Chapter 50.

Adrian

Adrian walked towards Van Reichnott who was speaking to a small collection of villagers. It was fascinating to see that they had already started moving with filolial drawn carriages being used to transport both people and the essentials. He could see that Isis felt a fair amount of disdain towards the Filolails, which wasn't a surprise, she was a much greater existence than they were. The filolials, however, were looking at her with fear and awe.

The nobleman turned towards him as soon as he realized that Adrian was here. The villagers looked at him with gratitude and awe but said nothing as they observed their lord and Adrian.

"Sir Hero," said the man, with a bow "thank you for your patience. And who is this young lady?"

"I'm Isis," she said, with blatant pride "I am a member of Father's party,"

The man looked a little surprised but then nodded, "It is a pleasure to meet you," he said, "will she be joining us?"

Adrian nodded as they began to walk towards the mansion, "Yes, she will," he stated simply not giving the man any room for argument.

"I see. Let us go to my stud-" he cut himself off, "I mean my dining room for our conversation. Would you like some particular refreshments?"

Adrian winced internally at the man's mention of his study. It had been Adrian's attack that had ruined the place. Between the hole in the ceiling, the partly destroyed walls and the massive bloodstains the room needed some serious renovation.

"No need for any refreshment," he stated, as they reached the room and took their seats, Isis at his side at the head of the table while Van Reichnott sat to his side. Adrian appreciated the gesture, "Let's get on topic. What is Naofumi's situation and how did it get to this point?"

Adrian was a little stunned to find that Naofumi had actually had a pretty good start. Turns out that Andrea's father was a bigger player than he had assumed. The man had intercepted Naofumi on the first day, planted a spy and a bodyguard in one on him, and had removed him from the influence of the Crown and the Church. It made Adrian realize what a bullet he had dodged by leaving when he had, it seemed that the chances of her manipulating him were even higher than he had initially suspected.

Of course, things had gone to hell soon enough, the Church had mobilized after realizing that he was meeting some representatives from other nations. Adrian wanted to scream as he realized the reason for their early actions. The Church, in canon, had never needed to move early on in the game because of Naofumi's extreme mistrust and paranoia. He must have refused all the offers outright preventing them from needing to interfere.

Here, the Guild Leader had stopped all of that from the start. Adrian winced at the thought of a more naive Naofumi being hunted with limited allies, even worse it was a coordinated search with the entire border being mustered against him. Turned out that while communication technology was limited in this world it was possible to send messages to specific devices. The devices were set up in advance. So if a set of four devices were enchanted then they could only send messages to those devices, but Adrian could easily imagine that alone being used to coordinate a search.

This situation had just gone straight to hell. Even worse, Itsuki was still a problem.

"Damn it," he said, his Sword changing forms to his Man Slayer Sword, as he contemplated the destruction of the Church. He ignored Van Reichnott's flinch and continued, "what about Itsuki? Or Motoyasu? Any concerns about them?"

The man gathered himself even though he was still sweating, Isis, on the other hand, looked comforted by his aura, "I'm afraid I don't know anything about what happened to Sir Itsuki. His entire party was found dead but that is the limit of my knowledge. I don't believe anything has happened to Sir Motoyasu."

"All right," he said, "and you don't know anything about where they might have gone?"

"No Sir, I didn't want there to be any chance of betraying their location."

Adrian had to admit he was impressed by this man. But he didn't have time to waste.

"Thank you for the information." he said, offering his hand to Isis who quickly took it "I'll take my leave."

"Sir Hero," said the nobleman hesitantly, as Adrian made to stand up, "there is one more thing,"

Adrian had a bad feeling about this. Van Reichnott had been pretty honest until now...if he was this hesitant about something then it was either a big secret or something that would really, really piss him off.

"What is it?" he asked, trying to keep the apprehension from his voice.

He paused for a second before stating, "Our nation is rather...divided. Even the Royal Family has numerous factions within it. Indeed, the main branch itself is fragmented with the Queen and King operating quite differently even as they provide the illusion of unity."

"Get to the point," he stated flatly.

The nobleman swallowed before stating, "The King has declared that you raped Princess Malty." he quickly added as Adrian felt his magic and SP slip out of control, "most agree that you are completely innocent but-"

"Stop," he commanded and Van Reichnott closed his mouth swiftly, Adrian closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then contemplated just capturing thehim. The Royal family was his enemy, Melromarc as a whole was now his enemy given that the Church and the Crown were his enemies.

"Father," said Isis, "are you okay?"

Adrian took a deep breath, "I'm fine Isis. Just...surprised."

