“Your Highness?”

At Shan’s question, the spiders in the garden scurried into a new arrangement, spelling out “Yes.”

Anyone else who saw it would have been horrified. Dozens of spiders moving to form letters—what a dreadful, terrifying sight! Yet this magic, fit for an evil witch in a fairy tale, filled Shan with intense curiosity rather than fear.

“... You haven’t turned into a spider, have you?”

[No]

For some reason, the spiders’ rapid stamping looked rather indignant.

[I’m controlling them]

“So there’s magic for that too...”

His wonder soon gave way to a thought, and Shan glanced around. Come to think of it, there certainly hadn’t been so many cobwebs at first, but at some point they had become unusually plentiful around the Wievers mansion. He had even heard the servants grumbling about them several times. And if he combined that with Princess Sherin’s uncannily excellent intelligence gathering—

“Have you been using spiders to spy on this place all along?”

The spiders immediately stopped stamping. Only after a long pause did they slowly move to form another message.

[I’m sorry]

“... Well, we’d better discuss that in person. Where are you speaking from?”

[The Blue Palace]

[I’m locked in a tower]

“The Blue Palace... I’m afraid I don’t know where that is.”

[The queen’s residence]

He wasn’t entirely sure, but Sherin seemed to be imprisoned inside the royal palace. Since she was asking him to save her, apparently she couldn’t get out on her own.

Just then, the stablekeeper opened a door some distance away and peered into the garden.

“Younger master, did you call?”

He seemed to have heard Shan talking to himself.

“No, it’s nothing.”

“It’s cold out. I’ll put some more wood on the fire, so come inside once you’ve had your fresh air.”

Once the stablekeeper went back inside, Shan turned to Sherin’s spiders.

“So you’re locked inside the royal palace, and you want me to get you out?”

[Yes]

“It’s already night, so I can go right away. Just wait a little.”

Scaling the palace wall should be easy in the dark. But as he rose with that confident assurance, Shan stopped. The spiders were spelling out something unexpected.

[No]

[Defenses against covert attacks]

[You’ll be detected no matter what]

“Are they magical?”

[Both magic and miracles]

[They’re even tighter at night]

“Hmm...”

Shan recalled entering Count Pales’s residence, which Sherin had used as a villa. If the palace was full of similar magical traps, even he couldn’t slip inside easily. And the moment he was spotted, royal knights and guards would surround him and kill him...

He gave the spiders a look that asked what he should do, and they moved to write again.

[I have a plan]

[Go to my villa]

By then, the spiders Sherin controlled were staggering, apparently quite exhausted. Continually moving to form letters seemed to be tiring work.

After watching them for a moment, Shan picked up one of the larger spiders, removed a leather glove, and set it on his bare palm.

“Your Highness, try writing on my finger. With its legs.”

[Like this?]

“Yes, exactly. I can more or less make it out.”

[You can feel a spider writing on your hand?]

It would have been impossible for an ordinary person, but his keen senses could detect even the touch of spider legs passing over his calluses. Her incredulity came through in the writing alone, and Shan chuckled despite himself.

“This should be better than making all those spiders form letters. So what’s your plan? What do I do after I get to the villa?”

* * *

After hearing Sherin’s detailed explanation, Shan went inside the mansion and asked the stablekeeper for a few things.

“A water flask and... food, sir?”

“Can you manage that?”

“Yes. We’ve set some aside for emergencies, so that’s no trouble. The markets are starting to open again too.”

He looked curious about Shan’s sudden need for food and water, but asked no questions. Not questioning a superior’s orders was another requirement of a good servant.

A short while later, Shan wrapped the flask and the few pieces of bread the man had prepared in a cloth, tied it shut, and left the Wievers mansion. Following a familiar route, he soon reached Count Pales’s mansion, which Sherin had often used as a villa.

Unlike the other noble residences nearby, it was a wreck, apparently having been attacked by rioters. Probably because no knight lived there.

