Jon set aside the whimsical idea of “Demon Army Disaster Relief” that he had derived from “demon slave farming” for the time being.
At that moment, the Thousand Rivers Territory was undergoing a massive upheaval due to the Caladia Royal Imperial Guard’s frantic activities.
Reiner, the Lord of Blay City, had finally managed to send away the special envoy and finish his immediate duties.
He sat with his beautiful wife and concubines in his arms, having just let out a third lecherous chuckle, when a dragon’s roar shattered the night sky.
This was followed by urgent knocking as a servant hurried in to report.
Hearing the roar, Reiner knew a distinguished guest had arrived and could not be neglected.
He quickly pushed the soft, fragrant bodies aside, threw on his coat, adjusted his expression to one of gravity, and rushed to the meeting hall.
As expected, the visitor was from the Caladia Royal Imperial Guard.
Although the man was only a common soldier with a rank far lower than his own, he was one of the Emperor’s personal guards.
His status was noble, and he was someone Reiner could never afford to provoke.
However, the guard’s first sentence made Reiner think he had misheard, sending him into a momentary state of shock.
“The Princess and the Brave had a quarrel.
In a fit of rage, she left the camp in the middle of the night.
We have now lost contact with her, and it is suspected she is trapped by the flood.
She might be disguised as a man or using illusion magic to hide her appearance.
She might even be too stubborn to admit her identity.
Effective immediately, the entire Thousand Rivers Territory is entering a state of combat readiness.
Stop all other affairs and devote every effort to searching for and rescuing the Princess!”
Reiner stammered, his voice filled with a sense of the absurd:
“Trapped by the flood? But I heard Her Highness has extraordinary strength and is already a high-ranking combatant…”
“Let’s put it this way,” the guard sighed, “the ten greatest experts of our Imperial Guard couldn’t last three moves against Her Highness.”
Reiner understood instantly — it was all for show!
It was just humorless coddling!
He was all too familiar with this routine! No wonder the Princess had no actual combat achievements; she was nothing but a decorative showpiece!
The guard left the command and hurried away.
Reiner didn’t recover for a long time.
A conflict between the Princess and the Brave… expected.
The Princess running away in a fit of rage… that didn’t seem out of character either.
The Princess getting trapped by a flood… if he substituted her with his own foolish son, Arthur, the possibility of this happening seemed quite high!
But could such a ridiculous and bizarre thing really happen? Reiner remained incredulous.
Suddenly, he remembered how not long ago, the Brave had rushed over and commandingly ordered him to conduct disaster relief, even seizing control of the city guard.
‘ — Fine, fine, fine! It matches! It all matches!’
The Brave angered the Princess and lost her.
Afraid of taking responsibility, he wanted to pull off a secret maneuver to find her first!
No wonder a grand Duke like the Brave would care so much about a measly flood, even going so far as to offend so many people just to insist on disaster relief.
Then he thought of the news from the spies in Nantes City…
City Lord Myron was dead, the city was in chaos, and it was suspected to be the work of demon remnants.
Why would those remnants risk exposure to appear now of all times?
Obviously, there was some massive benefit forcing them to reveal themselves!
Reiner felt he had seen through everything.
He quickly smelled the scent of opportunity.
The Princess! That was a Princess who had the Emperor’s ear!
If he could save her life and establish a connection, she might say a few good words for him, allowing him to be promoted to the Imperial Capital.
With her backing, he could build his record for a few years and then be sent out as a Vice-Governor.
With a little more effort, he could even remove that “Vice” from his title…
Hiss —
Just imagining the scene of people calling him “Lord Governor” made his tailbone tremble with excitement.
But alongside the opportunity came great danger.
If anything happened to the Princess within the borders of his Blay City, Lady Zera would surely hand him over to be executed to appease the Emperor’s wrath!
Reiner didn’t dare to be negligent anymore.
The matter of making money was set aside; this was a major issue concerning his life and career!
“Wife? Wife?” he hurriedly called out toward the door.
“What now!” an ill-tempered female voice replied.
