Page 427 -- XLIX.

~~Holiday Special (Day 2/7, Page 3/6)~~
Chapter Forty-Nine: ‘Thy converging ways...’
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“Kidnap the King, huh?” Hector scratched his head. It didn’t sound as crazy as he expected, honestly. But after a moment, he found himself wondering how he’d managed to reach a point in his life where kidnapping anyone--let alone a king--no longer sounded completely mad. He shook his head and tried to return to the conversation at hand. “Uh... how would I even pull that off?”

‘We already know that five of them are going to be in Harold at once,’ said Garovel. ‘That only leaves two guarding the King.’

“So I’ll have to take on two servants...”

‘I did say it would be dangerous. But two is more manageable than five. Ideally, we could find a way to sneak through and get the King out quietly, but yes, we should obviously be prepared for a difficult fight.’

“Hmm.” He rubbed his neck. “It’s kinda fucked up, though... Sorta feels like we’ll just be using the deaths of all the people in Harold.”

‘Yeah, well. We kind of will be.’

He felt an inkling in the back of his head, a faint idea, still unformed but nagging at him. And then it hit him fully. His eyes widened, and a broad grin split his face. “Garovel!”

‘What?’

“Everyone hates me!”

‘Uh.’ Garovel looked at him confusedly. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself?’

“No! Garovel! Everyone’s scared of me!”

‘Er. Wait... Oh!’

“Abolish wants to destroy Harold and blame it on--uh--some other country, right? But what if the Darksteel Soldier makes a public threat to destroy Harold beforehand?!”

It was the reaper’s turn to smile. ‘That might work! If Abolish destroys the town anyway, then it gets blamed on you and not a foreign country, thereby averting their trigger for war! And if they don’t destroy the town, then obviously, that’s even better!’

“And if they destroy a different town, then it’ll probably still get blamed on me!”