“None of the servants are left either.”

[They must have all fled. It can’t be helped. I’m their mistress, but I can’t protect them right now.]

The spider clinging to the back of his neck wrote in tiny strokes with its forelegs.

Shan entered through the broken front door and clicked his tongue at the desolate interior, stripped of all its furnishings. Even the portrait of Sherin’s mother, Queen Aste, had vanished from the princess’s bedroom.

Following Sherin’s directions, he ran a fingernail over the bedroom floor where the bed had once stood until he felt a slight unevenness. A few taps and scratches with his nail made a handle pop out, ready to be pulled.

“Oh... That’s fascinating. Is this magic too?”

[It’s a mechanical device. The principles are different, but it works toward the same end as magic. Especially in the sense that the right process produces the right result.]

Feeling the rather boastful words being traced on his neck, Shan inspected the contents of the secret compartment. Inside were a small dagger, several objects he assumed were magical catalysts, and various wigs and garments.

“There’s quite a lot.”

[I prepared them in case I needed a disguise. I thought they’d be useless since I couldn’t even leave the palace, but now we have a use for them.]

“Hmm. I’ve never worn women’s clothes before.”

[Don’t worry. I’ll tell you how to put them on.]

Right there, with Sherin’s guidance, Shan took out and put on the clothes she indicated. The maid’s uniform, distinguished by a black shirt, a frilled white apron, and a cap, was somewhat large on him. Presumably it had been made to fit Sherin.

She apparently noticed, for she wrote on his neck again.

[We’ll need plenty of cloth in the chest. The hips too. Tear up some of the other clothes.]

Soon, a blond, green-eyed maid stood ready. He was a little tall for a woman and somewhat broad-shouldered, but his youthful features were still androgynous enough to make a fairly convincing impression at a glance.

Shan tied the wig back and muttered with an awkward expression,

“Will anyone fall for this?”

[You’re much cuter than I expected. You should be fine unless something goes wrong.]

Sherin’s confident answer drew a small sigh from Shan. Seeing it, she wrote again.

[I’m sorry.]

“What for?”

[You have to dress as a woman because of me.]

Indeed, asking an honorable knight to do such a thing could quite understandably make him fly into a rage and revoke his oath of allegiance on the spot. Shan, however, merely shrugged as though it were nothing to fuss over.

“It’s fine. Let’s move on to the next step.”

[All right.]

Shan sorted through Sherin’s supplies, put only what he needed into the bag of bread and water, and tied it to his thigh. Fortunately, the maid’s full skirt concealed it fairly well.

“Hmm.”

[What is it?]

“I’ve never worn a skirt before. It feels strange. My thighs keep rubbing together, so it feels like I’m not wearing anything.”

[You don’t need to tell me that.]

With those words of disbelief, the spider stopped writing and clung firmly to his neck.

Shan left the mansion in his maid’s uniform and crossed the dark capital toward the royal palace. It didn’t take long to reach a secluded alley near the main gate. He stopped and listened for anyone nearby for about a minute before Sherin gave her instructions.

[Here. Third brick from the top, fifteenth from the right. Press it firmly, then pull it when it pops out.]

He did as she said. A rumble came from within the wall, and a door opened. Shan marveled at the seemingly magical sight.

“Is this a mechanical device too?”

[It’s half magic. Pendia’s royal castle has quite a few secret passages like this. Most are already being watched, but fortunately Conrad doesn’t seem to know about this one.]

The door hadn’t been particularly loud, but it was a quiet night, and he couldn’t take chances. Shan immediately stepped into the passage and closed it behind him.

The secret passage apparently wasn’t well maintained: it was thick with cobwebs and dust. Then again, if someone came to maintain it regularly, its secret would soon be exposed. Shan cleared the webs away with his hands to keep his clothes clean as he ventured farther inside.

