Although we finally arrived at the main stream of the Rhine River after a grueling march, that didn’t mean we could immediately get our hands on the hidden piece.
“Oh, is that so…?”
“Yes. We’ve reached the Rhine River, but this is still Hervor’s territory. We need to go further down.”
To reach the hidden dungeon, ‘The Ruins Under the River,’ we still had to go quite a bit further south and enter the territory of the Kingdom of Rhine.
By land, it would take about two days? It was probably about that distance. Though that’s just my rough estimate.
Of course, we couldn’t cross the border by land.
It’s not just any country, but the Kingdom of Rhine that Brunhilde had thoroughly backstabbed.
If even my toes touched it, I’d be immediately detected and all hell would break loose. The elite forces of the border guard would all rush in to arrest or kill me.
Therefore, Friede and I had no choice but to take a different route instead of land.
To be specific…
“…You’re asking for a boat?”
“Y-yes, that’s right. Our young lady, she, um, wants to see the Rhine River by boat. We’ll… pay whatever you ask.”
In other words, we’d go with the flow of the water.
* * *
At the southern edge of Hervor’s territory, at the mouth of the Rhine River, there was a small city. I think its name was Krefeld?
It was small enough that it had wooden palisades instead of stone walls, but not so small as to be called a village… that kind of small city.
Anyway, we spent the night at the riverbank and then walked into the city through the palisades the next morning.
It wasn’t difficult. While it might have been different if we planned to hide here continuously, for a brief visit, we could freely come and go.
Think about it, how strict could the inspections be in a small city that doesn’t even have stone walls? Of course not.
There was a guard at the palisade entrance, but when we handed him one silver coin, he opened the gate immediately without asking anything. Just like the description in the original work.
With a basic salary plus such extra income while barely doing any work, it’s truly a job from heaven.
Seeing him get such a cushy position, I thought he must have saved the country in his past life. I was probably a traitor who sold out my country.
Anyway, that’s how we snuck into the city.
Of course, if that guard had seen my bare face, he would have blown his whistle and caused a huge commotion instead of letting us pass. My wanted poster was right there behind the palisade.
‘If he had seen it, that is.’
But that didn’t happen.
Why? Well…
Swish.
“…Ah, this dress is really uncomfortable.”
Right now, I was dressed completely differently from head to toe.
Instead of my ragged armor and quilted jacket, I had changed into a lavish dress like a noble lady, with my long hair tied up and my face completely covered with a hat and veil.
Anyone would think I was a noble lady who had thoughtlessly come to see the Rhine River. Though it might be a bit unusual that I had no escort.
“W-well… it… suits you well. Miss Grimhild.”
Friede, who was pulling my hand, answered quietly with a broad smile. She too was wearing a plain dress reminiscent of a maid’s uniform instead of light armor and cloak.
“…Yes, I suppose it does suit me.”
I sighed, lowering my gaze slightly to look down at my waist.
This noble-style dress that I had asked Friede to prepare in advance for this one-time disguise. It looked pretty but was actually terribly uncomfortable to wear.
The corset wasn’t particularly problematic, perhaps because I had no excess fat on my body… but, how should I put it, the design was a bit unsatisfactory.
Friede said she just picked something suitable, but as if to prove it was a dress from this world, the design itself was quite bold.
An off-shoulder dress that fully exposed my collarbones, shoulders, upper chest, and shoulder blades.
It felt like all the passersby in the city were glancing at my chest and back, and every time a cool breeze brushed between my breasts, I would startle without realizing it.
Every time the wind blew, my chest area would sway, making me worry that my bare breasts might spill out of the dress… it was really, terribly uncomfortable.
And then there was the skirt.
This damn skirt, why was it so long and voluminous? It felt like I was walking around with a curtain wrapped around my waist.
Moreover, despite being like that, it was completely open at the bottom, so just like the top, every time the wind blew, it felt like someone was stroking the inside of my thighs.
No, do all noble ladies really walk around in clothes like this?
Did they plaster their faces with iron plates or something? How on earth do they endure and live in such uncomfortable clothes that are so distracting?
Really, I was starting to respect these noble daughters I’d never even met.
* * *
“Sig, how long do I have to wait? I’m starting to get bored.”
“Ah, oh, yes! I’m sorry, Miss Grimhild! I’ll try to find a boat as quickly as possible!”
“Yes, hurry up. I snuck out for a walk without Father knowing, we can’t waste time like this.”
Friede and I acted out the roles of a noble lady and her personal maid as we walked around the town.
The concept was something like this: Grimhild, a thoughtless young lady who had secretly come out to see the Rhine River, fed up with her overprotective father, and Sig, a young maid who couldn’t stop her lady and was flustered.
We might not have needed to put on such an act once we had safely passed through the palisades… but you never know. If you’re going to do something, you should do it thoroughly.
At a time like this, a young woman with her face veiled, walking around the streets with just one maid and no escort, would be suspicious…
But if she’s a noble lady who snuck out without her father knowing, that’s a different story. A thoughtless young lady’s brief escape is quite common even here.
I heard that usually, they get caught before long and are sent back to their family?
If luck isn’t on their side, they might get attacked by bandits or caught by thugs in back alleys and suffer a terrible fate. In the worst case, they might even say goodbye to a human-like life altogether.
