Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 152: What the Other Side Wants
Several days have passed since the attempted kidnapping of Aeris.
Count Connoen doubled the number of guards after hearing the report of the attempted kidnapping.
Two of them stayed by Aeris’s side as usual, while the latter two took on the role of guarding the surroundings at a distance.
As a result, it was discovered that someone was apparently watching Aeris and Tauro from afar.
The fact that Tauro’s “presence detection” didn’t catch them suggests that at least one of them has the “presence blocking” skill.
What the Kingsguard noticed was their high sensing skills, experience and analytical skills.
He sometimes felt their eyes on him with his “Gaze Detection” skill, but he could not see them, so he narrowed down his range to the diagonal of where he could and couldn’t feel their eyes on him as he moved from place to place and identified a place where he could easily monitor Tauro and Aeris’s lodgings.
“To avoid being noticed over there, I asked my other colleagues to back me up as I stepped onto the scene, but he was able to escape by a hair’s breadth. There were other people using their ‘hawk’s eye’ to watch at a distance, but they were only adventurers when we caught them, so they insisted that we ask the guild about the client.”
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As a hired adventurer, you would have to answer like that.
And the guild has a duty of confidentiality, so they won’t talk about the client.
We can’t blame the guild, since it is not illegal to just monitor us.
Still, I’m curious about the ones who escaped from the Kingsguard.
It may have been someone who noticed our surveillance, as reported by the adventurer who had been entrusted to watch over the Van Dyne family.
He must be a very skilled man, since he was able to escape from the skilled Kingsguard with a single stroke of a pen.
Tauro thought that the Van Dyne family was not very good at using people, but perhaps it’s because they are such opponents that they have been able to spend so much money to conduct manipulative activities to bring influential nobles to Aeris’s side so smoothly.
The nobles who joined our side reported that the other side, too, had begun to spread money around in an attempt to win them back.
However, rumors of the Marquise of Van Dyne’s ugliness have begun to spread considerably among the noble circles.
Once she loses the trust of the nobility, it will be difficult to regain it.
If she were to try to turn things around, she would have to get Aeris back and have a child with Uwakin, but there’s no way that Aeris will comply with her in that case.
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The ideal situation would be to get Aeris back and then tell her that she’s the parent of the child she has prepared for her and then Aeris would suffer an accident.
The dead have no say in the matter.
As for the child, the adventurers reported that the Marquise of Van Dyne was holed up in her mansion and could not be seen.
It seems that she hasn’t been seen for more than half a year.
Could she be dead? I thought so, but it seems that this is not the case and people from the Countess’s family visit her from time to time.
The adventurer on the watch said, “She might be pregnant”. I had expected that.
A member of the countess’s family had brought in a pram mixed in with her luggage.
This would mean that they are planning to bring Aeris back and make her the parent of the child because she’s about to give birth.
There’s no way that Aeris will comply with such a plan, so the Marchioness’ plan will probably not save Aeris’s life.
She wants to just kidnap Aeris and have her die in an accident at the Van Dyne family mansion.
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Perhaps the plot is that she will die of postpartum malady.
Then, the grandmother, the Marchioness and her husband, the Marquise Uwakin, would make the surviving child happy and the Marquise family would be happy.
And the Marquise would continue to do as they pleased in the dark as long as Madame and Uwakin were in the charge.
Now, the other side’s objective was clear.
But that’s only if they can bring Aeris back.
So, in the near future, they’ll make another move.
But that should be difficult since the Kingsguard knight escort has been reinforced… but do they have a plan?
Tauro thought about what he would do if he were the enemy, but he couldn’t come up with anything significant.
“Tauro? Isn’t today the day of the meeting with Prince Flue?”
Aeris approached Tauro, who was in his room thinking.
“Oh, that’s right. I have something important to report, so I’ll be on my way.”
This time, I decided to leave Aeris behind.
The reason for this is that the Kingsguard and I have discussed that if Aeris moves around now, she will create an opening for the enemy to take advantage of her.
With the Kingsguard present, Tauro felt at ease and decided to go to the royal castle where Prince Flue was staying.
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Tauro is still a child, despite having a previous life. Only that can explain such a stupid decision.
No, there are offsetting considerations. Namely, that it is not trivial to bring her guard to see the prince (it’s possible, but the procedures necessary would take time and telegraph the schedule and intentions to the opponents). Tauro has seemingly judged that the opponents aren’t currently prepared to move immediately. If that assumption is true, a quick, low-complication meeting with the Prince would be a good choice. Even if it’s false, a truly competent enemy would avoid moving against Aeris while she’s under Kingsguard protection, as an attack would both ruin their intended “story” and would likely create friction between the Marquess and (at least) the fifth prince, or possibly more widely among the royal family. An attack on the Kingsguard (even working offduty) is indirectly a challenge to the royal authority. Further, it could be seen as an implicit challenge to the royal family, implying that even the royal family could be attacked by by the Marquess’s faction, who had the ability and willingness to defeat Kingsguard personnel.
It’s possible that Tauro is overestimating the opponent’s strategic sense. The most troublesome isn’t a strategic genius, nor even a total naif, but rather someone with plenty of ability but not much smarts. They’re prone to choosing to do dumb-for-them things without even realizing the hazard, while having the power to actually pull them off.