The narrow passage, just wide enough for two people to walk abreast, stretched for roughly two to three hundred meters. Rather than leave as soon as he reached the exit, Shan waited and talked with Sherin. He couldn’t enter before daylight anyway.

“Do you know why the fighting started?”

[Of course. How could I not, after everything I did to try to prevent it?]

According to Sherin, Elvin had been the first of the two princes to attack. The reason was truly absurd: one of the knights he had summoned had begun an affair with a lady-in-waiting. An emergency assembly had been called while the pair were out in the garden at night having sex. Discovering that one of his own men was missing, Elvin mistakenly concluded that Conrad had struck first and ordered a counterattack.

Thus the civil war between the princes had begun for a reason that would have made anyone who knew the truth burst out laughing.

“What an idiot...”

[Even before that, Elvin was already getting anxious. If Conrad’s supporters won great honors in the ogre campaign, his position would become even worse. Though from what you’ve told me, he needn’t have worried.]

Elvin’s surprise attack had been quite effective. Though somewhat on their guard, Conrad’s knights had been relatively unprepared and suffered considerable losses. Conrad himself had very nearly fallen into the hands of Elvin’s knights. It was Marquis Abel who saved him. In the middle of the night, wearing only his nightclothes and armed with a single sword, the kingdom’s strongest knight had cut down three heavily armed knights and escaped the palace with Conrad.

[After letting Conrad escape, Elvin seized the palace. I tried to flee around then too, but unfortunately I was caught on the way. Kagon died during all that as well.]

Sherin spoke matter-of-factly of her retainer’s death, but Shan did not miss the slight trembling of the spider’s forelegs.

[Then Conrad regrouped outside and launched a counterattack. Elvin defended fairly well behind the palace walls, but he was so badly outmatched that he couldn’t hold out. In the end he fled—with Father, no less.]

“So His Majesty the King is still alive.”

[He won’t die easily. The highest-ranking priests have bestowed a special miracle on that man to keep him alive.]

The problem was that Elvin had fled with Sherin still locked in a tower of the Blue Palace. Originally the queen’s residence, it had stood without a mistress for well over a decade: no new queen had been installed after the death of Aste, the third queen and Sherin’s mother. Under the circumstances, even the servants who normally cleaned it regularly saw no reason to visit an unoccupied palace.

Trapped in the tower, Sherin had survived from day to day on her meager food and water. Only when Shan arrived had she finally found someone she could ask for help. She wrote lightly, almost jokingly, that if he had been just a little later, she would have died in there.

“Didn’t you call on the Magic Society? I thought you were quite close to them.”

[The Magic Society cleared out and fled the very day Conrad took the palace.]

Even Shan could readily imagine what would happen to mages under Prince Conrad, a devout follower of the Old Faith. Indeed, from what the stablekeeper had said, he seemed to be planning measures such as expelling every Altoan from the capital. Fleeing had been a wise choice.

[Besides, even if they hadn’t, I doubt they could rescue me. Most of them are armchair scholars.]

As they chatted a little longer, the spider paused its forelegs, then wrote another message.

[The sun’s up. I think you can come out now.]

At that, Shan carefully opened the secret passage’s exit.

* * *

The exit lay beneath a statue in a corner of the garden belonging to the palace’s southwestern annex. Once outside, Shan first brushed off all the dust and dirt with Sherin’s help. Then, following her directions, he fetched a broom from the annex’s storeroom.

[If anyone sees you passing, pretend to clean with it. It’s early winter, so there are plenty of fallen leaves. It shouldn’t look odd.]

Shan proceeded along the palace corridors with the broom, sweeping nearby leaves whenever soldiers or knights passed. Sure enough, the soldiers only glanced at him and showed little interest.

“This really works...”

[It would never work under normal circumstances, with proper guards patrolling. But most of the men in the palace now are Conrad’s private troops.]