Well, that’s to be expected.
Even I, with a knight’s body and wearing armor, would encounter robbers or rapists almost every day when wandering alone?
How could noble ladies, wearing dresses that are only expensive but useless, with a level of strength that couldn’t even catch a dog, deal with such threats?
They wouldn’t even need to encounter a group of bandits; meeting just one thug would be enough to disqualify them as humans.
Well, I, on the contrary, ended the lives of all the attackers.
Anyway, Friede and I walked down the streets of Krefeld, acting out the roles of lady and maid like that.
Until we came across an old man puffing on a pipe, floating a small fishing boat on a tributary of the Rhine River passing through the city.
“Sig, my legs are hurting a bit. Let’s just buy that boat over there and ride it.”
As soon as I saw the old man, I acted out a whining tone of annoyance. There was no need to walk around anymore.
I had only told Friede that we would look for a boat in this town, but in truth, I wasn’t interested in any boatman other than that old man.
It’s not that the old man himself was a special person or anything like that.
‘Retired Fisherman Mainz.’
If this were a game, that name would probably be floating above his head.
He looked like a reclusive eccentric hiding a tragic past and serious story, but that was just his appearance.
This old man was just a poor retired fisherman who was worrying whether to sell his boat or not because his granddaughter was sick and he had no money for treatment.
The possessed person in the novel had monologued that when he played the original game, he thought the old man looked like he might have something special, so he swung his sword at him, but was quite surprised when the old man just died with an ‘Ugh’.
Because he was such an old man, he was perfect for us now.
If he was in such dire need of money, he would gladly hand over the boat without asking anything as long as we paid him.
In fact, there was no one else who would hand over a boat to us.
Two unknown women asking not to become passengers but to borrow a boat outright, who in the world would readily agree to that?
Moreover, strictly speaking, we weren’t even borrowing it, but asking them to hand over the boat completely.
It’s not like we were just going to ride the boat for a short while. We needed to travel all the way to the Kingdom of Rhine’s territory by river.
In such a situation, borrowing a boat with the premise of returning it would be no different from renting a car and disappearing with it. To be frank, it’s theft.
That’s why I told Friede to negotiate for purchasing the boat outright rather than borrowing it. It would cost more money, but it’s better than stealing.
You ask if it’s because of a bit of conscience?
Well, that’s part of it… but more than anything, if we stole something like a boat and ran away, it would be immediately reported to the guards.
Once the guards start investigating the detailed circumstances, our flimsy disguise would be seen through in an instant.
Rumors that Brunhilde had stolen a boat and was escaping down the Rhine River would spread instantly not just in Hervor but all the way to the Kingdom of Rhine.
So, the best option here was to persuade old man Mainz to hand over the boat at a reasonable price.
So that’s what we did.
“I don’t mind selling the boat, but… miss, you look like the maid of that noble lady, surely you two aren’t thinking of riding the boat around by yourselves?”
“Um… yes, we are. Is there some problem…?”
Old man Mainz agreed to sell the boat itself, but when we revealed that we two were planning to sightsee the river with it, he let out a deep sigh, puffing smoke like a chimney.
“Problem? You call that a question. You’re determined to become fish food, aren’t you? Do you even know how to steer a boat?”
A noble lady and her maid, just the two of them, setting out on the river in a small boat. His expression said, ‘Are you crazy? Do you want to drown?’
He was being careful with his words only because I was wearing clothes that reeked of nobility, but if not for that, he looked like he would have spat out a bowl of coarse curses.
“I do know. I’ve steered one a few times before.”
Of course, Friede didn’t seem to care about such reactions. She nodded with a nonchalant face, briefly answering that she knew how to steer it.
Ah, Friede actually did know how to steer a small boat.
While planning to go down by boat, I had been a bit worried about the fact that I had never steered a boat before, but she told me to leave it to her like before.
It must be a story from her hero party days.
A hero’s party doesn’t spend every day cooped up in underground dungeons. It seems they had a couple of occasions to steer boats to cross rivers during their journey.
“Ahem, well, if that’s the case… Seems you’ve had your share of hardships, unexpectedly.”
Old man Mainz nodded without further argument.
It was a bit surprising. Honestly, I thought he wouldn’t believe us.
Common sense would say, who would believe a girl who doesn’t even look twenty when she says she knows how to steer a boat? Anyone would think it’s just baseless bravado.
His granddaughter’s condition must have been that serious.
He gave a warning once out of conscience, but looking at the situation, he probably decided to let it slide rather than risk losing the treatment money right in front of him if he argued further.
The life of an unknown noble woman would be thousands of times less precious to him than his granddaughter’s life.
Of course, if a real noble lady had bought Mainz’s boat, ridden it around, and drowned, Mainz too would have had his head cut off and thrown into the river just for selling the boat.
This old man, being a commoner who had probably never met a noble in his life, didn’t seem to have thought that far.
Anyway, we were finally able to get a boat. Although we had to use up a considerable amount of our accumulated wealth.
If we were just renting the boat it would have been different, but buying it outright required more money than expected. Since we were acting as nobles, we couldn’t even try to haggle.
Perhaps because of that, we had to pay a whole gold coin for a small fishing boat that could barely hold three people.
…I wonder.
That old man, he didn’t overcharge us, did he…?