Edea: Hero Summoning Conspiracy 213 Considerations

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As the days passed by, various rumors sprung out of nowhere inside the capital. No one was really clear as to where some of the rumors originated, but people were interested in hearing about them as they were interesting enough to catch their attention.

"There have been rumors that have been circulating around the capital lately," Zwei spoke as he served Sodina and Kazuya their breakfast.

In one of the more popular rumors, apparently there have been discussions with the southern kingdoms to have Princess Alicia and the Prince of the desert kingdoms betrothed to each other. There were many people that agreed to this as both kingdoms were once one and the two were also mainly governed by humans.

This kind of rumor is something that would usually delight the citizens but, because of recent events, many of them had differing opinions about the matter. Because of the fact that there was a hero successfully summoned in their generation, the citizens' opinions were split between supporting the rumored betrothal or hoping that the princess and the hero would end up together in the end.

The Zweifel kingdom was a large country that was ruled by humans, therefore, since the other races tend to mind themselves, the country had grown a superiority complex towards other races. To the citizens of the capital, though they respected the hero Uriel, they did not like the fact that he had taken an elf as his one and only bride before returning to his own world.

Kazuya did not expect such a response from the citizens. He felt disgusted at the fact that they were trying to pair him up with Alicia. That is why he acted on impulse and had the children influence these rumors before they got out of hand.

Humans had a default nature of being greedy or selfish. That is why he knew that if he circulated a certain solution to the debate that people have been passionately discussion, then they would stop trying to pair him up with the princess whose plan on making him gain her affection ended up in the hero throwing up in an alleyway.

*SLAM!*

"What the hell is this!?" the young miss of the Eberbach household couldn't hold back her temper after she heard about the rumors that suddenly involved her.

"It is as you've heard, young miss. Currently, the people have been talking about the rumor that the princess Alicia had been betrothed to the prince of the desert kingdom. When some of them argued that the hero was a better candidate to be her husband instead, someone had argued that since Kazuysama is with us, there would be no better candidate than someone who is as well known as the princess to be married to him instead." Zwei reported with a smile.

These rumors were somewhat entertaining even for him to hear. Elrich had also heard about the strange contact between the king's faction and the southern kingdoms so he wasn't quick to dismiss this rumor but, with the citizens at the capital as evidence, the hero's presence is proving to have a great influence over the usually advantageous position that the king's faction should have gained through this news.

Frankly, for Zwei, this rumor was a delightful one to hear. He had observed the two young people who spend time with each other daily. They may not be getting along in the surface but, in his eyes, these two complimented each other really well.

He looked warmly at the two of them even though he knew that this was a thought that was more ideal than real. The strictness of the duke aside, the hero himself is the biggest problem. He had never shown any interest towards their world aside from the skills and arts he could learn. He was someone that did not put much importance in his connections towards people as he was dead set on getting back to his world as soon as he could.

"Zwei-san… you couldn't really be thinking about such a preposterous thing as me being engaged to this girl, right?" Kazuya was the first to notice the look on the old butler's face.

"Hey!!! That should be my line!" Sodina immediately reacted with a glare. "How could I ever accept being paired up with someone like you!?"

"Though you might be better than that vomit inducing fake princess, the fact that you have a justice fetish sends you down the same line as idiots." Kazuya didn't plan on giving her any face as he was in a bad mood. The rumor he thought of to counter him being paired up with Alicia had been too effective!

"Justice fetish!? Is that what you call someone who adheres to the principles of justice!? Are you making fun of my beliefs!?"

"I'm not really making fun of it. Rather, I am scoffing at your naïve understanding of 'justice'. Would you serve it to anyone you encounter suffering from the world's injustice?" Kazuya asked with a grin.

"Of course!" Sodina replied without hesitation.

"Then why haven't you done anything about my predicament? I was kidnapped here to this world and am being blackmailed into waging war against another race I have not met before. The perpetrator is your Zweifel kingdom's royalty and the heads of the church of light." Kazuya turned towards Zwei and asked him to continue with his report as the young miss of the household had been frozen on the spot.

"(You can't win against him like that young miss…)" Zwei looked at Sodina with a little pity. Though she might have been winning against the hero at physical sparring, the hero did not show much mercy when it came to their verbal arguments.

