Chapter 125: Chapter 125
Adelaide von Lennart was a good person.
She wasn’t an incredibly virtuous person deserving to be called a saint, but at least by general standards, she was someone who could be evaluated as “kind”.
This was proven by the fact that even after being kidnapped by bandits and nearly being sold as a slave, and receiving education from the Tin Knight that had a massive negative impact on the personality of a growing adolescent, she still didn’t treat bandits as human-shaped monsters.
Therefore, Adelaide was troubled.
What should I do in this situation?
“Kyaaah! The giant has been freed!”
“Giant disease! Call for the giant disease!”
“Bring the catapults!”
The release of Adelaide’s restraints must have been quite shocking, as the small soldier surrounding her raised a commotion, screaming in surprise.
They seemed to be moving seriously in their own way, but the sight of people about 10-15cm in size bustling around was, well, at least to Adelaide’s aesthetic sense, quite cute.
Relieved that she could understand their language, Adelaide turned her gaze to the small soldier in her hand.
His earlier confident attitude had disappeared somewhere, and the soldier was trembling.
Adelaide loosened her grip a little, placed him on her palm, and asked, “Um, could we perhaps have a conversation first?”
The soldier’s eyes widened, seemingly very surprised by Adelaide’s words.
Adelaide nodded, “I’m sorry for entering your country without permission and destroying the king’s garden. However, I didn’t do it with any ill intentions. Could I perhaps hear about the situation when I first appeared here?”
The soldier hesitated for a moment before answering, “We don’t know for sure either. Suddenly there was a sound of something huge falling near the royal palace, and when we checked, you were lying there, having crushed the garden.”
Adelaide gently rubbed the area near her head where she had been feeling a faint pain.
There were no major bleeding or wounds, but a small bump had formed.
…So, while we were about to fight the Witch of the West, an incredibly large rock-like thing fell on our heads, and Sir Knight struck the ground, and umm…
Adelaide realized that her memory of the latter part was slightly vague.
She thought she might have hit her head on the ground or falling debris while falling as the footing collapsed.
She could also guess why her other companions weren’t around.
It was something Dorothea had explained before entering combat.
Emergency escape magic. However, due to material issues, it was one-time use. Also, they might be scattered, so it would be best if they hurried to regroup.
“Um, do you know where the castle of the Witch of the West is?”
“Witch of the West? Who’s that?”
Adelaide was momentarily at a loss for words at the unexpected answer.
Come to think of it, terms like Witch of the West or Witch of the East were just names used by the people of the continent from their perspective.
The problem was that Adelaide didn’t know the Witch of the West’s name.
Adelaide thought for a moment and then answered, “Um, she’s a witch who commands golden monkeys with wings as her subordinates.”
“Hmm, you seem to be talking about Lady Elphaba. She’s one of our Lilliput Kingdom’s main diplomatic partners. However, getting there won’t be easy. You need to cross the sea and make an incredibly long voyage. It’s practically impossible unless you fly with the ‘delegation’ sent by Lady Elphaba.”
Diplomacy, sea, Lilliput Kingdom.
Adelaide felt confused by the successive information.
While the Scarecrow or the Witch might be able to quickly grasp the situation from the few pieces of information, the Little Lion didn’t have such ability.
Above all, the surrounding situation didn’t give Adelaide the leisure to fall into deep thought.
The army of small people that had somehow gathered around Adelaide fired catapults at her.
While it might have been huge rocks by small people standards, by human standards they were about the size of a clenched fist, but even that was more than enough to be a threat to ordinary people.
“Wait a moment, I don’t intend to fight!”
However, Adelaide, who had gone through the Tin Knight’s hell course since her beginner days, was an exception.
Although she wore a troubled expression, her body movements were incredibly light.
She was even able to consider not making the soldier on her hand feel too dizzy while lightly jumping to avoid the flying stones.
She asked the small soldier, “Excuse me, could you ask them to stop the attack?”
The soldier, desperately clinging to Adelaide’s finger, answered, “N-no! Giants who enter the kingdom are unconditionally sentenced to 1 year of labor! Those who damage the garden must plant seeds five times the amount of plants they destroyed! That’s the law of this kingdom! Once a law is set, no one but His Majesty the King can change it!”
Adelaide was a bit impressed by the soldier’s answer.
This was because the laws of the Kingdom of Ionia weren’t that detailed or strict.
No, in the first place, laws themselves were often set at the whim of the lord ruling the domain. If the lord said guilty, it was guilty, if they said innocent, it was innocent.
However, apart from her personal admiration, this was also a troublesome answer for Adelaide right now.
While planting seeds might be fine if she just moved a bit faster, working for a year was too much no matter how one looked at it.
Thinking of her other companions, she couldn’t stay here for long.
She needed to somehow invalidate the punishment and also gain cooperation in going to another island. And quickly at that.
Adelaide asked her imaginary companions in her head.
The imaginary Tin Knight in her head answered.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ shouts that these dwarves are like trash!]
The imaginary Witch in her head answered.
First try to negotiate, and if that doesn’t work, move on to threats, intimidation, and hostage-taking.
The imaginary Scarecrow in her head answered.
Wouldn’t it be good to create hypothetical scenarios to make it unclear what’s wrong and what’s right?
Adelaide let out a hollow laugh.
