The party landed at the edge of the port.

Only Ryo, Abel, Scotty, and twenty-five Kingdom knights disembarked.

Skidbladnir’s crew, along with Zack and the rest of the Kingdom’s knight orders, remained aboard.

The five adventurer-like people who had been fighting noticed the party as they stepped down into the port.

They noticed them, but they were still in the middle of fighting the army.

At last, they knocked unconscious the final soldier standing in their way.

“Hah, hah...”

“Haa... haa...”

It may have been one-sided, but they had been fighting continuously without rest.

The adventurer-like group was breathing hard.

Among them, only one woman looked perfectly cool.

A woman with pale-blue hair.

When she saw the Kingdom party that had landed, she smiled.

Then...

She slowly walked over.

As if time itself had stopped...

As if, in this world, she alone were able to move...

No one blocked her, and no one challenged her.

The woman with pale-blue hair lightly approached Ryo.

Before Ryo...

She did not stop, but took one more step.

She entered Ryo’s range and gently placed both hands on his cheeks.

Ryo was startled, but he could not make a sound or move.

The woman smiled gently as she softly cupped both of Ryo’s cheeks in her hands.

“Thank you for coming.”

Her voice rang in Ryo’s ears with astonishing lightness.

That made Abel move.

“Ryo!”

“Ah...”

Abel’s voice reached him, and Ryo came back to himself.

In that instant...

As if she had teleported, the pale-blue-haired woman retreated.

Still smiling.

Abel stepped in front of Ryo.

Almost as if shielding him.

“Who are you?”

Abel challenged her.

Even if Ryo had been dazed, Abel had never seen him allow someone to enter his range without resistance.

Someone capable of doing such a thing could not possibly be ordinary.

That was why he challenged her.

“This is our first meeting, descendant of Richard.”

The pale-blue-haired woman answered with a smile still on her face.

“Kinme...”

A voice called to the woman from behind.

It was the pink-haired woman who had been fighting until a moment ago.

“Kinme?”

Abel tilted his head.

Ryo tilted his head in silence too, but...

He felt as if he had met her somewhere.

No, of course, he knew he had seen her at Café Roma in the Holy Capital Marloma.

That was not it.

Before that...

Somewhere...

Perhaps she noticed the confusion on Ryo’s face.

Kinme brought the index and middle fingers of her right hand to her eye.

When she touched it lightly, something like a colored /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ contact lens peeled away from the surface of her eye.

What appeared beneath it was a golden eye.

Ryo knew those who possessed golden eyes.

Demon Man Merlin. Demon Man Garwin.

Yes. Both were Demon Men...

And so he remembered.

“To the south...”

He had only muttered that much when Kinme smiled and gently raised the index finger of her left hand before her lips.

Do not say any more.

Yes.

She was the Demon Man who had been sealed south of the Kingdom.

The Demon Man Ryo had visited together with “Room Ten,” Hugh McGrath, and the Hero’s party, whose seal had happened to break at that very moment.

The Demon Man Ryo had recognized as “antigravity” from the way she rose into the air.

The Demon Man who had looked at Ryo with a gentle expression, then flown west.

“You came to the Dark Continent.”

“Thank you for remembering me.”

Ryo’s voice was a small murmur.

The Demon Man Kinme’s reply was a whisper just as soft.

“Could it be that because you have golden eyes, you are Kinme?”

“I do have another true name, but I thought it would be nice if this name reached you.”

Only Ryo and Abel could see those golden eyes.

Still smiling, Kinme put the colored contact-like thing she held between her fingers back into her eye.

In an instant, her eye was black again.

“I knew who you were right away. Those overflowing ‘droplets’... I could never mistake them.”

“Droplets? Do you mean the thing called the fairy factor? You can see it?”

“Yes, I can see it. It’s very beautiful.”

Kinme smiled even more deeply than before.

“I thought Demon Men... Spermelno, could not see it.”

“Oh? You know other Spermelno besides me?”

“Yes. Merlin and... someone whose name starts with Gar and ends with win.”

“Garwin is, well, a fool. But I am surprised you know Redclothes. Did you perhaps fight the Demon King’s army?”

That was because Demon Man Merlin stood beside successive Demon Kings as the Demon King army’s chief strategist.

What he wore was always red clothing and a red hat.

“No... various things happened. He helped us. In fact, he was on that ship until yesterday.”

“My... that is surprising. Perhaps I should have my party visit his dungeon someday.”

“Kinme, why are you with that party? They were the party that came to the Pope’s investiture a year ago, weren’t they? I saw you at Café Roma, and afterward, I remember saving people in the meeting hall. The green-haired Patrice and the pink-haired Guti.”

When Ryo said that, Kinme opened her eyes wide.

She seemed quite surprised.

“I heard the report afterward. I see. You were the one who saved those two. Thank you.”

“No, it was just coincidence.”

Kinme smiled again and thanked him, and Ryo grew bashful.

Then...

“Um... Kinme?”

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt when you look like you’re having fun talking, but...”

The one calling to Kinme from behind was the pink-haired Guti.

