"All right, I'm dumping her here and leaving the country."
The moment the brat was confirmed to be Second Princess Melty Melromarc, I made that declaration.
"Wait. You'd abandon a child whose life is in danger?"
"She's that bastard's daughter. She's probably trying to frame me."
"But something feels off to me."
Hmm. Raphtalia's opinion did make sense.
The second princess was pale-faced and trembling, with Filo basically acting as her nursemaid.
If she really was the second princess, the kingdom's knights shouldn't have any reason to kill her.
If there was a reason, it would have to be some grand conspiracy or faction infighting.
I'm pretty ignorant about that kind of stuff. After all, I don't give a damn about the inner workings of this country.
"Melty. Why were they trying to kill you?"
"I don't know. Father had been grumbling about something, and then he said he couldn't forgive the Shield Hero for hurting him."
"Just you?"
"No. When I said I couldn't forgive them either, the Royal Knights said 'Then let's go' and took me along."
From the sound of it, the second princess was a puppet.
Even if I wanted to extract information, a direct approach wouldn't work.
"Filo will definitely save you, okay!"
"Hey! Don't just make promises on your own!"
"Master. Filo wants to help Melty."
"No."
"I want to help her, want to help her, want to help her!"
"Oh, for crying out loud, knock it off!"
Damn it. I had a really bad feeling about this. What the hell was going on?
As we went back and forth, the knights started laughing.
"So you've finally realized your position, demon."
"Shut up. I couldn't care less about you people anymore."
"Too bad. Our great cause has been fulfilled."
"...What do you mean?"
"We were supposed to obtain the right to condemn the demon by using the second princess's death, but even without that, there's no problem. By now, there should be a bounty on your head."
That bastard. He actually went and did it.
He'd sacrifice his own daughter just to have a pretext to kill me?!
"The assassination of royalty means that even if you flee abroad, pursuers will follow you!"
"Wait. Why did the second princess have to be killed right in front of me specifically?"
If they wanted to frame me, they could've just used testimony, like that bitch did.
Kill the second princess in some completely unrelated location and pin the crime on me.
Why didn't they do that?
Then I remembered the knights carrying those crystal balls.
A few had been in the back, so most of them got away.
What if those things functioned like photographs?
"Shield Demon, the fact that you were involved in the murder of Princess Melty will be made known to every foreign nation. There's nowhere left to run."
I see. Last time, it had been domestic and pretty heavy-handed, so they couldn't really push it.
If I fled abroad, the justification they could present would be weak.
Other countries might even take in the Shield Hero, treat him generously, and make him an ally.
But this time was different.
They had a crystal ball that captured the moment when the Shield Hero might have killed the second princess.
That was proof enough.
They could present it to foreign nations and silence domestic opposition as well.
Incredible... in a way, I almost respected it.
So that meant...
Option one.
Abandon the second princess here.
The bastard's knights would kill her, making the justification ironclad.
And I'd become a wanted fugitive.
That would spread to other countries too, and I'd be hunted forever.
The most dangerous time would be when a Wave came. They'd summon me and I'd be captured.
Option two.
Bring the second princess to the bastard and explain the situation.
I could save the second princess's life, but knowing that bastard, he wouldn't drop my charges just because I returned her. He'd probably accuse me of kidnapping or something.
In other words, I might save the second princess, but I couldn't prove my innocence.
Option three.
Go kill the bastard who started all this.
My guilt would become absolute, and the Three Heroes, the Church, and the Knights would all come to kill me.
The probability of failure, the risk — way too high.
"No matter what, I can't prove my innocence! That bastard king is going to kill his own daughter just to get me?!"
This was incredibly disgusting!
Why did that bastard and his bloodline always make me feel so goddamn miserable?
"Ha ha ha! Now the Shield Demon will perish. Know the crime of threatening our Three Heroes Church!"
"Shut up!"
In my frustration, I ordered Filo to silence the knights.
I could've killed them, but a few had already escaped, so it would've been pointless. If my innocence were ever proven, I'd be charged with murder.
Still, the Three Heroes Church...
