The young scholar’s name, as it turned out, was Emily. Since she was headed towards the capital as well, she had ended up tagging along, with the young lady’s permission.

Long, blonde hair. Guileless green eyes. To call her ‘cute’ wouldn’t do her justice.

Much more interesting to Charlotte was her potential. Although her mana pool was nothing to write home about, her comprehension of magic was absurd—surely, her research on this topic would rival Tempest’s.

Charlotte was unsure whether she should be careful of this girl, or try and snare her in.

What had happened was, the girl explained, she was attacked by a pack of Kobolds on the way to Folis. Her guards quickly found themselves overwhelmed, and though she could use a few spells to off a few of the Kobolds, there were too many for her to get them all, and thus she could only run away.

Indeed, it had originally been a group of more than fifty Kobolds, with two Chiefs. The girl was, quite frankly, lucky to be alive.

A group of fifty Kobolds—to call it unusual would be an understatement. Certainly they were pack animals, but if there were that many of them, surely they could live in some forest instead of attacking travellers on the Great Gilmer Plains. The Great Borm Forest, perhaps, or somewhere similar.

… Charlotte had an idea as to what might drive a pack of Kobolds out of the Great Borm Forest, but she decided not to say anything. After all, there was no way a regular noble young lady would know about the growing wealth of the Goblin Kingdom, or the fact that its king was a Kobold-lover who threw Kobolds that didn’t like him back into the dungeons.

In any case, the end result was that she ended up travelling along with the young lady, her butler and their guards. Not only was she a valuable asset, with her powerful spells, she was also amicable, and quickly made friends both with Charlotte and the adventurers.

… Though, the word ‘oddball’ could easily be applied to her, as well.

For example, her self-introduction had gone like this.

When she awoke, it was already light out. The adventurers who had happened to be in the lodge she chanced upon were already making preparations to set out—it seemed they had safely managed to repel the Kobolds.

In any case, the most important part was that she was uninjured and dressed. The blood had been washed out of her clothes—perhaps a bit of magic cast by one of the adventurers.

That uninjured, decent appearance allowed her to—

She jumped from the bed with a magnificent motion, swiftly drawing everyone’s attention.

“I am the great scholar, Emily! I humbly thank you for your kind assistance, and hereby request your continued companionship on my journey to the Citadel of Stars!”

A really humble request, accompanied by a really haughty, slightly overdramatic pose.

Charlotte, from the bottom of her heart, honestly thought—

If you were to take away the humbleness of the request and replace it with a brazen, shameless order, this girl would be acting the same as the Lord she served.

There were also various other points, such as the part where Emily insisted Charlotte call her ‘big sis’, but all in all, the addition of Emily served to make the journey all the more lively and enjoyable.

Though Charlotte was not able to find an opportunity to turn the girl into a Thrall, as she had the human called Kenneth, at least the girl did not recall Charlotte’s true nature.

In any case, the sweetness of the journey made its end all the more bitter, but that was just the kind of relation this was.

Charlotte clutched the pendant hanging from her neck as the carriage passed through the city’s gates—and found that, indeed, the thing was doing its job and concealing her mana. She had not set off the monster-detecting barrier.

An invention of Tempest’s, it was an improved version of the items that were once used to lure the first Saint out of Gramrock. Tempest was busy investigating those papers found in Ethalia, sure, but she still found time to squeeze in to invent or improve artifacts, and this was one of the results of that.

… Frankly, the fact that it had been invented by Tempest, of all people, was Charlotte’s foremost cause of concern. But it seemed her promises of an improved effect and a longer duration would hold true, probably.

Well, she was in the city now, anyway. As long as nothing required her to get back in, it was not a big problem if she was discovered on her way out.

Of course, Raoul wore a similar pendant. The other vampires would just have to wait outside.

Kenneth was not a cause of worry—Thralls were a unique race of monster, in that they registered as whatever their previous race was, at least until they fully turned. Similarly, they did not have the weaknesses vampires had, either—at most, a tendency to sunburn easy.

After the party escorted the carriage to the adventurers’ guild, the job was thus over. The goodbye was tearful—well, for the adventurers, anyway, for Charlotte it was more like parting with a random pet dog you meet on the street—but it had to happen.

After somehow managing to get Emily off her back, too, Charlotte went to find an inn suitable for nobility, put her carriage in the depot, and then go and explore the enemy stronghold.

The base theme was ‘white’.

Yes, white was a very apt word to use. Every building, every house, every individual brick was a beautiful white. It was gorgeous to an extent where it was blinding, and it probably would have been hard to find a cleaner city in the entire kingdom.

Practically around every street corner there was a flag with a golden cross on it—the symbol of Goddess of Light, Luciel. The sound of people talking and walking filled the air, interspersed with the occasional carriage and much overshadowed by priests and preachers spouting gospel at the tops of their lungs.

The buildings themselves were much reminiscent of western European architecture, though there were a few notable differences—for one, Folis used much taller buildings, not to mention the gorgeous stained glass every other structure.