The second rumor came along with the news of the bloody duke's victory against the Keller family and their military. It was said that many of the nobles had targeted Sodina Eberbach in a conspiracy to trigger the bloody duke's temper. The only reason why the Keller family was singled out was because the plot had been uncovered by several various pieces of evidence that justified the duke's actions.

The people were, of course, enraged at the thought of the conspiracy because it had targeted the duke's proclaimed weakness. Kazuya was not merciful either and let the kids strictly spread around several names from the king's faction who the public hated for their arrogance.

What's more, the people were happy when they heard about what the duke had shouted on the battlefield. The line 'I will slaughter everyone who dared to harm my daughter' was something that many parents had approved of. There were many other versions that parents told their children like, 'I will bathe in the blood of the people who hurt my child' or 'even if I go up against the world, I would make sure to take down everyone who dared target my daughter'.

"Pfft!" Kazuya couldn't help but laugh after hearing those lines.

"Uuu…" Sodina was extremely embarrassed when she heard Zwei's report as well. She glared at Kazuya but said nothing as these were words that she couldn't deny that her father would say.

-

Meanwhile, inside one of the meeting rooms in the palace, King Benino and some of the ministers were gathered around as two sealed letters lay on the table. These letters arrived early in the morning and had caused quite a stir as the emblem that sealed these letters were of the famous Academy of Vane.

One was addressed towards the king of the Zweifel kingdom while the other was addressed to the hero who they were able to summon not too long ago. The letter that was addressed to the king had been shown to his trusted ministers and they had assumed that the contents of the letter towards the hero were more or less the same.

It was an invitation, an invitation towards the hero to learn the skills he needed to survive in Edea as well as the skills that he would need to be worthy of the title that had been put on his shoulders.

"I gathered everyone here to discuss this matter." The king turned to his subjects and was satisfied to see them already thinking about the current situation.

Though it would usually be surprising to receive a letter from such a faraway place in just a short amount of time, none of them really thought about it much as the capabilities of the people from Vane. Even the speed at which they caught onto the news while being so far away was a feat in itself so they were not as surprised at the fast actions compared to seeing the magic imbued telegrams that even court magicians would admire.

"Was it not part of the plan to send the hero to the Academy in Vane so that he may grow stronger so that he could fight against the demons?" one of the nobles asked.

"While it is indeed true that this was not an unexpected development, my concern and hesitation about sending the hero to Vane stems from how uncooperative he has been so far," Benino replied.

"That is true. We had been hoping to have the hero attached to our country before sending him off to learn from the Vane, but right now… I believe that we should hold off on that decision." The minister of finance added.

"That is what I was thinking as well. Currently, we have no hold on the hero other than the promise that we would look into the methods in sending him back to his world. If he learns that Vane's magicians are better equipped for this task, even though we might already know the method to send him back, he might defect to their side and leave our kingdom to have summoned him for nothing." The king shared his thoughts with them.

He gathered them here so they could think of ideas to have the hero attached or affiliated to their county. No one had expected the hero would be someone like Kazuya who threw almost all of their plans in disarray.

None of them thought of the possibility of him knowing about their schemes and viewed him as someone who was extremely wary towards other people so they did not even think that Kazuya was hindering their plans on purpose. The thought was too preposterous especially towards a person who had come from another world.

"Since the Vane Academy accepts new students every spring, I think we should send them a response saying that we will let the hero decide whether he would go attend their academy. This would be able to buy us some time to deal with him." One of the nobles suggested.

"That is not a bad idea but, do you have any clue on how we should be able to handle him?" Benino asked. As a person who had interacted with the hero, he of all people should know how hard it was to deal with him.

"I think that we may have been a little hasty in imposing what we expect of the hero." The finance minister suddenly spoke. "I believe that he would need time to adjust to his current situation and accept that he has no way to return to his world soon. We can only deal with him slowly as we are the only entities in this world that currently give him value as he does not know about Vane's invitation just yet."

"Hmm… That is true…" The king nodded. "The duke and the people from the Eberbach house already have an advantage over their current relations with the hero. For now, we will cease all hostilities towards the Eberbach house and focus on the current issue. We must not lose the hero to other forces, especially the city of Vane. Not only would we have sacrificed a great deal for nothing, but we might also even be giving one of our potential enemies a power that rightfully belongs to us if we allow for such a thing to happen."

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Chapter end