#1 Their circumstance: A certain Elf’s circumstance

“How long are we supposed to be in here?”

“I don’t know.”

Currently, we were stuck inside a way-too brilliantly decorated room. So gorgeous was the décor that I was beginning to feel rather out of place.

Just where did it start to go wrong, though? No, before all that, why were Hill and I even confined to this room in the first place?

I asked Hill. “What about the Order’s response?”

“Our opponent this time is a poor match, unfortunately.”

“That’s true.”

Hill was a saint from one of the religious orders, and I was an Elf performing the duty of a High Elf – an existence that could be referred to as the anchor of the Elf race.

Anyone daring to confine us like this would naturally subject themselves to an incredible level of diplomatic pressure. Only a lunatic would deal with such pressure head-on.

And as bad luck would have it, Hill and I got kidnapped by one such lunatic capable of utterly ignoring all those diplomatic pressure. No, wait, she was actually capable of kidnapping us and then exerting pressure on the other party.

“Please excuse me.”

A maid knocked on the door, silently slipped inside, then quickly cleaned the room.

It had already been over a month. And during that time, Hill and I did nothing but just lounge around and receive treatment fit for nobility.

“Just how long are we supposed to stay like this, I wonder..”

The room was so gorgeous that it made us very uncomfortable. Being stuck in such a room meant that there was not a whole lot we could do besides sigh every now and then.

Sir hero suddenly told us we needed to run away, so we tried to flee from the Neidon Kingdom through a small hole in the royal castle wall.

But when we emerged on the other side, what waited for us were the princess of the Neidon Kingdom, Vera, and countless many soldiers accompanying her!

Their sudden appearance knocked our senses out cold, resulting in our unceremonious capture. By the time we regained some of our wits, Sir hero was about to get captured himself.

Right at that critical moment, a lone woman appeared out of nowhere, and, as if to make a mockery out of all those countless soldiers, she escaped from the cordon with us two and Sir hero in tow. It didn’t end there, though, as she left us here and took Sir hero somewhere else afterwards.

Aaaand that’s how we got ‘imprisoned’ within the Karuan Empire.

“Well, I’m still unsure about whether to call this an imprisonment or not..”

“I agree. It’s too vague.”

It certainly was an imprisonment of sorts – imprisonment where we were forbidden from leaving the city. In other words, we were allowed to do whatever we pleased within the city limits.

We could go on a stroll. We could also contact people at the Order of Nature. Didn’t matter what we did, the ones monitoring us didn’t try to stop or hinder us.

The Neidon Kingdom did something roughly similar, but they weren’t as open about it as the Karuan Empire.

Including the maid that took care of cleaning the room and bringing our meals and snacks, we’d always have around six people proclaiming to be our escorts tailing us whenever we went outside.

They had the common decency of not following us into the toilet or the bath, but.. Those locations didn’t have any windows, to begin with, making it impossible for us to slip away unnoticed anyway.

Should I say, as expected of the empire? Even resorting to magic tools operated only through magic stones for ventilation purposes!

I had a sneaking suspicion that the upkeep cost for this building alone would be higher than my home village’s living cost for one month.