Investigation (1/2)

Today was the day of the investigation.

Selianna already woke up early in the morning and arranged her equipment before her subordinate came to deliver her breakfast.

The young High Knight did not waste much time and empty her plates immediately. After that she along with the yesterday female knight went to the meeting hall.

In the meeting hall a sum of 13 people in addition with another one of Selianna's direct subordinate, the male knight was there. With Selianna and the female knight joining made the number to a total of 16 people. Now Selianna had 15 units below her to bring along with the mission.

She went to the podium and stood there with the female and male knight on her sides. She looked at the gathering units, waited for them to quiet down and opened her mouth.

"Thank you all for your participation in the mission today. As you may aware I'm the one leading the force this time so I'd look forward of working with you."

She paused for a moment before she talked again.

"Some of you already worked with me before and some of you did not. What I demand from you is simple, that is to not hinder the operation and listen to my instructions. I'll welcome any suggestions and if I found them to be worth considering then I'll gladly accept them. ...And now I will repeat the explanation about today's mission in brief.

This mission for today is the investigation for the cause of the death of high ranking adventurers inside a low level dungeon.

The report that we received was that this dungeon was discovered inside the forest about 2 months ago. Since then an exploration made by the guild have been made a few times, confirming the difficulty and the level of the dungeon.

But just recently since a month ago an abnormality happened and despite the current difficulty of the dungeon, party of blue rank adventurers and some of red ranks adventurers were found missing and never to return again.

The low rank adventurers did not attempt to conquer this dungeon and left them to the higher ones. For reasons either because their lack of ability and to avoid antagonizing the upper rank adventurer by claiming the treasure and conquering the dungeon.

Still, at least they already explored through the fourth floor. But no one so far has been reported to enter the fifth floor and returned to the surface. That's why our objective was that exact fifth floor where the abnormality most likely located in.

I'm going to split the team to 2 units, the exploring units and the standby units. The exploring units will dive inside the dungeon along with me while the standby units will stay both outside and inside the entrance of the dungeon to keep out anything inside the dungeon.

That's it for the briefing, any questions?"

Some knights were whispering towards each other but after waiting for awhile no one asked anything and the hall turned silent.

"...Very well, then let's begin the mission. If you need to ask something feel free to ask the knights beside me, consider they to be vice leader of the team."

The knights finished their meeting and went out of the quarter. They made a line with Selianna at the front while the pair knights walked a little behind her and the rest of the units were following them.

The city's people were looking at the marching knights, the children's eyes were sparkling while the adults let out cheers of encouragement.

Before long they already reached the city gate and just nearby was a trio of a black haired young boy, a girl wearing purple kimono and hagoromo, and a petite fox girl talking with the guards.

Selianna's eyes brightened seeing the fox girl but she frowned when she saw the black haired boy beside her.

The boy noticed them and then the other two glanced at the knights too. Fia immediately hid behind Haruto the moment she spotted Selianna there.

The High Knight expression froze and her eyes turned red seeing that. Still, she made a forced smile towards her and waved a little before moving her sight to the boy she hid behind.

The boy made a daze expression and watching her in wonder. She sensed something wrong with his reaction.

"...What's with your look? Is there something about me?"

"Hm? Ah no, how should I say it, it's just that I was reminded once again that you're actually a High Knight...."

"Wha!?"

Selianna's face were red, she must had realize that his impression of her had turned awkward these days.

The female knight was giggling while the male knight's face frowned, he seemed displeased but remembering yesterday he decided to shut his mouth. The other knights behind were bewildered, wondering what's wrong with Selianna.

She gnashed her teeth and glared towards Haruto, cursing him for nth time inside her heart. The young Saiyan realized he just made her angry and scratched his head while smiling wryly.

"So umm, are you on the way on the investigation Selianna-san?" He decided to change the topic.

"................Yes."

What's with the long pause?

"I-I see, I hope for your success then, please be careful."

In any case he decided not to incur another enmity from her but she still seemed extremely angry and did not answer him at all.

Just when he considered what to do, an idea popped up inside his head, this did not take 5 seconds.

"Right, Fia, how about you encourage Selianna-san and the others here?"

Fia widened her eyes as if saying "Ehh? Why me?!" But Haruto made pleading eyes and it looked like she caught what he's trying to do so she sighed and walked forward.

Selianna's ears twitched and she too was shocked at what Haruto was saying. She looked at Fia approaching her timidly with anticipation.

"U-Umm Selianna...sama? And the other knights too, P-Please do your best!!" She made guts pose with a red face.

"-!?"

Right now Selianna felt like a thunderbolt just struck her body. She almost couldn't control herself and hugged Fia strongly. The knights too seemed smitten with how cute Fia was right now, even Haruto widened his eyes in shock but quickly shook his head shouting 'I'm not lolicon, I'm not lolicon!' in his heart.

"T-T-Thank you Fia...san. Yes, we'll definitely do our best...!" She made her best effort to prevent her face from making a silly smile but it made her face strange instead.

Fia immediately went "Hauu~" and ran back behind Haruto while blushing furiously.

The trio bowed to the knights and they continued their strides outside the city gate passing the trio while the male knight was glaring at them and some of the knights were looking at them curiously.

Selianna smiled towards Fia and waved her hand. Then she glanced at the wryly smiling Haruto a little before returning her eyes to the front again.

'He's actually not as bad as I thought...'

She thought, realizing his intent to cheer her up and trying to improve their relation towards each other and smiled.

But don't think that I forgive you with just that!

Was what she added in her heart.

###

Haruto and the girls watched disappearing back of the knights. While Fia suddenly glared at him.

"Haruto-nii! What was that just now!?"

"W-Well I mean I feel bad having her looking at me as if she was seeing her parents murderer so since she's fond of you I thought you could help calm her down a little...."

"Guu... I understand what you mean but she's scary, I don't want to go near her....."

"She's gonna cry if she heard that you know?"

"But she's sure hate you very much huh Kami-sama? Just what did you do to her?"

"....Nothing in particular."

Haruto averted his eyes at the two questioning gazes.

"*Cough* In any case let's begin our quest now, as usual we'll split up and do them separately. Let's meet up again in the afternoon."

"Okay~" Elsie responded.

"Umm I wonder if the knights will be alright....." Fia said looking at the place the knights went.

Haruto glanced at the same direction and narrowed his eyes.

"...Who knows, but they're not knights for nothing, so they shouldn't go down that easily. Not to mention..."

"Nn? What is it?"

"Selianna is stronger than me." He said calmly.

Haruto still remembered the first time he met her. What made him cautious was that her energy he just sensed was larger than him.

Fia and Elsie's eyes were wide open in shock. They already spent some time with Haruto and knew how strong he was but to think that Selianna was stronger than him.

"Well she's a High Knight after all so I guess it's only natural?" He shrugged his shoulders.

"Hmm, I guess...." Fia said doubtly.

Is that really the case though? Fia already fought alongside him for more than a month and she had this faint feeling that Haruto was still hiding his true strength so she gazed at him suspiciously.

Haruto just smiled vaguely and dodged her suspicion. Fia did not pry further and they proceed to separate to different directions once again.