Chapter 17: Princess Rescue Plan

"Boss! Boss!" Montei yelled, running over with Kasumi. "What happened?"

"We fought, I won, she left this." I showed them the card.

"An invitation to her wedding?" Kasumi asked. "Why do you seem troubled by it?"

"Montei, can you tell?" I turned to Montei, who nodded after a close examination of the card.

"She's trying to tell-" He started, but I shut him up.

"If you say it out loud, people might hear." Through Moye, I was able to speak to Montei and Kasumi telepathically. "Let's go back to camp first."

As soon as we sat down, I explained to Kasumi what I saw, and what we know about the wedding.

"Hold on, boss." Montei suddenly took the card from my hand and put it under the lantern light.

"What's up?" I asked.

"So there really is a second layer." Montei peeled a sheet of paper from the card off, and it magically transformed into dust. "She added the top layer with some sort of magic ability or spirit power to fool her butler and guards."

Montei cleared his throat, and started reading the bottom layer of the card.

"Reiken-kun, in appreciation of putting your trust in me, I'm going to fully trust you - there is no one else I could trust now. If anyone could save me right now, it would be you."

"My father betrothed me to Tenkatsu Hayashi to fulfill a promise with Tenkatsu's father when I was born. As you probably would've guessed by now, it's a political marriage. But this isn't as simple as me wanting freedom from a marriage that's only to keep my family prosperous."

"Tenkatsu is a disgusting person. He pretends to be a charming boy in the public, but whenever he wants a girl, he just calls people to kidnap her and force her to be his so-called 'concubines', and abuses them everyday. Over the past year, many girls had fallen victim to him - many had committed suicide. If I were to join his evil harem, being a blind girl myself, I'd only be abused more."

"Man is this long; wonder how she was able to even write in such a small text." Montei took a sip of water, and continued.

"I know you may be thinking 'you can just kill him' - I could, but that would put me in an even more dangerous situation. The ancient clans have a treaty with each other, and I'd be kicked out of my family as soon as I committed the murder - and the Hayashi family would be free to place a bounty on my head."

"Please help me, Reiken-kun; I know it's a lot to ask for someone who I've only met once, but otherwise, killing Tenkatsu myself would be my last resort."

"What do we say? We're a squad now, we make moves as a collective." I asked.

"I'm in on whatever you do, boss!" Montei jumped up and came closer. "Shh... chance for you to get this girl, though!

I gave him a soft slap. Your intelligence is dangerous, child.

"I respect your decision." Kasumi closed his eyes.

"Reiken, if I were you..." Moye started.

"What would you do?" I said, telepathically.

"I'd decline. There is no reason to involve yourself in such a substantial matter, unless you seriously want the girl, like that boy said." Moye said after a short pause.

"You know why I'm desperate to save Yune?" I closed one of my eyes to avoid the sun.

"Why?" Montei, being the curious one, asked first.

"Two reasons. One, she put her trust in me, so I can't let her down. That's a moral principle." I replied. "And two, I have a feeling I may be the cause of her problems."

"What do you mean?"

"We know this problem only recently emerged for her, because she would've had many different ways to avoid marrying Tenkatsu. I read the treaty she mentioned in the message, and it said that if a contracted wedding between two parties did not happen more than 2 years after the promised date, it gets cancelled." I said. "I'm sure Yune is smart enough to find a way around it."

"From the information we currently have, one hypothesis is that Yune is trying to be sheltered by a famous academy. The winner of the Sakura Festival will receive a free pass to any spirit wielder academies they wish as an elite disciple, and apparently, being one will provide you with protection against any form of harm until you graduate - which is well over the 2 year period." I explained. "Which also explains why she's so desperate to win the festival."

"So you're saying that because you beat her in the festival, she now has no other choice but to rely on you to save her?" Montei punched his fist.

"Precisely. And because I started it, I have to end it as well." I nodded.

"I won't object, but just to make sure, you do know what you're up against, right?" Moye asked.

"Yes, I do. Going up against a whole clan with just the three of us may be pretty hard." I shrugged. "But I just can't back out of this matter."

"You... you really remind me of Ganjiang." Moye sighed. "Well, what's your plan, hero?"

"It's a seven-day ride from here to their wedding place, and there are precisely twenty-one days left before the date of their wedding; Yune planned it out like this so that as soon as she won the region-tier Sakura Festival, she could pick an academy on the spot and take off immediately, rendering the wedding contract useless." I replied. "Hayashi will probably have really strong bodyguards guarding Tenkatsu, so we'll just try to 'raid' the squad that's supposed to guard Yune as soon as they depart."

"To be safe, we'll be staying near the city gate, in case they decide to leave early - a likely outcome, considering Yune didn't have the excuse of region-tier battles anymore. When they exit the city, we'll follow them until we reach an enclosed area, where we 'kidnap' Yune. After that, we hide Yune until I win the festival for her and give her my elite disciple title." I paused, expecting a response.

"...so you basically have to win this festival now, no matter what." Kasumi replied.