Chapter 802: She's Still A Queen
I thought finding out that the 'thief' was being controlled by the mask was the worst part.
Oh no, the fact that this guy was actually one of the palace guards made it even worse…
That meant that whoever did this was definitely somewhere in this city and really right under our noses which was what I was afraid of.
Levianne obviously knew the seriousness of the situation and thus, she was not acting like how she would act normally around me.
She actually had a look of regality and had the aura of a Queen as she commanded the guards that were brought in to clear the area.
The Queen had quickly taken charge of the situation after I explained the situation to her and she was directing everyone and giving out orders to deal with the situation.
"I want a record of everything that is present in this room. Louise, give me the names of the guards that have gone missing for a period of time before they were found again. Also, the guard from earlier, I want a detailed report of everything he remembered happening to him."
I was just standing at the side watching everything unfold in front of me.
Not gonna lie… I was most definitely not expecting her to act like this at all… But I'm going to guess that this is actually how she would normally act in front of others and the Levianne I know only acts that way in front of me when we are in the company of family.
I guess I'm also sort of the same in that aspect since I act differently in front of strangers too.
It only took them ten minutes to clean up everything and put the entire room back in order.
One of the guards even did a proper inventory of the items and presented the records of the room to her.
She even went one step further and made everyone that had been in the room line up and go through a thorough search to make sure no one had tried to sneak anything out, just in case one of them might have also been controlled by the Off-Worlder.
Thankfully, no one else seemed to be affected and they were allowed to leave, which meant that I was alone with the Queen once again.
Then, as if a switch had been flipped, she suddenly turned around and pulled me into a hug and stuffed my face in between her bosoms.
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"Ahhhh!! Asterrrr!! Are you alright?! I'm so sorry that I didn't manage to help you before that! I should have realised that something weird was happening within the palace itself! For something like this to happen while you are visiting me, I have no excuse!
Mommy will accept any punishment!"
I managed to free myself to breathe, "Ngghh… It's alright… I didn't expect his influence to reach this deep either…"
"Mommy still feels responsible for putting you through something so unpleasant. This should be a second home for you and yet something like that still happened!"
"Umm… It's really ok… I'm more worried about finding him and stopping him before he does anything else though…"
She hugged me even tighter, "It's ok! Mommy will make sure to catch him before that happens!"
"Mnnghh… Ho… How though?"
"Fufufu~ If Mommy is serious, there's very few things that I am unable to do, Aster~"
After seeing how she was acting earlier… I actually believe her.
But still…
I grimaced, "I also feel a little responsible for having an Off-Worlder mess up this World though… And this was originally something I agreed to take care of in the first place so I should be dealing with him myself."
"My, my, Aster~ You really are too serious sometimes~" She giggled before separating from me. "You're still a student, you know? You should be having fun with your friends! Worrying about simple things like your school work and maybe even have a few flings while you're there! A problem like this is definitely not something that you should be worrying about in the first place~"
"But… He's an Off-Worlder…"
"Ufufufu~ If Justinia and myself aren't able to take care of something like this, then we are unfit to be the rulers of this Kingdom, Aster. Besides, this isn't even the worst thing we had to deal with before~"
I tilted my head at her, "Really? This isn't the worst?"
"Oh not at all~ There's the incident where some necromancer tried to lay siege to the capital city after summoning an army of undead. The ironic thing was that his body could not handle the magic and he got turned into a mindless undead himself and we had to wipe out an entire army that appeared out of nowhere. Annnnnnnd~ That's not even the worst thing either~"
I blinked at her, "There was an undead invasion?"
"Mmhmm~ And it happened not just once as well you know~ So something like some weird guy using an artefact to control people to do things for them isn't something new either~"
Ok… First of all, that's actually terrifying to know… I thought an event like this would be a first for them.
Second of all… Now that I think about it… When you have a World filled with such magic and artefacts… I guess such things are unavoidable… Probably that's why you have organisations like The Guild to take care of such problems…
"What happened to that undead invasion though?" I asked, curious about it.
"Oh it wasn't even that big of a deal. We just pretty much mustered up the army and hired Guild members to deal with the undead horde."
"Was there… A lot of casualties?"
She patted my head, "For that incident there were none~ They didn't even get close to the outer walls~ Since the necromancer was already dead, there was no leader and they just mindlessly walked into the fire that we bombed them with~ It was really easy to be honest, ufufufu~"
"Ok… So what's your plan to deal with this Off-Worlder?"
"My, my~ Does Aster want to know what we do to naughty Off-Worlders like this?"
I felt a shiver go down my spine but I decided to nod anyway.
The Queen giggled, "Ufufufu~ It's really simply, we punish them~"
I blinked at her and she offered no further explanation other than that.
Ok…
"How are you planning to find him though? He could be anyone within the city."
"We have our ways, Aster~ Do you want to watch?"
Oh, that's definitely something I'm interested in.
"Could I?"
"Ufufufu~ Give us a few days to set things up and I'll call for you when we are ready. In the meantime, my darling wanted to reward you for helping her with the Off-Worlders right? Why don't you pick out something nice for yourself~"
"That reminds me… Was anything taken from here?" I asked, nodding at the records that she was holding.
"Mmm… I would have to go through it later and compare it with the previous records. But from just a glance… It doesn't look like anything was taken."
"Then what was he doing here?"
"Perhaps it was just a threat to make us uneasy. To let us know that he had people on the inside and sow distrust and discord amongst ourselves. It's a standard tactic, really."
Something tells me that this also wasn't the first time they had to deal with such a problem either.
I glanced towards the interior of their vault, "So…. Most of these aren't cursed like the ones I saw in the Armoury, right?"
"Ufufufu~ They aren't, Aster. Don't worry, I shall be here to explain what each one does for you~"
"And what happened to the so-called Royal Armoury?"
"Oh, you might be happy to know that it was renamed to reflect it's real status. It's called the Hoarding Room now~"
Right… Because the person who was responsible for all the stuff in there was literally just hoarding stuff. Understood…
She then waved her hand, "They're still cataloguing and arranging everything inside. There's about a few thousand more items to go and some items are really cursed so we have to be careful in how we handle them too~"
"The previous regent didn't really take care of it I see…"
"Ufufufu~ To be fair, it did function as an Armoury at one point where the things inside were all useful weapons. But then they got into the hobby of collecting all the enchanted items they could find and they felt it could be useful so they tossed them in there as well. Soon enough, cursed items were also thrown in because of the reasoning that it could also be used to curse enemies too~"
"But the fact that it wasn't properly labelled and catalogued… They could have had someone do that…"
"Oh, they were very particular about who could enter and leave that place, that's why it was so heavily enchanted~ This thief would definitely not be able to break into that Armoury so now I'm planning to scrap this Vault and just clean up the Armoury and make that the Vault instead~"
Huh… I guess there's also some good that came out of this event then?
Anyway… I guess I could choose a reward for myself now?