Besides, Keel seemed to be oddly fixated on that flag, too. I’d made her that kid’s lunch with the flag on it on a whim once, and she had been completely ecstatic. She held on to the flag like it was a piece of treasure. Now I could see that the flag had special meaning for them.

“Alright then.”

I put the conversation with Raphtalia and Eclair on hold and looked over at the slave hunters we’d gathered up.

“What should we do about these scumbags?”

“Ordinarily they would be taken to the castle, where they would then receive a fitting punishment.”

“Hmm . . . But with this many of them working together in a coordinated effort . . . ?”

“Of course, it is a grievous crime, in my opinion. Most likely they will have their levels reset and then be held in involuntary servitude.”

“Not executed?”

“Normally the principal offenders would be, but . . .”

Eclair looked long and hard at the faces of the former soldiers, who would likely be categorized as the principal offenders.

“These men come from some of Melromarc’s more respectable families. Even if they were sentenced to death, it would most likely be a very lengthy process.”

“Meaning that if the queen forced it, there would be backlash from the nobility, putting her position at stake?”

Eclair nodded in response. I guess even monarchies had to deal with annoyances like this. Maybe that was why the former soldiers seemed to be taking the whole thing rather lightly. Those scumbags . . . Did they not realize the situation they were in?

“A great deal of emphasis is placed on lineage. If worse comes to worst, the queen could be replaced with someone of the same bloodline favored by the nobility. It’s not unthinkable, considering that the country is currently in a weakened state due to the Spirit Tortoise incident.”

“Meaning . . . a distant relative?”

That was probably it. It’s not like the queen’s two daughters would be the only royal family. There would be the head family, and then there would be branches and all of that. The nobility could just pick one of the relatives that aligned with their purposes and have them lead a revolt, seizing the castle and replacing the queen.

“The nobility would probably come up with some kind of pretext like ‘our poor soldiers that went missing because the country was a mess finally show up only to be apprehended based on unfounded accusations!’”

“Yeah, they would, even though they’re as guilty as can be. What a pain. Should we just kill them off and say that they struggled?”

The mere fact that they were alive would be a hazard with trash like this. I had absolutely no doubt that it would come back to bite us later. In that case, it would make way more sense to just have them take their leave from this world.