It's Dangerous Outside the Dungeon, Master

* * *

Life in the inner castle of Solemio was incredibly peaceful.

Or should I say, there were fewer complicated matters than when I was in the dungeon.

Baron Valeon tried not to interfere with me at all.

Instead, Baroness Grelda frequently made contact, but...

"I'd like to form a closer relationship with you, Magician. Don't you think it's okay since we'll be together for a long time?"

"That's a welcome suggestion, Grelda."

Most of this was just casual conversation.

Perhaps it's because of her husband's request.

She was very active in interacting with me.

"But you don't seem to be someone to treat lightly, so I'll call you Lady Mist."

"Do as you please."

Starting from asking to call me by name when we've only met three days ago.

"As you said, Lady Mist, it seems like it was a good idea to come out to the garden."

"With such nice weather, it would be a loss to just stay inside, Grelda."

However, from my perspective, there were also strong personal emotions in the reasons why Baroness Grelda frequently called for me.

For example, wanting to feel again the sentiments from when she stayed at the count's family in her youth.

Or using the noble atmosphere she felt from me as a vicarious satisfaction.

"...Come to think of it, I heard that you've been paying a lot of attention to Amelia."

"She's a young lady with rare qualities. How could I not pay attention?"

But today, it seems she has another concern.

Seeing that she can't relax her brow at all.

"You seem to have something on your mind."

"Does it show? Oh, I..."

Hearing my observation, she pressed her brow here and there, then let out a small sigh.

Then, she cautiously asked one thing.

"Can Amy really grow up to be an excellent magician?"

"..."

I could roughly guess what her worry was from that one sentence.

The path a magician must walk is usually difficult to reconcile with other paths.

If Amelia walks the path of a magician, it's natural for parents to worry that she might not be able to choose other career paths.

Adding to that Grelda's subtle dissatisfaction she showed from the first meeting, it was clear what she wanted.

"Come to think of it, you said Miss Amelia hasn't made her debut in society yet, right?"

"That's right. She hasn't been to the royal capital even once yet."

"My, my."

Amelia is currently 16 years old.

It was surprising that she had never been to the kingdom's capital at this age.

Considering that noble children usually have their first social party in the capital around the age of 14, it's certainly strange.

This was where Grelda's dissatisfaction lay.

"He wants Amelia to focus on inheriting the territory without worrying about 'trivial things'."

"I see."

"Haah..."

No noble wants their status and power to diminish.

However, Grelda was a young lady from a count's family who married a baron and settled in the countryside, not someone of count rank or higher.

Parents with deficiencies often seek vicarious satisfaction through their children.

Grelda's was 'having to marry into a lower status without enjoying high society'.

Valeon's deficiency was 'not receiving educational benefits as the second son of a lord'.

It was inevitable that there would be conflicts between them regarding their children's education.

And usually, in between, a smart and kind child...

"This time is so important for a young girl...! She should be experiencing and learning about the wider world."

"It must be very concerning for you."

From my perspective, the royal capital wasn't a wide world at all, but for someone who grew up as a noble in the kingdom, it was probably almost everything.

If there's any fortune given to Grelda here, it's that she'll soon realize that it's not everything.

She'll soon see an even wider world.

"It can't be helped. Amelia is a child who could marry a noble of count rank or higher and inherit an even better family...!"

"My lady!"

From now on.

"Butler. What is it? I'm in a conversation with the court magician right now..."

"A priest has come from outside. He says it's at Miss Amelia's request..."

"Amelia's?"

This was the reason why I had been staying by her side, enduring the annoyance.

If a priest enters the castle, it would be faster for a servant to tell me than for an agent from the information guild to come.

* * *

Although Amelia is the heir to this fortress and feels unprecedented anxiety towards her first teacher, that hypothesis isn't sufficient justification for her to call a priest alone to request verification.

After all, it was Valeon, the head of the family and the lord of the castle, who decided to recruit her.

'This is as far as an heir can go.'

Therefore, it's an overreach to call in a priest to examine the teacher without formally proposing it to the family head.

At the same time, she didn't want to formally inquire about this matter to the family head and make it a bigger issue.

She only had suspicions, and she feared the backlash if those suspicions turned out to be false.

"You called him to verify your talent...?"

So the justification Amelia put forward was to verify the judgment of the person recruited by the lord.

"Yes. The new teacher told me about my talent, but I thought the priest might know better about this field... I'm sorry for inviting him without saying anything."

"No, no. It's understandable."

She wanted to get confirmation from an expert in the field about whether she really had talent for 'purification' abilities.

It was the wisest excuse within the given information.

"It's as I heard. She has talent for purification abilities. Although it's talent as a magician, not as a clergy..."

The priest's subsequent explanation also confirms that her judgment was correct.

The rank of priest she could summon wasn't very high, but she thought that wouldn't be a problem.

The scale of issues that could be addressed in such a rural area was limited, and if it was a problem this priest couldn't handle, it would require special measures, not an ordinary response.