"Sir Hero," the man attempted to interject, "I assure you that the Queen-"

"I asked you to stop," he said, his voice flat but polite, as he considered his options. The man was quick to shut up. Wise, given that Adrian was honestly tempted to just blast him and leave.

Ideas came into his mind, but the one thought that stood out most was that Aultcray would have to die, and soon. Rape was a serious crime in Melromarc. One that was deserving of death, if a male committed against a woman. In other words, Aultcray had framed him and sought to execute him. Malty had either lied to her father and convinced him or she was a pawn in his game. Given Aultcray's reputation in this world and Adrian's knowledge of canon either possibility could be valid.

Either way, given that the Royal Family was potentially his enemy, almost certainly after he killed the King. It would not be wise to give anything more away to the Queen.

He glanced at the nervous Lord in front of him and for a moment he was tempted to capture him but his Blindsight let him see the nervous people outside, the relief as they realized their nightmare was over and decided to let him be. All else be damned, those people had no protector save for this man and Adrian knew that he was just another nobleman, there were probably a lot of Rabier-like scum, who could give him the information he needed.

"Thank you for telling me," he said, meaning it, this man was quite brave to bring him such bad news, even if he had hesitated and delayed it to the end of the conversation...but if Adrian's guess was right then there was something more that Van Reichnott could help him out with.

"You hinted that the Queen disagrees with the King in this matter." he stated, his voice calm and his magic under control, "tell me more."

The man jumped to follow the command. His fear was meagre comfort.

The conversation ended sooner than the nobleman would have preferred, Adrian barely spoke, but what he learned was telling. He hadn't realized just how divided this country-no, any feudal system-was. It was something he could use.

"Thank you," he said, "I'll take my leave. Rest assured I'll do everything I can to help Naofumi and Itsuki."

The man stood up a moment after Adrian did, "Yes Sword Hero," he said, sounding a little relieved that Adrian had calmed down, "I cannot apologize enough for what our country is doing. Thank You for understanding-"

Adrian laughed here and the nobleman was wise enough to realize that something was wrong in that laugh.

"Do not thank me." he commanded, "I've just set this aside for now because we have bigger problems."

Adrian smiled as he walked out the door, picked up Isis, who wrapped her arms around his neck and then used one of the holes he had made in his initial assault, ignored Van Reichnott's goodbye, to Dash to a position above the town.

He quickly oriented himself using his Map skill, "Hold on tight Isis," he said, "I'll be moving at full speed."

She nodded into his shoulder and tucked her wings closer and then they were moving towards the border.

_________

Adrian

Isis was enjoying herself. It was such a little thing but it helped Adrian relax.

They were floating well above a border fortress and Adrian was doing his best to scout it out. Unlike the other three that Adrian had destroyed this one was clearly under high alert. It actually had a barrier of some sort active.

Still, that hardly mattered, Adrian had a full-powered Sword Beam ready to wreck both the barrier and the gemstone array that was its' core. It wasn't going to be a concern.

The Sword Hero noted the food storage sites, the stables where Dragons, Filolials and Horses were housed, the infirmaries and most importantly the communication arrays and the areas where the soldiers were located. He wanted to utterly annihilate every one of those areas, save for the last.

It was a little tempting to be through and simply wipe out the whole fortress and the walls that it commanded but Adrian wasn't willing to kill hundreds of people who were nothing more than tools in the hands of their corrupt and foolish masters. He was well aware that he might have already killed innocents back in the previous fortresses despite his best efforts, sure none had died when he had been there and he hadn't received any experience notifications from them but he had injured a lot of them it wasn't hard to imagine that some of them would end up dead.

The thought was frustrating, but Adrian didn't see any way around it. He needed to make sure that he found Naofumi first, the problem lay in the fact that while he had an area he was meant to search that area was massive. Plus, while his hunting and tracking skills were quite useful, they weren't as helpful as they should have been. Someone, probably the Queen's shadows and several Adventures, had placed a lot of false trails.

He could tell that they weren't anymore and he hadn't found any of them nearby and really didn't have the time to track them down but all this meant that he had basically zero direct leads to Naofumi and he would need a fair amount of time to track him down. Lesser time than almost anybody else, he was sure, but a lot of time nonetheless.

Adrian didn't have any practical options to narrow down his search. He was not experienced at interrogations and after Rabier he really didn't want to try it again unless he was in control and had the time to try. Adrian had been so furious at the man that he had effectively killed him before he had fully finished interrogating him.

It worried him that he might be very close to getting killed by Fitoria. If Itsuki died in captivity and Naofumi died today then she had a lot of incentive to kill him and Motoyasu. Sure, Isis' ability to block her vision would be a godsend...but that wouldn't be anywhere near enough given that she could track him down and find him. He took a deep breath to stop thinking about just how dangerous that bird was.

