Royal Abduction Incident

The Royal Abduction Incident (王族誘拐事件) was an event fourteen years prior to the Royal Selection in which Filore Lugunica, the daughter of Ford Lugunica, was abducted by an unknown perpetrator who purportedly managed to enter the Royal Lugunica Castle within the Kingdom of Lugunica's Royal Capital and escape undetected by the knights.

Despite efforts to locate Filore led by Commander Wilhelm van Astrea of the Royal Guard, her whereabouts were never discovered. A national failure on the part of the Kingdom, the incident's aftermath indirectly led to the failed Great Conquest and directly caused the disbandment and reassembly of the Royal Guard. Although the whereabouts and status of Filore, the only royal family member whose history is unaccounted for, are definitively unknown in the present, it is suspected that she turned out to be Felt.

Background

The factors that led the unknown perpetrator to abduct Filore Lugunica remain a mystery in the present. However, the event was notably not foretold by the Dragon History Stone.^[1]

Incident

Information concerning the detailed events of the incident are limited. It has been said that, on the night that the incident occurred, a thief infiltrated the Royal Castle and abducted the young daughter of Ford Lugunica, then-king Randohal Lugunica's younger brother. The thief successfully escaped the castle with Ford's daughter, Filore, in tow, and she was never reunited with her family.^[2]

Although not the culprit behind Filore's abduction, Heinkel Astrea committed a betrayal of sorts concurrent to the incident, only to make a mistake afterwards that rendered it meaningless, resulting in him acquiring a supernatural resistance to damage or maladies,^[3] the specifics of which are still unspecified.

Aftermath

From a young age, Felt has seen a recurring dream in which she was an infant within a box in a dimly-lit room.^[4] Two other people, a large man and another man with golden hair and crimson eyes,^[5] were speaking with each other. The first man asked the second man if he was sure about doing something, to which he replied that his brother or wife would object to it if they knew what he was doing.^[6] The large man had a debt to the other man and a group of people associated with him, and accepted the burden of fulfilling something he was entrusted with,^[7] despite feeling a sense of disgust over it. The man with golden hair and crimson eyes, features that match both Felt's and the royal family's characteristics, left the her in the dream with words of parting and entrusted her to the giant demi-human, who was disgruntled that he was lending a hand to a human. The large man walked away as the other man told her that he loved her.

Coinciding with time that the Commander of the Royal Guard, Wilhelm van Astrea, would be absent from the Royal Capital to conduct the search for Filore, the Kingdom of Lugunica began an effort to vanquish the White Whale, and his duties prevented him from joining the subjugation force.^[8][9] As a replacement for Wilhelm, Heinkel was nominated to lead the subjugation instead. However, Heinkel refused to participate in the subjugation, instead recommending that his mother, Theresia van Astrea, who had been retired from active duties for over two decades by that point, join in his place.^[10][11] This would result in the failed Great Conquest, in which Theresia was recorded to have lost her life to the White Whale.

Once the search for Filore ended without her whereabouts being discovered, Wilhelm resigned from the Royal Guard.^[12] The Royal Guard of the time was dissolved, and it only managed to be remade in the aftermath of Filore's abduction through the efforts of Marcos Gildark, the commander who succeeded Wilhelm.^[13][14] Motivated by his wife's death during the Great Conquest, the Sword Demon left House Astrea to pursue the White Whale. With Filore never being located, it became an unspoken taboo to speak of her name within the Kingdom of Lugunica.^[15] Besides resulting in his supernatural resistances, Heinkel came to view the betrayal he committed as a grave sin.^[16] As a blasphemy to the royal family that he had ought to have sworn fealty towards, and to Ford, who he was indebted and should have been grateful to, it breached on his relationship with them, and in due course, the false accusation that he was responsible for the abduction would be levied against him.^[17] These suspicions have persisted to the present day,^[18] and he has been questioned about the incident on numerous occasions.^[19]

At the ceremony held to commence the beginning of the Royal Selection. Reinhard van Astrea proposed that Felt met the criteria to be the abducted daughter of Ford Lugunica. Rickert Hoffman, although left in disbelief and rejecting the possibility at first, relented his antagonism upon being assured by Reinhard that he was not engaging in deceit, then declared that no means should exist to confirm her identity with the royal family dead and concurred that she could very well be of their bloodline. As the Royal Selection has progressed, rumors that Felt is the orphan child of the royal family have spread, but she remains unconcerned with her potential lineage.

Trivia

• Though not yet used as an in-story term, the author came up with the name “Royal Abduction Incident” alongside “Great Conquest” upon being asked if the events had names by a fan.^[20]

References