"Is that true, Father?"

"Yes. The new court magician's discernment is excellent. This is a talent that's difficult to recognize easily."

The priest's name was Grace Aibano.

Her initial plan was to honestly fulfill Amelia's request once, thereby increasing the lord's trust in both 'Mist' and herself.

She first tried to secure her own safety and benefit.

If the teacher's identity was truly ominous as per Amelia's request and needed to be dealt with, she would need the lord's help.

If not, there was no harm in becoming friendly with a magician favored by a lord.

"Hahaha! I knew it. From the moment I saw Lady Mist!"

"You flatter me, Lord."

"..."

Her miscalculation was only that the crisis that had arrived was far more immense than she had imagined.

'Oh my...!'

The priestess couldn't turn her gaze away from the side of the main seat from the moment she entered this place.

Because of some immense power and atmosphere emanating from there.

'This is absolutely not something I should have come to alone...!'

The magnitude and size of power that Amelia, who hadn't formally entered into power, and Grace, a high-ranking priest, could feel were different.

It was only because Evangeline herself had hidden it so meticulously that they could only sense it after getting physically close.

'Ca-calm down, Grace! They said you can survive even if you enter a troll's den if you keep your wits about you...!'

She thought she was somehow keeping her back straight and showing an unperturbed appearance, but in reality, she was subtly leaning her body backward, taking a posture ready to flee at any moment.

You could say her instinct to escape from this place was subtly showing on the surface.

Even without implementing formal detection methods, it was the typical response of a human who had already noticed that something big had happened to her.

'Her ability as a clergy is quite decent.'

'No way... really?'

The only ones who noticed this were Libertas herself and Amelia, who was closely observing the priest's reactions.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere in the room remained unchanged.

Libertas had no reason to change the atmosphere, and Amelia also tried to hide the fact that she had noticed with superhuman patience.

The rest were oblivious.

'The aura of evil from all directions... They've noticed that I've noticed.'

The priest, Grace, realized.

If the opponent was a simple monster, they wouldn't have surrounded her so covertly to achieve their goal.

According to the emergency protocols she originally knew, she should either somehow escape alive from this place or set off an emergency signal to summon nearby clergy.

'But even if I set off a signal, there's a high chance of dying in vain, and I might even involve many people in death... What should I do?'

However, this place was considered rural even within the kingdom.

As such, she was just continuing to struggle, unable to bring out her last resort.

Even if people gathered, she wasn't confident that they could achieve results against the great evil in front of her now.

As a mere ordinary priest, she wasn't prepared to handle her own death, nor the numerous other deaths that would occur after her death.

"..."

Even though they weren't making eye contact, Libertas could fully sense Amelia's expression.

Amelia's state of subtly trembling eyes while trying hard to maintain a composed posture, and slight twitches at the corners of her mouth even while smiling.

'My prediction was surely correct.'

She felt something from the priest's appearance, and worry and fear rushed in.

Yet, she couldn't act rashly.

'What should I do after distancing myself from Father...'

The first people to be attacked if Libertas's identity was revealed would be her parents beside her.

Baron Valeon and Baroness Grelda.

Although he was said to have been a somewhat successful knight in his youth, his body had already grown fat from sitting in a chair for a long time, and the elasticity had left his muscles.

She couldn't even guarantee her own safety, let alone protect the two from a monster attack.

"By the way, are you feeling unwell somewhere?"

"Ah, yes. I'm tired from walking a long way. I'd like to rest for a while and then look around this fortress."

"Oh my. In that case, I won't keep you. You there. Escort the priest to the guest room."

"Yes!"

The priest, greatly relieved that she had at least bought some time at the lord's instruction, turned her body.

Her shoulders narrowed once again, and she slightly lowered her head, looking around cautiously.

This was because the aura of evil suddenly approached right in front of her. From a helmeted soldier and a servant standing beside him.

"Is something the matter?"

It was such a big reaction that even if one wasn't particularly perceptive, anyone with eyes couldn't miss it.

"Ah, ah, it's nothing. Just a bit dizzy. I seem to be quite tired."

"Oh my, tsk tsk. Escort her quickly."

Thus, people wearing helmets and hats pulled down deep to hide their faces escorted the priest to the guest room, leaving the reception room.

Immediately after, the Dungeon Lord rose from her seat.

"Are you leaving already?"

"I still need to prepare for Miss Amelia's lesson this afternoon."

"Oh my. Then I can't interfere. Amy, why don't you go help your teacher? If you go help together, you might learn something."

"Ah, that, no...!"

Amelia, about to blurt out words of refusal unconsciously at her father's words, who couldn't know the situation.

"Shall we, Miss Amelia?"

But soon, she froze upon receiving the gaze of her suspicious teacher.

"...Yes!"

After that, released from her rigidity, she uttered an answer opposite to before.

Reason had won in the battle between instinct and reason.

'I must...!'

No matter how afraid she was, if she couldn't avoid it, she had to face it and find a solution in the end.