LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 57: They are legally not allowed to kill you if you say no
It's downright baffling for Esstrey with how much these feudal monarchies love their centralized magic learning centers where nobles are given major advantages. Jake was apparently to resume his education in the capital Faeyra as soon as he had recovered enough. A school for kids to learn magic in theory, a place for the spawn of snobs to build connections in practice. Most of the school's budget probably goes to warding off would be assassins if the kingdom's internal security doesn't have even half the strength ol' Civillis had at his disposal, and he still died from an internal plot. Esstrey herself can't even help but think how the assassins were sloppy. Had it been her, she would have probably made some plastic explosives and riddle the place with them, then have the biggest batch be in some collaborator's backpack and convince them the explosives will open a portal for troops to flow in through if you enchant them. That way some magical payload can be added and whoever detonates the bombs will try to position themselves close enough for the "troops" to have effect on the target without giving them time to respond.
These are all passive observations as they just... walk through the front gate. The biggest criminals in the entire kingdom, and they just walk in as if they own the place. None of the eccentric individuals in the party has ever done anything illegal in the open, and their relation with the duchess ensures plenty of official documents. Esstrey rubs her chin at the thought of sloppy security, she heard Dalka had enough mages to easily identify and suppress dimensional breaches, but Faerune just seems... sloppy.
"Say Plynka, how do you even call things over for your ritual? Do you just have an open call?" Esstrey's question catches Jake off-guard, as mages rarely discuss magic in public, not to mention the type of magic being VERY illegal.
"Gods no! That's just asking for encountering the nasty stuff that gets kept at bay by [The Veil] for good reason. No, we have special artifact-like beacons that are usually something like small statues of what we are trying to summon, the statues actually exist on multiple dimensions, making them very visible for beings. Imagine if you saw a statue of yourself being built in some village, you would go check it out too, wouldn't you?" Plynka answers heedless of the people around, Jake desperately tries to put a stop to the conversation, but knows that if a noble sticks his head out of a carriage to stop something it was worth something.
"So... how do you make one of these beacons?" Some of the guards are listening in now, albeit unwillingly, and start to form up to bar people on the street from hearing parts of the conversation.
"You can't, powerful beings make these things and scatter them across the cosmos so they can get called over by sentient beings finding them, I heard it's to stave off boredom. You would need a material receptive to dimensional effect, the image of the being you want summoned, and an interdimensional being to increase the dimensional presence of the item. This stuff is very dangerous." Esstrey mentally skips over the warning signs and things that could go wrong as she digests what Plynka says, material, the image and dimensional blessing...
Her plotting is interrupted by a distant shout, one very specifically directed at her. The familiar voice of one of the raiders, as she perks up to look in the direction of where she was called she sees a group of adventurer-types rapidly approaching their location, they probably saw Esstrey sticking out of the crowd. How did they get here so fast? Of the entire caravan, the only other one aware of the danger seems to be Ronald.
"Ronald, get Jake to the academy, I'll handle the meddlers. Kreif, you are now my humble attendant that does his best to keep me out of trouble without insulting me." Ronald nods as he ushers the caravan forth, who all remain confused as to what is happening. Kreif for one does an excellent job of acting by already becoming visibly nervous. Esstrey for her part begins to stand fully straight, and looks around her with contempt a bit before hiding her shovel and putting her beret sideways.
Time to 'act'.
"Vile creature! What are you doing to these poor people?" Asahi shouts in the direction of Esstrey while pointing his sword, but he goes completely ignored.
"Kreif! Where are the baths!? I feel dry!" Esstrey's voice sounds like a haughty noble making impossible demands, which is precisely what is happening as Kreif is still sweating from both wondering what the shouting is about and where the hell the baths are, he sure as shit doesn't know.
"Answer me!" Asahi's warcry is accompanied by an attack from above, he leaps toward Esstrey to slash her behind, but she dodges smoothly at the last moment, letting him fall face-first into the ground. She doesn't follow it up with any attacks, and made the dodge seem completely accidental.
"Guards! This peasant is bothering me! Where are the guards? KREIF CALL THE GUARDS FOR ME!" The mermaid's demanding attitude catches Asahi's party by surprise, and before Kreif can do anything, guards are already pushing through the crowd that backed up when a madman with a sword just attacked the mermaid.
"Oi oi oi, what's going on here!? Wot's this all 'bout?" A gruff man with a few rookie guards arrive at the scene.
"I want this man beheaded for bothering his betters, that is all." Esstrey turns to admire the scenery afterward, very pointedly ignoring the whole situation. The sergeant isn't very amused, but tries to get a statement elsewhere either way.
"T-that man attacked my lady Sir guard captain, I-I understand if her presence could be seen to be offensive to some, and it is within my power to offer compensation for bureaucratic obstructions. The duchess of Malencia wouldn't want the unconventional needs of her guests to trouble the capital." Kreif does an excellent job 'playing' the role he's meant to be, that of a sniveling coward, a weasel of a man. The sergeant quickly recognizes him as such, and looks to the last group to get testimonies from. A group of heavily armed adventurers that are doing a terrible job at hiding their hate for a 'noble'.
"Roight then. Lads, take these 'ere hotheads to the brig to cool off." The sergeant's verdict is clear, and the rookies move to apprehend the troublemakers.
"W-wait! She's in league with cultists! She's a threat to the city!" Asahi meekly resists the rookie guards, not wanting to go against the law.
"Yeah yeah, that's what they all say. Now keep moving!" The group is carried off, leaving Kreif slightly baffled at the display he had just taken part in. Esstrey simply rubs the back of her head, that elf had a bow trained on her skull nearly the entire time, judging from the paths of her blood vessels she could sense.
"I need a helmet..."