Paralyzed (Tboah!AlbeCale)

25) Orange Hair is a bitch. Hans is baby <3

"Mm..."

"? Deputy butler Hans, are you sure you're alright?"

"Vice captain, I'm just a little sore in some spots. Nothing I can't handle. Anyway, I'm sure the young master will be in worse shape than me..."

"... Right."

They had been following this dirt road for hours already, but it seemed to go on forever.

Hans had first traveled in the carriage with Deruth and Eric, but switched to a horse because it felt suffocating inside. He was riding beside Hilsman and Gilbert, while the carriage rode beside them, and the royal knights were split half in front of the carriage and half behind. Gilbert and Eric's men were split on the left and right, respectively.

They had slept until 5 in the morning, just before the sun came up, and had been traveling without breaks ever since. It was currently 7:30 am, and they still had not reached the end of the road.

As they traveled, Hans grew more and more guilty and nervous. If he had been a more capable butler, this wouldn't have happened.

'This situation is my fau—'

"I received a message from the Wheelsman estate!"

Hans turned his head to properly look at the speaking Eric, but quickly turned back around because of the unconscious bloodlust emanating from his extremely dark expression.

"Baron Crassterd, the bastard Cale knocked out at the last noble gathering, has entered my family's mansion! My guards sent me a message saying the baron was cursing Cale's name upon capture!"

"That bastard kidnapped my son, didn't he!?"

"He must be the one who dared to kidnap the young master. But how do we figure out where the young master is? Unless we can get an answer out of the baron in time, he might die prematurely from blood loss, dehydration, or other natural causes!"

Hilsman was right, all they could follow was the dirt road, and they had no guarantee that Cale was at the end of it.

"!!! Up ahead!!"

The royal knights' shouting made everyone turn back to the road in front of them. Hans was impressed by lady luck's timing.

There was a fork in the road, with a wooden sign at the split point.

After getting off his horse, Gilbert walked up to it.

"Left takes us to a secluded mining area, and the right path leads us to another forest!"

"Hmm. We don't have a lot of time. I say we go left. Going right would not get us any results, and while we search a large repetitive forest, the young master might be starving to death. At least we can cross off a possible location if we head left."

"I agree. Eric, what about you?"

"..."

"Eric?"

Eric was staring at the communication device he had brought with him from the carriage. After a few moments he jolted his head upright and stated, quite loudly, what his thoughts were.

"WE'RE GOING LEFT, TO THE MINES!"

The others did not know this as Eric found it too time consuming to explain, but Baron Crassterd was reported to have rock dust in the folds of his clothing, and gravely mud on his boots instead of soft mud which could be found in a forest.

Putting the clues together, it was much easier to imagine Cale in a secluded mine than an open air forest.

But explaining all of this hypothesis to the entire group would be wasting time, especially when most people already wanted to go left. The longer they stood here, the more of a chance they had that Cale would be dead or severely injured by the time they would find him.