She went on to explain that they didn’t know what the palace maids looked like, so if he dressed convincingly and swept, they could only let him pass for now. By distracting the occasional passerby with his sweeping, he made his way toward the Blue Palace far more smoothly than he had expected.

A few minutes later, Shan froze at the sight of a knight approaching from the opposite direction.

‘Ah...’

A middle-aged man who looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, with a striking sword scar on one side of his face, was walking toward him in light attire. It was Marquis Abel, the Lord Protector. Two young men who appeared to be squires accompanied him.

He was passing through on his way to the king’s residence, the Red Palace, where Conrad was staying. As befitted the queen’s residence, the Blue Palace stood right beside the Red Palace—though the two were still several hundred meters apart.

[What are you doing? Turn around, quickly!]

Sherin’s sharp rebuke brought Shan to his senses. He quickly turned away and began sweeping leaves. For some reason, however, Marquis Abel stopped and quietly studied him from behind.

‘What? Has he recognized me? Did I stare too much?’

They had locked eyes once at the send-off for the ogre expedition, so it wouldn’t be strange if Abel recognized him. Still, with a wig and women’s clothes, he shouldn’t be so easy to identify at a glance...

A moment later, Shan realized why he had caught Marquis Abel’s attention. He was sweeping as he always did—“naturally,” by his own standards. That must have drawn the man’s eye. Deliberately disrupting his efficient movements, Shan swept the leaves as clumsily as other people did. Having spent his whole life doing this in Willow Village, he found it easy enough.

“What is it, my lord?”

“... Nothing. I must have been mistaken. Never mind.”

After a moment, Marquis Abel murmured that reply to his squire and walked on. Shan inwardly sighed with relief.

“I thought he’d caught me...”

[Let’s hurry. We’re almost there.]

“Yes.”

After passing two more soldiers and a knight, Shan hurried into the Blue Palace, only to realize someone was following him. It was the last knight he had passed.

‘What now? Have I really been caught this time?’

Had entering a palace that should have been empty drawn attention? Wondering what to do, Shan turned toward the approaching knight as though he had only just noticed him and bowed from the waist. That would be a natural response for a maid.

“What are you doing here?”

“Sir, I was ordered to clean.”

“Hmm. Were you? I’ll have to check that. Come along.”

“Pardon? Ah!”

Before Shan could work out what he meant to check, the knight abruptly tried to put his arms around him, leaving him flustered.

What should he do? Fight back? The two soldiers he had just passed might still be able to see them...

Yet rather than take Shan outside, the knight held him and went farther into the palace. Then he led him toward a secluded part of the garden, grinning.

“Heh, I’ve gone without for weeks. It’s killing me. I never used to care for little girls like you... Don’t go telling anyone. You’ll only hurt yourself. I’ll let you go once we’re done.”

As the man rambled and thrust a hand down the front of his uniform, Shan finally grasped what the knight was after.

He let out a brief, incredulous laugh, then raised both hands while still held in the man’s arms. In thanks for bringing him farther inside so naturally, he would at least make his death painless.

“Huh? What the—”

The knight had just discovered a bundle of cloth instead of the breasts he expected when two fists struck from either side, hitting both temples with perfect accuracy. The blows, charged with powerful spirit, caved in the sides of his head, and he collapsed.

[Good riddance.]

“It was nothing.”

Shan decided to leave the knight’s corpse in a corner of the garden. Unlike the interior, the garden had gone untended for years. No one would discover him until he began to smell quite badly.

Having disposed of his pursuer without trouble, Shan approached the tower in a corner of the Blue Palace. Just as he had been told, its door was securely locked. One swing of the sword he had taken from the knight sliced all three padlocks in two, sending them falling to the ground.

BANG!

Shan kicked the door open and declared,

“I’ve come to get you, Your Highness.”

“You came...”

From the darkness inside the tower, Sherin answered weakly. Shan’s rough, firm hand met hers, wasted thin by hunger and dehydration.