Somehow, there wasn’t a single human worth referencing. Perhaps it was a natural result, since two-thirds weren’t human to begin with.
In fact, if she decided to counterattack, she could do so right now, but the anxiety that she might never gain cooperation held Adelaide back.
Unable to do this or that, she had been agonizing for a while when Adelaide suddenly realized that the stones flying towards her had stopped.
She looked around in confusion.
The small soldiers were no longer firing their catapults.
At first, she thought they might have simply run out of stones, but they weren’t showing any signs of replenishing new ones either.
While Adelaide was tilting her head, seeing the soldiers who somehow looked very cowed, the soldier in Adelaide’s hand spoke, “…Ahem, would you put me down? I’ll convey that you have no intention to fight.”
If it were the Witch here, she might have retorted, “What makes you think I’d trust you?” but Adelaide released the soldier without much suspicion.
The soldier approached his other comrades and began to speak, “General! You’re safe! We thought you had surely already been…”
“It’s fine. More importantly, everyone, stop combat preparations.”
“You’ve all probably realized it already, anyway. If that giant starts fighting seriously, we have no way to resist.”
At the words of the soldier—no, the small general, the other soldiers lowered their heads.
It was Adelaide who had avoided all the catapult shots fired indiscriminately without showing any signs of difficulty.
Thinking that she might trample them from above with those nimble movements, their bodies naturally shrank and their knees weakened.
Perhaps because their fighting spirit was already broken, the general was able to persuade the other soldiers without much difficulty.
Additionally, while the small people thought that the large Adelaide couldn’t hear their conversation, Adelaide with her good ears was eavesdropping on all their talk.
Feeling somewhat sorry that it seemed like she had threatened them with force, Adelaide accepted the small general’s proposal to explain the situation to the king of this country.
Perhaps because the royal palace was nearby, it didn’t take long for an answer to come back.
“His Majesty calls for you. He says he wishes to speak with you.”
Before moving to the capital, the soldiers asked very cautiously if they could tie Adelaide’s hands and feet.
According to their explanation, giants who visit the kingdom were usually tightly restrained all over their body and moved while loaded on a dedicated cart.
“His Majesty wanted to come here personally to see you, but that wouldn’t be proper etiquette. However, if you entered the capital without being neutralized, the capital’s citizens would fall into tremendous confusion.”
The face of the small general explaining the situation looked very embarrassed. The polite tone that had somehow appeared was a bonus.
In Tin Knight’s terms, it was “the face of a civil servant who’s doing it because the higher-ups ordered it, but is doubtful if this is really right.”
Adelaide obediently held out both hands.
It might seem like an action lacking a sense of crisis, but from her perspective, there was no particular reason to be wary.
I can escape just by exerting a little strength, anyway.
Restraints originally gained meaning when they couldn’t be undone. Restraints that could be undone at will by the person were nothing more than decorative showpieces.
About a dozen soldiers, frozen stiff, wrapped ropes tightly around Adelaide’s wrists and ankles—or more precisely, above her boots—but during the process of wrapping her wrists, a small commotion occurred.
“What’s this large golden thread? It seems almost like it’s moving on its own.”
“It’s not going to suddenly attack us, is it?”
Only after hearing the soldiers’ words did Adelaide become aware of the golden thread bracelet wrapped around her wrist.
A few strands of thread had escaped from the bracelet and were pointing in different directions.
Ah, this must be what Miss Franka did.
Adelaide was inwardly relieved that a hint for regrouping had been given.
After that, the process of loading her body onto a special cart began.
It seemed to be a grand operation originally requiring an enormous number of pulleys, ropes, and manpower, but Adelaide herself was able to shorten the time by simply sitting down on the cart with a thud.
When about a hundred soldiers grabbed and pulled the ropes connected to the cart, Adelaide’s body slowly moved forward.
Don’t they have any pack horses or oxen?
Adelaide felt both amazement and guilt simultaneously.
The former because it was surprising that those small friends were somehow moving her, and the latter because the work looked very difficult.
She wanted to just walk on her own feet to ease their hardship, but remembering the small general’s desperate dissuasion, she couldn’t bring herself to do so.
Inevitably, she devoted herself to looking around.
The buildings of the small people were, of course, very modest.
Adelaide was reminded of the model ships in bottles that her brother used to make as a pastime.
What were mere decorative items for ordinary people to look at might become excellent practical items if given to these small people.
The small people whispered various things while looking at Adelaide, but their attire wasn’t much different from the outside world.
Even the size of the trees and rivers visible around was all small, so Adelaide had to feel anxious about whether these people were small or if she had become gigantic.
After moving like that for a while.
Adelaide was able to have an audience with the king of the small country, who had a golden crown and bushy beard.
Since it was problematic in many ways for Adelaide to enter the royal castle, the audience took place in front of a huge square.
“Hooh, so you’re the giant who smashed my garden. I heard you’re pretty strong?”
The king looked at Adelaide with a very interested expression.
Adelaide pondered for a moment how to show proper etiquette to the king of a country, then just awkwardly bowed her head.
“I’ve heard the circumstances. That this incident wasn’t your intention, and that you have something to ask of me. Well, let’s talk about the details later.”
The king, who had spoken up to there, suddenly drew his sword towards Adelaide.
Intense mana burst forth from his small body.
“First, let’s have a match. If you show skills that please me, I’ll seriously consider your request.”
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