Suffocatingly religious would also be an apt way to describe the city.

In addition to the droves of preachers and priests, there was the constant sound of singing choirs, and a church bell rang for one reason or another practically every five minutes.

Charlotte could not help but think it was a little excessive.

If they had been praising the one true ruler of the world, it would have been one thing, but for this minor figure to get so much attention…

In various ways, Charlotte was fortunate she didn’t have the habit of talking to herself.

In a big city like this, she didn’t stand out as much as she did in smaller places—for better or worse, ‘many people’ meant ‘proportionately many rich people’, several of which would by rules of probability share in her tastes, at least clothing-wise.

Even amongst the tall buildings of Folis, two buildings in particular would stand out. The Royal Palace, and the Sacred Cathedral of Light.

The palace was, in any reasonable person’s eyes—so thought Charlotte, anyway—an absolutely repulsive building. Despite being a palace—a place where the ruler was supposed to elevate themselves from the masses—it was located smack in the middle of the city, right amongst those very masses. Even given it was in the nobles’ district, it being in the city at all was inexcusable.

Not to mention those disgusting decorations. Garishness to the point of absurdity seemed to be the theme they were going for—if not, there was no way to explain the massive golden statue of the king himself, in all his rotund… full-bodied-ness. Indeed, that statue in and of itself confirmed that the king looked as unpleasant as Charlotte had imagined him. And as if that statue wasn’t bad enough, every last corner of the entire palace was decorated with golden decorations the value of which could feed a whole family for a year, all while soldiers patrolled the palace’s walls dressed in full Mythril plate armour.

Indeed, this was too excessive to be called excessive.

On the other hand, there was the cathedral.

Unlike the palace, Charlotte found it strangely attractive. The main point was a massive spire, a gorgeous bell in its belfry, so high as though it reached the heavens. The large stained glass windows somehow reminded her of the castle she called her home, giving the place an oddly nostalgic feeling despite the fact she’d never been there before. Just like pretty much all of the town, it was constructed from white stone, but unlike the palace, it was not decorated with gold—instead, grand, imposing arches and other such structures served both to beautify the building and to draw people’s attention.

The imagery on the stained glass windows wasn’t great, sure—it showed various scenes, such as Luciel creating the world and Luciel’s Heroes eradicating monsters—but the windows themselves could be changed out, so long as the framework was there.

She was thinking a rather long time ahead, but well, that was fine. All would eventually fall under her Lord’s rule. It was inevitable. So there was no problem with considering what would happen once that occurred.

Charlotte made a mental note to request the Royal Palace be melted down once the time came. Or blown up. Or destroyed in some other manner.

In any case, it needed to go.

Apart from the architecture, the wealth of the inhabitants and the size of the city, there was one more factor that set Folis apart from, say, Ebonbury, where Charlotte had started her journey, or any of the myriad towns and cities the group had passed through.

That was, a certain kind of homogeneity.

Without exception, every single person walking the streets here was—

A human.

Let alone elves and dwarves, who were by nature reclusive, and mermaids, who lived underwater, there was not even a single drakonid or beast-person in sight.

Humans, humans, humans.

Humans as far as the eye could see.

The reason for that was surely the preachers, who yelled out human-supremacist sentiments at every opportunity they got.

Spouting lines like “we humans are the only race blessed by Goddess of Light, Lady Luciel” and “the other races of humanity are mere sub-humans”, it was no surprise anyone who was not a human would want to leave immediately.

Lately, such sentiments had gotten even stronger, what with recent rumours that the elves and the drakonids had joined hands with monsterkind.

But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Apparently, there had, in the past, been those brave few who had attempted to set up shop in this kind of environment. And for the first few weeks, that had gone perfectly well.

They had gotten customers, just fine, and if anything, the unusualness of the shopkeepers served to attract people.

No doubt the general physical attractiveness of beast-people and the rugged muscles of drakonids were related.

In any case, from the way their businesses did, it was clear that the general populace did not particularly dislike the other races of humanity, at least back then.

And yet, every single time, after a few months of operation, those shopkeepers would ‘mysteriously vanish’, leaving only the cross of Luciel seared into their door.

People spoke of an assassination squad in employ of the church, albeit only in hushed whispers.

‘Azazel’.

Whether or not Azazel really existed, it could be said with certainty that either the church, someone pretending to be related to the church, or perhaps even Luciel herself was systematically eradicating all races of humanity other than humans, themselves.

Of course, those success stories were stories of many years past.

Looking at the landscape as she saw it, Charlotte thought to herself—

That the humans were being fed propaganda as though it were baby food.

That the humans were eating it up as though they were newborn babes.

That the humans were truly foolish, and truly, oh so…

Pitiful.

They silently accepted what they were told, and thus started hating all races other than their own.

They silently accepted what they were told, and thus started praising Luciel.

They silently accepted what they were told, and thus became the hapless sheep religions often made people out to be.

“Those poor people…”

Muttering to herself about the fate of humanity, Charlotte ducked down a back alley, intent on finishing her business quickly so she didn’t have to witness any more of this.