“It’s a big deal, no time to explain! Go to the Adventurers Guild in the city immediately and post several commissions for searching for disaster victims. Oh, and call back my Silver Hunting Regiment. Tell them to stop worrying about that stupid Winter Hunt Plan and get out there to find the Princess!”
“Is the Princess really lost?”
“What do you think? If she wasn’t lost, why would the Brave be so anxious? You think he’s actually doing it for disaster relief?”
“True…” the City Lord’s wife said thoughtfully.
This absurd, hilarious, and shocking news quickly spread through the noble circles of the entire Thousand Rivers Territory.
The nobles exchanged information, and the more they scrutinized it, the more they realized — this news was real, very real!
First, the Princess indeed hadn’t been seen since that night.
Second, the Princess was willful and headstrong, and her discord with the Brave was a well-known joke within the noble circles of Rossy City.
Furthermore, the Brave had recently visited them one by one, demanding they participate in “disaster relief” for no apparent reason.
Coupled with the abnormal movements of the demons…
Who would believe nothing was happening?
Soon, even without urgent orders from superiors, intense search and rescue operations began everywhere.
Those who wanted to advance had to save the Princess; those who didn’t want to fall behind had to save her even more, at the very least to avoid the stain of “ineffective assistance.”
Because of the information provided by the Imperial Guard, the search teams didn’t dare to be negligent toward anyone among the victims, from sixty-year-old men to twelve-year-old children.
On one hand, they were afraid of being blind and missing the Princess “playing the pig to eat the tiger.”
On the other hand, it was out of human nature.
Humans hate trouble, but they are also prone to following the trend and going with the flow.
For the soldiers of the City Guard, being told to go out and help total strangers who were disaster victims would indeed cause resentment and a lack of motivation.
But what if they encountered a “small lottery prize” calling for help while they were in the middle of digging for the “Princess treasure”?
Even if they knew the chances of winning were slim, it became a matter of ‘since we’re already here,’ ‘it’s just on the way,’ ‘might as well try,’ and ‘what if.’
Not only that…
As Liya directed the residents of Hope Town to spread rumors, the news that “the Brave lost the Princess” was rapidly spreading across all classes and regions.
Commoners who didn’t know the inside story quickly began spreading two tales.
One was that “the Brave, Jon, was only titled a Hero by the Empire because he happened to save Princess Margaret from a tiger’s mouth,” and the other was that “the crusade against the Demon King was just a grand show staged by the Empire to make the Brave famous, wasting manpower and money.”
The former fit the common people’s simple fantasy of “a nobody rising through struggle and opportunity.”
The latter was a conspiracy theory that bundled with the former to accelerate the spread of the rumors.
A few silver coins weren’t enough to support rescued victims in risking their lives to go back into the water.
But what if those few silver coins were combined with the hope of reaching the heavens in a single bound? Asking herself, if Liya were a commoner, she would also want to take a gamble.
After all, in her previous life, things like cryptocurrency, game skins, lotteries, romance scams, and telemarketing fraud centers all used this exact tactic.
She had accidentally fallen for one herself.
Outside the main gate of Pu-Pu Town, the atmosphere was heating up.
Quite a few bold victims had already come to sign up, collecting Pupu Life Jackets and preparing to dive into the water to “fish out” the Princess.
Liya raised her quill, crossed out the [Free Giveaway] on the promotional sign, and wrote:
[Enjoy Now, Pay Later! Ultra-low Rent!]
This wasn’t to line her own pockets; it was to increase credibility… ahem.
She then directed the townspeople to hang up the promotional billboard, which featured a handsome, realistic portrait of the Brave and a striking slogan:
[Want my Princess? If you want her, you can have all of her! Go find her! I have hidden everything in the water!]
Liya skipped into the distance, looking left and right to make sure the sign wasn’t crooked before she finally relaxed.
Recalling her prank, she couldn’t help but chuckle in her heart.
She couldn’t wait to see the expression on the Brave’s face when he returned.
Meanwhile.
The expression on Princess Margaret’s face was the one that was truly extraordinary.
“What?”
“I was lost by the Brave?”
“— How come I didn’t know?!”