Reincarnated as a betrayed prince

Chapter 19: The Pact.

Kanbe went to the place where the King and the nobles were having a meeting and saw how they were shouting, inside the palace, as the guard was taking a tall woman with pale skin and black eyes, short golden hair, wearing a golden dress with a pair of high-quality high heels that seemed a noble while it seemed clear that they were about to imprison her, and remembered that she was the noble that the two kids were protecting. Kanbe wanted answers, and he was going to get them no matter what happened, but he wasn't going to let the guard just take it away as he recalled how the medievals did their interrogations.

"Stop! I want to ask this woman a question." Kanbe said as he went towards the noble woman, while the guards looked surprised at Kanbe.

Then the vice leader of the guard stopped Kanbe, and grabbed his arm with a strong grip. The vice leader of the guard was a tall man with long blonde hair, black eyes with a scar in his left cheek who was wearing a white armor with a pair of golden stripes and wielded a sword and a shield. He was a noble of the most important slave-trading family in the human kingdom, and his name was Josh, but he was known as a rather trustworthy noble that was a proper guard.

"Sir Hero. This woman has been accused of treason and conspiracy. She will be captured, turned into a slave and interrogated. Slaves cannot lie, after all." Josh calmly said as he looked at Kanbe.

"There is a better way to do this kind of investigation! Fair lady, allow us to ask you one thing. Did you meet Edward Leonhard after his sudden death?" Kanbe said as he made sure to look at the noble's face.

"No. I did not! If I did-" The noble said as she quickly started trying to explain herself, in a nervous state due to the stress of the situation, while she tried to avoid being dragged by Josh.

Kanbe looked at the expressions of the lady. He had learned from his father to know when someone was telling a lie, and he was confident in his capacity of doing so. After all, his father had been a cop until he got killed by a thug and his grandfather was an old retired veteran of war.

"She knows nothing." Kanbe declared, as he looked at Josh with a glare.

"Huh!?" Josh exclaimed as he looked surprised. 'Come on, rain on my parade, will you? My perfect chance to take out a treacherous noble, and surprise: Hero to the rescue of the hapless fool! I know that already, but I can happily make her give me all of her assets! Also, there's no way in Inferno that this girl wasn't involved! The coincidence is way too big to consider it as coincidence!' Josh thought as he tried to hide his anger on his face.

"She is scared. Someone so scared would spill everything. Evan would never use her." Kanbe explained as he looked at Josh's face, and scowled at him as he saw small micro-expressions of angers in the vice-captain's face. 'Nobles tend to be too proud to admit a mistake, I might have made an enemy out of him for saying it like this... Damn it. They fund the king with taxes, and so I get funds from them.' Kanbe thought to himself.

"Why!? She is a noble that holds a lot of influence and votes! If she tried to stop slavery and cause any kind of undesired trouble... We would have a hard time stopping her." Josh said, doubting the ability of the hero to detect lies. 'Come on, bite it and let me get her as a slave! The king will benefit from this way too much!' Josh thought to himself.

"But Evan is smart and knows that someone who gets scared this fast will be only a liability. Like when he spared us. He knew that killing us was a fast and easy solution for his problems, but he saw that he would have the guard after him, and so he prepared a way out. This time he prepared a trap and a possible scapegoat. And here we only have the scapegoat." Kanbe said, as he scratched his chin. 'At least be logic about this. Put it something about the treason at most, but don't go after this.' Kanbe thought to himself, hoping that Josh would stop it.

"So you mean that this is not a legitimate plan of his? And what this means?" Josh asked with a frown on his face.

"He already got what he wanted. He believes that I am dead and Saida is dead. But why would the black flame devil want her dead?" Kanbe replied, pointing out the most important fact of the situation.

King David junior walked near Kanbe and looked righteously angry at the situation, due to Saida's death. It was a mess that he would have to deal with, and probably would have Katas righteously angry, without even considering the questions of where the guards were to keep her safe. That made things a lot harder than they were already, specially since he knew that Evan had nothing to do with Saida's death. This death was all on Sumeragi, but saying that would mean that he would have to explain what he had done to Sumeragi, and that would make having the hero on his side a lot harder.

"Simple. She was an insult to her mother's memory. She was hard to deal with, and she hated Legias. For a man of family like him... That would hurt a lot." David said as he looked at Kanbe. 'We need a culprit, right now. If Katas gets here, first the debt will be impossible and maybe the elven king decides to ask for repayment right away.' David thought to himself.

"And more if what I found out is true. Legias is the son of Legadonia. Like, Saida is the daughter of Legadonia." Kanbe said, considering the king's words and trying to be more polite to both the king and the guard.

"And maybe Sumeragi just killed her to cause me a lot of troubles. You know, average plan to make us all run in circles." Josh added, as he considered other options that would be beneficial for him and the king.

"The kids that protected the noble ... They knew Evan and Saida. And Sumeragi attacked her, knowing that she was his niece. He killed to stop Saida to do something shameful. I am still not sure, but I believe that the man who we call Evan can be the black flame devil. But also it could be that Edward Leonhard took that name to scare us. After all, he was attacked." Kanbe said as he looked at the king, deciding to just explore all the possibilities while trying to be polite to both the king and Josh.

"Both options put that Evan as someone who will not trust us again. And he will do anything to stop us." David said, pondering the situation. 'And let's hope it's Edward, if it's Evan... The fact that he has not killed Kanbe means that he is not a threat for him, hence he will wait until the hero becomes enough of a treat for him.' David thought to himself, terrified by the prospect of Evan being who he said he was.

All the nobles started whispering, they could not understand what was happening, but things got too complicated for them. This was something that could easily upset the entire country and cause a war with Rivialt, and it was clear that Elstivia lacked enough military power to even consider fighting Rivialt.