Three, Hero, Church.
It made sense to combine them into "Three Heroes."
The symbol they'd been so devoted to had three weapons.
But wait, that was wrong.
Sword, Spear, Bow, Shield.
The Legendary Weapons numbered four.
Since the knights were calling me a demon, the Three Heroes Church clearly viewed the Shield as hostile.
...So that was it.
Could this be connected to why the adventurers the country prepared wouldn't become my allies right after I arrived in this world?
Adventurers arranged by the country would naturally be people they trusted.
Looking at the Church and the knights, it was safe to say the Three Heroes Church was a deeply rooted religion in this country.
Since the Three Heroes Church had declared me an enemy, the Shield Demon was the ultimate evil within the nation.
Who would voluntarily become a companion to the Shield Demon? It had nothing to do with being uninformed. They'd just cooked up some flimsy excuse.
...If this was the truth, it explained why getting dirty looks just for being the Shield Hero made sense.
The Knights being fanatical believers meant the royal family probably belonged to this faction too.
Come to think of it, even before I was framed for attempted rape, people had been acting strangely toward me alone.
The fact that they'd deliberately ignored me and treated me as a criminal without evidence — it was because I was a religious enemy.
If the citizens saw me do something wrong, they'd think "It's because he's the Shield Demon."
During the Dragon Hourglass incident, the Church's Sister had been hostile toward me too, and the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming.
I was starting to see through the bastard king's thinking.
If he wanted to maintain his position as king, he couldn't treat the Shield Demon and the Three Heroes equally.
And right now, the Shield Hero's reputation within the country was improving.
As a saint of the Divine Bird, I'd been traveling from place to place, saving people.
Recently, except in the castle town, the Shield Hero's treatment hadn't been nearly as hostile as before.
This was a problem that affected the Church's prestige as well.
They'd said something about threatening the Three Heroes Church, so that had to be it.
That was why they'd played their trump card — the second princess.
But this was all speculation. I couldn't use it as a lead to clear my name.
"My father would never do something like that!"
The second princess shouted at me.
"Probably..."
"You can say that more firmly!"
"Your dad is a bit hot-headed, and your mom said he's good at warfare."
"My mom, huh..."
Having a daughter meant that bastard had a wife too. I'd never met her though.
Good at warfare... he did sound like someone skilled at making enemies. He'd never said anything nice about me before.
"She's so sharp that even my mom can't beat her in intellectual games."
"Sharp as in cunning, you mean."
From my perspective, they were both idiots. The mother didn't sound much better either.
"But Dad would absolutely never do something like that. Because Dad treasures me."
"Then why is this happening?!"
"Ugh..."
The second princess was on the verge of tears.
"Master, that's so mean."
"Yeah. Making such a little kid cry."
"She's about the same age as you, Raphtalia."
Was Raphtalia forgetting that she'd been about the same size just two months ago?
Was it her relationship with Filo, or was she playing the big sister?
Fine then. I'd give the bastard king the benefit of the doubt — just this once.
Thinking about it, he was the type to show favoritism to his own family.
In that case, maybe a fanatic had acted on their own initiative to judge me, the demon, without the king's orders.
Another possibility was a power struggle.
A bit heavy-handed, but what if there were two factions — that bitch and the second princess?
"So it's your sister?"
If the successor was only her, it made sense to nip any threats in the bud early.
That bitch could definitely think like that.
"The next queen will be mine. I can't let some little sister take it from me," or something like that.
"Sister might... have done it."
"You're not denying that?"
"Sister has always liked framing people. Mom said she'd do anything to get what she wanted."
That bitch was totally capable of it.
Actually, the women in the royal family couldn't even keep it hidden from each other.
"Mom said Dad doesn't realize that," the second princess added.
"Now that you mention it, you keep saying 'Mom this, Mom that.' What's she like?"
"My mom is the queen of this country. She's running around on diplomacy year-round. I used to travel with her."
"Then why did she send you to us?"
"Mom said, 'Go see your father's face once in a while.'"
"Huh... diplomacy."