He needed to focus so that he didn't have to worry about her. Keeping Naofumi safe was just step one but it was critical.

So, here he was, limiting Melromarc's ability to find him instead. Sure, absolutely ruining the border wouldn't stop the people already on the field but it would cripple their communications and that would prevent Naofumi from being swarmed. A single squad should be within Naofumi's capabilities to counter.

Not to mention crushing a fortress-like this was pretty simple. The first fortress had taken him nearly five minutes to ruin as he carefully tested out that things durability, he wanted to stop these people not kill them all. The second and third had been over in less than a minute.

This one might take a little longer given that the barrier was up.

"I'm starting Isis," he said, his voice a little loud to be heard above the cold, howling wind.

"Yes, father," she said, then closed her eyes and flared her mana. Adrian smiled at the feel of it, even as his mana sight let him see the beauty of it. Akin to a Kaleidoscope bursting from her skin. She looked amazing.

They synchronized their powers and began to chant in unison, "We command the elements to force the world to be torn apart by the trinity of Fire, Lightning and Wind. Let all between the heavens and earth be brought to ruin. Blade Storm!"

Mana Sight allowed him to see the immense amount of mana flowing in and around the massive structure. Every inch of the border was saturated in mana which was coming from a number of gemstones embedded into the stone that the border was made out of. He made sure that he could see communication rooms, food stores, water storage facilities, literally dozens of Filolials and Dragons and the carriages they pulled, hundreds of men and women and many armouries.

It was quite a sight, and it was one that was almost identical to the previous three, it must have taken a long time to build this defence network.

Unfortunately for them, Adrian had a lot of incentive to destroy this place. Since he couldn't help the Shield Hero directly, the obvious solution was to destroy the Shield's enemies.

The thousand blades that manifested around him in less than a second would be his tools...but first.

"Sword Beam," he said, his voice barely a whisper, as he held the boosted Sword in one hand, the other carefully holding onto his daughter.

The attack had no recoil. It emerged from the tip of his sword that was pointed directly downwards, right at the core of the defensive barrier. He ignored the existence of the barrier itself, rightly, as it turned out. It simply failed the instant the beam touched it. No resistance, no dramatic moment where the question of 'which one would win?' came into play.

For the fortress, however, the beam was catastrophic and a huge portion of it was simply removed. Adrian kept the beam active for another three seconds before moving it through a very small angle. He stopped it only because he would have killed a couple of people otherwise. Though he doubted that anyone down there would appreciate it given that their fortress just had a fair portion of it annihilated.

He could see some of them looking up and then going still as they spied the hundreds of swords covered in electricity bearing down on them.

Adrian showed the highest-ranking members, identified by their equipment, no mercy. He smashed half a dozen electrified swords near them and watched with pity as they were electrocuted. The other, significantly less important soldiers, got a lesser dose but they were still shocked slightly even if Adrian made sure to limit the current flow.

His other targets were not so lucky. Adrian had no reason to hold back against inanimate objects and so the communications room, food storages and kitchens, equipment stores, enchantment anchors and most importantly transportation systems were annihilated

Adrian felt a surge of pity for the animals in the stables as they died but he welcomed the experience nonetheless. It was a little odd to kill filolials when he had one in his arms but it was apparently not a problem, Isis' reaction to his question about whether or not she was okay with him killing filolials had been a shrug and nothing more. Her apathy had been a welcome surprise.

It had taken no more than 15 seconds since he had fired the Sword Beam.

He carefully looked around as he gauged their response and condition. Adrian felt an odd combination of satisfaction and horror, a familiar emotion after his fourth assault, as he smelled the smoke, observed the many fires and witnessed the many soldiers who were either unconscious, whimpering in pain or begging for help.

"Done?" asked Isis, while casually observing the devastation below, her silver hair moving wildly thanks to the wind.

Adrian nodded, then double-check to be certain and confirmed, "Done. Ready to go?"

A nod and then they started moving. He didn't go at his full speed, instead, he moved only moderately fast and made sure to destroy the many gemstones based enchantment anchors and rest stops along the border. It slowed him down a bit but it would hurt his enemies a lot more. He suppressed his frustration at being forced to waste time and potentially lives like this due to the greed and stupidity of humans.

It took the Sword Hero only two hours to raze most of Melromarc's Eastern border. He still found it unbearably slow and inefficient. Even if most of his time was spent making sure that Naofumi was not anywhere near the border, he hadn't wanted to risk just missing the Shield Hero.

**************************************************************