“Ah, Guti. Don’t you recognize this person?”

“Sorry?”

Kinme indicated Ryo to Guti.

“One year ago. The Pope’s investiture...”

“Ah! From the party that saved us back then!”

“Yes, it’s been a while.”

“Thank you so much for what you did then.”

Guti bowed deeply.

Watching that from a distance were three people tilting their heads.

The green-haired Patrice shook his head a few times, then walked to a corner of the port.

There, a middle-aged man sat trembling where he had fallen on his rear.

He was wearing quite luxurious clothing.

Yes, clothing almost like a king’s.

To that man, Patrice presented a single letter he had taken from inside his clothing.

“Your Majesty, I deliver this personal letter from our Chief Battuzon, chief of the Bardael Chiefdom.”

“...”

“I believe you now understand that refusal to receive a personal letter will not stand.”

“V-very well... I have received it.”

The king accepted the letter Patrice offered.

He accepted it, but he could not stand.

“They were fighting to force a king who refused to receive a personal letter to accept it?”

“That would seem to be the case.”

“That is even more muscle-brained than you, Abel.”

“And even more forceful than you, Ryo.”

Ryo and Abel whispered to each other as they watched.

“The battle began because the king of this country refused to receive the personal letter.”

Perhaps she had overheard their conversation, because Guti began explaining in a small voice.

“We only came here under official orders from Chief Battuzon of the Bardael Chiefdom to deliver the personal letter. We were not told the details of its contents, but apparently, it contains something rather severe for this Kingdom of Vamos. They seem to have been informed of that in advance... and that king refused to accept it...”

“Refusing to receive a personal letter...”

“I have never heard of that in the Central Countries unless the countries were at war. No, perhaps even during war, one would not refuse to receive it.”

Ryo was astonished, and Abel shrugged.

There were regions where refusing to receive a personal letter from one head of state to another was considered one of the gravest acts of discourtesy in diplomacy.

Apparently, the Central Countries were one such region.

“It almost never happens here on the Dark Continent either. But our chief clearly told us when we were sent, ‘Make him receive it no matter what. I do not care what sacrifices you must pay.’ And in the end, we had to fight...”

“Patrice looked happy about it.”

Guti said this with a shake of her head, and Kinme added it with a smile.

Patrice, having delivered the personal letter, came over to the four of them.

“Guti, Kinme, what are you doing?”

Patrice called to the two who had gone over and not returned.

“Patrice, look. He is the person who helped us when the Temple Knights nearly defeated us at the Pope’s investiture.”

“The Pope’s investiture...? Ah! I remember.”

After saying that, Patrice looked at Ryo.

Then he bowed his head with all his might.

“Thank you for what you did back then!”

“No, it really wasn’t anything much.”

Ryo gave a wry smile.

“So... why are you on this island? If I recall, you were from the Central Countries, yes? Huh? We are speaking the Dark Continent language, but you understand us?”

“I studied.”

Ryo smiled wryly at Patrice’s confusion.

Abel smiled beside him.

Ryo’s acquisition of the Dark Continent language had gone extremely well, and he had reached a level where he could use it without issue.

“I am an adventurer from the Knightley Kingdom in the Central Countries. I landed on this island for work.”

Ryo answered.

Yes.

That was not wrong.

He was not lying either.

But one could hardly say he had disclosed sufficient information.

Before Ryo could supplement it, and before Abel could open his mouth, someone else spoke.

“I said it earlier, but you are Richard’s descendant, aren’t you?”

Kinme asked Abel.

“If you mean King Richard, who was king of the Knightley Kingdom, then yes. Why did you think so?”

“Because of that sword, of course. That is his ‘Ex.,’ isn’t it? No one but Richard could use it... but it has grown quite attached to you. You must have worked very hard.”

“Y-yes...”

“So swords can become attached to people.”

“Do not ask me. I have no answer for you.”

Ryo looked at Abel’s sword with admiration.

Abel, naturally, had no way to answer.

“I imagine you were planning to seek an audience with the king of this island... or rather, the Kingdom of Vamos, but as you can see, that will be difficult at the moment.”

Kinme pointed toward the king, who had remained seated the whole time.

Even after receiving the personal letter from Patrice, he could not stand.

His army also remained unable to stand...

In their case, because they had been beaten down.

“So let’s have tea somewhere.”

“Yes?”

Ryo tilted his head at Kinme’s suggestion.

Abel tilted his head silently as well.

The four members of Kinme’s party also tilted their heads.

“The king is in quite a shock, so I doubt he can have any proper conversation. It would be better to give him some time, wouldn’t it?”

“...That may be true.”

Abel nodded.

“There was a nice-looking café in the port square, wasn’t there? Let’s go there.”

After saying that, Kinme promptly took Ryo by the arm and started walking.

Ryo was dragged along, saying things like, “Eh, um...”

Abel followed behind him.

Behind Abel came the Kingdom’s knight orders.

“Kinme is very forward today.”

“That’s rare.”

The pink-haired Guti and green-haired Patrice both shrugged.

Kinme’s party members followed too, smiling wryly.