"She works desperately every day to prevent wars. She says the world is in chaos because of the Waves, and as queen, she'll protect this country."
From what I could hear, she sounded more competent than the bastard. Maybe I could reason with her.
Not that she was necessarily free of favoritism. But she'd said all this without even trying to cover for the bastard, so...
Hmm?
Now that I thought about it carefully, wasn't this the person I'd bumped into at the castle on the day I parted ways with the bastard?
"Is your mom that purple-haired woman who was with you the day before yesterday? She had verbal tics and all."
"That was a body double. She was disguised as my mom."
"A body double... so your real mom looks like that?"
The striking purple hair had left an impression.
"Yeah. She can disguise herself to look exactly like her, but the way she talks is off."
"Huh."
Didn't matter.
"She's more important than Dad."
The second princess casually dropped an unbelievable statement.
"...Come again?"
"She's more important than Dad."
"Excuse me?"
"Naofumi-dono, Melromarc is a queendom. It's a matrilineal kingdom, you know?"
Raphtalia added that as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
So that was it?
That bastard was a consort?!
"Why are you laughing, Naofumi-dono?"
"How can I not laugh? That bastard is just a consort! Ahahaha!"
"Master looks like he's having fun."
"Don't talk bad about my dad!"
"What's wrong with it? He abandoned you."
"He didn't abandon me! Waaah!"
Oh, the second princess was crying and start hitting me.
Somehow it was kind of endearing — making a brat cry.
"Making a child cry and then laughing about it is the worst, you know."
"I get it."
Raphtalia was getting angry, so I started thinking seriously.
"A way to clear our suspicion and save her life... what could we do?"
Why did I have to protect the bastard's and the bitch's family in the first place?
I couldn't just leave her somewhere, and I obviously couldn't kill her either.
The fact that she was even related to that bastard was annoying enough. Ugh...
But I did feel a little sympathy for her position.
I could understand how the second princess felt — betrayed by the family she'd trusted, tasting the depths of despair.
There had to be a way.
"Queen... do you know where your mother is?"
This was the first approach. If the bastard was useless, maybe I could talk to a queen I'd never met.
She had more authority than the bastard. If she was reasonable, the problem could be solved.
In this case, the second princess's survival was essential.
As long as she was alive, depending on how we played it, anything was possible.
The queen sounded like she'd at least be intelligent enough to talk to.
The downside was that if she was just as stupid as the bastard, my suspicion wouldn't be cleared.
"...I don't know."
The second princess shook her head.
"I see."
Then fleeing to another country without a destination wasn't ideal either.
That's when I remembered the incident with the weapon shop owner.
Siltvelt was a country of absolute demi-human supremacy, wasn't it? Melromarc's influence there should be practically nonexistent.
If I brought the second princess of Melromarc as a bargaining chip, there was a high chance the queen would come sniffing around.
Of course, it would be an extremely disadvantageous place for me as a human, but I had Raphtalia, a demi-human.
It might be a good place to lay low.
"All right. For now, let's head to Siltvelt. Maybe we can turn the situation around there."
"It's a country of demi-humans. You're right."
Raphtalia nodded in agreement.
"Once we get in, I'm leaving the negotiations to you, Raphtalia. You're the demi-human."
"Got it!"
"All right, Second Princess. For your own sake, you'll be coming with us. Don't worry — I'll protect you for sure. If you don't want to die, follow us."
"...Okay."
The second princess reluctantly agreed to travel with us in our carriage.
I didn't mind a child who was this cooperative.
While we were at it, I might as well teach her the truth about what kind of despicable, filthy trash the bastard king and the bitch princess really were.
We were now comrades in fate, living and dying together.
The second princess was still just a child.
If I explained everything from the start and showed her what was right, she might come to understand.
"We're going to be together from now on, Melty."
"Yeah... nice to meet you, Filo."
Filo was in high spirits at the prospect of traveling with a new friend.
The second princess was the final key to leading us to victory.
As long as I didn't lose her or use her in the wrong way, she could definitely help us break through.
We hid the unconscious knights in the forest, then cautiously turned our path toward Siltvelt.