but he
never knew that his son had turned into a monster.
Alexis thought that it would be
better for his heart not to tell him, and left for the front without saying a
word.
**a
* * *
Two days later, Alexis was in Fort
Rohka.
Beyond the castle, which was built in
the middle of the forest and made of stone, he could see a scene of darkness as
it was rumored to be.
Around the darkness surroundings are
several handmade fences and shields, and behind them are soldiers armed with
swords, spears, and armor, as well as magic soldiers clutching wands.
Alexis enters the fort and is
immediately led to the command center.
Looking over the desk, seated in a
wooden chair was the princess maiden, Fransisca Arias Sagrado.
Her silver hair was reaching down to
her bosom, as if threads spun with platinum were spilling out. Her eyes like
amethyst, beautiful to see up close. By all accounts, a beautiful girl of her
age with nothing to complain about.
Her white, soft-to-the-touch skin is
clad in a one-piece dress with a special slit for exercise and cold, hard iron
armor.
The most striking thing was her
expression, which should have been beautiful and lovely, but instead was stern
and mousy with her eyebrows furrowed, and her expression was rather sullen.
It was a far cry from the mild and
ladylike impression of the princess-maiden Alexis had seen before.
「Again? New Krangal soldiers deployed?」
As soon as she opened her mouth, what
was uttered was a voice with a tone of annoyance.
This ruined the lovely tone of her
voice.
「I wonder what your king is thinking,
sending us all useless things... no, don't mind what I just said. I don't
expect anything from you anyway」
Fransisca picked up a strand of hair
that had spilled down her chest and tucked it behind her earlobe.
The silky silver hair flowed over the
steel plates covering the soft, moderately protruding bulge and behind her
shoulders.
As Alexis followed the beautiful
stream with his eyes, Fransisca glared at him, saying, "Where are you
looking?".
「And it looks like "you" are
a misfit, too. ...Well, I guess you're just the right pawn to throw away. In
the meantime, I'll ask you for a name and you can give it to me」
She's a terrible princess. Alexis
thought and answered.
「My name is Alex Rein」
Fransisca nodded simply, "Then,
Alex".
There is a reason why Alexis uses a
false name.
He was asked by his father, the king,
to make sure that no one would know that Alexis was a prince.
He said that he wanted to know how
things were, not how they should be.
It is no wonder that he was appointed
to go instead of his Sparkle Brothers.
After all, Fransisca seems to know
the faces of the five princes.
As for Alexis, she had never met him
before because Alexis himself usually stays away from the castle.
「I will decide your positions by
tomorrow, so today you will be guided around the fort by the men in the area」
Alexis nodded "yes" to
Fransisca's curt words, though he was surprised inside.
**b
* * *
（What's with that princess, she's not
at all what I imagined. She's a princess with a bad attitude that I don't see
even in other neighboring countries）
Although he was surprised still,
Alexis had started to inspect the fort as soon as he saw it.
And soon he noticed a serious problem
prevailing in the fort.
* * *
Currently, there are a little over
300 soldiers stationed in the fort.
They seem to surround Avalon in three
shifts of about a hundred men each, and are working to defeat the monster
crawling out of the darkness before they can do any harm to the neighborhood.
In addition, there is also a unit
called the "Capture Team", which is responsible for conquering the
dungeons that spread throughout Avalon.
This is a small elite group of
fifteen members, including Princess Fransisca.
「Heh~, that princess, she not only
looks good, but she can fight?」
The one who responded to Alexis'
unintentionally raised voice with "Of course she can!" was a
mature-looking soldier with a scarred face who happened to meet him at the
military diner.
「You're a new recruit so it's not
surprising that you don't know that as Princess Sagrado, the princess said that
she would take responsibility for the emergence of Avalon just as soon as it
appeared. You see, two years ago, his Majesty did not take it seriously at
first, and told her again and again to leave it to the Fifth Prince. But the
princess, amazingly, learned swordsmanship in no time at all and went to the
front a year later」
By the time Alexis finally got hold
of this information, evening was already approaching.
It was no wonder, for the soldiers
filling the room were truly terrible.
* * *
After leaving the command center,
Alexis approached a soldier nearby who was not busy, hoping to get a tour of
the fort as Fransisca had instructed.
When he told the soldier that he was
a new recruit, the soldier immediately grinned at him.
「So you're one of them, huh?」
「One of them?」
He asks him and the soldier replies,
"Don't play dumb with me~!".
「This place is full of opportunities
for you to get close to "that" princess-maiden, isn't it? And not
only that, the Sagrado followers brought by the princess-maiden are all pretty
girls, aren't they? You know, Sagrado Kingdom used to be famous for its priests
and their reputation of being tough guys, but now they can't afford to be
priests anymore and are willing to sit with men like us. Well, I guess we'll
just have to volunteer. Hey!」
As soon as Alexis heard that, he
thought, "What the hell is this guy? Is it because he has a little chance
that he can afford to be so relaxed? Does he not think it's a verbal abuse
against him who has no chance?" and miffed.
He was so irritated that the words
came out of his mouth naturally.
「That's enough」
「What?」
「...that's enough, I'll find someone
else」
Alexis quickly left the soldier in
front of him.
* * *
